Tren’s skull rung like a struck gong.

The world was dark around him and he could taste both blood and clammy earth on his lips. Cold stone pressed against his eyes and skull. Even his hearing was muted. His senses spun and danced around him like orbiting stars as his brain struggled to process what was happening. It felt like he’d been buried deep underground, but he could feel gravity pulling on his feet.

What happened? What magic was that? Where am I?

Tren twisted his shoulders. His lower body could move just fine. It seemed that only his head had somehow been restrained. He twisted his body with a snarl as he tried to free himself. Realization cut through him as he felt his shoulder hit something hard.

I’m not buried at all. I’m in the ceiling.

The Inquisitor slammed his shoulders upward with a snarl. There was a muted crunch, and then he suddenly found himself falling through the air, towering bookshelves rushing by him as he plummeted back to the ground.

He landed just a few inches away from where he’d stood moments before with a loud crunch. Fury made Tren’s jaw clench like it had been locked shut as his gaze landed back on the little worm of standing before him. The man hadn’t even tried to make a run for it.

How can a Rank 5 have such powerful magic? It’s impossible. He shouldn’t have been able to break through my domain. This is no random mage.

Tren’s eyes narrowed. The man had mentioned Spider, but this was no mere lackey. The demon must have given him access to some powerful abilities specifically to let him fight against Inquisitors.

And he knows Formations as well. Fuyin came prepared. This is no spur of the moment betrayal. She’ll pay for this. If she thinks a Rank 5, no matter how many toys they’ve been given, is enough to stop me… she’s dead wrong.

“You are arrogant to keep standing here,” Tren snarled. He wiped the blood running from his nose with the back of his hand and spat on the ground. “You caught me off guard once, and it was barely enough to scratch me. You should have run while you had the chance.”

“Why would I run from someone like you?” The man’s head tilted to the side as if utterly confused. There was a note of displeasure in his voice, as if he was disgusted that Tren would ever dare suggest such a thing. “You’re nothing. And for all your threats, you still haven’t actually managed to scratch me.”

Tren snapped his fingers. Fire erupted along his body in a roar. The man’s Formation had already faded — and given how long it had taken him to create it, he would need at least another minute if he wanted to replicate the feat.

“You speak big words for a Rank 5,” Tren growled. Fire twisted up all around him in a growing forest of molten red. The temperature in the air around him rose drastically as an ocean of fire formed around Tren, filling the hall entirely.

He didn’t bother holding his magic back any longer. The archives would be able to handle his magic for a short while. The imbuements on the books within the surrounding halls were far too powerful to be broken quickly.

“And you speak small ones for a Rank 6,” the man replied with a laugh. Tendrils of paper twisted out of the massive grimoire on his back and grabbed more books from the shelves around him. The tendrils hoisted the books into the air, holding them around him in preparation to use them as shields. “I’ve never been particularly impressed by the Inquisitors. You’re certainly not changing my opinion. There’s so little creativity in your magic. Haven’t you ever had to fight someone stronger than you?”

“We’ll see how long you keep singing the same tune,” Tren yelled over the roaring flames.

Tren thrust his hands forward. The fire surrounding him exploded forward in an enormous wave that made the previous one look like little more than a ripple in a lake. And, as the magic bore down on the arrogant Rank 5, he simply smiled.

Then he begun to play once more.

***

Fuyin flipped through pages with such speed that the books piled before her likely would have disintegrated had they been made of anything but the most powerfully reinforced paper that the Inquisition had.

Magic roared in the hallways of the archives behind her and the smell of smoke had reached even here. Tren was going all out, and the only person standing in his way was a single Rank 5 schoolteacher.

Fuyin gritted her teeth and flung another book to the side as she shifted to the next one. The urge to glance over her shoulder was overwhelming, but she couldn’t afford to waste even an instant. Time was not on her side. There was only so long that Vermil was going to be able to hold Tren off.

Where is Spider? Shouldn’t he have shown up by now? Or does he not feel that fighting Tren is worth his time?

Fuyin clenched her jaw and threw another book to the side as she reached for another one. She’d had little trouble finding the right section of the archives — this wasn’t the first time she’d been in them — but there were still too many damn books to go through.

“Damn it,” Fuyin hissed. She grabbed another book and rifled through its pages, her eyes darting across the information held within. Many of them held only a few months of information. The Inquisition kept meticulous records of every action they had done. Even though she was only looking at the actions of the council, there was still an enormous amount of information to sift through.

She threw the book to the side once more. An enormous explosion tore through the air behind her and she tensed, preparing to call on her runes — but the sounds of fighting continued. Tren hadn’t managed to take Vermil down yet.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

What manner of Rank 5 can hold up against him? He’s hiding more power than I thought.

Fuyin grabbed another book. Her heart was pounding like a drum even though she wasn’t in the fight. If Spider didn’t show up… if Vermil lost… Tren would come after her next. Fuyin knew her powers well.

Well enough to know that she couldn’t beat Tren in an all-out fight. Her ice magic would just get melted away. The only chance they had of winning was if she went to back Vermil up. But every second that slipped by was a second that more Inquisitors had to discover the breach. They had to get out of the archives before anyone else showed up.

But merely escaping wasn’t enough. They had to kill Tren. None of this would matter if he lived to tell the Inquisition what had happened here. She had to make sure her former superior didn’t live to see the next dawn.

