The Library of Silences groaned as the "Ghost-Layer" disguises dissolved into flickering blue pixels. The alarm was not a siren; it was a low, resonant hum that vibrated in their bones, signaling a "Level Omega" breach to the High Council above.
"My eyes were stitched so I would not be distracted by the beauty of the lie," the Blind Archivist said, his voice a dry rasp that filled the cavernous hall. "Kenji Tanaka. You carry the Hunger, the Stasis, and the Void. You are a walking collection of missing pieces. But you do not know the 'Why' of your own existence."
The Archivist raised the Scrap of Blinding Truth. The crystal didn't emit light; it emitted clarity.
[WARNING: TRUTH-FIELD ACTIVE]
[SYSTEM STATUS: FORCED REVELATION]
[SKILL LOCKED: VOID SHROUD (Lies cannot hide in the Truth)]
"Kenji, my powers!" Elara gasped, her hands trembling. Her frost-mana was visible, not as ice, but as raw equations of thermal energy. "I can't manifest the ice... I can only see the molecules!"
"The Star of Truth strips away the 'Art' of magic," Kenji said, his teeth gritted as the Hunger in his chest hissed. The Star was trying to peel back his skin to show the blackened core beneath. "It forces everything back to its base code."
"Correct," the Archivist said. He stepped forward, his feet making no sound on the parchment-covered floor. "And the Truth of your team, Scrapsmith, is that they are your anchors. Without them, you would have become a monster months ago. So, let us see what happens when the anchors are stripped away."
The Archivist waved the crystal. A wave of white light washed over the team.
[ILLUSION SHATTERED: THE WEIGHT OF THE PAST]
Suddenly, Bjorn wasn't a warrior; he was a terrified boy in the ruins of his village. Zola wasn't a geomancer; she was a miner trapped in a collapsing tunnel. Mateo and Priya were forced to relive their darkest failures in high-definition clarity. They collapsed to their knees, paralyzed by the "Truth" of their own inadequacies.
"Don't look at it!" Kenji roared, his Master-level Resonance flaring.
He lunged at the Archivist, his hand forming a [Recursive Blade]. But the moment the blade entered the Truth-Field, it reverted into a pile of rusted, useless nails.
"A Scrapsmith is a maker of 'Maybe'," the Archivist whispered, appearing beside Kenji with impossible speed. He touched Kenji's chest. "But the Truth is 'Is'. You are not a hero, Kenji. You are a bug in the software. And bugs are meant to be patched."
Kenji was thrown back into a bookshelf, centuries of data-slabs crashing down on him.
[CORE DAMAGE: 15%]
[RANK STATUS: FLUCTUATING]
He's right, Kenji thought, blood trickling down his lip. Everything I am is built on the 'Uncertainty' of scrap. If he defines me, I disappear.
The Hunger in his chest began to grow. It wanted to eat the Archivist. It wanted to eat the Truth itself.
"Do it," the Archivist tempted him. "Eat the Truth. Become the Great Silence. It is your destiny."
"No," Kenji rasped. He looked at Elara, who was struggling to stand, her eyes filled with the 'Truth' of her family's betrayal.
Kenji realized that the Star of Truth wasn't just a weapon; it was a Lens.
He reached into his core and did something he had never tried. He didn't use the Void to erase or the Hunger to consume. He used the Scrap of Infinite Recursion to loop the "Truth" back on itself.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: RECURSIVE PARADOX]
"You say the Truth is 'Is'?" Kenji stood up, his violet eyes clashing with the white light of the Star. "Then here is a Truth for you: Every truth is a lie to someone else. And every scrap was once a masterpiece."
Kenji grabbed a handful of the rusted nails that had fallen from his failed blade. He didn't forge them. He simply "Echoed" their history.
In the Truth-Field, the nails didn't stay nails. They transformed into the Great Swords they were before they became scrap. Then they turned into the Iron Ore they were before they were swords. Then into the Star-Dust they were before they were ore.
The Archivist's white light began to flicker. The "Truth" of the nails was becoming too many things at once.
"Recursion... within a Truth-Field?" The Archivist's stitched eyes began to bleed golden light. "You are creating a... subjective reality?"
"I'm a Scrapsmith," Kenji said, stepping into the Archivist's space. The white light was burning his skin, but he didn't stop. "My truth is that nothing is ever finished."
Kenji punched the Archivist, not with a fist, but with a [Void-Stasis Burst].
The Archivist exploded into a cloud of golden ink and parchment. The Star of Truth fell to the floor, its white light dimming into a steady, soft glow.
[STAR ACQUIRED: THE SCRAP OF BLINDING TRUTH (5/7)]
[NEW PASSIVE: SYSTEM SIGHT (View the base code of any object)]
The "Truth" holding the team subsided. Elara, Bjorn, and the others gasping as they returned to the present.
"Kenji... you did it," Mateo panted, wiping sweat from his face. "But the Monks... they're here."
The doors at the top of the pyramid burst open. Twelve figures in gray robes, their faces hidden by iron masks, descended on threads of silver light. The Silent Monks.
"We can't fight twelve Rank 8s," Kael's voice crackled over the comms. "The ship is under fire from the orbital platforms! I have to pull back!"
"No," Kenji said, picking up the Star of Truth. He looked at the base code of the Library walls. He could see the structural weaknesses, the mana-lines, and the "Delete" commands.
"We're not fighting," Kenji said, a cold smile forming. "We're checking out of the library. All of it."
Kenji slammed the Star of Truth into the central mana-well of the building.
"Recycle the Library!"