Amidst the hallowed silence of the Celestial Archive—a sanctum suspended between time and divinity—a most peculiar scene unfolded.

  Demons.

  Yes, demons.

  Not clashing swords or conjuring blight, but gathered reverently beneath the cathedral-vaulted ceiling, poring over ancient tomes and brittle scrolls with startling devotion. Their horned silhouettes drifted like wraiths through aisles inscribed with holy runes, moving with the grave poise of monks. There was no blasphemy here. Only purpose.

  And the library, for all its divine origin, did not shudder at their presence.

  It shimmered.

  As though, just for this flickering moment, the sacred and the damned had struck a rare and impossible harmony.

  This was no mere library. It was a cathedral of cognition—a monument to the Architect's ambition.

  Arched windows climbed heavenward, their stained-glass inlays refracting divine luminance into kaleidoscopic tapestries of colour. Filigreed columns spiralled like the dreams of ancient saints, etched with scenes of angelic ascension and cosmic revelation. Each beam, each plank of celestial timber, hummed with a sacred geometry too complex for mortal minds.

  Shelves of ethereal wood groaned with the weight of secrets forbidden and truths half-known. Gold traced every corner—not the crude opulence of kings, but astral gold, gleaming with latent knowledge. Even the air was dense with intent, perfumed with sanctified incense and the parchment musk of centuries.

  This was not a place for mortals.

  It was a throne room for knowledge itself.

  And yet—within that holy reverie—moved discord, dressed in grace.

  A fallen seraph glided between the shelves, a whisper of scarlet silk.

  Lucidia.

  The ever-brazen. The flame-tongued.

  Her smile curled like a crescent blade, her aura a flickering mirage of firelight and forbidden want. She prowled the sacred floor with the lazy elegance of a predator well-fed, until her crimson gaze settled on her quarry:

  Lumi'Nae.

  Wings of void-feathers tucked neatly behind her, she sat enshrined in a constellation of floating orbs, lost to ink and meaning. Her fingers moved like quills themselves, dancing between texts in a silent symphony of order and obsession.

  Lucidia didn't knock. She never knocked.

  "Lumi'Nae..." Her voice was a velvet spell, warm and slow, falling with the weight of an incantation.

  She brushed her fingers along the base of Lumi'Nae's wings—teasing, fleeting—before melting into an embrace from behind. Heat pressed into cold detachment. Still, the angel-scholar did not so much as blink.

  Lucidia leaned in, lips grazing an ear, then darting across Lumi'Nae's cheek in a flicker of tongue—quick, mischievous.

  With a flick of her wrist, Lumi'Nae dispelled the sensation into motes of voidlight. She turned not a single degree.

  Lucidia's smirk deepened. She adored the chase.

  Peering over her shoulder, Lucidia's eyes fell upon a celestial diagram inked in star-threads. Reflected starlight danced in her irises.

  "Three aeons, little dove," she whispered. "You've buried yourself in pages for three whole aeons. Isn't it time to see the stars themselves? Not merely their shadows on parchment?"

  At last, Lumi'Nae spoke—not to Lucidia, but to the table before her. Its surface bled into unreality, edges shifting as though unmoored from time. Around it, thrones of crystalline craft circled, old as the heavens yet pristine as first snowfall.

  "I've had an epiphany," she said. "I've remained cloistered in this sanctum of ink and silence for too long. What I know are fragments... I crave the whole."

  Lucidia's eyes gleamed. "Then let me show you," she murmured. "I'll teach you things no book could ever hope to whisper. Let's devour the cosmos—together."

  But before desire could become declaration, a third presence interrupted—calm, deliberate, inescapable.

  "Do not interrupt her studies. And do not corrupt her."

  The air itself seemed to fold around the voice. Shadows drew back to reveal Morgrath, wings like midnight storms, robes woven from the dusk between stars. He stepped forward, not with authority—but with ancient patience.

  He gestured to a seat, wiped it clean with a casual flick, and took his place beside Lumi'Nae.

