Chapter 164: Fight within the Library
There was a pause.
Not long.
Not dramatic.
Just enough for something to settle or break.
Then Rounderpede moved.
It wasn't a gradual motion. There was no buildup, no warning shift of weight or tension.
Every segment of its colossal body moved at once.
Thousands of elongated arms unfolded outward in perfect synchronization, stretching into the air like a grotesque crown of limbs. The movement was fluid, controlled, almost elegant in a way that made it worse.
Then the eyes aligned.
Every swollen red eye along its segmented body rotated and locked.
All of them fixed on Léonard.
On Resh-1.
The pressure hit instantly.
EVE density spiked to suffocating levels. EVE saturated the air so heavily it felt like breathing through liquid. Its residue layered on top of everything, old, new, broken, incomplete, colliding without canceling each other out.
Léonard felt it.
His instincts reacted before his mind could process anything. His body tensed automatically, aura tightening around him, senses sharpening to a knife's edge.
Fire.
Void.
Gravity.
Sound.
Things he knew and things he absolutely didn't.
Then the air in front of Rounderpede ignited.
Spheres of energy appeared.
Hundreds.
Then thousands.
Black fire rotated slowly, consuming light instead of emitting it. Lightning bent sideways, splitting into fractal arcs that connected to nothing. Clusters of crystallized sound vibrated silently, distorting perception just by existing near them. Raw elemental cores formed, each one wrapped in rotating sigils that rewrote themselves in real time.
Spells stacked.
Rituals layered.
Contradictions coexisted.
Nothing collapsed.
Nothing failed.
It wasn't casting.
It was manufacturing magic.
Léonard didn't even try to analyze it.
His instincts were already screaming.
"Oh shit," he muttered.
Rounderpede's voice detonated through the hall.
"DIIIIIE, JAILOR!"
The Library answered.
Everything launched.
The entire mass of spells surged forward at once, forming a wall, a tsunami, of thaumaturgy that devoured everything in its path. Shelves blurred into streaks. Distance folded inward. Sound was swallowed completely under the sheer density of energy.
It didn't travel.
It erased the space between.
"On it," Graves said.
He stepped forward.
Raised both arms.
Reality screamed and he bent the spells.
Violently.
Fire curved upward into nothingness, pulled out of its own trajectory and erased mid-motion. Lightning snapped sideways, colliding into invisible angles before vanishing entirely. Entire sections of the attack twisted, redirected, and shattered into fragments that scattered across space.
The tsunami split.
Flowed around them.
Like water hitting an immovable object.
Rounderpede reacted instantly.
No hesitation.
A barrier formed.
Massive.
Layered.
Dense with rotating runes and overlapping containment structures.
It snapped shut around the distorted spells like a closing fist.
Then.
BOOOOOM.
The explosion was contained but the shockwave wasn't.
The entire hall trembled violently. Shelves groaned under the force. Books slammed against their bindings. Dust and loose pages rained from above. The floor beneath Léonard's feet cracked, fractures racing outward in jagged patterns.
He slid back half a step.
Boots grinding against wood.
Rounderpede didn't slow.
Another wave formed instantly.
Faster.
Rougher.
Less stable.
This time.
The air itself collapsed.
Distortion surged forward, raw backlash energy weaponized into a crushing wave of unstable reality. The space in front of it warped, folded, then slammed forward like a tidal force of pure instability.
Graves grunted.
Both hands clenched.
The distortion hit.
The ground buckled.
His boots dug in, carving deep grooves into the floor as he forced reality back into place through sheer will alone.
He slid back a full meter.
Stopped.
Held.
"Boss," Graves said, voice tightening slightly.
Another tremor shook the hall.
"This bastard's weaponizing backlash."
Another wave hit.
"He's overcasting on purpose then using the instability to counter me."
The air cracked again.
"He's powerful. Very powerful."
A beat.
"You should start pulling back. I'll cover you."
Léonard didn't hesitate.
He stepped forward, reached out, and tapped Graves once on the shoulder.
"Copy that," he said.
"Good luck."
Then he turned.
"Fall back."
Resh-1 moved instantly.
The formation pivoted in perfect synchronization. Operators shifted positions fluidly, covering angles, adjusting spacing, maintaining a protective structure around Léonard as they began withdrawing down the corridor.
Boots hit the ground in perfect rhythm.
Weapons stayed up.
Eyes tracked everything.
Behind them, reality began to break.
The space around Graves and Rounderpede started collapsing into something else entirely. Within a radius of several dozen meters, structure failed. The Library twisted, folded, and distorted under the pressure of their clash.
