"Show me these records," I said, and followed Ren to the wall.
As we came close, the carvings began to glow with a soft light that made them easier to see. They weren't written in any normal script. They were part ancient text and part magical notation, and they didn't so much need reading as pour their meaning straight into your head.
"Here." Ren pointed to a section that pulsed brighter than the rest. "This is where it explains how this place was made."
I laid my hand on the carved stone, and knowledge broke into me like water through a dam. Images, sensations, understanding that belonged to someone else flooded through me, and I saw what had happened here more than a hundred and sixty years ago.
Liam Kagu stood on a mountain peak, his fists wrapped in folded space, facing a writhing mass of corruption: the Heavenly Demon. The First Calamity. Its influence had spread across continents and threatened to swallow every human city in its path.