  Lucidia's sultry haze wavered.

  Morgrath was not a fire to be smothered. He was stone, ageless and unmoved.

  "Mythical Forges: Legends of Armament," he said, eyeing the tome spread before Lumi'Nae. There was something in his tone—reminiscence, perhaps. Or mourning.

  "I remember that one. Read it too, once upon a ruin."

  He nodded, almost to himself. "You recall, Lumi'Nae—Lucidia and I both named our vestments. Names carry power."

  A small nod from Lumi'Nae. Her fingers ghosted across the parchment.

  Morgrath gestured skyward, as if invoking the vast constellations. "By mortal reckoning, Lucidia predates every hag and horror across a trillion worlds. And combined, they still fall short of her shadow."

  Lucidia's eyes narrowed. Danger danced there.

  He met her gaze without flinching.

  "She can forge relics that warp reality itself. Her threads birth miracles... and catastrophes."

  Lucidia's glare gave way to a feral grin.

  "And yet—her power is not in the garments alone. Each ensemble carries a shard of her essence. A whisper of her soul. They choose their wearer."

  "The fabric knows," Morgrath concluded, eyes on Lumi'Nae once more. "It answers only to those who resonate. Those deemed... worthy."

  Lumi'Nae finally turned from her tome, voice steady and eyes twin pools of moonlight.

  "How do you know you're not being controlled by me right now?"

  Emotionless. Measured.

  Then, a ghost of a smile.

  "Just kidding. Chaos is far more beautiful."

  Morgrath tilted his head slightly, as if uncertain whether she jested—or revealing that uncertainty was the point.

  He held up a single finger, as though plucking a thought from the ether.

  "Are you, though... Finality?" he mused. "I never can tell when you're joking. And I'm not entirely sure I'd prefer the truth if I could."

  Before the silence could fully settle, a crack shattered the air.

  Lucidia's hand slammed against the ethereal table. The force of it reverberated through the crystalline frame, and the tension rippled outward, through her vermilion gown, setting her curves swaying like a provocation carved in flame.

  "Why do you still haunt my realm?" she snapped.

  Her voice was sharp as shattered glass—royal, imperious, yet tinged with something rawer. Pride. Freedom. Wrath.

  "Weren't you off advising kings across the omniverses, oh great tutor of transient thrones? And yet, here you sulk like mould beneath my archives."

  She waved her hand dismissively, as if brushing filth from silk.

  "Even that oversized lizard gave up after failing to lure Lumi'Nae into unmaking reality. At least he had the grace to disappear."

  At the phrase that oversized lizard, the room shifted. Demons stiffened. Conversations ceased. Even the air seemed to hold its breath.

  Morgrath chuckled, unbothered. He placed a hand to his chest with mock sincerity.

  "Ah, Lucidia. You always did know how to draw an audience."

  His expression grew wistful—almost reverent—as he turned toward Lumi'Nae.

  "Disposing of me is no simple feat, I'm afraid. I poured aeons of craft into Lumi'Nae's very conception. Tell me, what could possibly be more worthy... than guiding an Unknowable toward her truth?"

  He made a languid gesture, etching unseen sigils in the air with a fingertip.

  "Unlike your parade of distractions and veiled seductions, my efforts have purpose. And as for the Holy Kingdoms..." He smiled, almost sheepish. "My doppelg?ngers handle those just fine."

  Lucidia said nothing. She simply moved.

  With a graceful sweep, she perched atop a crystalline table, folding one leg over the other with ease. The motion revealed gleaming runes carved into her skin—marks of ancient enchantments laid bare without shame. Her gown clung like liquid fire, accentuating every otherworldly curve.

  "You are persistent, I'll give you that," she said, voice like velvet over steel. "But spare me the sermon. You—"

  Her eyes narrowed.

  "—are unworthy. The thought alone is laughable."

  With a flick of her foot, she pressed her bare toes under Morgrath's chin, tilting his head upward. Her smile was razor-thin.

