The page flipped half-open, before Saryn sensed the mirror rippling on his right through the ambient echoes.
'I've gotten awfully good at knowing when this guy decides to show himself.'
Saryn saw his reflection, more relaxed and theatrical than his own tense self, and rather than hurling a lethal weapon at the mirror yet again, Saryn felt inclined to welcome Marduk's incessant blabbering.
"Eyeing up an armament, are we?" Marduk spoke, his every word causing slight vibrations in the air around the mirror, as if carrying a burden of impatience.
"Yes… yes I am, and have you arrived to actually provide decent advice, or just to cure your own boredom?" Saryn replied as a smirk tugged at his lips.
"Well, first of all, you are going to have to pay me for that eventually." Marduk spoke as he pointed toward the pitiful remains of an ornate mirror across the room.
"Pay you with what? Are you going to inject me with more of that serum and make me pay with more of my humanity…?" Saryn seemed to have jokingly rebutted, but rather his tone carried a tinge of anger, dread and regret.
Marduk stared wide-eyed, surprised at Saryn's words while contemplating his reply.
…
"Humanity is only a shape you wear, Saryn. Shapes can be shed. Don't fear the one you're becoming." Marduk's expression softened - only for a moment - as he let a thread of care, so thin yet so unbreakable, slip out of his nonchalant front.
…
His expression returned to the same cold and hard gaze he always wore a moment later.
"If humanity is all you think you are, then you've already lost more than I ever took from you."
Then Marduk vanished, and Saryn was in too conflicted a state to sense his disappearance as clearly as his arrival.
He held back whatever emotions he desperately sought to unleash right there and then, turning back toward the book lying peacefully in his hands.
What… or rather, who was there to release his thoughts and feelings upon?
Nobody but himself.
And so, he bottled them all up as he had been the entire time, simply waiting for the moment something - anything - would finally light the fuse.
…
Saryn's expression steeled, almost mimicking Marduk, as he resumed his little study session.
The page flipped over fully, revealing…
'I take back what I said, for I have stumbled across yet another gruelling bundle of horseshit.'
The pages read:
The Severance will peel you from yourself like bark from a tree. Do not cling. Trees that cling do not grow, and roots that fear the wind… never taste the sky.
When the circle empties your body of thought, you will find yourself in the hollow place. Do not mistake the silence for safety. Silence is simply the sound of truth without excuses.
In the hollow place, you will meet the shape of yourself that never learned to lie. They will not greet you, for honesty has no need for courtesy.
Ask them nothing. They already know the answers you fear to speak. They are the sum of every choice you did not make.
The blade you raise is not for them. It is for the part of you that refuses to change. Strike not to kill, but to carve.
If your shadow moves before you do, listen to it. Shadows speak truths the mouth fears, and they remember the things you pretend to forget.
The other you may stand still. This is not hesitation. It is invitation. They are waiting to see which of you steps forward first.
"If they smile, be wary. If they frown, be wary. If they do nothing at all, be most wary. Stillness is the language of inevitability."
The duel is not of strength but of direction. You are not fighting to win - you are fighting to decide which version of you deserves to continue.
Should you fall, rise. Should you rise, rise again. The trial does not end when one of you breaks. It ends when one of you understands.
When the hollow place begins to crumble, do not run. The world collapses only when you have chosen your truth.
Return only when your footsteps sound like one. Two sets of steps mean the trial is unfinished, and unfinished trials follow you home.
Carry the truth you carved. The armament will shape itself around it, for weapons forged from lies shatter, and weapons forged from truth endure.
…
Saryn's lips curled into a deep frown as his brain worked overtime attempting to decipher the "horseshit" in front of him.
'Simply overcomplicating a regular ritual.' Saryn dismissed the riddles as he flipped over to another page.
'What the fuck…'
Scribbles littered the two pages in front of him, and what seemed like demonic runes were drawn across them, surrounded by various unsettling phrases written in a handwriting worse than Marduk's.
The two pages were drowned in ink - not written on, but rather attacked.
A crude sketch dominated the center of the first page, depicting a human figure split down the middle, half shaded in black, the other half left unshaded. A brain was drawn onto its head in the colour of blood, or maybe even actual blood, and over the brain it read:
"THE OTHER ONE KNOWS"
Similar phrases filled both pages. Some were indiscernible in their fonts, while others read clearly despite the lack of writing etiquette.
"NOT ENOUGH"
"WHY DID YOU BRING IT HERE"
"IT REMEMBERS"
"DON'T TRUST IT"
"THE HOLLOW IS LISTENING"
And plenty of others - none of which made any sense.
The further Saryn delved into these two pages of what seemed like a far-fetched attempt to scare any onlookers, the further his face wrinkled.
'No way the author didn't take something before writing this, this doesn't even relate to the armament ritual anymore!'
Another similar humanoid figure adorned the second page's corner, this one had no brain, but it did have wings and horns, which curled upward like a mountain goat's.
Underneath the figure was the sole piece of legible writing that wasn't in full capitals.
"It looks like you, but is it you?" The ink around this particular text seemed darker and colder, as if it hadn't dried.
Saryn shuddered - just once - before snapping the book shut and setting it on the table.
He took a deep breath, refocusing.
'Maybe this guy could've learnt a thing or two from that one book Richard had so kindly recommended… what was it called?' Saryn thought as he picked up Richard's note containing the list of "helpful" books.
'Oh yeah, that one… "So You Accidentally Summoned a Demon: A Beginner's Guide to Apologizing", it's honestly surprising how this book contains less demonic scripture than the so-called "basic" guide to armaments…'