— Seven Millennia Seal —
With the immediate crisis suppressed, the battlefield gradually settled into a tense, fragile calm.
Temporary camps were erected at the perimeter. The rear base was quietly relocated to safer ground, while teams moved in to clear the shattered remains of the village and the collapsed terrain.
The mountain was gone.
That fact alone weighed heavily on everyone's mind.
Eren slipped away from the camp without announcement and followed the Blackwater River upstream.
The terrain grew harsher the farther he went. The air carried a damp, mineral tang, and the river no longer flowed naturally—it curved and twisted as if the land itself had been forcibly rearranged. Eventually, the ground opened into a vast, unnatural depression.
Where a towering mountain had once stood, there was now only a colossal stone crater.
Its walls were jagged, scarred by violent force. Layers of rock were exposed like torn flesh, stripped of soil, trees, and life. Loose gravel crunched beneath Eren's boots as he stepped closer to the edge.
Seven thousand years.
For seven millennia, something had been sealed here.
The scale of the pit alone made it difficult to comprehend. This was no prison built for convenience—it was a monument of intent. Whoever had constructed it had not merely sought to restrain a threat. They had meant to bury it beneath the world itself.
Eren stood there for a long moment, letting the silence press in.
Why had the Calamity Demon been imprisoned here instead of destroyed?
Who had possessed the power—and the resolve—to seal such a being?
What was the "Forsaken Land" the Tidelord had mentioned?
And why had Eupheron labeled this place an SSS-Level Top Secret, even among Vigil-Wyrm archives?
The questions overlapped, spiraling without answers.
His gaze drifted across the crater's interior, tracing fractures, collapsed ledges, and scorched stone. Then—something caught his eye.
At the far corner of the pit, partially buried beneath shattered rock, faint lines were etched into the stone.
Eren's breath stalled.
He moved quickly, brushing aside debris with his hands. As more of the surface was exposed, the markings became clearer—dense, interlocking lines carved with terrifying precision. Even damaged, they retained a sense of structure, of order imposed upon chaos.
An array.
His heart gave an involuntary jolt.
The pattern was incomplete, broken where the mountain had collapsed—but what remained was enough to stir an uneasy recognition. The lines curved and intersected in ways that felt... familiar.
Eren crouched lower, studying it from different angles. The longer he looked, the stronger the sensation became.
I've seen this before.
Fragments of memory brushed against his thoughts—old diagrams, half-forgotten lectures, something glimpsed in passing rather than studied directly. Yet every time he tried to grasp it, the image slipped away.
"This formation..." he murmured under his breath.
Before he could finish the thought—
"See something interesting, kid?"
The voice came from behind him.
Eren stiffened, then turned sharply. "Elder," he said, exhaling. "Do you always move without making a sound?"
Eupheron stood a few steps back, hands clasped behind his back, his expression mildly amused.
"I've been standing here for nearly two minutes," the old man replied. "You were just too absorbed to notice."
He stepped closer, eyes narrowing as he examined the exposed markings. "Well? Recognize it?"
Eren straightened slowly. "Only partially."
"This should be the array that sealed that silver-haired bastard," Eupheron continued, tapping his cane lightly against the stone. "Or what's left of it, anyway."
Eren nodded. "The mountain itself was part of the formation. Once the foundation collapsed, the array was doomed to fail."
"Mm." Eupheron's gaze lingered on the fractured lines. "So. Can you tell how it worked?"
Eren fell silent.
He wanted to say yes.
He wanted to claim even a fragment of understanding.
But honesty prevailed.
"I know it's a sealing array," he said at last. "And I can tell it wasn't designed for suppression alone—it was meant to isolate, to cut something off from the world entirely. But the deeper principles..." He shook his head. "They're beyond me."
Eupheron snorted softly. "If I can't fully decipher it, you thinking you can would be arrogance."
Eren didn't respond immediately. His eyes remained on the stone.
Still... the familiarity refused to fade.
This array had sealed a Calamity Demon for seven thousand years. If its structure were fully understood—if even part of its logic could be reconstructed—then there might be very little in this world that couldn't be restrained.
That thought unsettled him more than it inspired him.
"Well," Eupheron said after a moment, straightening. "Looks like a dead end. Got an old man's hopes up for nothing."
With that, he stepped back, tapped the ground once with his cane, and leapt lightly into the air. A soft rush of displaced wind followed as his figure vanished into the distance.
Eren remained where he was.
The crater was silent again.
He looked down at the broken array one last time, committing every surviving line to memory.
Incomplete.
But not meaningless.
And whatever had once sealed the Calamity Demon here...It had not been forgotten by the world.