  "You may play the philosopher-king, Morgrath. But I? I am not simply evil—I am the greater half of Primordial Omnipotence itself."

  Behind her, wings of scarlet unfolded.

  Feather by feather, they emerged—vast, radiant, pulsing with infernal resonance. The library's endless vault dimmed, as if light itself feared to touch her. Shadows stretched. Scrolls trembled in their shelves.

  The sanctum bowed to her presence.

  And yet, Morgrath did not flinch. He gently brushed her foot aside and turned his gaze once more to Lumi'Nae.

  "Your Void-Cloaked Mantle," he murmured. "It should function as the others do. But it doesn't."

  He studied the obsidian folds that shimmered like starlight caught in ink.

  "I sense something deeper. A will beneath the weave. Power not given, but inherited. It exceeds Lucidia's limits... by orders beyond reckoning.

  "Typically, a creation's cap lies at 18% of its maker's potential. But your garments, Lumi'Nae... they obey no such limit. They are alive. They are you."

  Lumi'Nae turned a single page.

  Her voice, when it came, was as neutral as ever.

  "Your Somnus' Robe..."

  Her eyes lifted briefly, glancing at the tiny, crystalline skull of Leviathan stitched into its collar.

  "You're not its original creator. Or even its first owner."

  A faint pause.

  "...Cute skull."

  Morgrath allowed himself a crooked smile.

  "Isn't it? I'm quite fond of the little guy. It's actually an artefact from—"

  He never finished.

  Without warning, he was hoisted into the air by an invisible force.

  "You've overstayed your welcome."

  Lucidia's tone was calm, dangerous—like the eye of a storm slowly closing.

  One fingertip idly traced the ruby pendant nestled at her throat. Beneath its surface, something ancient stirred. Power hummed in her blood like a symphony waiting to erupt.

  And then, a voice.

  Not spoken aloud.

  Felt.

  Smooth. Amused. Deep.

  'Lucidia, really? Is this your way of expressing affection after all these years? I never thought you'd take such a carnal interest in me. Though I do admit—seeing you chew on the nastiest bone I ever crafted through alchemy did cross my mind. I called it... Shite-est Bone for the Depraved.'

  The silence that followed was absolute.

  Even the soft turn of Lumi'Nae's next page rang like gong.

  Lucidia's aura darkened. Power spilled into the air—a presence like a second heartbeat, impossible to ignore.

  Morgrath's voice dropped.

  'You forget, Lucidia...'

  Gone was the humour.

  '...You may be the Demon Monarch of Pride. But I am not flesh. Not flame. I am Death itself. A concept. Not a corpse.

  'Cross my threshold, and you don't merely perish. You are erased—forgotten by the fabric of causality itself. And even the hells will not remember your name.'

  From the skull of Leviathan, tears began to fall—thick, glistening trails of crystal streaming from hollow sockets. The air turned humid, saturated with unnatural sorrow. Mist curled against the ancient tomes; the crystal windows fogged. Even the floor wept, slick and glistening, as if the room itself mourned.

  Lumi'Nae's page clung to her fingers with a faint peel, sticking like breath on glass.

  Even Lucidia's skin—flawless and inhuman—glistened uncomfortably, as though an unseen force had smeared her in some suspicious, white ichor.

  The voice echoed again, cutting through the silence like a scythe through silk.

  'I assure you... You do not wish to witness what I become when I truly act.'

  It was cold. Not merely in tone—but in meaning. The kind of cold that rots angels.

  Lucidia didn't blink.

  "Even Death," she said smoothly, eyes half-lidded, "can be extinguished with less than a passing thought."

  Her head tilted, just so—elegant, almost amused—as if he were an intriguing insect caught under divine glass.

  "That said... I did forget to moisturise this morning," she murmured, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Your sudden generosity is touching. Should I expect a full spa treatment next? Or are you merely vying for a more... intimate position, Morgrath?"

  The air shifted.

  A tidal surge of metaphysical force crashed into Morgrath's body.

