The Librarian was gone.
Not defeated—withdrawn.
Cain hadn't struck. Not yet. The clash was postponed, the air still humming with redacted heat.
"You're not ready for them," Nyx warned."But you might be ready for… where they came from."
Cain stood beneath the half-torn sky. The tear hadn't closed.
It pulsed like an unfinished thought.
And the Codex in his chest buzzed not with warning…but invitation.
[System Notification – Hidden Quest Unlocked]
➤ Archive Zero: Journey to the First Librarium
Status: Off-MapEntry Cost: 1 Echo ThreadWarning: Location exists partially outside linear time
Cain didn't hesitate.
"Then let's tear into the past."
Transition Sequence – Temporal Memory Tunneling
He activated the Codex. It didn't open with pages this time.
It split space.
Like scissors slicing an old film reel, it cut a doorway out of nothing—a frame of static light, smelling of dust and rotting parchment.
Cain stepped through.
Welcome to the Librarium.
He stood inside an impossible place.
A library stitched from the carcasses of extinct worlds.
Shelves made from bonewood and soulsteel
Candles that burned backward, un-melting as they lit
Books chained shut, whispering to themselves in forgotten tongues
And watching it all…
Was a figure seated on a throne of silence.
The Last Archivist
They wore no face.Their skin was page-paper.Their eyes were redacted text.
"So. The Codex has opened again.""And you… are its host."
Cain held steady.
"I want answers. Who built it?""Why does it rewrite me every time I channel?"
The Archivist didn't speak.
They projected.
Cain's mind was flung into a vision of the First Era.
[Lore Flashback – The Origin of the Codex]
The Codex wasn't built. It was grown—from the corpse of the first fused god-beast
That creature was killed in a war between Memorycrafters and Beastcallers, long before language
Its soul couldn't pass on—it fractured, forming the Codex, a sentient library of evolution, fusion, and ruin
Over time, civilizations found pieces of it and tried to bind it into books, into systems, into Librariums
Every time they did, the Codex changed them
Some became godsMost became madOthers were redacted
Cain gasped as he was flung back.
The Archivist was dying—their memory fading, overwritten by time.
"You are not meant to tame it.""You are meant to… become the next page."
But Cain refused.
He activated Echo Threading mid-memory, channeling the voice of the Watchbeast to stabilize his mind.
His eyes bled ink, but his mind held.
"No.""I write my own page."
The Archivist smiled.
"Then take this."
A book fell from the sky—living, pulsing.
Bound in beast leather. Pages unwritten. Ink swirling within.
[You have acquired: Codex Fragment – The Blank Book]➤ Passive: Write your own fusion technique➤ Active: Record a memory to protect it from corruption➤ ????: Hidden function sealed
Final Scene
Cain exits the Librarium with the Blank Book in hand.
The sky above the Beastlands has changed slightly.
The stars realign themselves.
And deep in the bones of the world, something stirs—a god-fragment that noticed Cain's visit