Aelius made it to his house without issue. The door clicked shut behind him with a dull, satisfying sound, and for a moment, the silence that followed felt almost sacred. The world outside, with all its noise and chaos and people, was locked away, if only for a few hours, if he was lucky. He stood there by the door, hand still resting on the handle, his breathing calm, but his thoughts anything but.
It was strange, this feeling of returning. He didn't like it. He didn't even know what to make of it. He'd only been gone for a day, and yet stepping back inside felt… heavier than it should have. The air was still, untouched, as if the walls themselves had been waiting for him. The faint smell of dust and wood, his own, and that familiar, faint hum of magic beneath the floorboards reminded him this was his space, his work, his domain. It should have been comforting. It wasn't.
He pulled off his gloves and cloak and tossed them on the table, landing against the wood. His mask followed, landing beside them with a soft thud. Makarov's words, irritatingly smug and impossibly accurate, still bounced around his skull. The old man always had a talent for digging under his skin, even when he wasn't trying to, especially when he wasn't trying to.
He hadn't wanted to think about what the Guild Master had implied, but the thought lingered like a splinter you couldn't quite pull free. Maybe Nehzhar's corruption had left deeper marks than he realized. Maybe even with the man's influence gone, its echoes still pulsed somewhere in the cracks of his mind, twisting how he thought, how he felt.
But the more he tried to reason it out, the less it sounded true. It wasn't Nehzhar whispering in his head; it was him. His own thoughts. His own annoyingly human instincts clawing for something more than solitude. Connection. The one thing he claimed he neither wanted nor needed, the one thing he mocked others for chasing, and yet, the moment he saw it in them, in their laughter and chaos, in Makarov's words, and the guild's endless shouting, the life that the guild brought with it like a plague. It stirred something. Something small, sharp, and irritatingly persistent.
He scowled at the thought, brushing it away before it could settle. He wasn't envious. He refused to be. Whatever it was they had, it wasn't real; it was built on impulse, on emotion, on the kind of foolishness that burned itself out as quickly as it flared. He didn't need that. He didn't want that.
He looked at his cloak first, thrown over the chair, the fabric dirtied by whatever was in the wyvern's nest, and dust, still carrying that faint, sickly scent that for once wasn't him. The gloves and mask lay beside it on the table. Normally, he would've just sent them into his requip space without thought, one simple thought, and they'd be gone, folded into the void until he needed them again. But sometimes, on days like this, it felt better to leave them out. To have them there. Something tangible. Something real.
Sometimes it was nice to act like a normal person, even if he knew he wasn't one. To pretend that he came home after a day of work, took off his cloak, tossed his boots aside, maybe poured a drink, and sat down. A simple man's routine. No magic. No weight of gods or demons. No pretending to be fine. Just quiet. Dreams were for fools, sure, but it didn't hurt to play the fool every now and then, as long as you knew it was just pretend.
He exhaled slowly, eyes moving from the table to himself. Still pale. Still unscarred. Still the same. Rebirth had that effect; it reset everything, cleaned it all up, and polished him into something unnervingly pristine. His skin looked too smooth, too perfect, like it had never been touched by violence. It almost bothered him. Actually, it did. Because it wasn't true.
He stripped off his shirt, tossed it aside to join the rest of his things, and for a moment, he just stared. The light caught the jagged line across his torso, cutting diagonally from his left collarbone to just below his right pectoral. Ugly. Uneven. The kind of wound that would've torn him apart completely if he hadn't forced himself to live through it.
It was what Nehzhar left him. The only thing that stayed.
He dragged a hand across it, fingers brushing the uneven flesh. It was sensitive to touch, still faintly warm where his magic refused to smooth it over completely. Normally, his regeneration didn't allow scars; his healing was too perfect, too absolute. Flesh reformed, bone sealed, all but the memory of pain was scrubbed clean. But this? This he'd kept.
No, that wasn't true either. He'd made it stay.