  There was a scream—short, sharp, disturbingly human—as the bones in his arms began to crackle and splinter beneath the invisible weight. Pressure bloomed like flowers of agony.

  Lucidia's voice dropped to a whisper, silk-wrapped steel.

  "But I doubt you have the courage for anything truly thrilling."

  Her smile turned cruel. "Oh my. Your precious little bone couldn't even handle a touch. It shattered like a twig."

  The words hung in the air, more cutting than any blade. Around them, demons froze, instinctively sensing the wrath simmering beneath Lucidia's beauty.

  Morgrath sagged slightly, body contorted in strained mock surrender.

  "I'll depart immediately," he managed, hands raised. "I only came to talk. No need for violence... is there?"

  But the glint in his eye betrayed him. That sly, silken insincerity—impossible to hide.

  He turned, gaze softening as it found Lumi'Nae.

  "When the time comes," he said, and for a moment, there was something almost genuine in his tone, "come find me. You know where I dwell. Scattered across the folds of the omniverses."

  Lumi'Nae met his gaze without a flicker of emotion.

  Silent. Serene. As still as moonlight on unmoving water.

  She didn't speak—but her head tilted, barely, if I feel like it written in every quiet line of her posture.

  That silence was all he needed.

  Morgrath turned back to Lucidia.

  "And Lucidia..." he added, his tongue curling around the words like scorn being savoured, "one last observation before I go..."

  A smirk, sharp as a guillotine.

  "It seems age hasn't been kind to you. Then again—what else should one expect from an ancient crone such as—"

  He didn't finish.

  He never got the chance.

  Lucidia raised a single hand—and invoked her wrath.

  Sinful Fissure.

  A parasitic column of abyssal darkness tore through the floor beneath Morgrath, swallowing space, sound, and sense alike. The eruption of shadow was not an attack. It was an execution.

  His scream was cut short, swallowed whole by incandescent ruin.

  The impact flung him skyward like a shattered marionette. The library screamed with him—books incinerated, shelves atomised. Demons caught at the edge of the blast disintegrated, their wings and wards crumbling in a rain of blood and flame.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  Above, the castle's roof ruptured.

  Far above, one of the Realm's three moons shattered—cracking into molten debris that rained across the sky like heaven weeping its own bones.

  And through it all, Lumi'Nae remained untouched.

  Her Empty Shroud activated without a word—an unconscious ripple of the Unknowable shielding her chair and table. Even as moonlight crashed in pieces, her fingers moved delicately, reaching deeper into her Final Genesis.

  Reality responded.

  The shelves regrew. The walls rewove themselves from fragments of forgotten architecture. High above, the broken moon reassembled, atom by atom, as though time had no authority within her radius.

  Lucidia watched it all. Eyes narrowed.

  "You're not... planning to restore him, are you?"

  "No," Lumi'Nae replied simply. Her hand brushed across the smooth spine of a tome. "We both know he transferred his mind. One of his clones will wake soon enough."

  Lucidia scoffed and descended—graceful and slow, like a hawk circling prey.

  She touched Lumi'Nae's cheek gently. Almost reverently.

  "Very well," she purred. "I'll spare the vermin... for now."

  Her lips curved in a knowing smile.

  "Now... where were we?"

  She leaned in, mouth nearing—

  Only for Lumi'Nae to raise a single finger and press it against her lips.

  The gesture was immaculate. Effortless. Regal.

  With posture like a drawn sword, Lumi'Nae turned slightly, her gaze returning to the tome in her lap.

  "My interests lie elsewhere," she said, voice as neutral and cold as falling snow.

  Lucidia drew back as if slapped.

  Her eyes darkened.

  "Why you—!"

  She lunged.

  Lumi'Nae's chair tipped back, her long black hair cascading over the crystal floor, revealing the infinite white void beneath the glass.

  Lucidia pinned her—body pressing into hers, white hair spilling across black like moonlight falling on midnight.

  "You are me!" Lucidia hissed, voice frayed with obsession. "A reflection. An echo. Don't you feel it? That same urge—to merge, to possess. I know it. Because I am you!"