Beyond that zone, the corridors still held.
Barely.
"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?!"
Rounderpede's roar tore through the space, layered across frequencies that hit bone and thought alike.
Its arms snapped forward again.
The air ignited.
Spell after spell launched in rapid succession..
Graves didn't move back.
He planted his feet.
"Not happening."
One hand rose.
The first wave hit and shattered.
The attacks broke apart against an invisible boundary, fragments scattering sideways into fractured space.
The second wave was caught mid-flight.
Stretched.
Pulled thin like elastic, then collapsed inward and disappeared.
The third wave…
Didn't even reach him.
It simply… ceased.
Rewritten.
Reduced to nothing more than harmless particles that fell uselessly to the floor.
Rounderpede answered immediately.
Backlash zones erupted everywhere.
Pockets of instability formed from deliberately broken spells, fractures of reality that pulsed with chaotic energy. The floor inverted into a vertical wall. The ceiling bent downward like liquid glass. Entire sections of shelves flickered between existence and nonexistence.
Books screamed.
Not audibly.
But conceptually, as their contents were partially erased and rewritten at the same time.
Graves staggered once.
Then pushed back.
The distortion intensified.
Inside that collapsing zone, the Library stopped being a place.
There was no floor.
No walls.
No fixed direction.
Only contradiction.
Up became sideways.
Sideways became up.
Distance folded inward.
Time stuttered, skipping frames like a damaged recording.
Entire corridors twisted into spirals. Books burst into raw information, letters dissolving into glowing fragments before snapping back together somewhere else.
Gravity pulsed.
Crushing.
Releasing.
Crushing again.
Rounderpede surged forward through it all, its massive form tearing through warped space as if the distortion didn't affect it at all.
Every arm moved.
Every hand cast.
Thousands of spells formed simultaneously.
All different.
All active.
All layered.
Graves answered.
Reality bent around him like metal around a magnet.
A strike designed to sever reality shattered against his field.
A conceptual erasure attempt failed to take hold.
A spatial inversion stopped mid-effect.
Rounderpede adapted instantly.
It turned its own instability inward.
Forced backlash onto itself.
Then rode it.
The resulting shockwave slammed into Graves head-on.
He was thrown back.
His body tore through fractured space.
Then snapped back into position.
Anchored.
Forced into place.
Blood ran from his nose.
He wiped it away with the back of his glove.
"…Yeah," he muttered.
"Thought so."
They clashed again.
Not physically.
Fundamentally.
Graves created zones of stability, anchoring reality through sheer will.
Rounderpede shattered those anchors with cascading failures, flooding space with unstable thaumaturgic noise.
Graves reinforced.
Rounderpede broke.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Neither advanced.
Neither gave ground.
Every advantage lasted less than a second before being erased.
They were equal.
Locked in a stalemate that twisted everything around them into a localized ruin of broken laws and screaming knowledge.
And it wasn't ending.
Not anytime soon.
---
Meanwhile, Léonard and Resh-1 kept moving.
Behind them, reality collapsed.
Ahead, the path remained for now.
Resh-1 advanced in a tight formation, boots striking the wooden floor in controlled rhythm, spacing perfect, angles covered without a single word exchanged.
Behind them, the clash between Graves and Rounderpede echoed through the structure, distant but violent. The Library groaned under it. Shelves trembled subtly. The air pulsed at irregular intervals, like something massive was breathing wrong.
Léonard ran at the center.
His pistol snapped up.
One shot.
A figure ahead dropped instantly, its lantern shattering mid-motion.
Another shape lunged from the side.
Léonard pivoted, fired again, then stepped forward, knife already moving before the body even hit the ground. The blade cut through the limb holding the lantern and shattered the glass.
The entity collapsed before it could finish the motion.
Enemies came in waves.
They didn't scream, didn't speak and didn't hesitate.
They charged.
Some looked human.
Tall. Thin. Dressed in formal clothing that didn't quite fit their proportions.
Others were wrong.
Limbs too long. Joints bending the wrong way. Bodies stitched together from things that shouldn't connect.
Some were barely shapes at all, masses of bone, chitin, or something else entirely.
But all of them carried lanterns with red light.
Deep crimson flames burned inside glass containers, hanging from arms, antlers, chains, or fused directly into their forms. The light didn't flicker.
Resh-1 met them head-on.
Gunfire cracked through the corridor.
Bodies dropped but more filled the space immediately.
A heavy figure charged through the center.
Two operators shifted without a word, one dropped to a knee. The other adjusted half a step and both fired.