He'd botched the healing on purpose. Forced it to fail. He'd done it before, before his rebirth, each scar left behind by choice rather than necessity. A reminder that he could still control what he was, even if only in pieces.
He remembered Levy's question, the way she'd tilted her head when she noticed how long it was taking him to recover. He'd told her he used too much in the fight, that it was taking time to replenish.
It was a lie, of course. He was never truly out of magic; that was the staple of slayer magic: eat your element and you're back to full strength. Any poison, any toxic substance could refill his reserves if he wanted it to. All he needed was a source. But lying was easier. Let her think it was exhaustion. Let her think it was normal. Because explaining that he was deliberately ruining his own regeneration? That he wanted the pain to last? That would have led to too many questions.
He traced the scar again, a small twist pulling at his lips. A physical reminder that he wasn't untouchable, that the curse could be cracked if he tried hard enough. Each one he left was a mark of defiance, proof that even something designed to be perfect could be broken on purpose.
And yet, that wasn't the only reason he kept them.
They were reminders of his mistakes, too. Every scar had a story, and every story was one where he'd failed, where he'd let someone down, where he hadn't been enough. A ledger of weaknesses carved into flesh. He didn't collect them out of pride or sentiment; they were there to remind him that he wasn't invincible, that he wasn't done improving.
He sighed, rolling his shoulders, the motion making the scar stretch slightly. It stung faintly. He didn't mind. This one, though, wasn't just a reminder of defeat. It was a reminder of what it took to survive. How close he'd come to losing everything. How easily it could happen again.
He looked down at himself one last time, the pale skin broken by that single jagged imperfection. "Good," he muttered under his breath, almost to the scar itself. "Stay there."
Because he needed it. Needed the reminder that strength wasn't the same as safety. That even someone like him, someone cursed with the power to kill gods, could still bleed, could still fall, could still break.
He shook his head slowly, as if trying to dislodge the thought before it could take root. That weakness, that crack he'd allowed to show, was exactly why he needed to be stronger. Not just stronger in the ways that everyone else understood, not in raw magic or brute force. He was already beyond that. No, he needed something else now, something deeper, sharper, something that would let him stand even when the world itself turned against him. Conventional training wouldn't work; he had already addressed that it was too slow. What he needed now was something to fill the gap. Old knowledge. The kind that reshaped what power meant.
He pulsed his magic through the air like a slow heartbeat, a single wave that rolled through the room and out into the woods beyond. The wards thrummed in response, faint blue lines shimmering across the edges of his perception, each one humming like a taut string. Still strong. Still unbroken. Still his.
Good.
He reached into his requip space with a flick of his fingers, and a weight dropped into his palm. The familiar, ancient texture of the book's monstrous leather. Aelius stared down at it for a long moment, the shifting symbols burned into the cover catching the faint light from the window.
The Book of Zeref.
"Maybe you'll finally be useful," he muttered under his breath, though his tone lacked mockery. The truth was, he didn't even know why he kept it, not exactly. Maybe because part of him knew it wasn't just Zeref's work that had gone into it. There were pieces of his grandfather hidden within those pages, too: Clues, theories, even fragments of designs that never should've existed.
He didn't know what he was looking for exactly, answers, maybe. Or a path that wasn't self-destruction masquerading as strength. Something that explained power, magic anything for an edge. Maybe secrets into his grandfather, something that would help him gain a better understanding of his magic.
He turned his gaze toward the window. The world outside was calm, and the sun hung over the treeline. The lake stretched out beyond his deck, perfectly still save for the occasional ripple from the breeze. The light caught on its surface, scattering in flashes of amber and silver. It was… nice, he supposed. Quiet. Peaceful.
Maybe he could read outside.
His wards would hold; they always did. No one without immense power would even be able to see him through them. And if someone did break through them, well, then he had far bigger problems than being caught with a forbidden book.
