Inside the Archives of Aura, a quiet reverence hung in the air, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. At the heart of the grand chamber stood three polished wooden tables, each carved from ancient timber with swirling patterns that shimmered faintly under the soft glow of floating lights above. Surrounding them were high-backed, polished white chairs, their surfaces smooth like marble, yet clearly not of any known material—imbued, perhaps, with aura-forged craftsmanship that hasn't been seen anywhere else within the capital.
Towering bookshelves stretched endlessly upward, vanishing into the shadows of the high domed ceiling. The shelves groaned under the weight of countless tomes, scrolls, and manuscripts—some sealed with runes, others humming with dormant energy. The scent of old parchment, ink, and faint traces of ozone from lingering enchantments filled the air.
On opposite ends of the room, two elegant staircases curved upward in perfect symmetry, their silver railings etched with symbols that flickered with light. They led to mezzanine levels that wrapped around the chamber, granting access to even more of the archives' knowledge.
There was no sound but the soft humming of aura-infused crystals embedded in the walls, casting an ambient glow.
Zay inhaled the rich, grounding scent of somehow fresh timber, the lingering aroma of aged parchment, and something fainter—burned wax and cold iron.
The two brothers glanced down at the floor beneath them—a sleek expanse of polished silver marble that shimmered in the ambient light. Deep violet rugs, soft and finely woven, stretched beneath each towering bookshelf and lay gracefully beneath the tables, adding a regal contrast to the cool stone below.
'Damn... I don't really remember any of this,' Zay thought, his eyes drifting across the room, unsure of where to even begin.
"S-So… what are we doing in here? It must be important if you… lied to the ruler just to get inside," Renzo asked, his gaze fixed on the floating lights above, curiosity flickering in his eyes as he wondered how they even worked.
"There's a lot of information here—about aura, Aura Cores, and Arbiters. This place is basically a dream for any scholar who's also an Arbiter. Also think of it as a paradise... for people who might want to destroy the world," Zay said, his tone dark but calm. "The amount of knowledge in this one room comes from thousands of years of writings—Arbiters, rulers, kings, even wandering souls who left behind a tip or two for those who'd come after. And that's just scratching the surface. Let's get to reading."
Two days passed in a haze of pages, ink, and sleepless hours.
Zay had scanned shelf after shelf, row after row, eyes dry and thoughts racing. His fingertips were smudged with dust from books, ledgers, scrolls, tomes, and even Grimoires that hasn't been touched in an unknown amount of time. He guessed at least for a few hundred years.
After looking on one of the higher floors, his eyes caught the sight of a tome. The book was enormous—nearly the size of his torso, its dark cover marked with faded symbols he didn't recognize. It didn't budge at first.
He waited for a few seconds after failing to lift it, expecting something to happen—but nothing did.
'What the hell is this?' Zay thought.
He gritted his teeth and channeled his aura through his arms. With a low hum and the groan of shifting stone beneath the shelf, the book finally moved. He nearly collapsed under its weight. Whatever this was, it wasn't meant to be taken lightly—figuratively or literally.
His jaw clenched as he staggered past the rows of shelves, the scent of ink thick in the air. Tomes glowed faintly as he passed. His footsteps echoed heavily against the aura-infused floors, and even with his aura reinforcing his body, he found himself breathing hard.
Then he saw the staircase—and began his descent.
Step by step, for nearly an hour.
Each step creaked beneath his weight. His face flushed red from the strain as his aura flickered with every movement. Finally, he reached the last stair and stepped onto the violet carpet of the first floor, trudging slowly toward the nearest wooden table.
Renzo looked up from his reading, his eyes widening at the sight of the massive tome. He shot to his feet and swept a dozen books off the table. Scrolls and papers scattered across the violet rug.
Zay exhaled loudly and let the tome slam onto the table, then collapsed backward onto the floor.
"What the fuck is this?" Renzo asked, glancing down at him before reaching out a hand.
Zay grabbed it, pulled himself up, and stared at the dark tome. He extended a hand and flipped the cover open.
Dust exploded into the air. A soft shockwave rippled through the room as the heavy cover slammed against the table. Both brothers raised their arms to shield their faces from the sudden cloud.
Once the dust settled, they leaned in.
The first page was made of pitch-black paper, the text written in fine white ink. Neatly handwritten. Elegant. The title, however, was in a language neither of them recognized.
Even the Resonance Lens—the same tool that translated Zeke's speech—failed to decipher it.
Everything else in the book was written in their language… except the title.
"This... is some kind of ledger, I think," Zay said, scanning the contents of the first page.
Names. Doctrine. Symbols. Chants. And at the bottom, in faded gray ink, a single name stood out:
Seal of Eternal Keepings.
Zay and Renzo leaned in, studying the page more carefully. Renzo suddenly pointed.
"That name. Look."
Zay followed his finger—and froze.
"A.D."
"You don't think it's the A.D., do you? How would that even be possible?"
Renzo shrugged, eyes still skimming the page. "I have no damn clue… but shit—it does seem possible."
Zay exhaled through his nose and turned the page carefully, the old spine of the tome creaking with resistance. As the next sheet settled, a wave of unease passed between the brothers.
The second page was a mixture of eerie sketches and precise descriptions—ritual diagrams drawn in white ink, the lines thin and sharp, almost etched rather than written. The illustrations spanned the entire page, bordered with small symbols they didn't recognize. Some of the images depicted circles of people kneeling with their heads bowed, others showed shapes drawn onto skin, glowing with aura or blood. In one, a single figure stood at the center of a massive seal, arms spread, surrounded by rising black flames.
"There are names," Renzo muttered, leaning in. "Each ritual has one."
