"Young Master Ravenastra," she rasped, her voice like dry leaves skittering over stone.
"Roaming in the Athenaeum at this hour? Bold, for a boy who looks like a stiff breeze could snap him in half."
" Ha, miss nothing, I was getting bored in the room, so I thought why not read some books to enrich my mind." Astrael
The obsidian eyes pinned Astrael to the dusty floor. Her voice, like stones grinding in an ancient mill, hung in the mildewed air.
Elara flinched, her lantern rattling. "Mistress Thorne! He… the Young Master just wished to see the Athenaeum…and got amnesia, so maybe he can recover..."
"Amnesia?" Mistress Thorne rasped, her gaze never leaving Astrael. The faint green glow from her staff tip painted harsh shadows under her eyes and the deep grooves of her face. It felt less like light and more like a witchfire.
"The Grand Athenaeum sees few visitors these days, boy. Especially ones marked by… shadows." Her nostrils flared slightly, as if scenting the chill of the Heaven's Judgment Seal coiled around his soul.
Astrael forced his spine straight, ignoring the phantom ice fingers squeezing his ribs. 'Don't flinch. Don't show weakness.' He met her stare, channeling the haughty detachment he'd scraped from fragmented memories of the old Astrael.
"Is the knowledge within restricted, Mistress?" His voice came out cooler than he felt, thankfully steady. "Or merely inconvenient for the caretaker?"
A dry, humorless chuckle scraped from her throat. "Restricted? Child, most here wouldn't know a binding sigil from a butter stain. Here, knowledge rots unattended, like everything else in this husk of a house, just like your negligible intelligence." She tapped her gnarled staff lightly on the cracked mosaic. The green light pulsed.
"State your purpose. Quickly. It's my resting time."
'What a nasty old woman she is. '
He couldn'task,y 'I need to understand how not to get eaten by the forest before my soul dissolves in five months.'
He gestured vaguely towards the looming, skeletal shelves, shadows swallowing their tops.
Reading on History, Geography. I just thought maybe by reading I can recall about my memories, should he not? History. Geography. The foundations upon which the Ravensastra legacy was built."
Mistress Thorne's piercing gaze didn't waver.
It felt like she was peeling back his skin, examining the frantic, terrified thing beneath the borrowed noble mask.
After a heartbeat that stretched into eternity, she snorted. "Fine words for you to say. The History section is that way."
She pointed her staff towards a particularly dark archway flanked by shelves sagging under the weight of massive, leather-bound tombs.
"Mind the loose stones. And the resident bookworms. They bite."
"Thank you, I will be mindful," Astrael replied.
She didn't move, becoming a silent, watchful statue draped in tattered robes, her staff's dim glow the only sign she wasn't carved from the same decaying marble as the pillars.
Astrael didn't wait for further scrutiny.
He strode towards the archway, Elara scurrying after him, casting fearful glances back at the librarian.
The moment they passed under the shadowed arch, the atmosphere thickened. The air grew colder, damper, smelling overwhelmingly of decaying vellum and something faintly metallic.
Moonlight struggled through high, grime-encrusted windows, painting weak silver stripes on mountains of neglected knowledge.
"Wait here, Elara," he murmured, while looking back. "I need… quietness."
"B-but Young Master, Mistress Thorne said–"
"Don't worry, Elara, I will only read some books, don't need to be that much tense," Astrael remarked
"In the meantime, you should also read books."
"Yes, young master," Elara replied
He plunged deeper into the canyon of books.
The shelves were chaotic, books shoved in haphazardly, pages spilling out like entrails. Foundations. He needed foundations. He scanned titles "Genealogies of the Northern Marches ", "Treatise on Pre-Imperial Irrigation", "The Ballads of Borin the Braggart ".
Useless.
History. Power. How does this damn world work?
He shoved aside a crumbling folio on heraldry, sending a puff of choking dust into the air. His eyes burned.
Then, books on a higher shelf, he saw it: "Mana & Foundational Cultivation, history on Eldoria. " The binding was worn but intact. He yanked it free, the weight surprising him, almost buckling his frail wrist.
He sank onto a dusty stone bench nearby, ignoring the cold seeping through his thin clothes.
He took the book on the history of Eldoria. He cracked the book open. The ink was faded, the script archaic but decipherable. He skimmed the Codex, humming faintly in his periphery, cross-referencing terms, and reading as if, after inheriting the memory, he now understood the language of this world.
Hmmm.
..........
'Before the sky wept fire and the earth screamed, there was Pangral.
One land, vast and throbbing with the raw pulse of Primordial Mana.