Aelius moved toward the door, the old wood creaking softly beneath his boots. He stepped out onto the deck, and for a moment, he just stood there, listening. The soft lap of waves against the support beams, the whisper of wind threading through the nearby trees, the faint, distant cry of a bird settling down for the evening. He'd picked this place because it was far from everyone, hidden in the forest by the lake's edge, where the noise of the world couldn't reach him. And as much as he'd deny it, he was glad, glad that he had chosen it, rebuilt it, made it his own.
He walked to the end of the deck, to the single chair that sat beneath a wide umbrella. The air was cool, the kind that hinted at coming rain, though the sky was still clear.
He lowered himself into the chair, resting the book in his lap. Another pulse of magic flickered through him, habit, more than necessity. The wards shimmered faintly in answer, an invisible dome settling into place around the property. Secure. Safe.
Finally.
He looked down at the book again. Its weight felt… alive. There was a hum beneath his fingers, faint but steady, like something inside it was breathing in time with him. It was a dangerous kind of life, the kind that promised both enlightenment and ruin in equal measure.
He exhaled, fingers tracing the edge of the first page.
"Alright then," he said quietly, more to himself than the book. "Let's see what you've got."
The cover creaked as he opened it, the smell of age and magic spilling into the air. Glyphs shimmered faintly along the edges of the parchment, the ink shifting in ways that defied natural light, alive, aware, waiting.
Aelius settled back in his chair, the lake's reflection flickering in his eyes as he began to read from page one.
---
This was my first option, and by far the worst, to revive my brother.
I was approached by a being that calls itself a god, though I hesitate to grant it that title. It presented itself without arrogance, without the performative grandeur so many lesser divinities drown in. Its voice carried neither command nor deceit, only… comfort. And perhaps that is what unsettled me most.
It claimed to have watched my work, my failures, my desperation. It offered me what all others could not: no binding contract, no exchange, no trick hidden in divine scripture. "No strings attached," it said, as if such a thing could exist. I asked it what it wanted in return. It smiled, and said only, 'Create. Continue what you were born to do.'
I do not believe in gifts without intent. I have seen what gods do when they reach too far into mortal affairs; I am proof of that. Their so-called "blessings" fester, they spread, they twist the living into grotesque parodies of life. This one was no different, merely kinder in its corruption.
I studied its creations afterward, the mockeries of beasts that wear the illusion of life as one might wear a mask made of their own skin. They breathe, yes, but each breath leaves a trail of mist that stinks of decay. Their flesh quivers with vitality yet drips with pus where it splits, reforming slower each time, as though savoring the process of unmaking itself. They smile through torn cheeks and swollen tongues, laughing at pain as if it were music. They do not exist as we do; they persist. Their eyes are not hollow, but full, bloated with a joy that should not be. A joy that consumes thought, memory, and self until all that remains is contentment in corruption.
What returns from that touch is never what was lost. It is merely a shape remembered, remade by something that adores the beauty of ruin.
Whatever came back from its gift would not have been my brother. It would have been a monster worse than what I am now. So I declined.
Yet the idea lingered. It always does. Refusal does not erase curiosity; it merely poisons it. I began to wonder: if divinity can mold flesh so easily, could I not take the principle, strip it of its sanctity, and make it my own? A demon not of sin, but of divinity perverted.
Thus began the framework for something beyond my current work. Separate from the Etherious, separate from E.N.D. Something purer in function, uglier in purpose. A creature born of imitation, a living rejection of divine order.
The god, if it can even be called that, seemed amused by my refusal. It did not protest. Instead, it left me a gift. A piece of its own flesh. It called it a "seed," and said it would not die, even if I willed it. It wished to see what I would make of it. It said, 'Like me, this one should be your first.'
I have studied it for twelve weeks now, and I'm baffled by what it meant by be my first. I already brought my brother back, made Etherious. Either way, this seed does not rot. It does not dry. It bleeds when I cut it, but the blood crystallizes into glass when it touches air. When burned, it screams. Not audibly, its sound exists behind thought, a pressure in the skull. I once tried to bury it, but the ground spat it back out, and the roots in the soil turned black.
