The library of Phantom Lord was grand in a way that felt deliberate rather than welcoming.
Every inch of the massive chamber seemed constructed according to some ancient system of order that could never be broken. Nothing felt accidental. Nothing felt casual. Even silence itself seemed arranged with purpose.
The room stretched outward like a cathedral devoted not to faith but to knowledge.
Towering stone pillars rose toward the distant ceiling, thick enough to resemble the trunks of colossal petrified trees. Their surfaces were divided into layered bands resembling stacked book spines, engraved with faded runic markings, ancient catalog symbols, and metallic inlays dulled by time.
Far overhead, the ceiling arched in immense curves of black stone reinforced by exposed iron beams. The ribs of the structure crossed above the chamber like the skeleton of some enormous beast, disappearing into darkness where the lantern light failed to reach.
Rows upon rows of bookshelves dominated the interior.
They stretched from floor to ceiling in endless formations, each shelf packed tightly with books of varying size, color, and age.
Yet despite the overwhelming quantity of knowledge stored within the chamber, the library remained unnervingly immaculate.
Every shelf aligned perfectly.
Every chair sat evenly tucked beneath the tables.
Every aisle maintained the same measured spacing, as though the entire structure had been arranged according to calculations too precise for ordinary hands.
Long communal tables filled the center of the lower floor in symmetrical rows, their dark wooden surfaces polished smooth from years of use. Low-backed chairs lined both sides with unnatural uniformity.
The shelves themselves were not arranged in simple straight lines.
Many curved subtly inward, almost imperceptibly guiding the eye toward the center of the chamber.
The deeper one walked through the aisles, the more the library seemed to close around them.
Narrow staircases wound upward along the massive pillars while spiraling iron walkways coiled around them in elegant curves. The dark metal resembled cage ribs suspended in the air, their railings lined with tiny engraved symbols that glimmered faintly whenever lantern light touched them.
Higher still, balconies overlooked the lower floors from every direction.
From below, it was impossible to tell whether someone stood upon them or not. Their shadows blended seamlessly into the darkness above.
Lanterns hung throughout the chamber at measured intervals.
Some burned with ordinary flame trapped behind black iron frames, while others emitted faint enchanted light tinted pale blue or dim gold.
The illumination was intentionally restrained.
Entire sections of the library remained submerged in shadow, leaving only fragments of shelves visible between the aisles.
Because of that, the deeper portions of the chamber felt strangely alive.
Shadows gathered thickly between the towering shelves.
Books appeared to shift slightly when left unobserved.
The silence felt watchful.
And at the very center of the library—
Where the tallest shelves curved inward like silent sentinels surrounding a sacred chamber—
A single object floated in absolute stillness. A black glass sphere hovered above a circular stone pedestal.
Roughly the size of a bowling ball, the orb's surface appeared smooth only at first glance. Thin glowing lines moved beneath the dark glass like living veins, slowly shifting across its surface in patterns that never fully repeated.
The faint light pulsing beneath the black exterior resembled distant stars buried beneath layers of ink.
The pedestal beneath it resembled less a stand and more an altar.
Concentric rings were carved into the stone around its base, filled with ancient runes, indexing symbols, and impossibly precise geometric markings. Some glowed faintly. Others had been worn smooth by centuries of use.
The sphere itself drifted slowly as it hovered, rotating with calm, almost conscious movement.
Bookshelves towered around it from every direction like guards protecting a king.
And beneath the dim lantern light—
At the center of the vast silent archive—
The sphere waited.
◆ ◇ ◆
Elsewhere within the labyrinthine library, a small boy slept quietly on the floor between the shelves.
A child, really.
Curled slightly inward as though instinctively protecting himself from the world around him.
He wore a long-sleeved hoodie deep purple in color, the fabric soft and slightly oversized. The sleeves covered his wrists completely, adding to the closed-off feeling he naturally carried.
Simple black trousers rested loosely around his legs.
Notably, he wore no shoes. His bare feet contrasted sharply against the otherwise modest comfort of his clothing.
As the boy slept, subtle changes slowly began occurring throughout his body.
They were tiny, gradual, yet undeniably unnatural.
And within his mind, something extraordinary was taking place.
A place known only as his inner world.
It was a vast expanse that stretched endlessly in every direction. No walls. No horizon. No sky in any ordinary sense.
Distance itself felt meaningless there.
The ground beneath was not truly ground at all. It was a perfectly dark surface.
Darker than shadow, Yet it moved like water.
Gentle ripples spread endlessly across it despite the absence of wind.
High above hung something resembling a sun.
Except, It did not shine.
Its center was hollow, like a massive ring or an empty eye staring down from the heavens.
The outer shell was pure white. Painfully pale.
Yet despite its strange nature, it remained the only source of light within the endless world.
The illumination it cast was unnatural. Soft, yet absolute.
