Tami was the first to move.
He slowly turned in a circle, taking in the devastation around them.
Then he whistled.
The sound seed oddly small against the enormous chamber.
"Do you think the sa person who trashed this place also destroyed the statue outside?"
Yuto stepped over a fallen column and looked around.
"It seems likely," Yuto admitted.
Tami nodded slowly.
His gaze wandered toward the distant entrance where sunlight spilled into the darkness like liquid gold.
"If that’s true..."
He pointed toward the outside.
"Then what was the connection?"
His finger shifted between the temple and the distant statue beyond the entrance.
"Was this temple built for the statue?"
He paused.
Dust drifted silently through the air between them.
"Or was the statue guarding the temple?"
The question lingered.
Yuto scratched his chin thoughtfully.
"I don’t know."
The truth was the more he looked around, the less any of it made sense.
A giant blindfolded woman outside.
A hidden temple buried inside a cave.
Evidence of so catastrophic destruction.
None of it fit together properly.
At least not yet.
Maya remained silent throughout the conversation.
She had already drifted away from them, moving through the ruins with quiet purpose.
Unlike Tami and Yuto, who kept getting distracted by theories and speculation, Maya seed focused entirely on finding answers.
She examined everything.
Collapsed shelves.
Broken shrines.
Fragnts of carvings.
Cracked walls.
Her eyes moved constantly, searching for details the others might overlook.
Through the corner of his eye, Yuto watched her.
Eventually she stopped near what appeared to have once been a library section.
Most of the wooden shelves had long since collapsed.
The surviving remains were little more than blackened fras and rotted fragnts partially buried beneath rubble.
Maya crouched.
Sothing had caught her attention.
Carefully brushing aside debris, she reached into the remains of a collapsed shelf.
A mont later she pulled sothing free.
A book.
A surprisingly large one.
The cover was thick and reinforced, its material darkened with age.
The mont it erged from the rubble, a cloud of dust exploded from its surface.
Ancient particles billowed into the air.
Tami imdiately hurried over.
"Be careful!"
Maya looked up.
One eyebrow rose slightly.
"Why?"
Tami gestured broadly around them.
"We don’t know what this place is."
His hand swept across the ruined temple.
"There could be traps, Curses, Ancient magic, Possessed books."
Maya stared at him.
Then looked down at the book.
"What is the worst that can happen?"
She stood and carried the book toward a nearby stone pedestal.
The pedestal itself appeared ancient, covered in cracks and faded carvings.
Carefully she set the to down.
A heavy thud echoed softly through the chamber.
Yuto and Tami imdiately moved closer.
The three gathered around the stone stand.
Up close, the book looked remarkably well preserved considering where it had been found.
The leather cover was cracked and worn.
Its corners were frayed.
Several sections looked as though they had survived water damage at so point.
Yet the title remained visible.
Genesis.
Yuto blinked.
Then his inner voice imdiately perked up.
Now that’s promising.
Anything called Genesis felt important.
Maya opened the book.
The ancient pages creaked softly.
All three leaned forward.
The first page contained no words.
Only illustrations.
Maya flipped to the next page.
More images.
Then another.
And another.
Yuto frowned.
The illustrations stretched across entire pages.
Each one depicted scenes from what appeared to be history.
Battles.
Wars.
Conquests.
Thousands upon thousands of soldiers marching across open plains beneath fluttering banners.
Massive sieges against towering fortress walls.
Kings standing atop battlents with swords raised high.
Cities consud by flas.
Smoke rising into dark skies.
Cavalry charges.
Naval battles.
Executions.
Victories.
Defeats.
Page after page.
War after war.
The images were detailed enough that Yuto could almost feel movent within them.
Faces twisted with fear.
Soldiers screaming.
Buildings collapsing.
Entire civilizations caught in endless cycles of bloodshed.
Tami groaned dramatically.
"It’s just a history book full of stupid wars."
His disappointnt was imdiate.
Maya looked sowhat disappointed herself.
Still, she continued turning pages.
One after another.
The ancient paper whispered beneath her fingertips.
Then she stopped.