I do not know what this "flesh" truly is. I suspect it is not flesh at all, but a concept made tangible. If so, then it cannot be destroyed without altering the idea it represents. To unmake it would require unmaking the notion of the god itself. I am not arrogant enough to try that, not yet.
Still, I am compelled to use it. Its texture resists decay, yet accepts ethernano as if it were born from it. I have used fragments of it to craft binding sigils stronger than any curse I've made before. It responds to my thoughts, no, it anticipates them. Sometimes when I dream, I hear it whisper back, asking what it will be made into.
I have written many designs. None seems fitting. To shape this material into anything less than what it came from feels wrong. To shape it into anything equal feels impossible. I considered shaping it into a vessel, an empty form capable of absorbing the remnants of divine energy, a demon that would feed on sanctity itself.
The irony pleases me.
I have locked the flesh within three seals. One to suppress its voice. One to limit its awareness. And one to bind it to my command, should I ever proceed. I will not. Not yet. But I leave this here as record: if I am gone, and these seals are ever broken, whatever emerges will not be mine. It will belong to the god who left it, and to the next fool who believes sincerity to be harmless.
It is a strange thing, sincerity. In the mouths of men, it breeds hope. In the hands of gods, it breeds monsters.
The next page is different. The ink bleeds darker, as if pressed too hard into the parchment. The handwriting, though still unmistakably the same, trembles with the edge of madness
I think I've finally understood. The mistake wasn't in the theory; it was in the arrogance of control. Why should I waste effort shaping the demon into what I think it should be? Every design, every attempt to command perfection, becomes another cage. Even gods cannot create without chaining what they make. That is their greatest flaw, and perhaps my own.
So, I will not shape it. I will let it shape itself. I have made a fourth seal, and this time I've bound it directly to the book itself. If the second seal should fail or be removed, it will awaken, not in confusion or servitude, but with will. It will hunger. It will draw biomass, magic, essence, anything living, anything that dares to persist near it. The more it takes, the more complete it will become. I have no idea what form it will take, nor should I. That decision belongs to it alone.
The page was cut short by numerous drawings of what it might become, and a whole section was covered in ink that bled through slightly on the next page.
I've crossed paths with others like that first god since. I will not record their names; they do not deserve memory, but I remember their stench. One believes in honor with endless blood. Another hides greed behind the mask of joy, turning every desire into sickness. The last whispers of hope and change, but twists every future it touches into something worse. Each is broken in a different way. Each thinks their nature divine. They are not gods. They are mistakes made of thought, spreading themselves across creation under the lie of purpose.
But they have given me an idea. If the divine is nothing but corruption wrapped in eternity, then perhaps corruption itself can be the key to their undoing. Their excess, their imbalance, their self-inflicted madness, all of it can be weaponized. An abomination with potential greater than even E.N.D. Not born of reverence, but of spite. This book will serve as its body. Three more books shall be bound: one for power, one for emotion, and one for its mind. Each drawn from the corruption of those false divines. A creation forged not to serve, but to destroy. A beast born from their own decay, made to hunt and tear down the very gods who cursed me with eternal life.
A monster, yes. But a purposeful one. One that proves divinity is not eternal, it can rot, it can bleed, and it can die.
Let them see what true creation looks like when born without worship.
---
The next pages were mostly ramblings, scattered, almost frantic in places, like Zeref was fighting himself as much as the page. He wrote about the demon he called Chaos, a name that felt more like a mockery of what he'd once tried to control. He described, in disturbing detail, what it would do to the gods, the slow unraveling of divinity, the way it would tear down not just flesh or form, but the very concepts they stood on. His words dripped with venom toward the one who cursed him, but buried underneath that hatred was something else. A strange, almost forced restraint, like he was trying to remind himself that creation, even in malice, had purpose.
