Back in the tomb, Garfield sat cross-legged before the mural again. The glyphs glimmered faintly, pulsing with the rhythm of his mana. He had begun to piece them together.
The Being had reluctantly translated fragments, but Garfield learned faster by forcing the tomb itself to answer. Each time he pressed blood into the stone, symbols would shift, showing new arrangements. He scribbled notes on torn hides, forming a dictionary of power.
At last, the first full sentence emerged.
"Thirteen Architects forged the framework of the world, each bound to a divine shadow above."
Garfield traced the words, his breath slow. Thirteen pillars. Thirteen gods. But the fourteenth remained absent, erased. He saw it in the way the stone cracked slightly at that space, as though something had been violently removed from history.
The Being's voice broke like static in his mind.
"Do not pursue it. This tomb is memory. Memory lies."
Garfield ignored it.
Another phrase translated under his hand: "Blood is the key, and sacrifice the door."
His lips curved faintly. Every hybrid he created was not madness—it was alignment with the tomb's original intent. Maizel himself must have been a pioneer of fusion.
And then, at the very edge of the glyphs, one phrase stood out. The Being tried to skip it, voice faltering, but Garfield pieced it together anyway.
"Thirteen sons… one vanished… Maizel, seventh heir."
Garfield froze. His mind sharpened like glass. The Being had said nothing of this.
Slowly, he turned. "So, the tomb is not just Maizel's resting place. It is the record of a bloodline tied to the forgotten."
The Being flickered violently, as if glitching out of existence.
"STOP SPEAKING THOSE WORDS!"
Garfield smiled coldly. His notes grew longer, the dictionary thicker. The tomb's secrets were no longer walls—they were stepping stones.