Chapter Two: Spell of Flesh and Glass
The world didn't end that night.
It waited.
Waited for a boy with a rank no god had sanctioned, no algorithm had accounted for, and no school of magic dared acknowledge.
They moved him to the Null Ward, far beneath the Grand Arcanum, where failed experiments, cursed beings, and "living magical mistakes" were locked away. The walls bled softly. The torches wept ichor instead of wax. And no sound traveled unless the Tower allowed it.
Most inmates in the Null Ward were things.
Not people. Things.
Shadows that screamed when you blinked. A man with skin made of runes, each one weeping ink. A floating child, mouth stitched shut, whose dreams leaked into the minds of other prisoners and left them brain-dead.
They put Eyris in the deepest cell.
He sat there, untouched.
Because the cell warding shattered within seconds of his arrival.
[Warding Seal: Level 7] – Status: INVALID]Reason: Rank ??? supersedes constraint protocols.
The wall sigils tried to repair themselves.
They failed.
Every attempt to imprison him became a recursive error. The system simply couldn't see him. It had been written for the ten known ranks. It had no logic for what he was.
So it called him a paradox.
An error in reality.
It was there, in the dark, that the voice returned.
Not an external sound. Something internal. Too intimate to be heard with ears. Felt instead—like a word etched inside your teeth, inside the marrow of your spine.
[Codex Detection: Unauthorized Spellform Discovered.]Would you like to access your personal Grimoire?
"Yes," Eyris whispered.
There was a pulse. His vision shattered and reformed.
Suddenly, he wasn't in the Null Ward anymore.
He was inside a space made of glass and flesh—a shifting library that pulsed like a living lung. Bookshelves crawled across walls of transparent skin, veins pumping through the bindings.
He stood at the center. Naked. Alone.
Except for a book floating before him.
Black leather. Unmarked cover.
It didn't glow. It hummed.Low and deep—like thunder behind a closed door.
He reached out.
The moment he touched it, the cover pulsed—and flipped open.
Blank pages. Hundreds.
And then they started to fill themselves.
Not with spells.
With reflections.
[GRIMOIRE ENTRY 001: THE HOST]
Name: Eyris ValeRank: ???Classification: Exemption EntitySpellform: Paracausal SymbiosisEffect: Host does not cast spells. Host is a spell made manifest.Side Effects: Memory instability, ego erosion, physical evolution outside biological norms.
WARNING: Host's physical structure no longer obeys baseline laws of magic or matter. Side effects may include: involuntary transmutation, hallucination of non-linear time, speaking in languages never written, bleeding information.
Eyris's fingers trembled.
But it wasn't fear.
It was hunger.
He flipped the page.
[GRIMOIRE ENTRY 002: SPELLFORM – "GLASSBODY"]
Your skin now reflects intent instead of force.Weapons will curve to miss. Spells will distort before impact. Gaze-based magic may backfire.
Warning: Overuse may result in mirror feedback loops. You may begin to reflect not just attacks—but emotions, memories, or fates not your own.
"Is that…" he whispered.
Spell? No. This is you.
The grimoire laughed.
The next page was already filling.
But it wasn't a spell.
It was a memory he hadn't lived yet.
A vision of a room, torchlit. A table of obsidian. Wizards kneeling. Their faces bloodied. Their mouths stitched shut. Above them, Eyris stood—his eyes pulsing like runes, arms covered in animated script.
A title floated above the scene.
[Future Projection: The Kneeling Archmages]
He slammed the book shut.
The room vanished.
He was back in the Null Ward.
And the door to his cell was open.
Standing there, wide-eyed, was a girl no older than sixteen. She wore Arcanum robes—sleeves frayed, rank insignia scratched out.
She stared at him like she'd seen a ghost.
"You're real," she whispered. "They said you couldn't be. That you broke the crystal. That you survived soulfire."
"I did," he said, stepping toward her.
The girl didn't flinch. Instead, she grinned.
"I want in."
He blinked. "What?"
"I want to follow you. You're going to destroy the Arcanum, aren't you?"
"...Maybe."
"Then I want front-row seats."
She held out a hand.
"Calla Marrow. Former Rank Five. Expelled for attempting to write a forbidden eleventh school of magic."
Eyris stared.
Then shook her hand.
[Codex Update: Companion Detected]New Entry Unlocked – Dual Spellform Synchronization.Warning: Emotions may amplify spell overlap. Compatibility unknown.