Zay nodded, his eyes scanning the handwritten titles.
"Hollow Birth."
"Breath of the Unseen Flame."
"Descent of the Dreamwalker."
"Summoning of God."
"Sacrificial Lord."
"Reverence of Times."
And beneath each one, a description. Some were vague—mentioning the alignment of moons, offerings, and chants spoken in old dialects. Others were disturbingly clear.
One, labeled "The Mourning Spiral," required seven voices, blood of a man so pure that he could be considered a priest, yet not a priest, and a soul that wishes to forget. Another demanded the blood of an Arbiter "who no longer believes." Another required the blood of a virgin priestess who just turned twenty-three.
Renzo said nothing for a while but then spoke. "Why the hell would they keep this shit in here? This stuff shouldn't exist."
Zay stared at the final illustration on the page. It was a doorway—jagged and made of shadows—etched with what looked like eyes. Dozens of them. Watching. Waiting.
Beneath it was a phrase, carved in larger letters than anything else so far:
"The God Sleeps in Black."
Neither of them said a word after that.
Zay carefully turned the page again, the thick parchment brushing against his fingers with a dry hiss. What greeted them this time was a layout of weaponry—sketched in haunting detail. Blades curved like talons, spears with serrated tips, chains coiled like serpents, and staffs crowned with fractured gemstones. Each was annotated with dense, flowing script.
Beneath each weapon were notes: enchantments, effects, sources. One dagger had been fused with a Seal that infused it with poison—"not of the body, but of the soul." Another sword had been scorched by a ritual that allowed it to ignite flesh upon slicing, the fire continuing to burn even underwater. A long obsidian halberd had inscriptions of decay, able to rot armor and bone with a single nick.
At the bottom of the page was a paragraph set apart, underlined with three uneven lines.
Zay narrowed his eyes and read aloud:
"It is a truth known to all who walk the path of Arbiters: one Seal, one soul. So then, how did our enchanter craft so many enchantments across so many weapons? The explanation is deceptively simple, though the act itself borders on the impossible.
The process begins with the extraction of an 'Aura Core' from an Arbiter bound to the specific Seal that we seek. This Core, once taken, is entrusted to Ano, who bears a unique Seal—one that allows him to access the Seals of others not by taking them into his own body, but by channeling them through the Core itself.
Truthfully... the man unnerves me. With a single touch, he can hijack a Seal, not by stealing it, but by manipulating its essence from a distance. And as we well know, to claim a second Seal requires one to endure immense strain, often beyond reason. Yet Ano is exempt, for he does not claim the Seal—he simply commands it.
The extraction itself requires a specific instrument, the result of six decades of experimentation and sacrifice. I will not record its name here, nor its construction, but know that it is a needle designed to pierce the heart and draw forth the Aura Core, distilling it into a liquid state. Upon release, the essence reconstitutes itself, returning to its natural spherical form—unchanged, yet wholly vulnerable."
Renzo stared at Zay, eyebrows raised. "Wait… extracting an Aura Core? That's suicide, right?"
Zay nodded slowly. "Or murder."
They both looked back down at the weapons. Names were scratched into hilts. Some had hollow spaces where cores had likely been embedded. A few of the drawings showed weapons "fused" to people, arms turning into blades, or spines lined with chains that extended like limbs.
Renzo exhaled through his nose. "This cult wasn't just fanatical. They were obsessed with power. They were weaponizing anything they could with aura and seals."
Zay didn't answer at first, but a quiet thought stirred in the back of his mind.
'Seal of Eternal Keepings... A ledger of knowledge never meant to be passed down to anyone outside of this cult...'
Zay flipped to the third page, the parchment darker now, stained at the edges as though it had been touched by ash. He read aloud once more, his voice steady despite the heaviness of the words:
"It has been an age of silence—an eternity wherein not a single soul dared whisper the name of the Forgotten One. In their absence, the world turned, and the stars shifted, yet we have found Him. The God who slumbers not in death, but in neglect. Buried beneath time, cast aside by prayerless tongues, He waits.
The ritual to awaken our Sovereign is no small feat. Blood of a virgin priestess—untainted, devoted, and pure. A single vertebra taken from a child before their fifth year. The essence of divinity itself, which we have secured through peril and sacrifice. A branch plucked from the Father Tree of Memories.
And more—so much more. Dust from a land where no man has tread in a hundred generations. The final breath of a martyr who died in silence. The whispered truth of a lie believed by millions. These components, impossible as they may seem, are the cost of return. For to bring back a god..."
Zay turned the page.
As the page flipped, an unsettling sight met his eyes: three pages was gone. Only the stubs of torn paper remained in the center, as if they had been ripped out deliberately, leaving nothing but a gaping void in the tome.
Zay moved the torn paper stubs aside, revealing a fully intact page. It was filled with lists of names, coordinates etched like maps to forgotten continents, diagrams of circles and blood rites, and ritual titles like The Bone Hour and Dreams of Ash. The cult hadn't stopped—not immediately, at least. Whether they had failed and tried again or what actually occurred to the cult has remained a mystery.
Renzo leaned over the table, eyes scanning one name after another."...This wasn't just some back-alley cult, that's for damn sure." he muttered. "They had structure. Organization. Fucking hierarchy."
Zay nodded slowly, fingers brushing the ancient paper. "And reach. Far more than they ever should have."
'I've never even heard of such a thing… extracting divinity? How the hell did they manage that? I know of gods being slain, but to extract divinity? What the hell… and a branch from the Father Tree of Memories? Just how far did this cult's reach really go?' Zay thought.
The two brothers exchanged some glances before closing the book.