The ink on the pages of the Compendium of Minor Heresies looked like it was moving under the candlelight, like black bugs twisting on the yellow paper.
Raziel ignored the sharp pain behind his eyes. He didn't have time to rest. Seraphina had cornered him, Lucian had threatened him, and Father Marius was watching him.
If he failed the Bard class tomorrow, he would be labeled "incompetent."
And in the Church of St. Celeste, incompetents get sent to the borders... or the crypts.
His fingers stopped at page 104: The Order of Silent Singers.
The text didn't talk about harmony or praises to the Goddess.
It talked about using sound to interrupt the flow of mana in the human brain.
"Don't look for the note that pleases the ear,"
Raziel read in a hoarse whisper, "look for the frequency that rattles the bone of fear."
It was perfect.
It was dirty, it was dangerous, and it was exactly the kind of unfair advantage he needed.
He memorized the diagrams of dissonant chords.
They weren't music, they were more like math applied to terror.
Suddenly, the System flickered on his retina, burning with an intense red.
[SYSTEM ALERT!]
[You have assimilated forbidden knowledge: "Dissonance Theory"]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED (Passive): Acoustics of Trauma]
[EFFECT: Your musical performances can induce altered states (Fear, Sadness, Anxiety) scaling with your own mental instability.]
[ASSIMILATION COST: -5% Temporary Mental Stability. Nightmare Probability: 100%]
"Great," Raziel muttered, slamming the book shut and raising a cloud of dust.
"Just what I needed. More nightmares."
He rubbed his temples, feeling the migraine settling in like a nail in his skull.
He put the book back in its place, making sure it looked like no one had touched it in years, and slipped out of the library.
The way back to the dorms was blurry.
The shadows of the gargoyles in the hallways seemed to follow him, and the echo of his own steps sounded like someone was walking right behind him.
When he got to his room, 404, he dropped onto the cot without even taking off his boots.
The physical exhaustion was an anchor dragging him down, but his mind... his mind was an active minefield.
"Just a few hours" he whispered, closing his eyes.
"I just need to survive tomorrow."
But the System didn't lie about the costs.
Sleep wasn't a rest at all It was more like a sentence.
Inside Raziel's Mind, the nightmare didn't start with images, but with sound.
The silence of the room filled with static buzzing, like a badly tuned radio, which soon turned into whispers. Thousands of them.
'You failed... again... everyone dead... your fault...'
The darkness thickened, turning liquid, crushing him against the mattress.
The smell of incense and old wood of the academy was replaced by the copper stench of fresh blood and burnt flesh.
[ALERT: TRAUMA TRIGGER ACTIVATED]
Then, he saw it.
The red sky of the burning capital.
He saw his friends—faces he didn't know yet in this life, but had loved and buried in the previous ones—impaled on black crystal spears sprouting from the ground like the teeth of a beast.
He heard the cracking of wood, metal clashing, and the screams... the damn screams that never shut up.
And over that symphony of horror, a voice.
"Did you really think you could change the ending, little priest?"
Zion, The Player.
Raziel felt a cold hand, made of polygons and digital errors, close around his throat. He couldn't breathe.
"NO!"
He woke up with a choked scream, sitting up instantly in bed.
His chest was heaving violently, looking for air like a man who just stopped drowning.
He was soaked in cold sweat, his sleeping tunic sticking to his skin.
He looked around with wild eyes, expecting to see fire and demons.
But he only saw the gray stone walls. The hard cot.
The moonlight coming through the narrow window.
He was safe.
It was the year 1024.
He was alive.
But the trembling in his hands wouldn't stop.
Raziel looked at his palms.
There was no blood, but he could feel the "echo" of the new skill vibrating in his fingertips.
The [Acoustics of Trauma] was there, feeding on his residual fear.
"Not this time..." he whispered, clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white.
"I'm not going to be the martyr who dies in silence. If I'm going to have nightmares, I'll make sure my enemies have them too."
He got up, stumbling toward the washbasin to splash freezing water on his face.
The sun was about to rise.
Bard class was waiting for him and thanks to the forbidden book and his own broken mind, Raziel had a new song to play.