It didn't come all at once.
The glyph didn't make him a god.
The whisper didn't give him infinite wisdom. All it gave him was awareness—and with it, hunger.
The kind that digs not in the stomach, but in the mind.
Caleb found himself in the void again.
He didn't know if he was dreaming, trapped, or simply between moments.
But there he was—standing once more on liquid glass, alone under a bleeding sky.
His wrist burned faintly, and as he raised it, the sigil from before pulsed with life.
"Observe," he whispered.
The space in front of him rippled.
Not forward—inward. Like peeling reality itself.
And from that tear floated the Book of the Abyss.
No chains. No locks.
Only silence.
He stepped forward, arms tense.
The book hovered, spinning slowly.
Black leather cover, etched with impossible symbols, its edges folding like wings.
As he reached for it, it flinched.
Pain.
A spike of memory shot through him.
A boy in rags, trapped in a mirror.
Screaming. Alone. Forgotten.
Then another.
His own hands, soaked in blood.
His own eyes—cold, monstrous, inhuman.
He dropped to his knees, gasping.
The Book watched.
"It tests your reflection," came the whisper again. "If you cannot survive who you were, you do not deserve to shape what comes."
His hands trembled.
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone…"
The shadows answered nothing.
But he stood again.
Slower this time.
"I didn't come here to be perfect," he muttered.
"I came here because the world left me no place in its light."
He reached again.
This time, the Book opened.
A single page flipped.
A sigil bled from it.
Real blood. Black. Viscous.
It spiraled into the air and sank into his chest.
He screamed.
His body convulsed.
Not from pain—but from the flood. Of knowledge. Of spells. Of languages that tasted like rust and starlight.
One word etched itself behind his eyes:
"Reshape."
And then, reality pulsed.
He opened his eyes in the real world—on a rooftop this time, across the outer edge of Velmira.
Night. Moon. Wind.
He had teleported again. But this time, he chose the exit.
He stood up, cloak whipping behind him.
He looked at his shadow.
It moved.
And then it split.
A second Noir stepped out from it, identical but flickering.
A shadow clone. Imperfect—but real.
He collapsed to one knee. His nose bled.
His lungs screamed.
His soul twitched.
But he was grinning.
The Book was his now.
And the world would soon remember his name.