The lantern shattered.
The body collapsed forward mid-stride.
Another shadow came from above, dropping from a balcony.
One operator didn't even look up.
His rifle angled slightly, three shots. The lantern exploded mid-air.
The body hit the ground already dead.
The formation never broke.
Never slowed.
Léonard fired twice more.
Reloaded mid-stride.
The motion was smooth, automatic, the magazine snapping into place without him even needing to look.
Another entity lunged, too close.
The pistol lowered.
He slashed it in a single cut.
The lantern strap severed.
The glass shattered against the floor.
The body dropped.
His eyes flicked once across the battlefield.
Pattern confirmed.
"Focus on the lanterns," he said.
That was enough, Resh-1 adapted instantly.
Shots shifted, angles adjusted and targets changed. Lanterns became priority and the effect was immediate.
Every time one shattered, something died.
The corridor behind them filled with broken red glass and motionless forms.
Ahead, more.
Always more.
They poured in from side corridors, from upper levels, from angles that hadn't existed a second ago. The Library itself seemed to be feeding them into the fight.
The two brothers moved ahead of the formation.
No wasted words.
Just movement.
One kicked a rolling ladder aside before something could use it to leap.
The other fired three rounds into a shape emerging from a warped shelf before it could fully materialize.
They guided the path.
Cleared angles before they became threats.
Still…
The pressure increased.
The number of lanterns grew.
The rhythm of combat tightened.
Faster.
Closer.
More aggressive.
They crossed an open junction.
For a moment, something different.
Wanderers.
They crossed a small group standing at the edge of a balcony, watching.
Not hostile.
Not intervening.
Just… observing.
One of them, a human, held a camera.
His hands shook slightly as he raised it, lens locking onto Léonard as the formation passed below.
Click.
Another shot.
Léonard didn't look.
Didn't slow.
Didn't acknowledge him at all.
Resh-1 flowed past like a storm, the Wanderers weren't targets. They weren't relevant.
Another wave hit.
Harder.
Three entities slammed into the formation at once.
One operator took the impact head-on, sliding back half a meter before correcting instantly.
His rifle came up, one shot.
Lantern shattered.
The body collapsed.
Another operator vaulted over a fallen table, blade coming down in a clean arc.
Glass broke.
Target down.
The formation tightened.
Then expanded again..
Léonard fired again.
Reloaded.
Moved.
His breathing stayed steady.
His vision clear.
Then suddenly, one of the operators slowed half a step.
"…Boss."
Léonard didn't stop.
"What."
"I'm detecting Aspect Radiation targeted at us."
A beat.
"Mental-type."
Another shot rang out.
"Someone just attempted telepathic contact on you but I intercepted it."
Léonard's eyes sharpened slightly.
"What did it say."
The operator's head tilted slightly, as if listening to something that wasn't there anymore.
"The caster reacted when we intercepted it."
A brief pause.
"Surprise."
Another pause.
"Then she said she wants to help us escape."
Léonard's gaze hardened.
"Trap ?"
"Maybe yes."
Another beat.
"She said she could convince you with a name."
A single second passed.
"…Alis."
Léonard stopped.
Not fully.
Just enough for the movement around him to shift.
Resh-1 adjusted instantly, the formation tightening around him without breaking momentum.
"Alis…" he repeated.
The name sat there.
Familiar.
Suddenly, something clicked.
His expression changed.
Just slightly.
Then, he smiled.
Not wide.
Not relieved.
"…Dont tell me it's her ?"
He looked forward again.
"Location ?"
"Five kilometers ahead."
The operator didn't hesitate.
"The caster said that it will open a portal."
A beat.
"It will remain open for thirty seconds."
"All personnel must be present."
Léonard holstered his pistol mid-run.
The motion was clean.
Immediate.
"Understood."
He didn't slow.
"We move, faster."
That was enough.
Resh-1 surged forward.
The formation stretched slightly, optimized for speed without losing cohesion.
Boots slammed against the wooden floor.
Fifty kilometers per hour.
Anything in front of them died.
Gunfire intensified.
Short bursts became sharper.
More aggressive.
Lanterns shattered faster.
Bodies dropped harder.
A large figure tried to block the corridor.
Three operators shifted.
Fire.
Glass shattered.
The mass collapsed before it could take a second step.
Something fast moved along the wall—
Léonard fired without looking.
The lantern exploded.
The body hit the ground.
They didn't stop.
Didn't check.
Didn't confirm.
They moved.
Two kilometers.
The pressure didn't drop.
Three.
Still moving.
