Suddenly, a bright light cut through the chamber and struck Severus' shadow double. Lector Baleron had only needed half a breath to see through the illusion.
Severus hesitated a fraction of a second too long, his eyes widening as the floor beneath him dissolved into a pool of ink. The solidity he had been standing on was no longer there. He was falling into an abyss.
The impact never came. Instead, there was a sensation of floating, as if the very fabric of reality had become as soft as the pages of a well-worn book. He lay on a smooth, parchment-like surface, his body unnaturally still. The world around him had gone silent.
Golden lines of light formed around Severus, etched in a pattern that was eerily familiar. He recognized the runes as they grew more distinct, they were the same ones that adorned the cover of his book. The lines closed in tighter, forming a sphere that encased him completely.
Lector Baleron stepped through the wall of books. Severus watched in horror as the books parted for him, revealing a hidden corridor. The Lector's eyes glowed with the same divine light that had just attempted to consume him. "I used to be just like you. A seeker. A doubter, but then I realized what doubt really was... an infection." His voice was a quiet mockery, carried with cold regret.
Severus tried to move his hand, but his body remained unresponsive. The golden lines felt like they were squeezing the life from him, a vice-like grip that was terrifying.
"You saw yourself as a Protagonist. As someone with the power to act. But you're just a flawed footnote in a larger litany." Baleron's voice was a whisper that seemed to come from every direction, echoing off the boundless walls of books.
Baleron knelt down next to the prone Severus, his Splitting Quill now a delicate instrument in his hand. He placed the tip gently against Severus's forehead, and Severus felt a cold, sharp pressure that sent a shiver down his spine. The Lector's eyes bore into his, the pupils dilating to inky pools that threatened to swallow him whole.
"Let's start with the name," Baleron murmured. "Without it, you can no longer be addressed."
The quill tip pulled a thread of light from Severus' forehead. It danced in the air, a fiery "Severus" that burned with the intensity of a star. For a brief moment, the name hovered there, trembling like a leaf caught in a storm, and then it began to fade, the letters unraveling like a poorly stitched seam.
Severus felt a crack. Not on his body, in himself. It was as if his very essence was being peeled back, layer by layer, and each one was a memory, a piece of his identity, a thread of meaning that made up the tapestry of his being. The sensation was unlike anything he had ever experienced, a cold, empty feeling that made his heart ache with a pain that was both existential and profoundly personal.
The golden runes tightened their grip, and he could feel the beginnings of panic rising in his chest. "Your archetype," Baleron repeated, his voice a symphony of malicious glee, "Your narrative coherence. The very thing that makes you 'Severus Ezren'. It's all just a story, isn't it?"
The second line had been drawn, and with it, the feeling of being a role in this grand narrative was obliterated. The world around him was no longer the solid reality he knew, but a series of images and words, flickering like candles in a dark room.
"Now your involvement. The scenes that keep you real. Let's remove them." Lector Baleron's chilling words sent a shiver down Severus's spine.
With the third line drawn, the world around him started to disintegrate into a cacophony of words and images. The walls of the chamber, the bound witnesses, even Mira's ghostly apparition, all began to unravel like a poorly crafted spell. The pain grew more intense, as if he was being erased from the very fabric of existence. Severus felt his mind screaming, but his body remained inert, trapped within the golden prison of Baleron's control.
He watched as the last line was drawn, and with it, the last thread of his being was severed. He was extinguished.
Baleron breathed heavily, his eyes glowing with a triumph that was almost palpable. "It's accomplished," he said in a firm voice. "The doubter is extinguished."
....
Ashem's domain.
The horizon was a writhing mass of black lines, a serpentine loop that twisted in on itself like a Möbius strip drawn by a madman. The very concept of a vanishing point was a joke here, a punchline to a cosmic riddle. It was a place where perspective was a lie, where the eye could not find rest, forever searching for something that remained just beyond its grasp.
The towers that pierced the ink-stained sky were not complete, their stairs missing, windows gaping like mouths in silent screams, and balconies floating in the void without any support.
The light here was a constant battle between too bright and too dim, as if the very essence of illumination was being manipulated by a capricious editor. One moment, it was stark and blinding, the next, it was a feeble glow that barely allowed for shadows to exist. It was a palette of grays that shifted and pulsed with a rhythm.
In the middle of it all was a bleeding splinter, black as dried ink. It hovered, a solitary piece of darkness in the chaos of light and shadow.
Ashem stands in front of it. This time as a figure, and not as a voice.
Ashem was a paragon of dark beauty in a realm of shifting perspectives. He was tall and regal, draped in a robe of cracked shadow and liquid obsidian that flowed around him like a second skin. His eyes were deep red, no gaze lingering for long, everything seeming to vanish into their infinite depths. His hair was jet black, with streaks of red that fell smoothly down his back.
The ash-white porcelain of his skin was a stark contrast to the darkness of his attire. Upon his head sat a fragment of a destroyed halo, a crown that spoke of a power that had once been divine, now twisted into something darker. His most striking feature, however, was the massive black wings that unfurled from his back, each feather tipped with crimson.
"He didn't realize what I stole," Ashem whispered. The words hung in the air, a silent confession that echoed through the twisted halls of his domain. The splinter of darkness grew, the edges of it sharper, more defined. It was a piece of Severus that Baleron hadn't managed to erase.
He studied the splinter with fascination. It was a fragment of doubt, a concept so potent that it could not be fully destroyed, not even by the Lector's divine light.