Then came pages of drawings, twisted sketches of seals and runic patterns, so detailed that Aelius had to pause every few lines to even begin understanding their logic. Diagrams of circles within circles, annotations written sideways, symbols layered on top of each other like a puzzle only Zeref himself could ever solve. He explained how to break them, how to rewrite them, and how they could be used for other purposes entirely. It wasn't just the work of a madman; it was structured insanity, the kind that understood itself too well to ever truly end.
It was strange. The more Aelius read, the more it felt like Zeref was teaching as much as he was destroying. There was something deliberate in it, not just vengeance, but a desire for someone to learn from what he'd built. Some parts even softened, turning into personal thoughts written in margins. Ramblings about his brother, the life he was meant to have, the fragments of what he remembered of simpler times. But there were no names. Never a name. It was like he couldn't bring himself to write them anymore. Maybe because names made it real. Maybe because it hurt too much.
Before Aelius could keep going, his wards pulsed. Not violently, more like a soft echo, the kind that rippled through his awareness like a knock at the door. He blinked, refocusing, then sighed and closed the book, slipping a marker between the pages. He was nearly finished with it. The cursed thing felt heavier in his hands now, like it knew he'd reached the part it didn't want him to read yet.
He tucked it back into his requip space, stood up, and turned toward the noise. Sure enough, it was literal. Levy was there, hand to her forehead, muttering something under her breath about running into his wards again. He hadn't even realized how long he'd been reading. The light outside had changed completely; the sky had gone from bright to a deep orange, the lake catching the glow of the setting sun.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a strange mix of calm and irritation. "How long was I sitting here…" he muttered to himself, voice trailing off. It didn't feel like hours, but maybe that was the book's doing too.
Still, there was a small, reluctant sense of peace in it, sitting out here, reading, even if it was the words of someone cursed and hated by the world. He hadn't done that in… who knew how long. Maybe since before the labyrinth. Maybe since before he'd started calling what he did survival instead of living.
He exhaled slowly, eyes drifting back over the still water. The lake was calm, quiet, untouched by the noise of the world, and for a brief moment, he let himself exist in that same silence. Then, with a thought and a faint pulse of magic, his wards loosened and fell away.
The shift was immediate. Outside, Levy stumbled forward with a startled yelp as the invisible barrier vanished beneath her hand. She barely caught herself, blinking in confusion before realizing what had happened.
Aelius sighed. Wait–he was still shirtless. Before she could look up, he quickly summoned a plain white shirt onto himself with a soft flash of magic. The glow drew her attention instantly, and when her eyes finally met his through the fading shimmer, they lit up just slightly, curiosity and relief mingling in their color. It was small, but it was genuine.
"Aelius!" Levy said as she started walking toward him, brushing her hair aside with that same casual energy she always had, like she hadn't just tripped through one of his warded barriers.
He blinked, caught off guard by how... normal she sounded. "I thought you were still mad at me," he said finally, his tone flat but not harsh, "for that whole talk about me not caring about myself. You made it sound like I'd offended the concept of hope itself."
Levy hesitated for a second, then shrugged, smiling a little despite it. "Uhm… kinda," she admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. "But that's besides the point. One small argument doesn't change the fact that we're still friends. I don't stay mad that long."
Aelius didn't say anything right away. His eyes followed her as she crossed the deck, the boards creaking faintly beneath her steps. He wasn't used to this part, being approached, being forgiven so casually. Most people didn't even bother trying to argue with him, much less return afterward like nothing happened. He expected her to avoid him for a while, maybe glare at him across the guild hall, or give him that disappointed look she gave when people broke her trust. But she hadn't. She was just here, acting like things were fine.
It felt... off. Disarming, even.
He realized how exposed he felt without his usual cloak, gloves, or mask, his face uncovered, his expression visible. He wasn't used to people looking at him this way, seeing him like this. Levy didn't even seem to notice how uneasy he was; she just smiled, standing there in the fading sunlight like she belonged in the quiet calm of his home.
For a moment, he thought about saying something, anything, to cut through that quiet that had settled between them, to reclaim the distance he'd always been good at keeping. But the words refused to come, caught somewhere between thought and breath. All that escaped was a long exhale as he turned his gaze back to the water. The lake reflected the fading orange of the sun, calm and slow, and for once, it felt like the world wasn't asking anything from him.
