Celia knelt at the edge of the pit, the wind it stirred howling violently around her, blasting dust in thick swirls heavy with the scent of old blood and burnt earth. She was trembling, not from cold, but from the dread of what she had just seen.
The scene before her was a waking nightmare. She had watched Theo flung from the mouth of the Archive like a cannonball, piercing ancient trees as if they were brittle twigs, then slamming into the ground with a violent, shocking impact that silenced the entire world at the moment of his fall… Yet, he hadn't shattered.
He lay there, at the bottom of the pit, amidst a heap of broken stones and shattered earth, in a strange tranquility. His features serene, no trace of pain or spasm, his breathing steady, as if he had merely fallen asleep from exhaustion.
"Impossible…" The thought echoed sharply in her mind, lacerating, like a cold blade piercing the skin of her consciousness. "This is absolutely impossible."
She leapt into the pit with the lightness of a seasoned sorceress, landing beside his body as if descending into a sacred ritual. She paid no mind to the black book resting beside him, though it seemed stranger than anything else… No scratch on it, no dirt smudging it, as if the earth itself recoiled from it in reverence or awe. All her senses focused on Theo.
She closed her eyes and extended her senses to examine him from within. What she found there astonished her. No disruption in the flow of mana, no leakage, no resistance. On the contrary… the mana circulated within him with perfect fluidity, more stable even than in a state of deep meditation.
She moved her hand to confirm his body. No fractures, no scratches, no swelling. His skin was intact, his bones sound, his muscles naturally relaxed. It seemed as if gravity itself conspired to protect him. It was beyond reason, but it didn't matter to her now. The important thing was that he was fine. She felt her heart, which had been pounding violently against her ribs, finally calm.
When she slowly lifted the black book, she felt its desolate texture: cold as an ancient tomb, heavy without weight. No trace of energy emanated from it, neither warmth nor danger, but the engravings etched upon it made the blood freeze in her veins. She had seen them before, drawn on the margin of a rare manuscript that spoke of an ancient curse. The Berserkers' markings… symbols of madness, explosive power, and liberation from all constraints.
"So, everything is connected…" she whispered to herself, with glassy eyes that began to see the broader picture clarify. "The cave, the Archive, the book… and Theo in the middle, as if he's the key who doesn't know he's a key."
She looked at the battlefield, where corpses bled silence, then at his body, still lying motionless. They could no longer stay here. She carried him in her arms; he was shockingly light, as if something had been extracted from his being, something invisible. She climbed out of the pit and disappeared among the ruins of the dead city, leaving behind a thick silence, as if the earth itself had stopped breathing.
In the deep, colorless, timeless darkness, Theo sank into a whirlpool of shattered images.
No thoughts, no names, no concepts. Only a feeling of complete detachment from self. Images repeating and shifting. His mother, smiling at him… then her smile fading into a mute scream. His trainer, shouting as he pushed him forward, then falling dead, eyes wide with terror. The forest, the whispering forest, then… those eyes. Yellow. Cold. Staring at him without mercy. After that, a wind taking the shape of a dagger, piercing everything.
Then came the voice.
A voice not heard with the ear, but felt in the bones, in the blood, in the first memory born with him.
"You are the future… You are the sacrifice."
He tried to scream. To collapse. To escape. But nothing. Only a silent echo reverberating within a dream that wasn't his.
Far from all this, Celia had pulled his body from the pit and moved a long distance amidst the rubble until she reached a partially collapsed building. Then, suddenly, she dropped Theo, whom she had carried quickly, and moved a hundred steps away from him, seeing a scene she would never forget for the rest of her life.
He lay on a bed of dry leaves. A small fire crackled in the corner. Celia, with steady eyes, watched him in absolute silence.
He tried to move, expecting his muscles to tear from pain, but he felt an unusual lightness, as if his body was no longer his own, or had become a purer version of himself.
He sat up suddenly. His heart beat slowly. His muscles relaxed. He looked at his hands, his body; everything about him was intact… more than intact. He felt an unfamiliar power seeping into his cells.
"You've woken up." Celia said in a monotone voice, as if relaying information that didn't warrant surprise. "You were unconscious for a full day."
He looked at her, his confusion speaking without him uttering a word. He remembered the fall, the old man, and the voice.
"You were thrown from the Archive." Celia continued, her eyes fixated on him as if piercing his skin. "You hit the ground with enough force to kill you ten times over. But you emerged… without a scratch."
He said nothing. He just stared at his hands. Something inside him had changed, changed in ways he didn't understand.
"What happened inside, Theo?"
He closed his eyes. He tried to remember. Chaos. A voice. A book. Eyes. Emptiness. Then nothing.
"I don't remember…" he finally said in a faint voice. "I saw everything… and now I can't remember anything."
Celia sighed briefly, as if she had expected this answer. She picked up the black book and tossed it to him.
"This was with you."
He took it, and a chill spread from its covers. It wasn't just a book, but a strange entity breathing within its silence.
"This place, and this book, changed you." she said as she stood up. "I don't know how or why, but our journey now is no longer a training journey. It has become something much bigger."
She approached the opening in the wall and stood looking towards the horizon, where the colors of dawn slowly began to seep in.
Theo watched her in silence, his mind still stuck in the shadows of what he had seen… But before he could get up, the scene before his eyes suddenly cut off.
He saw a person suspended in the air, a black sword piercing his chest from front to back, and a strange, sad, yet comforting smile gracing his face.
Theo's heart shattered.
He felt a terrible headache, his eyes pressing from within, his breath stopping, the air refusing to enter his lungs. His entire body seemed to explode from the inside out. He heard the sound of his bones breaking… though they weren't broken.
Celia noticed immediately. She jumped to his side, not hesitating for a moment, placed her hand on his forehead, and cast an instant sleep spell. Theo lost consciousness in seconds, and his body immediately calmed.
She looked at his face, then into the void, and whispered, her voice not trembling, "Now… it's your turn, Kyle."