---
— The Wheels of Fate Begin to Turn —
Beneath the low-hanging night sky, the temporary camp lay wrapped in a quiet that felt almost artificial. Inside one of the tents, a single lamp burned steadily, its pale glow casting soft shadows against the canvas walls.
Eren sat cross-legged on the ground, back straight, eyes half-lowered.
His breathing was slow and measured, yet his mind refused to rest.
Fragments of the recent battle surfaced again and again—impact, rupture, collapse. The moment his bones had screamed under divine pressure. The instant when his consciousness had nearly slipped beyond reach. Every fall, every forced awakening, felt less like memory and more like something etched directly into his blood and marrow.
This mission had nearly killed him.
But it had also changed him beyond recognition.
The greatest gain was not victory, nor survival—it was the complete restructuring of his body. No longer merely a vessel that circulated power, his entire physical form had become a massive, unified energy core.
An entirely different tier.
Eren let his awareness sink inward, descending into the depths of his consciousness where the Lumin & Umbra Sigil lay suspended like a distant star.
Why had it manifested at that precise moment?
Why had it been able to suppress the Tidelord—something sealed for seven thousand years?
Was it truly an autonomous safeguard, activating only when he stood at the edge of death?
A dangerous thought surfaced.
If that were the case... did it mean he had nothing left to fear?
The idea barely formed before he extinguished it himself.
No.
That was self-deception.
He had faced mortal danger repeatedly throughout the mission, yet the Sigil had remained dormant. It had reacted only once—only in the presence of the Tidelord.
Which meant there was a condition.
A trigger.
Was it the entity's nature as a Calamity Demon?
Or was it something more specific—something tied to the annihilating power carried within that crimson-black miasma?
His jaw tightened slightly.
"—Celestial Tome... Terrestrial Tome..."
The Tidelord's final, fractured scream echoed faintly in his memory.
Eren's thoughts slowed.
Those names were not spoken lightly. They carried the weight of myth, of origins lost to time. If the Tidelord had recognized them, then the Lumin & Umbra Sigil was unlikely to be a coincidence.
Could it truly be an artifact born from the convergence of the Celestial Tome and the Terrestrial Tome?
The implication made his pulse quicken—not with excitement, but with a restrained, wary anticipation.
If he could unravel that mystery...Then what he was grasping at was not merely power.
It was authority over power itself.
As that realization settled, something shifted within the void of his consciousness.
The previously blurred pattern sharpened—only slightly, but enough to be noticeable. Luminous lines flickered, rearranging themselves with quiet precision. Above them, the phantom outline of a massive, ancient book slowly emerged, as if sketched by light itself.
Two incomplete words glimmered faintly upon its cover:
THE META
C...
Between its pages, streams of runes flowed in continuous motion. They were not symbols from any known language—more like pictographs etched by an intelligence older than thought. Their glow was cold, distant, indifferent.
Eren cautiously extended his psychic awareness toward the book's shadow.
The response was immediate.
Pain tore through his consciousness like a blade dragged across raw nerves. His vision blurred, his breath hitched, and he forcefully withdrew, steadying himself before the backlash could deepen.
So that's how it is.
These runes were not meant to be touched.
Not yet.
They were inaccessible—not sealed, but distant. Waiting.
And yet, even without understanding them, Eren could feel it clearly: whatever lay within those pages far exceeded anything he could currently comprehend.
Only when he became strong enough—strong enough to stand without being erased—would their truth be revealed.
He opened his eyes and released a long, controlled breath.
The mysteries were vast.
The power, distant.
He was still weak.
But the desire to grow stronger no longer flickered uncertainly—it burned, steady and unyielding, like a wildfire restrained only by patience.
---
Morning came quietly.
Eren boarded the helicopter alongside Ethan and Aveline, the rotors already spinning as they prepared to depart for the Novalis District.
Before they left, Nadia pulled him aside, her expression firm and professional.
"I'll report directly to Vigil-Wyrm Order Headquarters," she said. "Your clearance will be confirmed as soon as possible. If anything urgent happens in Novalis District—don't hesitate. Go straight to the Kairos Estate."
Eren nodded once. No unnecessary words.
The helicopter lifted off, its blades cutting through the morning air as the ground fell away beneath them. Sunlight streamed through the cabin window, spilling across his face and briefly softening his features.
He closed his eyes.
The label of death-row inmate still clung to him like a stubborn shadow—cold, heavy, impossible to shake.
But beneath that surface, deeper than titles and accusations, he could sense it now with absolute clarity—
The wheels of fate were no longer waiting.
They had already begun to turn.