And I may be doing it for no reason at all. I can’t find a single thing out of place in the records. Was I wrong? Is the Inquisition on the proper path? Am I the one who was misled? Spider could have played me. This could all be part of his plan. Maybe I’ve just played into it like a good little puppet, throwing away everything I’ve fought for to help a demon.

Fuyin’s chest hurt. She threw another book to the side and grabbed the next one. Frustration and anger swirled within her. They were all the same. There were still dozens to go through and no way to tell them apart. Each book was identical. The same length. The same binding. The only difference was the words on their pages. Even an hour might not have been enough to tell if one of them had been—

Wait.

“Modified,” Fuyin whispered. Her eyes went wide.

She grabbed a second book. They were the same weight. Every single book was identical, after all. She threw it away and snatched the next. If someone had torn the pages from a book, even if the modification had just been a single page, then there would have been a miniscule difference in them.

Something like that might not have been detectable through normal senses, but her domain was sensitive. Modifying the pages of the books would have also made the imbuements on them slightly weaker as well.

Fuyin cast her domain out, focusing intently on the pile she’d gathered before her.

I have to be right. This is my only option. There has to be some tiny difference. Something that makes one book stand out from the others. If there isn’t, then I have no choice but to admit that I was wrong and turn myself in to be—

Wait.

The nape of Fuyin’s neck prickled.

One of the books in the pile, buried below several others that looked just like it, felt ever so slightly weaker. She dove for it, ripping the book free and practically tearing it open as her eyes danced over the pages.

And then she froze.

For an instant, Fuyin could do nothing but stare at the pages before her.

There was a page missing.

A grim calm fell over her. Every book that entered the archives was checked by the entire council, and any damage to the books would have been noted the instant the imbuement was destroyed.

Her senses hadn’t been wrong. The council had known that the records had been damaged, and they’d done absolutely nothing about it. There was a rot within the very heart of the Inquisition, and the book in her hands proved it.

Fuyin jerked herself back into motion. She rose to her feet and shoved the book into her bag as she spun back toward the sounds of the raging fight.

Does Tren know? If he doesn’t, he might turn against the council as well. This goes against the very core of what our duties are.

Fuyin set off at a sprint.

She didn’t know how much longer Vermil would be able to survive.

***

Noah’s breath came in ragged gasps. His clothes were little more than smoldering scraps searing his charred skin. Somehow, for the second time in a row, he’d managed to get himself chargrilled.

Every note of his violin sent pain arcing through his fingers. It was a small miracle that he was still standing, much less able to play. It had taken every single scrap of magic he had to keep his pattern up. But his time was running out.

While he still had Astral Ruin and Sunder to call on, his other runes were just about spent. He hadn’t managed to achieve the Awakened state, and Tren had given him no more opportunities to break through his domain.

Grim laid at the side of the room, having been thrown from Noah’s shoulder during the fight. The grimoire had been surprisingly quiet throughout the entire thing, but he didn’t have time to worry about it right now.

I need to finish this Formation. He probably thinks it’s the Combustion one again, so he’ll have a nasty surprise coming for him when he finds out it’s actually Sunder — but I still need to get close enough for this to work.

“You’re not so cocky now, are you?” Tren’s lips pulled into a smirk.

“And yet you can’t stop me from playing,” Noah countered as his bow continued to dance across the strings of his violin. The Formation wasn’t far from done now. He just had to buy a little while longer. “Some Rank 6 you are.”

Grim? Buy me a few moments, would you? I need an opportunity to get close to him!

“I’m just taking my time with this,” Tren replied. “No need for me to—”

He froze.

Noah did too. He nearly missed a note of his song as a massive shadow passed overhead.

There was something behind him.

Despite himself, Noah turned.

“What the fuck?” he whispered.

Grim laid wide open on the ground, flipped to a blank page. And from within him emerged what must have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, of paper streamers. They streaked through the air like the tentacles of some eldritch monster freeing itself from an ancient prison to arc throughout the archives in every single direction.

But Noah’s attention was more affixed on the immense aura pouring out from within the book. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said that his grimoire had a domain. The stench of death and rot rolled out from within its pages in thick waves of magical power.

“What the fuck is that?” Tren asked, his confidence faltering for a moment. “What demonic power is this?”

Fuyin sprinted into sight from the halls to their side, a book clutched tightly to her chest.

“Tren!” Fuyin yelled. “I—”

She skidded to a stop and went silent, her lips pulling apart in awe as she stared into the coiling sky of streamers looming above them all.

Then the swaying strands of paper ripped back through the air and toward Grim’s pages. The very sky itself seemed to unravel, but the streamers didn’t return alone. At the end of every single one was a book.

The world transformed into a roar of rustling pages. Noah’s vision was momentarily blocked out entirely as books screamed past him. What must have been thousands of them vanished into his grimoire.

And then the archives were silent once more.

Noah, Tren, and Fuyin stood in mutual disbelief, all staring in sheer dumb shock. None of them could muster up a single word. There wasn’t a single book left on the shelves around them. Even the one in Fuyin’s hands hadn’t been spared. She clutched onto nothing but empty air.

The ancient store of knowledge, the culmination of countless years of the Inquisitor’s work and their greatest weapon against demons, was no more.

Grim had eaten the entirety of the archives.