stjorthotic Chapter 49 Arkanum Veritas (10)
Chapter 49 Arkanum Veritas (10)
Chapter 49 - 49 Arkanum Veritas (10)
Rinoa's footsteps echoed strangely in the corridor of the Archive of the World—a forbidden place for ordinary people, where even the royal magus hesitated to tread.
She navigated through rows of shelves that held not books, but fragments of worlds. Pieces of memories, neglected ideas, and the laws of reality that had once been attempted and failed. This was not just a library; it was a museum preserving what could have been.
The air around her lacked the familiar scent of ink. Instead, it felt cold and metallic, steeped in an overwhelming melancholy. Rinoa found herself uncertain of which direction to take.
But it was the room that guided her.
Then the voice emerged.
No visible source could be detected, but its essence felt familiar and strangely relatable.
"Are you looking for me?"
The voice was neither human nor that of an otherworldly being. It was akin to an echo created when two disparate ideas collide in silence.
Rinoa turned around, her eyes captivated by the figure waiting for her.
The Librarian of the World.
A tall figure cloaked in mist, its face composed of countless fragments of faces. Each time it spoke, its expression shifted, as if trying to experience Rinoa's form while connecting with her.
"I... want to know. About myself. About the form that can never endure."
"You want to know if you have the right to exist."
Rinoa held her breath, feeling the piercing tension, for that was indeed the crux of it.
The Librarian stepped closer, its robe flowing like water, erasing the time around them.
"You do not belong on the list of living creatures, nor on the list of magical beings. Yet you exist."
"Is existence merely an illusion if it is not bound by definition?" Rinoa asked, her voice trembling as though caught in the toxic winds whispering from the abyss of non-being. "I want to know where I come from, from the shadows and dust swirling between this world."
The librarian merely nodded, his face trembling with the faint reflections of faces long gone, like dim light casting long shadows on the walls of emptiness. "We are shadows in a shattered mirror;
Then determination arose within her, igniting like an unquenchable fire.
Calm. Cold. Sharp as obsidian, ready to cut through the boundaries between truth and lies.
"If they truly hurt him—then Arkanum Veritas must be destroyed. Completely. Until the unseen roots are gone,"
Rinoa turned away, no longer facing the courtroom that now felt foreign and threatening.
She stepped toward Cryptum, the sacred place where Arkanum kept the core of their magic—Sigil of the Seventh Ocean, the grand symbol that ties their collective memory into an unbroken flow of time.
In the shadows, the soft voice of the Librarian vibrated, "You know, Rinoa, living in such emptiness is not a wound that can be healed. When you stepped here, you separated yourself from the others, much like a star that falls alone in the universe."
Rinoa replied, "I am not a star. I am discarded dust, a forgotten hope. And even though the sky seems empty, I do not wish to be part of the syndicate that ensnares us."
"But what remains of you if you sever yourself from the light?" the Librarian asked with a trembling voice, as if reaching for a distant hope. "Do these people, in their pursuit of truth, not make you feel more isolated?"
"Isolated?" Rinoa lowered her head, her long eyelashes concealing the longing in her gaze. "Truly, I am trapped in a labyrinth without end. There is no way home."
"If I am not part of the system... then I am not bound by its loyalty," she added, her conviction strengthening her resolve.
Rinoa was no longer the executor of Gaia.
She had become an awakened anarchist, a free spirit in a world shackled by norms and power.
The Arkanum Veritas—a cunning shadow organization that operated in the veils of law and magic—would soon realize the urgency of the situation if they lost control over one small but potentially significant variable named Rinoa.
World Archive = The Forbidden Library, the Whirlwind of Transformation Magic.
"Fufufufu... I never expected this to be so intriguing," said the Librarian, now transformed into Mammon, gazing with eyes gleaming with deceit.
"Rinoa's memories are quite challenging to acquire," Mammon continued, his voice rich with anticipation for the challenge ahead.
"This girl is as terrifying as Fitran," she added, a mysterious smile spreading across his lips.
The Nota Nullis provided contained Fragments of Rinoa's Memory, so that with just a touch, her memories would resurge, spilling forth all the buried secrets. However, Mammon also infused falsehoods within it, causing Rinoa's memories to intertwine with lies.
Mammon laughed joyfully, his laughter echoing in the darkness, as if celebrating the power he was about to draw from Rinoa.
"I want to see her far into the future..."