Levy's voice broke the stillness, soft but direct. "You… ok, Aelius?"
He glanced at her, half expecting a jab or lecture, but there was none of that. She was standing a few steps away, hands tucked behind her back as she leaned forward just slightly, studying him like she was trying to read something in his face that he didn't want anyone to see. "You seem confused," she said, head tilting a little, "did you really expect me to stay mad over something like that?"
Aelius looked away again, jaw tightening, trying to decide if it was more irritating or unsettling that she said it so easily. "Most people would've," he said finally, his voice low, measured. "They usually do. Makes things simpler that way."
Levy frowned. "Simpler? That's not simpler, that's lonely."
He gave a short, humorless sound, half scoff, half breath. "You'd be surprised how often the two overlap."
She took a step closer, her shadow overlapping his as the last streaks of light dimmed across the lake. "Maybe. But that's not how friends work, Aelius. You can push, argue, or hide behind that mask of yours all you want, but it doesn't mean you don't matter."
Her words hung in the air, too earnest for him to meet her eyes. He shifted slightly, his hand tightening into a fist before he let it fall away. It wasn't worth the argument if he said what he thought. Instead, he muttered, "You really don't make it easy to stay detached, you know that?"
Levy smiled faintly. "Good. Maybe you shouldn't be."
He didn't respond after that. The quiet returned, broken only by the sound of the lake brushing against the wooden beams below. But this time, it didn't feel like silence was meant to keep people apart. It just… was. And for reasons he didn't want to think about, that was somehow worse.
Levy eventually broke the silence with a soft giggle, light and sudden, cutting through the still air between them. "I can't believe you really thought that," she said, shaking her head. "You really need to read up on what friends are, Aelius. I wouldn't be much of one if I stopped being your friend over one argument." She crossed her arms, pretending to frown, though her voice carried that familiar teasing tone. "But that aside, what happened to that trip you were supposed to be on, mister?"
Aelius sighed, dragging a hand down his face. "Right. I did say we were going to find Vanessa, didn't I?"
Levy raised a brow. "Yeah, that was the plan, but you seem to have left without me."
"Short answer, she found me first," Aelius said flatly.
Levy blinked. "Wait… what?"
"I can't make it simpler than that," Aelius said, rubbing his temple as though repeating it might give him a headache. "I took a quest. She found me. And like the parasite she is, she latched on." His tone didn't waver, not even slightly. Just that flat, steady rhythm that told Levy he was too tired to care and too aware to pretend otherwise.
"I… suppose I can't get angry for that." Levy shifted her weight, her voice carrying that half-bewildered note of someone trying to make sense of something inherently nonsensical. "She's certainly… interesting. When I left the guild, she was asleep, I think? She lost to Cana, but the chaos was still going." She paused, brow furrowing as she remembered it. "There was a drinking contest, I think a small fire, and Natsu trying to put it out by breathing in the flames, which didn't help."
"Doesn't surprise me," Aelius muttered. "She's always been a lightweight."
Levy looked at him, like she wanted to say something else, but decided against it. Instead, she let the moment hang there, the words fading into the quiet sound of the lake beyond the deck. The waves lapped softly against the beams, the air cool with the coming night. It was the kind of stillness that felt too fragile to break, too calm for the world they both came from.
"Come on," Aelius said finally, his voice low as he turned toward the door.
Levy blinked, caught off guard. "Is that your way of inviting me in?"
"No," he replied without missing a beat, glancing over his shoulder. "I know you'll complain if I don't. Saves the trees' air and me the annoyance."
Levy's lips curled into a small smirk as she followed him, arms crossing loosely over her chest. "You really know how to make a girl feel welcome, you know that?"
"I'm not trying to," he said, pushing the door open. The wood creaked quietly, the faint glow from inside spilling out across the deck.
"Could've fooled me,"