The Library trembled again, distant distortions echoing through its structure, reminders of the battle still raging behind them.
Four.
Closer.
Still cutting through everything.
Five.
They were close.
Very close.
Finally, they broke into an open space.
The shift was immediate.
No more tight corridors. No more compressed angles.
Tables. Chairs. Open floor.
And, a sign ?
Unbothered by everything happening around it.
"Café la Bête."
For a fraction of a second, Léonard frowned. His face was full of confusion.
"A French café ? Here?"
In the middle of the Wanderers' Library.
It didn't make sense.
Several Wanderers sat at small tables, cups in hand, posture relaxed, conversations low and calm. One of them glanced up as Resh-1 stormed in, eyes briefly tracking the weapons, the speed, the blood.
Then looked back down at his coffee.
Irrelevant.
Léonard's focus snapped back toward the fight.
Three figures stepped out. The archivists from the main hall caught up with them.
The owl unfolded first.
Its body expanded as if carved wood suddenly remembered it could move. Wings spread wide, layered sigils igniting across its surface, each one rotating, stacking, reinforcing the others in a rapidly building cascade.
Beside it, the headless man.
The torso stood perfectly upright, dressed in a clean shirt and tie, as if it belonged in an office instead of a battlefield.
Its floating hand rotated.
Then clenched.
Space warped.
Subtly at first.
Then violently.
The fungal archivist, fun guy, tore itself free from the ground.
Roots snapped.
Black fluid dripped.
Then spores filled the air.
Glowing.
Layered.
Unstable.
They attacked.
No warning.
The owl released a cascade of compressed spells, each one stacked on top of the last.
The hand-man compressed space inward, turning the air into pressure.
The fungal entity detonated its spores midair, each one carrying a micro-sigil that triggered on proximity.
Resh-1 responded instantly.
Gunfire.
Operators split angles without speaking, one group suppressing, the other advancing.
Léonard moved.
He rolled forward, came up firing, two shots snapping into unstable formations and breaking them before they fully formed.
Then he closed the distance.
Pulling out a knife, the blade cut deep into the fungal mass, tearing glowing strands free before he kicked off and repositioned instantly.
Then suddenly, the ground shook.
Heavy.
Violent.
Something massive entered the space.
Tentacles appeared and slammed down one after another, each impact cracking the floor, sending debris flying, forcing the formation to shift.
The air thickened.
Spell formations rotated around the incoming mass.
At the same time, the floor cracked.
Vines spread outward, crawling across wood, stone, and broken tables alike.
A second figure rose.
Tall.
Bark fused with flesh.
Flowers bloomed across its body, each one opening to reveal a glowing core pulsing with contained energy.
Daniel moved.
Fast.
"These two newcomers are also archivists," he said sharply.
"The one who looks like an octopus is named Malaise and the one who is controlling plants is named Antir, both type blues on Warlock level."
A quick glance.
Another glance toward Léonard.
"That makes five archivists infront."
No response.
Léonard was already moving.
"RESH-1, you are authorized to use ALL of your capacities."
That was it.
The fight escalated instantly.
Léonard stepped forward.
Then vanished, and activated his Demon Mode, Stage 2 "Half-Demon".
A single horn tore through on the right side of his head.
One wing unfolded behind him.
His aura compressed everything inward, preventing any uncontrolled leakage of power.
Then.
-SBAM-
His fist connected with the octopus archivist's "head".
The sound wasn't a hit.
It was a collapse.
The mass folded inward, its structure breaking under the force, and the entire body was launched across the café, tearing through tables, shelves, and fragments before crashing into the far side.
Léonard landed.
Moved again.
The hand-man struck, its floating hand clenched. Space compressed inward.
Léonard stepped into it.
The compression shattered.
His knee drove upward into the torso.
-SBAM-
The body folded.
An elbow followed.
The archivist was sent skidding across the floor, spinning, uncontrolled.
Above him, the owl dropped.
Sigils collapsed inward, layered spells converging into a concentrated strike.
Léonard didn't dodge.
He tanked it.
The explosion detonated around him, the floor cracked and the air ruptured.
But he didn't move.
Then he jumped.
Faster.
Higher.
He grabbed the owl mid-air, fingers digging into its structure.
Then slammed it into the ground.
Hard.
The impact sent a shockwave across the café, forcing nearby Wanderers to stumble or retreat.
The other two remaining archivists moved.
And were stopped.
One operator stepped in, blue flames ignited along his arm, dense, controlled, silent.
They crashed into the plant entity, burning through layers of summoned growth and forcing it back.