Everything below remained perfectly visible beneath it, yet no shadows existed anywhere in the realm.
Encircling one half of the hollow sun was an Eastern dragon.
Its body was long and serpentine, coiling gracefully through the air with slow, deliberate movement. Four slender limbs extended from its scaled body, each ending in talons that touched nothing.
Its scales were white like porcelain, matching the hollow sun itself.
The dragon never completed a full orbit.
It moved along only one half of the sun's circumference.
Its path remained exact. As though obeying a law older than thought itself.
It neither drifted too close nor too far away, maintaining a perfect distance at all times.
Like a guardian preserving a balance that could never be broken.
And yet, the other half of the orbit was not empty.
Something moved there..Something unseen.
It possessed no visible form. No outline. No shape the eye could follow. Yet its presence was undeniable.
The air along that invisible path felt heavier somehow, distorted in ways reality itself struggled to contain.
Space bent faintly where it passed.
As though existence acknowledged something that could not fully be perceived.
And within this strange inner world, Two figures stood facing one another.
Both were children..Both stood only a few feet apart.
On one side stood a boy with medium-length black hair that fell naturally around his face.
Neither messy nor styled. His silky hair framed his most striking feature.
His fuchsia-colored eyes. A reddish-pink hue that gave his otherwise gentle appearance an unnatural sharpness.
His skin was fair and untouched, free of scars or blemishes, lending him a fragile appearance.
On the opposite side stood another version of him. At first glance, they were nearly identical.
The same height. The same frame..The same posture and silhouette.
From a distance, one could easily mistake them for reflections of one another.
But up close, The differences became impossible to ignore.
This version possessed stark white hair.
An unnatural, bone-like shade that stood out violently against the darkness of the inner world.
His hair was uneven and crudely cut, strands jutting outward at irregular angles while others hung longer around his face and neck, creating an unsettling imbalance to his appearance.
His eyes were deep crimson.
Where the other gaze carried gentleness, this one's carried something harsher.
His skin looked almost corpse-like in its pallor, drained of warmth and life..Thin dark stitches ran crudely across his lips.
Not surgical.
Not neat.
As though someone had forcibly sewn his mouth shut without care for precision.
Unlike the other loose hoodie, the white-haired boy wore a tight short-sleeved shirt in a pale washed-out color that clung to his body.
He also wore dark shoes with thick soles, separating him from the water-like ground beneath him rather than connecting him to it.
"I'm tired of being dragged around like a rag doll," Albion Ebonveil said quietly. "I'm gonna make you pay."
Despite the threat, his expression remained calm and resolved.
Slowly lowering himself, Albion sat comfortably upon the dark surface beneath him as though sitting beside still water.
"But before I do that…" His fuchsia-colored eyes lifted toward the white-haired figure.
"I have some questions for you."
A faint ripple spread beneath Albion as he rested one arm over his knee.
"I think it's about time you and I had a little chat."
"A chat…? You just punched me in the face a minute ago." The other being—who could only be referred to as White Albion—said. "Why should I trust you?"
"You want me to say I'm sorry? Don't act like you didn't deserve it." Albion replied flatly. "Listen. I'm not going to fight you anymore. You have my word."
White's crimson eyes narrowed slightly before he finally let out a quiet sigh.
"…Fine."
He stepped forward and lowered himself onto the dark surface across from Albion. Though it looked like water, it did not ripple beneath him.
"But I've got some questions too."
"That's fair." Albion nodded once. "First, I want to know who you really are."
His fuchsia eyes locked onto White's. "And this time, give me a straight answer."
White tilted his head slightly. "Why bother asking me? You could just force the answer out of me."
"Because…" Albion's gaze dropped toward his hands. For a moment, his voice softened.
"…I'm tired." The words carried more exhaustion than anger. "Honestly, I'm completely drained today."
Memories surfaced in his mind.
[Maybe that's what we all do in the end. We only reach out with our hands when we want to hurt… because we forgot how to use them to hold someone instead.]
Recalling the words he once spoke to Gajeel, Albion slowly steadied himself.
Seeing the look in his eyes, White exhaled quietly through his nose.
"I've already told you once." He leaned back slightly. "I'm nameless."His voice remained calm."What am I…?"
Slowly, he raised a finger and pointed directly at Albion. "I am you. And you are me."
"Not metaphorically. Not philosophically. Not in some poetic nonsense kind of way."
"You are me."
"And I am you."
The hollow white light overhead reflected faintly across his pale skin as he spoke.
"We are simply two halves of the same whole." White's expression remained unreadable."Whether you believe me or not changes nothing."
Albion stayed silent for a moment before speaking again.
"Then answer me this." His eyes sharpened slightly."How are you me?"
For the first time, White's expression shifted, not into anger, but something quieter. Almost disappointed.
"You still don't understand what I am." The endless black beneath them shifted faintly.
