The road curved like a serpent's spine, winding through valleys where light did not dare linger. Mist coiled between pine-thick hills, veiling the path like forgotten breath. Kael walked in silence, his boots muffled on damp stone, the First Scholar's Journal clutched tight beneath his cloak.
Lia followed close behind, still pale, her steps uncertain. The glyph that had spoken through her had left more than exhaustion—it had left her empty in places she couldn't describe.
Seren led the way.
She didn't speak unless necessary, and even when she did, her voice sounded like it echoed from someplace far away. Ever since the encounter with Cressa and the glyph of unmaking, something had changed in her, too. She no longer felt like a royal exile or a myth-tier warrior.
She felt like a witness to a coming collapse.
---
The Monastery with No Name
They arrived at dusk.
The monastery sat carved into the side of a cliff, its architecture ancient but undecayed, impossibly well-preserved despite the weather and time. Its stone was smooth, untouched by wind or lichen. There were no doors. No windows.
Only an arch.
And beyond the arch, pure darkness.
Kael stepped forward. "This is it?"
Seren nodded. "The Nameless Monastery. It's not a place you break into. It's a place that either accepts you… or erases you."
Lia swallowed. "What decides?"
Kael answered. "Sacrifice."
---
Threshold Test
He stepped forward first.
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, pain lanced through his skull—not sharp, not electric. Deeper. Like something prying.
A voice curled in his mind:
> "What truth do you renounce?"
Kael steadied himself.
"I renounce the belief that power is ordained. That Talent is divine. That blood decides fate."
The silence stretched.
Then, stone by stone, a stairway appeared beyond the darkness—lit not by flame, but memory. The monastery had accepted him.
Seren followed.
Her face barely changed as the question clawed into her mind.
> "What truth do you renounce?"
"I renounce loyalty to the throne," she whispered. "And to my sister's madness."
The staircase widened.
Lia hesitated.
Kael turned. "You don't have to—"
But she stepped forward.
> "What truth do you renounce?"
"I renounce fear," she said. "Even if I still feel it."
The monastery opened.
Together, they descended into silence.
---
The Library Without Scribes
The library was impossible.
It did not contain scrolls, or tomes, or any written record. Instead, glyphs floated in the air, layered like ghost-script across shifting panels of light. Concepts unfolded in real time, as though memory itself had been stored in the walls.
Kael reached toward a lattice of glyphs—and it responded, unfolding the image of a ruined city, a glyph carved into its heart.
The missing piece.
The Final Null.
But something was wrong.
Lia gasped. "It's… cracked."
Seren stepped forward. "Not cracked. Incomplete."
Kael frowned. The glyph was perfect in form—but lacked context. Like a cipher without a key. He tried to trace it into the Journal, but the moment his quill touched the page, the glyph burned backward, repelling the ink.
"I need more," Kael muttered. "A convergence glyph. One that bridges divine origin and mortal recursion."
"There's only one place you'll find that," Seren said darkly.
Kael looked up.
"Where?"
She met his eyes. "The Source of the Blessings. The altar of the first Talent. The Temple of Iriel."
Kael blinked.
"That place doesn't exist."
Seren sheathed her sword.
"It does now."