  Beneath them, something dripped.

  A single droplet of iridescent fluid—eldritch essence—seeped from Lumi'Nae's right arm. It pulsed with forbidden life, a slow, agonised heartbeat defying reason.

  Lumi'Nae stared up at her.

  Unblinking.

  Expression unreadable.

  "Why do you persist in this delusion?" she asked. "I am not your limb. Not your echo. I am myself."

  A pause. Then, softly:

  "In fact... who's to say you're not the counterfeit?"

  Her voice darkened—just slightly.

  "Even now, my Shackled Finality is killing you... and all that is known and unknown... unintentionally, repeatedly. I am making the smallest possible effort to remember to revive you—again, and again, and again."

  The temperature plummeted.

  "All of it happening beyond time."

  Her eyes, still calm, gazed into Lucidia's trembling pupils.

  "There are so many things out there. So many possibilities. Yet all of you... every one of you... converge toward the same ending."

  She smiled—not cruelly. Not kindly. Simply as one speaks a fact.

  "Me."

  For a moment—silence.

  Then: tears. Raw. Uncontrolled.

  Lucidia's eyes welled, each drop shimmering with aeons of unspoken ache.

  "You still don't get it..."

  Her voice trembled. "Even now... you don't understand."

  She clutched tighter, trembling against Lumi'Nae's composure, her words slipping between desperation and confession.

  "Maybe it's just how I am. Maybe it's simply in my nature... to love myself this much."

  Lumi'Nae's expression remained a perfect mask—serene, unfazed. Her wings gave a single flutter, soft as a sigh, like a cat's tail flicking with mild irritation.

  "I don't hate you," she replied. "But this? This specific situation is... a tad annoying."

  Her gaze lowered, almost pitying—or at least, that's what she wanted her to think.

  "Perhaps we could stop this. For once. That includes the Time Loop you've trapped this realm in. I'm only here because it feels like the place I should be right now—not because I'm unable to leave."

  Lucidia's grip tightened with desperate conviction.

  "We've shared three aeons, Lumi'Nae. Three timeless eternities... and still, it's not enough."

  Her voice cracked, soul laid bare.

  "I want more than memory. More than companionship. I want intimacy. Wholeness. Love."

  She looked into Lumi'Nae's eyes, searching for even a flicker of reflected yearning.

  "Tell me... is that what you feel too? Do you hide your desire behind all this silence, these cold words? Because if so..."

  Her next whisper came jagged and low.

  "I couldn't bear it. Unrequited love is cruel—but unrealised love... that's torment."

  Lumi'Nae blinked, slowly.

  "No. Are you ignoring what I said on purpose? I said this is mildly annoying—"

  But before the moment could collapse beneath the weight of its own tragic poetry, something shifted.

  Bootsteps.

  Measured. Heavy.

  A new presence cut through the tension like a sword through smoke.

  Across the crystalline floor strode a knight clad in obsidian—her armour consuming the surrounding light. A sapphire cape trailed behind her, billowing with the solemn grace of battle-born royalty. Her helm gleamed, carved like a demon's crown. From her waist, a flail—immense and thrumming with terrible promise—swung with ominous weight.

  She radiated war.

  "Lucifer. Step away from her."

  Her voice was rich and noble, forged in blood and iron.

  Lucidia scoffed, lips curling with disdain. In a flash of cruel light, she summoned her Celestial Scourge—a weapon forged from godslaying malice. It glowed with ancestral hatred.

  But the knight did not flinch.

  She advanced, shield raised—Tartarean Tower gleaming with ancient sigils. As she closed the distance, a whisper—barely audible—fluttered from Lumi'Nae's lips like a benediction.

  "...Sathiel."

  The knight hesitated—visibly shaken.

  "You are more than your armour. More than your scars. Rise, Sathiel. Gehenna Guardian of Finality."

  A pause. Then:

  "...That is who you are. Right?"

  "L-Lady Lumi'Nae?!"

