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Levi sat on the tiles for several minutes after the bodies disappeared.
The Library had cleaned everything. No blood remained. No evidence that three people had died here. Just empty floor and the faint smell of old books drifting up from somewhere below.
His hands had stopped shaking. That was good.
A notification blinked at the edge of his vision. He'd been ignoring it.
[MISSION COMPLETE]
Deal with the Invaders
Reward: 500 Dimensional Crystals
Five hundred crystals. More than anything else had earned him. The Library really hated having them here.
He dismissed it and stood. His legs felt steady. He ran a hand through his hair, straightened his shirt, took a breath.
Time to go back.
By the time he found the portal to the bookstore, his expression was composed again. Professional. The mask back in place.
.
.
.
Luna was still on the counter when he stepped through, washing her face with one paw.
"Meow?"
"It's done," Levi said.
She went back to grooming.
He climbed the stairs. Each step took effort he didn't expect.
He knocked on the therapy room door.
"Father Reven? It's safe now."
The door opened immediately.
Reven stood there looking pale, the mushrooms on his face pulsing with that sickly glow.
"What happened? "
"The inquisitors tried forcing their way into restricted areas," Levi said. His voice came out level, measured.
"They were removed."
Reven stared. "Removed."
"They're dead. The Library doesn't leave witnesses when its rules get broken."
Color drained from Reven's face. He stepped back, gripping the doorframe.
"Three people. Because of me."
"No. Three people died because they broke into a sanctuary planning violence. Their choices killed them. Not yours."
"But they were hunting me. If I hadn't—"
"If you hadn't come here, they'd have found you somewhere else. Captured you. Tortured you. Burned you alive in a public square." Levi kept his tone factual.
"Would that be better?"
Reven didn't answer. His hands trembled.
"I'm a monster. Everyone near me dies. Everyone I try to help. Everyone who helps me."
"That's guilt talking. And guilt is convenient. It lets you feel responsible without actually examining what happened."
Reven looked up. "What?"
"Guilt is self absolution." Levi walked into the room, gestured at the chair.
"It's how you punish yourself to avoid confronting real consequences. You say 'it's my fault' and that ends the conversation. Makes you the center of the tragedy, which is ironically comforting."
Reven sat down hard. "I'm not trying to make this about me."
"Aren't you?" Levi took his own seat.
"Three inquisitors chose to pursue you. Chose to enter this building. Chose to be my enemie. When they faced consequences, you claim responsibility. Like they had no agency. Like you controlled their decisions."
"But I'm the reason they came."
"You're a reason. Not the reason. There's a difference." Levi leaned forward slightly.
"The church declared your god heretical. Ordered all priests executed. Created a system where desperate people sought illegal healing because legal options cost too much. Trained those inquisitors to hunt and kill. You didn't create that. You're just the convenient target."
Reven stared at his hands.
"They still died."
"Yes. And that's tragic. But it's not your tragedy alone. They made choices. I made choices. The Library made choices. You're responsible for your actions, Father Reven, but not the entire chain that led here tonight."
"Then who is?"
"Everyone. No one. The system." Levi spread his hands.
"Responsibility isn't one thread traced to one person. It's a web. You're trying to hold the whole thing on your shoulders."
The mushrooms pulsed irregularly, agitated.
"I don't know how to live with this."
"You learn. One day at a time. One choice at a time. You stop carrying guilt that isn't yours."
They sat quietly for a while.
Then Levi stood.
"Come with me. There's something you need to see."
Reven looked up. "What?"
"Something that'll help you understand what you're carrying. It won't be pleasant. But it's necessary."
Reven hesitated, then stood. "Where?"
"To the truth. The real truth. Not guilt. Not stories you tell yourself. The actual, fundamental truth of what you are."
He opened the door, gestured.
"Trust me. This is the next step."
Reven looked at him, then nodded.
"Alright. I trust you."
They left together, descended the stairs, passed through the bookstore where Luna watched with green eyes.
"Meow," she said softly.
Levi led Reven to the first floor at a desk covered in paperwork. Filing cabinets. A chair. Ordinary.
Except behind the desk, the wall shimmered like heat rising off pavement. A portal open itself. Golden light spilled from its edges.
"What is that?"
"A threshold. The bookstore is just the entrance, Father Reven. What's beyond is the real Library. The true Library of Noctis."
The golden light pulsed gently.
"Stay close. Don't touch anything. Don't speak unless I say it's safe. Whatever you see, remember you're under my protection. The Library won't harm you if you follow instructions."
He stepped through.
After hesitating, Reven followed.
.
.
.
They walked through an endless black corridor.
Solid floor beneath their feet, but Reven couldn't see anything except Levi's faint outline ahead.
Then the corridor opened up.
Reven stopped walking. His breath caught.