Crystalline forests sang under twin moons,
mountains breathed volcanic dreams,
and abyssal trenches cradled cities of light in the endless dark.
Ten thousand sentient races wove the tapestry:
Dwarves delved the Deep Forges, their hammers shaping song into metal;
Elves of the Whispering Woods spun starlight into living bridges between ancient trees;
Humans tamed the volatile Emerald Plains, their spirit as fierce and unpredictable as the geysers that dotted their lands;
Sea-Kin wove complex politics in coral citadels under the deep sea;
Sylvan sprites danced in bioluminescent glades;
Stone-giants meditated in crystalline caves.
Overseeing this fragile symphony stood the Divines or the Aeonian Titans.
As some scholars dared whisper, entities of such vast power they shaped mountains with a thought and calmed oceans with a sigh.
They were the guardians of Natural Law, the weavers of the Aetheric Weave that bound all things.
Peace, it was said, was not the absence of conflict, but a complex equilibrium maintained by these primordial stewards.
And that age was called as "The Age Of Unity."
.....
"What a crap, It's fucking song" Astrael complained
.......
As the rule of nature, nothing is Eternal
Reality tore.
Not with a whimper, but with a shriek that shattered minds across the continent.
An interdimensional rift, vast as a wound in the sky, vomited forth the Outer Horrors.
These were not mere beasts or demons. They were anti-entities, cosmic cancers that devoured not just flesh and magic, but mind, memory, and the very essence of Soul.
To be consumed by them was utter Oblivion, eradication from the cycle of reincarnation, a violation so profound it shattered the 3,000 Heavenly Commandments scribed in the fabric of reality itself.
The War of a Thousand Skies began not with declarations, but with the corruption of the Titans themselves.
Some fell, their vast minds unraveling into shrieking madness that poisoned the land.
Others were twisted into grotesque parodies of their former glory, becoming engines of annihilation.
Races turned upon each other, infected by paranoia and the Horrors' psychic miasma.
Forests became choked mires of Soul-Echo Vines that drained will and memory, leaving hollow husks.
Oceans birthed Flesh-Storms – living tempests that warped flesh, merging sailor and ship into screaming monstrosities.
The fallen did not rest; they rose as Nox-Spawn , shambling horrors of bone and shadow (Skeletons, Zombies) animated by residual Horror-essence.
And this age was called as The Dark Age or The Veil's Scream by the Seer.
As Pangral fractured, bleeding Mana and hope, Heaven itself intervened, not with legions, but with Blessings.
Nine mortals, chosen not for nobility, but for the unique resonance of their souls were elevated.
Nine, which represents the Extreme Number of Heaven
They became the shield against Oblivion:
Kylin Dragonheart (Hero King)
Thrain Ironarm (Heartforge)
Aeloria Sylven (Divine Archer)
Morgana Voidweaver (Supreme Magus)
Elaire Lightbringer (Saintess)
Valar Stonegrip (Aegis)
Ignis Skyflame (Dragon King)
Thalassar Deepsong (Sea King)
Nerys Duskwhisper (Oracle)
The Nine's sacrifices shattered Pangral into Five Continents, each bearing the scars of their battle and the prison of their Horror:
Thrymdal (North)
Solara (South)
Dragonforge (East)
Aeloria (West)
Holy Continent (Central)
..............
"Do the writers of that time can't write in a normal form ,why do they have to make it in a metaphorical, poetic way?" Astrael wondered.
" Ha..according to the book and my memories, House Ravenastra resides in the Solara continent, which is a human domain " Astrael sighed.
The description of the Outer Horrors, the Oblivion they brought.
Was the Heaven's Judgment Seal a lesser cousin to that ancient corruption?
[Codex Analysis: Heaven's Judgment Seal shares 34.7% resonance signatures with recorded Outer Horror decay patterns.]
[Hypothesis: Derivative or diluted corruption. Further data required.]
Derivative corruption.
The words chilled him.
"What can be done... college life was much better than this." He complained
"But I have to get that Starseed or whatever it is.."
Starseed Moss. The answer sat in the book's faded sketch, deep in the Whisperwood's heart, where Soul-Echo Vines strangled light and Shadow Stalkers hunted.
'Why not just demand it?' a bitter voice hissed in his mind. 'You're the Ravenastra heir. Shouldn't vaults overflow with treasures? Send a battalion. Buy it from some shady apothecary.'
It's not that he didn't think that way. But after waking up, if he suddenly asked his grandfather, he would get suspicious and would ask how he knew about that herb.
"Don't get disheartened, Astrael, you can do it," Astrael muttered