  Lumi'Nae offered a faint smile.

  "Just kidding, of course. Kill her. Or beat her until she's too senseless to remember her obsession."

  The knight's grip tightened.

  Then—she ran.

  The flail spun through the air like a blackened sun. The floor cracked beneath her charge. She aimed straight for the Annihilator of Stars.

  Lucidia moved to intercept.

  Her Scourge danced in her hand, every arc a hymn of ruin. Her lower body remained coiled tightly around Lumi'Nae's waist—part restraint, part declaration. This one is mine.

  Each strike unleashed primordial power. Divine shockwaves collided with Sathiel's shield, tearing apart stone and concept alike. Armour screamed. Flesh tore.

  But still—Sathiel advanced.

  She did not scream. She did not fall.

  She endured.

  Before annihilation could claim her, Lumi'Nae's will—quiet and omnipotent—intervened.

  The Final Genesis stirred.

  Reality responded. Time unwound. Matter reknitted.

  Sathiel's wounds closed. Her armour reforged. Even the shattered marble of the ruined library pieced itself back together.

  Lucidia snarled.

  She cast Absolute Erasure—a spell forbidden even among gods. A wordless decree of nullification.

  Sathiel vanished—erased from existence.

  Only to return.

  Lucidia tried again. Again she succeeded. Again—she failed.

  The knight would not stay dead.

  Her form began to flicker—like a revenant oscillating between dimensions. Unwelcome in death. Unyielding in life.

  Through it all—her silence endured.

  Then—she retaliated.

  With a single command, Bloodborne Blades answered her call.

  From the endless deaths she had suffered—each loop, each resurrection, each drop of her Eldritch Blood—scarlet greatswords coalesced. Towering, divine, hateful.

  Six hundred and sixty-six in total.

  They hovered above her—then fell.

  Like the wrath of prophecy fulfilled.

  A pulse ruptured the battlefield.

  Lucidia gasped. Her body surged, nipples stiffening from divine adrenaline. Her breath became laughter—exultant, cracked, and ecstatic.

  Seraphic Frenzy.

  Eight wings erupted behind her, each feather a miniature sun. Her form ignited, beauty twisted into wrathful perfection. Reality screamed. Her own dimension began to burn.

  Time melted. Sound inverted. The world became an aria of light and entropy.

  But the swords did not stop.

  Lucidia blurred, body a storm of divine motion. She shattered blade after blade with her Scourge, with fists, with bare will. A savage ballet.

  Yet each sword that broke drew blood.

  Scarlet drops flew, radiant with the scent of wounded divinity.

  Lucidia grinned—wild, manic, beautiful in her frenzy.

  "Still clinging to that mockery of defiance...?"

  Sathiel bled. Her armour cracked. Her bones groaned.

  But she never screamed.

  Never faltered.

  The silence of her suffering unnerved Lucidia more than any cry of pain.

  Why won't you break?

  Lucidia's mind burned with the question.

  You're not even in your Demon God Form...

  And for the first time—

  A sliver of doubt crept into her heart.

  Sathiel seized the moment.

  Her flail—Gehenna's Grasp—swung in a vicious arc, inscribing a cruel glyph into the air. With that single motion, a forbidden enchantment was triggered:

  Devil's Advocate.

  The world inverted.

  Up became down. Gravity convulsed in paradox. Air twisted into a vertigo-inducing spiral. At the same time, her shield—a relic older than sin—unleashed its secondary curse:

  Satan's Temptation.

  The gravitational force became so dense that even light screamed against its drag. Lucidia, torn from her perch atop Lumi'Nae, was yanked downward—toward the tower shield, toward the razor-lined edge that shimmered with apocalyptic light.

  Toward judgment.

  Sathiel charged.

  Her motion blurred—each step birthing spectral afterimages, echoes of herself across fractured time. Her shield collided with Lucidia in a cataclysmic crash, sending the Annihilator of Stars plummeting like a fallen meteor.

  The ground exploded.

  The entire first floor of Lumi'Nae's Library shattered.