Another operator raised his hand, spells formed.
Collided with incoming constructs.
Detonated in a violent backlash that shook the space between them.
The octopus archivist came back.
Massive.
Furious.
Spell formations rotating faster now.
It joined the hand-man and the owl against Léonard.
Three vs One
On Léonard.
They attacked together, tentacles slammed down but Léonard slipped between them.
One punch.
-SBOUM-
The mass recoiled again.
The owl struck from the side, Léonard pivoted, a kick connected with the owl body, and crashed into a table, breaking it apart.
The hand-man tried to lock him again, the floating hand clenched, Léonard grabbed it and stopped it.
For a split second, he resisted.
Then broke, he twisted and slammed the body into the ground.
No pause.
The octopus struck again, a tentacle caught Léonard mid-motion and sent him skidding across the floor.
He planted his foot and stopped. Then surged forward again instantly.
No hesitation.
No reset.
He closed distance again.
Hit.
Again.
And again.
Every attack they launched was interrupted.
Broken.
Countered before it fully formed.
Léonard moved faster.
Cleaner.
Heavier.
They weren't weak.
Not even close.
But they couldn't keep up with him, the Administrator.
Suddenly, a sharp call through the comms.
"Boss, a portal openened."
Another beat.
"Thirty seconds."
Léonard didn't hesitate.
He accessed the System in his mind.
And used it to make Graves pull back from his fight.
Graves was displaced.
Forced out of his clash.
Léonard turned.
"All operators, regroup on the portal. Hold it."
No reply.
No acknowledgment.
They moved.
Resh-1 disengaged with brutal efficiency.
Cover fire.
Counter-spells.
Short bursts of psionic waves.
Just enough to break contact.
They fell back.
The portal flickered ahead.
Unstable.
Green light tearing through space, edges warping, barely holding form.
Operators reached it first.
Formed a perimeter instantly.
Weapons up.
Angles locked.
When the two brothers arrived, one Resh-1 operator stepped forward, grabbed both brothers.
And threw them straight into the portal.
Gone.
No hesitation.
Behind them, the Archivists reacted.
All of them formed spells simultaneously.
Distortions surged.
Pressure waves built, all aimed at the portal.
They didn't reach it.
Resh-1 held.
Flames collided with distortions.
Sigils intercepted mid-formation.
The air screamed.
Backlash rippled outward.
But the portal held.
Léonard didn't fall back.
He went forward.
Five Archivists.
All active.
All attacking.
He broke through them.
-Punch-
The octopus was driven back.
-Kick-
The owl crashed again.
-Grab-
The hand-man was slammed into the ground.
The plant and fungal entities attacked and were intercepted.
Resh-1 supported from behind.
No wasted actions.
No overextension.
Just pressure.
Léonard kept advancing.
Step by step.
Forcing them back.
Then, a sound appeared, distant explosions closing in.
Léonard's gaze shifted for a fraction of a second.
A figure approaching.
Fast.
Each step, exploding
Shelves ruptured.
Floor cracked.
Closer.
Closer.
Then.
Impact.
The figure crashed directly into the battlefield and created a massive explosion.
Everything was blown outward.
Tables flipped.
Debris scattered.
Even the Archivists were forced back.
Smoke filled the space.
Then, a silhouette stepped out.
Graves.
Unharmed.
Calm.
Léonard didn't wait.
"RETREAT!"
Grenades flew instantly from Resh-1 hands.
Explosions chained together, cutting off pursuit, breaking formations, forcing space.
Operators disengaged in perfect order.
One by one, they entered the portal.
Clean.
Fast.
No hesitation.
Léonard stepped back.
Graves moved with him.
Both entered last.
The moment they crossed.
The portal snapped shut.
Gone.
---
Resh-1 was already inside.
Formed.
Weapons raised.
A perfect perimeter.
Target locked.
Léonard entered at full speed behind them, boots sliding slightly before he stabilized himself between two shelves.
The light here was dim.
Muted.
The air was different.
Still.
All weapons pointed forward.
A figure stood ten meters ahead of the group.
Not moving.
Watching.
Léonard exhaled once.
Then walked forward.
The formation didn't break.
They let him pass.
He stopped.
Close enough now and observed the figure.
A young woman, visibly Asian, with long black hair and wearing a long black coat.
Arms crossed.
Smiling.
Calm.
Completely calm.
"Greeting, Administrator," she said.
"I believe this is our first official meeting?"
Léonard observed her for a second.
Then replied:
"Greetings miss."
"Should I call you Alison Chao or The Black Queen?"