"I'm not some 'evil version' of you." His stitched lips curved faintly. "I was never born from evil."
White's red eyes stared directly into Albion's. "I was born from you."
Albion's pupils widened. "…What?"
"From every thought you buried." White's voice grew heavier."Every scream you swallowed."
"Every moment you stood there trembling while pretending everything was fine."
"You call yourself human," White continued. "You cling desperately to the kind of person you want to be."
His hand slowly pressed against his own chest. "But I…"
"…am the part of you that was abandoned for that to happen."
Albion's breathing quietly faltered.
"I am every selfish thought you denied."
"Every ounce of hatred you tried to bury."
"Every violent impulse you convinced yourself made you inhuman."
White lowered his hand. "That is why I have no name."
"A name belongs to an individual. A person." His gaze sharpened. "But I am not separate from you."
The hollow sun above them seemed to pulse faintly.
"I am the inhuman blood flowing beneath your skin."
"What are you even saying…?" Albion's face twisted with shock and confusion. "Are you seriously telling me I created you?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying." White nodded calmly.
"But that's impossible." Albion immediately pushed back. "How could I create something like you and not even realize it?"
His brows furrowed tightly. "You said it yourself, remember? I'm a zero."
Then his expression hardened slightly. "And what do you even mean by 'inhuman blood'?"
White remained silent for a brief moment before answering.
"There's no easy way to say this." His crimson eyes locked onto Albion. "So I'll just be blunt."
"You are not human."
The words hit Albion like a physical blow.
Shock overtook his face completely, leaving him speechless.
Seeing his expression, White let out a small chuckle. "…Didn't you think it was strange?"
He tilted his head slightly. "How could you survive things no normal child your age should survive?"
Albion's eyes narrowed faintly.
"When you fought that iron kid," White continued, "he beat you badly enough to make your head bleed."
"You got knocked unconscious.And yet, when you woke up, your injuries were practically gone."
White gestured loosely toward him.
"Since arriving here, you've been slammed into the ground, dragged across the floor, thrown through the air…"
His stitched lips curved slightly upward. "And somehow, you're still standing."
The worst part was that White's words sounded insane, yet undeniably true.
Even now, Albion barely felt pain from their earlier fight. The only visible injuries on his body were the scratches around his neck.
And those…He had caused himself.
"T-that doesn't prove anything!" Albion snapped, raising his voice. "Look at Gajeel!"
"He beat grown adults by himself!"
"Oh?" White smiled faintly. "Then answer me this.What's the difference between the two of you?"
Albion opened his mouth, then froze. Several long seconds passed before realization struck him.
His eyes widened.
"…That's right," White murmured, leaning forward slightly. "He can use magic. You can't."
The words landed heavily inside Albion's chest.
"Even if your body is abnormal," White continued, "you still shouldn't be able to move after taking that kind of damage."
"And there's one more thing." His smile slowly widened. The crude stitches across his lips began to strain. "Don't you think it's strange…"
"…that you've never seen anyone with eyes like yours?"
Albion's eyes were unnatural.
Not simply red. Not pink. Not purple.
But a strange fusion of all three—a fuchsia hue that never looked entirely human no matter how normal he tried to appear.
And suddenly, memories resurfaced. The voices of the scientists echoed through his mind.
[But how can you tell? According to the records, they're almost indistinguishable from humans.]
[The eyes. Their pigmentation is never uniform.]
[Each subject displays a unique blend of colors.]
[And once they reach maturity, they develop what can only be described as an 'otherworldly' appearance…]
Albion's breathing hitched. "But that can't be…"
Another memory surfaced. Gajeel's voice.
[Your scent's off. Way off. Doesn't match anyone else here. Are you even human?]
"I know…" Albion suddenly pressed a hand tightly against his chest. "I know deep down that I'm human."
His voice trembled slightly."After all…"
"…what else could I even be?"
For the first time since the conversation began, White's grin slowly faded. "That," he said quietly, "I honestly don't know."
His crimson eyes drifted upward toward the hollow white sun hanging above them.
"If you want answers about what you truly are…"
"…then you'll have to search for them yourself."
"There's only one person who knows the truth about your origins."
Immediately, Albion's hand tightened harder against his chest. "…You're talking about her."
"Yes."
Then, at the exact same moment, both of them spoke together.
"If I want answers… I'll have to find my mother."
"If you want answers… you'll have to search for mother dear."
The overlapping voices echoed unnaturally across the endless black world.
Albion fell silent afterward. He still didn't believe he was anything other than human.
But he also wasn't foolish enough to completely dismiss White's words anymore.
Not after everything.
Not after the way his body kept surviving things it shouldn't.
Still… There were more immediate problems.
Slowly, Albion lifted his gaze back toward White.
"Which brings me to my next question." His expression sharpened. "How did I leave this place?"
"And how did I end up back inside the library?"