All three imdiately leaned closer.
An illustration occupied the center of the page.
This one was different.
Very different.
The image depicted a statue.
A marble statue.
Yuto’s eyes narrowed.
Tami pointed almost instantly.
"That’s just like the statue outside!"
Yuto slowly nodded.
The resemblance was obvious.
Sa craftsmanship.
Sa style.
Sa material.
Yet there were differences.
Important ones.
This statue did not depict the blindfolded woman standing outside.
Instead, it showed a young boy.
Long flowing hair fell down his shoulders.
Elegant robes draped around his body.
His face looked almost serene.
Beautiful, even.
Nothing about him resembled the terrifying image Yuto had built in his mind.
Beneath the illustration sat several lines of text.
Most had been damaged beyond readability.
Ti had devoured entire sections.
Ink had faded.
Paper had deteriorated.
Only one line remained perfectly preserved.
As though history itself had refused to erase it.
Ōinaru Mono, the Sorcerer.
Yuto’s face imdiately broke into a grin.
Finally.
Sothing useful.
Actual information.
Actual progress.
After days of chasing rumors and fragnts, they finally had sothing concrete.
Then his smile slowly faded.
A small knot of confusion ford in his stomach.
Sothing wasn’t right.
His eyes moved between the illustration and his mories.
The statue outside had clearly been female.
There was no mistaking that.
anwhile, every story Shinto had told painted Ōinaru Mono as sothing entirely different.
An ancient figure.
A legendary sorcerer.
Soone Yuto had unconsciously imagined as an old man cloaked in mystery and power.
Not this.
Not a young boy.
The contradiction bothered him imdiately.
Still, they continued reading.
There wasn’t much surviving text.
Large portions had been destroyed.
Entire sections were missing.
But enough remained to tell a story.
And it was not a pleasant one.
According to the surviving pages, Ōinaru Mono had once been the greatest sorcerer in the kingdom.
Not rely powerful.
Beloved.
The people adored him.
The king trusted him.
His wisdom guided the nation.
Under his leadership, the kingdom entered an age unlike any before it.
Peace flourished.
Trade expanded.
Harvests were plentiful.
The people prospered.
For years, the realm experienced stability and abundance.
Then the story changed.
A guerrilla raid.
An enemy kingdom.
A single attack.
His wife beca caught in the violence.
The text described injuries.
Severe ones.
Then ca her death.
The atmosphere around the group seed to grow heavier as Maya continued reading.
After her death, everything changed.
The beloved sorcerer disappeared.
What remained was soone consud by grief.
Soone consud by rage.
His vengeance began swiftly.
And without rcy.
Kingdom after kingdom fell.
Cities burned.
Armies vanished.
Entire nations ceased to exist.
The illustrations accompanying the text beca darker with each page.
Smoke.
Fire.
Corpses.
Ruined capitals.
The images practically radiated suffering.
When his vengeance was complete, Ōinaru Mono returned ho.
But the man who ca back was no longer the one who had left.
The people saw it imdiately.
The king saw it.
Everyone saw it.
This ti, the sorcerer made a demand.
As the strongest being in the kingdom, he declared that he should rule.
The king refused.
The royal court refused.
The palace refused.
So Ōinaru Mono attacked.
The war that followed nearly destroyed the kingdom itself.
Even the surviving text struggled to convey the scale of the devastation.
Entire regions were leveled.
Cities vanished.
Thousands died.
Perhaps millions.
Eventually, the king understood the truth.
Victory was impossible.
Defeat was inevitable.
There was only one option remaining.
Sacrifice.
The final pages described a forbidden spell.
One requiring the king’s life.
One capable of binding even a being as powerful as Ōinaru Mono.
The king cast it.
The cost was everything.
His own life.
The spell drained the sorcerer’s essence.
His body entered a state of physical death.
His soul remained imprisoned.
Trapped.
Unable to move on.
Unable to truly live.
Unable to truly die.
The final surviving paragraph ended there.
Yuto’s eyes widened slightly.
Then understanding settled into place.
"That’s why he needs the gemstone."
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