The Library stretched before him in impossible dimensions. Shelves towered into darkness that never ended, hundreds of feet tall. Books lined every surface. Thousands. Millions. More than could fit in any physical space.
The books were alive.
They breathed. Slowly, like sleeping lungs. Pages rustled without wind. Spines creaked and settled. Some whispered in languages Reven didn't know. Others watched, their awareness pressing against him.
"This is impossible."
"No. This is real. The bookstore at the front is the lie. This is what I maintain. Knowledge spanning dimensions and realities. Every forbidden book ever written exists here. Every book that could be written waits to be discovered."
Reven turned slowly, trying to comprehend the scale. Shelves went up forever. In some directions they curved. In others they simply stopped existing, replaced by void.
"How is this possible?"
"The Library doesn't obey your reality's rules. It exists in multiple spaces simultaneously. You're seeing one layer."
A sound echoed through the vast space.
Heavy. Metallic. Getting closer.
Two figures descended from darkness above, landing with impacts that cracked the floor. Dust rose around their feet.
Death Knights.
Reven froze. His breath stopped. Invisible pressure slammed down on him from above, crushing him toward the floor. His knees buckled.
The Death Knights' helmets turned toward him. Cold blue slits focusing with terrible intensity.
One raised its sword.
"Enough," Levi said.
One word.
The pressure vanished.
The Death Knights stopped.
"He's under my protection. Stand down."
The Death Knights lowered their weapons. Stood there like restrained forces waiting for permission.
Then turned and walked back into darkness. Footsteps fading.
Reven gasped for air, legs shaking.
"What were those?"
"Security. The Library monitors certain signatures. Divine traces. Godly fragments. Things that don't belong in a neutral archive. You carry fragments of Morvexis, so the system flagged you as a threat."
"But you stopped them."
"I'm the Librarian. They answer to me. Eventually." Levi looked at him.
"Do you understand? Gods aren't welcome authorities here. Divine power is monitored. Controlled. The Library exists outside your world's hierarchies."
"Gods have no power here?"
"The Library doesn't recognize their authority. Here, No gods. No kings. No empires. Only knowledge. And insignificance."
The Library responded. Whispers grew softer. Breathing slowed. Something vast and patient turned its attention away.
Reven felt lighter. Not less burdened, but less crushed.
"Why did you bring me here?"
"Because you need to see where we're going next. And you need to understand that what you are, what you carry, isn't as powerful as you think. Not here."
He gestured forward. A platform materialized from darkness. Ornate metal railings. An elevator without walls or cables.
"Where are we going?" Reven stepped onto it.
Levi pressed a button that appeared when his hand approached.
The platform began rising.
"Floor 217. The Cosmic Horror section."
Numbers appeared in the air as they ascended, glowing in colors that didn't quite match visible spectrum.
Floor 15. Floor 42. Floor 89.
They passed impossible spaces. Doors whispering promises. Bridges made of light connecting shelves floating in void. Archives where time moved differently, visible as frozen heat shimmer.
Reven watched, his mind struggling to process it.
"What is this place? Really?"
"A place that tells the truth. Not the truth people want. Not truth that makes them feel better. Just truth. Raw. Unfiltered. Complete."
Floor 150. Floor 180. Floor 200.
The air grew colder. Thicker. Tasted like copper and old stone.
Floor 217.
The platform stopped.
A sign hung above an archway. Reven looked at it and immediately forgot what it said. The words slid off his mind. He tried focusing again and felt a headache start behind his eyes.
Levi read it clearly, nodded, stepped off the platform.
"Stay close. Don't touch anything. And don't read any books except the one I give you. The works in this section are active. Aware. Some are hungry."
They passed through the archway.
The Cosmic Horror section was different.
The shelves here were made of things that shouldn't exist. Flesh that breathed. Bone that grew. Stone that wept. Wood that bled rust-colored sap. They stretched up into a sky full of black stars spiraling slowly in patterns that hurt to watch.
Books hung suspended from translucent tendrils descending from darkness. Some were bound in skin, texture still showing pores. Others in metals that absorbed light instead of reflecting it. Some had no covers at all, just raw pages turning themselves with soft whispers.
And above everything, dominating the sky like a meat moon, was an eye.
Massive. Unblinking. Made of something neither organic nor inorganic. Watching everything with patient, terrible awareness. The pupil was a void deeper than surrounding darkness.
Reven felt it recognize him.
Something in the darkness responded. The mushrooms on his face pulsed faster, brightening.
"Don't look at it directly. It's not hostile, but it's not safe either. Just keep moving."
They walked through aisles of impossible books. Some tracked their movement. Others remained still, but Reven felt their attention anyway.
Then Levi stopped at a shelf that was completely ordinary.