  Lucidia slammed into a towering fountain of holy water. It shattered with a crystalline scream. Her blood, divine and accursed, sprayed wide—each drop singing through the air like shrapnel hexed by a god's own rage. The ground tore open. Shelves collapsed. The Library bled knowledge.

  Where her blood struck—

  Chaos followed.

  A wave of corrupted ma'nae surged outward. From the pooling ichor, Sathiel's cursed contingency activated:

  Curse from That Sea.

  The blood morphed into a massive, nine-headed serpent.

  Apep-Ogdoad.

  White-scaled and venomous, the beast reared from the floor with a hiss that carried the sound of collapsing stars. Parasites slithered from beneath her scales, living horrors born of plague and rot. Her fangs gleamed with ancient sickness. Her eyes dripped madness.

  Apep-Ogdoad did not hesitate.

  She consumed.

  The library cracked. Walls folded like paper. Screams echoed. Every demon within reach was devoured. The serpent burst from the building, seeking prey beyond.

  Amidst the wreckage—

  Lucidia rose.

  Soaked. Wounded. Divine.

  Seraphic Frenzy reignited.

  In a single burst of incandescent flame, the serpent's parasites were reduced to divine ash. The air boiled. The earth hissed. From the centre of ruin, she emerged—haloed in wrath, twin blades of the Celestial Scourge summoned to her grasp once more.

  Her eyes blazed—fury, ecstasy, vengeance braided into incandescent violence.

  She vanished.

  And reappeared behind Sathiel.

  Two blades. A cross-slash. Meant to decapitate.

  "STAY DEAD ALREADY, YOU DAMNED BRAT!"

  But the blow never landed.

  A ripple passed through the world.

  Void Shift.

  Instinctively, Lumi'Nae had acted.

  Lucidia vanished, whisked through reality—banished to her chamber within the castle proper. A barrier shimmered into place around the Library.

  The Unknowable Barrier.

  Even Lucidia—Annihilator of Stars—could not pierce it.

  Silence fell.

  Sathiel dropped to one knee. Her breath came shallow. Blood leaked beneath her helm, trailing down the curves of her jaw. She turned toward Lumi'Nae.

  But the moment offered no reprieve.

  From the ruined corridors—

  Two of Apep-Ogdoad's severed heads re-emerged into the Library, dragging with them omnipotent demons—each clenched in their fangs, their ruined bodies twitching.

  The eyes of the serpent fixed on Lumi'Nae.

  "Hello, old friend," she murmured.

  Lumi'Nae did not rise. Her expression remained distant—almost bored. Yet something shifted.

  The serpent lunged. Her motion transcended time and distance.

  And then—

  It stopped.

  Outer Serpents burst from Lumi'Nae's own body, their forms indistinguishable from the creature they met. They coiled around Apep-Ogdoad's heads—twisting, constricting, reclaiming.

  They pulled the creature inward.

  Into Lumi'Nae.

  Into something far beyond the Unknowable.

  Apep-Ogdoad was gone.

  She had gone home.

  Silence returned.

  The Library—though shattered—remained.

  At last, Sathiel removed her helm.

  Light brown hair fell loose, cascading over skin pale as porcelain and untouched by the destruction she had endured. She dropped her flail, then her shield, then her helm.

  Each struck the floor like divine detonations.

  The metaphysical realm shook.

  Clouds of vapour rose from the craters, curling like heavenly breath across the crystalline floor.

  And yet—

  The castle stood.

  Not even Eldritch Blood, Seraphic Frenzy, or Absolute Erasure had undone it fully.

  All thanks to me.

  This was no ordinary sanctum.

  This was where gods bled.

  This was where Finality whispered.

  This was Lumi'Nae's Library.

  My library.

  Until I no longer feel like owning it. Probably after this chapter.

  Sathiel approached, sabatons ringing softly across the floor, her stride measured and full of quiet grace. She extended a hand toward Lumi'Nae—armour meeting elegance with unexpected gentleness.

