The forest was quiet. Too quiet.
Birdsong had fled long before, replaced by the low rustle of wind through blackened branches. The trees here stood like hollowed bones, their bark charred as if fire had swept through not days ago, but centuries.
Riku walked in silence, his boots crunching on ash, Lyria a few paces behind.
He glanced back. She moved lightly, her dagger still in hand, crimson eyes scanning the treeline. She hadn't spoken since they left the battlefield. Her wariness clung to her like a second skin.
Riku shoved his hands into his pockets. "…So. Mind telling me what exactly I just stumbled into? Who those knights were, why they were trying to kill you, and why I apparently walked into a medieval apocalypse?"
Lyria didn't answer immediately. Her eyes flicked toward him, then away. "…You really don't know."
He smirked faintly. "What gave it away? The part where I nearly got barbecued, or the part where I put a demon beast to sleep like a house cat?"
Her lips twitched, though it wasn't quite a smile. "You're not from here."
"Bingo." Riku snapped his fingers. "I'm… let's just say I'm a tourist."
She studied him carefully. "Then you've walked into the ruins of Eternia."
The name lingered in the air like a spell.
Riku raised a brow. "Eternia, huh? Sounds dramatic."
"It was," she murmured. "Once. Before the gods cursed it."
That got his attention. "Cursed by gods? Not exactly the kind of PR you want from your divine protectors."
Lyria stopped walking. Her gaze lingered on the horizon, where the skeletal forest gave way to jagged mountains shrouded in mist. "…A thousand years ago, this continent thrived. Kingdoms rose, magic flowed freely, humans and demons shared uneasy peace. But knowledge…" She hesitated, her voice tightening. "…Knowledge changed everything."
Riku's hand unconsciously drifted to his chest, where the invisible Codex pulsed faintly.
"What kind of knowledge?" he asked carefully.
Her crimson eyes met his. "Forbidden knowledge. The kind that could unmake the world. They say mortals discovered truths meant only for gods, and with them, built weapons that could pierce heaven itself."
Her tone was bitter, like someone reciting a story she'd been forced to hear her whole life.
"So the gods decided," she continued, "that knowledge itself was a threat. They erased it. Burned libraries, silenced scholars, erased entire bloodlines. And to make sure no one could uncover those truths again, they sealed Eternia in chains of stagnation. Magic weakened. Nations crumbled. Monsters multiplied."
She looked at the ruined forest around them. "What you see now is what remains. A continent where progress is forbidden. Where memory itself can be stolen by divine decree."
Riku frowned. "…That's insane. Destroying knowledge to protect the world? That's like burning down every hospital to stop people from getting sick."
Her lips quirked—this time, it was a smile, faint but real. "Strange analogies. You really are from somewhere else."
He chuckled dryly. "You don't know the half of it."
But inside, his thoughts churned. The Codex of Infinity… every truth erased, preserved inside me. That's why the gods stirred when I woke up. To them, I'm a walking blasphemy.
Lyria was already moving again, her cloak brushing against the ash-strewn ground. "The knights you saw… they're servants of the Theocracy of Solaria. The humans' strongest nation. They hunt people like me—half-bloods, cursed, anyone who doesn't fit their image of purity."
Her voice was quiet, but not bitter. Only weary.
"And you?" Riku asked. "Where do you fit?"
She didn't answer at first. Then, softly: "…Nowhere."
The word hung between them.
Riku scratched the back of his neck. "…Well. Guess that makes two of us."
She glanced at him, puzzled.
He shrugged. "Back home, I was a dropout. A waste. Someone who spent more time hiding in libraries than living. I didn't fit anywhere either." His eyes softened. "So maybe we both start here. Together."
For a moment, the wind seemed to still.
Lyria's crimson eyes searched his face, as if weighing his words. Then, slowly, she sheathed her dagger. "…You're strange."
He grinned. "You keep saying that. I'll take it as a compliment."
She looked away, but he thought he saw the faintest pink touch her cheeks.
The two of them walked on, into the skeletal forest. And though Eternia was a continent of ruins and silence, for the first time in years, Lyria did not feel completely alone.
And Riku, the boy with the infinite library, felt something stir inside him—not the weight of knowledge, but the weight of possibility.