Like it didn't belong. Everything else in this section was twisted, corrupted, transformed. But this shelf looked like it came from a normal library.
Levi reached up, removed a book.
Yellow cloth cover. Unmarked spine. The book felt old in his hands, fabric slightly rough.
He thought about medical horror. About plague. About what happens when you try curing disease and become it instead.
"The Last Test" by H.P. Lovecraft and Adolphe de Castro, 1928.
Dr. Alfred Clarendon, brilliant scientist obsessed with eradicating Black Fever. Locks himself in a laboratory with mysterious assistant Surat Singh. Screams. Occult rituals. Biological sacrifices. Clarendon falls victim to the plague he sought to conquer. Becomes subject of his own "Last Test." Suffers gruesome transformation. Singh vanishes, leaving hints their work invoked ancient entities.
Medical horror meets cosmic horror. Fear of contagion. Loss of bodily autonomy. Mad scientist pursuing "the greater good" until ethics collapse. Plague that's not merely biological but linked to something vast and incomprehensible.
This is what Reven needs to see. What he already is, just doesn't know yet.
Levi held the book out.
"This is for you."
Reven stared at the yellow cloth cover. Blank. Unmarked.
But that wasn't what he saw.
The moment he took it from Levi's hands, the Library went quiet.
Whispers stopped. Breathing paused. Even the great eye above blinked slowly, focusing on the book in Reven's hands.
The book felt different. It felt sick. Diseased. Like holding something that should have died but hadn't. Like touching meat still warm but no longer alive.
Letters began scarring themselves into the cover. Branded into existence as if by invisible iron.
Twin Blasphemies
The title appeared.
"What is it?" Reven whispered, staring at the title that wasn't there moments ago.
Levi looked at the book in Reven's hands, then at Reven's face. His expression shifted slightly, something unreadable passing behind his eyes.
That's not the title I see. Not the book I pulled. But the Library is showing him something different again. Showing him what he needs, not what I chose.
"Something the Library has been waiting to give you," Levi said carefully.
"Something that chose you the moment you entered this building. I don't know what it'll show you. I don't know what it'll teach you. But I know you need to see it."
Reven's hands shook as he stared at the title.
Twin Blasphemies
The book pulsed once in his hands. Like a heartbeat.
Levi watched his face.
"Open it. But read slowly. The Library will enforce that anyway, but I'm telling you now. This isn't a book you rush through."
Reven opened the cover with trembling hands.
He didn't read words. He absorbed impressions. Images. Feelings bypassing language entirely.
Two vast presences, indistinct and incomprehensible, moving through space that wasn't space. Huge. Infinite. Not in size but in concept. Their forms shifted, refused clarity, like trying to focus on peripheral vision.
Worlds dissolving into organic ruin. Transformed. Reshaped into flesh and plague and endless, mindless growth. Cities becoming tumors. Oceans turning to blood. Stars going dim as fungal masses spread across their surfaces.
No malice. Just process. Nature expressing itself in ways that annihilated meaning. Like watching mold grow on bread, but the bread was the law itself.
Reven gasped and closed the book. His hands shook so badly he almost dropped it.
"What is this? What did I just see?"
He's not seeing Clarendon's story. He's seeing something else. The Library is translating the text into something personal. Something resonating with what he is.
"A mirror"
He gestured at the book.
"I chose this for you. I know it's important. And I know you need to read it. All of it. Slowly. Carefully. Let it reshape how you think about what you are."
Reven looked down at the book.
The title was already fading. Letters sinking back into yellow cloth, disappearing until only blank fabric remained.
But he could still feel them. Still sense the words branded into reality underneath.
Twin Blasphemies.
The shelves leaned closer, listening. Waiting.
The eye above opened wider, pupil dilating until the void inside was all Reven could see.
Something vast and patient recognized what Reven held.
"Take it. It's yours now as long as you do not take it out of the library. Read when you're ready. But read slowly. Let the Library control the pace. Don't try rushing. Don't try to understand everything at once."
Reven clutched the book to his chest.
It felt warm. Alive. Sick. Feverish.
Like holding his own heart outside his body.
"I don't understand."
"You will. That's what the book is for."
Levi turned, started walking back toward the platform. His footsteps echoed.
Whatever he's seeing, whatever the Library is showing him, it's beyond what I chose. The book I pulled was about medical horror, about a plague doctor's descent. But the Library is giving him something else. Something about twin entities. Twin gods. Twin blasphemies.
The Library knows something I don't. Using my selection as a vessel for something far more specific.
Reven followed, yellow book clutched in shaking hands. The mushrooms on his face pulsed in rhythm with the book's warmth.
Neither noticed the tiny flowers blooming along the page edges inside the closed cover.
Yellow flowers. Delicate. Beautiful. Petals opening and closing like tiny mouths.
Laughing silently.