The air rippled—space itself seed to tear as Damon felt the visceral sensation of death…
And just before the absolute sensation of death could reach them—
The chains and the runes on the ground flared, glowing in harsh, ancient light as they yanked the Liberian down like a puppet eting its strings.
The ground trembled violently.
Damon hadn't even moved. It had been fast—so fast. The air in the forbidden library had only begun to shift after the movent had finished, as if reality lagged behind it.
As if stunned, Damon slowly lowered his head, his gaze falling upon the runes etched into the stone and the iron chains linked to the tens of ancient, cursed swords impaled through the librarian's grotesque body.
He hadn't seen it before—not with the heavy hood masking its features—but now, as the chains dragged the supposedly dead librarian lower, his face erged into the light.
Rotten teeth like thin yellow needles jutted from his mouth, black and brown smudges coating them like decay itself had made a ho there. His face was half-rotted, pulsing with blue-black veins. His skull was bald—sections caved inward like wax lted under divine judgnt. Thick, green mucus leaked from his chest where the swords still held him in place.
"Ahhh…" he groaned—a long, guttural exhale laced with age-old pain—his voice trembling from the suffocating magic that sealed him.
Damon and his party had survived. They had lived… only because they'd stopped just short of the boundary of his seal.
If they had taken a step further—if they had truly believed he was dead and gone closer…
'Then we would have died…'
If they hadn't paused to read the words scrawled across the walls—if they had dismissed them like the others had—
'We would have never made it out alive.'
Damon could feel it now—its dreadful aura, thick and oppressive like smog in the lungs. It was unmistakable… This was the aura of a monster that had reached the Fourth Class Advancent.
A rank four monster.
This entire section of the library —it was its domain. He could exert control here, bend world itself within this small zone.
That was why the Drowned Saint hadn't followed. It had sensed it too. It didn't want to risk facing this.
But soone—sothing—had sealed this creature here.
It wasn't a random event. No… it was intentional. A punishnt? A prison? Or perhaps a duty… guarding the library. Or maybe it was never guarding the books—but the words on the walls. The murals. The secrets.
The others had gone pale. Their feet shuffled, slowly retreating.
The librarian twitched—slowly pushing himself up, blood seeping from his ruined mouth. As he stood, he began to whisper—his voice distant, almost ritualistic.
A poem. One they had all heard during their ti in these vile lands.
"…The Weeping Star ca first, and the god who gives nas devoured its light. All nas that followed were lies."
He continued, whispering in that sa monotonous, hollow voice—as if he had spoken these words a thousand tis before, each repetition tearing a bit more from his sanity.
"…So the goddess took it, carved it from the hearts of n and cast it into the void."
"…In oblivion, she bound them. In silence, she damned herself."
Damon and the others watched in horror, too afraid to interrupt, too uncertain of his limits. Even sealed, Damon's danger sense was still flaring—less violently than before, but present. Always present.
Sylvia backed away, step by trembling step, until her back hit sothing solid.
She froze. That was supposed to be the way they'd co… it should have been clear.
Slowly, her gaze shifted—and what she saw made her breath catch in her throat.
A bookshelf… no. A thing pretending to be a shelf. Its surface was sticky, made of twisted, jutted human flesh—pale skin stretched over bones, orange bodily fluids oozing between the cracks.
She gritted her teeth, choking back bile, forcing herself to pull away. Her hair and skin peeled from it, strands sticking to the shelf with greasy clumps of human fat.
Evangeline turned, catching the sight just as the librarian continued.
"…He called her Bride, but the veil she wore was never white—it was woven of false fates."
She glanced at Xander, then to Leona.
With only a nod, the three unleashed a torrent of magic—gravity, light, lightning—all hurtled at the grotesque bookshelf.
But the magic faded, dissipating into the thick air like stones tossed into the sea.
Damon clenched his jaw. He knew what was coming.
The librarian reached the end of the poem.
"The god who blessed nas hated his own…"
"Ohh, tragic tale of the abyss and his bride…"
The wind shifted.
The librarian raised his hand.
And suddenly, Damon and the others were airborne.
Their bodies slamd against the floor with bone-snapping force. Blood splattered. Bones cracked. Damon's head spun—the world flipped.
He groaned, breath stolen from his lungs.
He heard the others cry out in pain.
The chains rattled. The librarian groaned as his hand rose once more.
Reality shattered.
Up was down. Right was left. No direction mattered. The geotry of the library broke apart—bookshelves floating, twisting, multiplying endlessly. There was no gravity, no consistency—only madness.
This… was the horror of a Fourth Class domain.
Even if it couldn't move from its seal, as long as they stood within the space it ruled… they were bound by its laws.
There were two types of Domains. One, forged in a place familiar to the user—unshakable, powerful, personalized. The other, a mobile, temporary construct.
This was the forr.
Each domain bore the soul of its creator—its fears, its ideals, its philosophy.
In simple terms, a Domain was a soul given form—a throne built from the caster's mind.
And this one… reeked of madness.
Death hung thick in the air.
"This domain is The Indexium…" the librarian suddenly froze—motion halted, as if ti had skipped a beat.
A voice had echoed from an impossible place—from a pair of lips on Evangeline's shoulder.
Valarie Sunwarden's.
"You're Nemoriel… aren't you…"
The corrupted librarian gasped, the sound wet and trembling. Sothing ancient flickered in his ruined eyes—recognition… pain.
He collapsed to his knees.
"That voice… Lady Valarie… you… you persist even now…"
Valarie's lips pressed together in the air.
"You are Nemoriel, Vathren's student… boy, what has beco of you…"
The ancient librarian went still.
Damon and the others forced their bodies to move. Sylvia seized the mont to heal them—her hands glowing faintly, flickering like a candle against a storm.
Nemoriel remained on his knees, broken.
"I saw… too much…" he whispered. "I learned too much… I gazed into the eyes of a god… I gazed into the abyss… ahhhh… ahhh…"
His voice cracked, weak and brittle, like dry leaves breaking underfoot. He trembled—not from rage, but from terror. He was too afraid to scream. What if his scream called it back…
Valarie's voice hovered now, drifting from Evangeline's shoulder into the air.
"Nemoriel, you were with Vathren when he and Mugu conducted the ritual… to call the unknown god. You were there the day Vathren received knowledge of the Ascendant Armors…"
"Please… I need you to tell …"
"What did you two give the unknown god? What did Vathren ask for… why did he beco corrupted… ?"
Nemoriel shook—tremors wracking his body.
Damon had never seen a horror tremble like that.
Still, the words fell from his lips.
"Master… Master… he… failed… he failed, he failed, he failed…"
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