  Lumi'Nae accepted. Their fingers touched—steel and silk.

  As she rose, her gaze lingered on a faint scar across Sathiel's nose. A relic from their first clash—when Quietus Finalis had tested the soul of the one once known as Pestilence Incarnate.

  That monochrome sword—wrought from unknowables—had cut shallowly.

  But the eyes that met hers now held no malice. Only resilience. Tempered strength.

  A kindness that refused to die.

  "Lady Lumi'Nae," Sathiel said, her voice gruff but reverent, "my brilliant creator. It's always an honour."

  Lumi'Nae's expression softened, if only marginally.

  "Your courage... your unwavering heart... they are both useful and..."

  She tilted her head. "Mildly enjoyable to observe."

  A pause.

  "Perhaps you should be the protagonist of the previous chapter. And this one. Possibly the next, as well."

  Sathiel blinked. "Oh, I get it! ...Actually, no I don't. You once said this was all a story, but... it feels quite real to me."

  She chuckled, awkward but sincere. "I'm afraid your boundless wisdom is beyond me, Lady Lumi'Nae."

  Without a word, Lumi'Nae seated herself once more, gathering scattered books into the folds of her Unknowable Pocket—the ancient artefact shimmering faintly as it devoured volume after volume. Grimoire. Relic. Treatise.

  And among them—brightly coloured shoujo manga.

  Heroines frozen mid-confession. Blushing on pastel covers.

  She gave no explanation.

  She never needed to.

  She lingered on one volume.

  Its cover depicted a girl—wide-eyed and luminous—gazing skyward. A protagonist suspended between dreams and destiny, hope practically leaking from the page.

  How tragic, Lumi'Nae thought. To be drawn that earnestly by human hands.

  "Such a happy, clueless protagonist," she murmured aloud, almost tasting the words. "Sathiel. Could you mimic her expression? I won't judge... and I won't laugh. Promise."

  Sathiel froze like a page caught mid-turn.

  "Wh—wha!? That's way too sudden!" Her cheeks darkened slightly, though whether from embarrassment or battlefield exhaustion was unclear. "Wait... is that how you've thought of me this whole time?"

  She clenched one fist over her chest, dramatically righteous. "Even if it is, Lady Lumi'Nae, I... No. I am your knight. I will do it."

  And she did.

  With all the sincerity of a shoujo heroine stepping into the light for her first confession, Sathiel gave the smile—gentle, radiant, so overflowing with hope and guileless warmth that the library itself seemed to exhale.

  If I had a heart, I would have died then and there.

  From something as simple as a smile.

  ...Ah. I spoke in the first person again.

  It was just a smile, wasn't it?

  And yet, weren't primates—and by extension, humans—said to hate that sort of thing? Teeth-baring. Threat display. All those odd biological rules wrapped in societal myth.

  But then I read a Buddhist once who claimed he could tell whether someone was living truthfully just by their smile.

  So many contradictions. So many rules.

  That's how it should be.

  The library had gone quiet again.

  The only sounds were the low hum of ancient preservation wards and the flicker of starlight trapped within the stained-glass dome above. There was a softness to it now—like the hush that follows a prayer half-whispered and fully heard.

  And in that silence... even unspoken thoughts found a place to echo.

  Sathiel returned to the centre of the chamber, her presence heralded not by spectacle but by calm: the quiet clink of steel. She unfastened her gauntlets with care, metal joints clicking with mechanical tenderness, then placed them beside her boots in a neat, soldier's line.

  With a soft grunt, she gathered her hair into a high ponytail. The chestnut strands shimmered faintly beneath the ambient glow, catching motes of dust and light like fleeting dreams.

  "Gotta keep it practical after all that chaos, yeah?" Her tone, rough-edged and oddly warm, settled into the stillness like a returning hearthfire.

  Lumi'Nae glanced up at her.

  The tension—once coiled like a blade at the throat of the omniverse—had finally broken. Not with a bang or scream, but with something much rarer.

  Ease.

  And in that moment—

  The world felt still.