"Focus, Raziel. You are distracted."
Lucian frowned, his voice broke the silence of the library.
Raziel blinked hard.
The letters in the theology text blurred together, he stared at the exact same page for twenty minutes.
He wanted refuge in the teachings of Goddess Zhalyr but It was useless.
His head had no room for gods or holy light, he only heard the entity sentencing the boy next to him to death.
Raziel rubbed his eyes hard. He wanted to physically erase the images from his retinas.
"I am sorry, Lucian. I feel sick today."
He lowered his hands. "The nightmares are getting worse."
It was a lie.
They were memories.
He saw the capital of Phaedra fall.
The cobblestone streets stained red.
The sky choked black with smoke.
He saw Father Marius twisted by dark power.
And he saw Zion. Always Zion.
She laughed in the middle of the apocalypse and enjoyed the mass destruction. It was the climax of her twisted game.
Lucian softened his expression, his insufferable, playful arrogance was gone.
He carried a heavy seriousness now, he understood the piety of St. Celeste hid a rotten core.
Lucian put a firm hand on his shoulder.
"I get you, Raz. It is a lot to process. You are not alone in this."
Lucian looked at the towering shelves of books.
"Besides. Not everything in St. Celeste is theological debates and prayers by candlelight."
A flash of his old self shone in his green eyes.
"We have the Bard recital, Brother Keith says we will play a new ballad."
He grinned. "It is about forbidden love, jealousy and a vengeful ghost! The audience will love it."
Raziel forced a smile.
He appreciated the attempt to cheer him up.
But his future knowledge crushed his chest. Every kind word from Lucian caused him physical pain.
'He talks about ballads while they plan to bleed him dry for their script.'
'I have to do something. Now.'
Raziel stood up suddenly.
SCREECH!
His chair scraped against the stone floor. "I need some air, I will walk through the gardens to clear my head."
He left Lucian talking alone. His friend shouted final ideas to his back.
Raziel ignored him. His mind calculated possible futures needing an exit.
He needed to break the cycle before it killed everyone.
The library was totally silent. Most novices attended afternoon combat lessons, so the massive space was deserted.
His boots echoed on the stone tiles.
CLACK!
CLACK!
He walked between the towering shelves while his fingers brushed the cracked spines of forgotten books.
He stared at the restricted section.
A solid, rune-carved iron grate blocked it. Raziel wanted to enter, and needed weapons from that forbidden knowledge.
He walked away.
The Inquisitors tracked his every step. One mistake and they would burn him at the stake.
He moved away from the grate with frustration burning his chest.
Then he saw it.
Something he completely missed in his previous lives.
A narrow door hid behind a dusty bookshelf. It was almost invisible.
His sealed power pulled him toward it and he pushed the door.
CREAAAK!
The rusted hinges screamed in the silence.
A dusty, tight spiral staircase descended into absolute darkness.
He stopped.
The air from below hit his face. It was freezing and stale, smelling ancient.
He looked over his shoulder, like expecting to see Marius or an armored Inquisitor.
No one was there.
His heart hammered violently against his ribs.
THUMP!
THUMP!
He took a deep breath and went down. Every step resonated in the heavy stillness.
The darkness swallowed him while the cold intensified and severe unease twisted his stomach into physical nausea.
He reached the bottom, his hand touched the freezing stone wall and found a rusted candle holder.
He grabbed his flint and struck it.
SHK!
The spark caught the ancient wick. A weak light revealed a small stone chamber.
Shelves packed with ancient texts lined the walls.
Carelessly piled scrolls and disturbing artifacts rested in dusty glass cases.
The air was suffocating.
Raziel stopped breathing. It was a secret archive.
The Church hid dangerous books here, they buried inconvenient history.
He walked through the chamber and read the titles.
Grimoires with blood-magic enchantments.
Tomes detailing erased events.
Scrolls speaking of a profane power older than the goddess.
He stopped.
A small leather-bound diary rested on a pedestal. The cover was cracked and faded, dried brown blood stained the pages.
He grabbed it and his fingers trembled, the cover was blank but he opened it.
His eyes widened.
He recognized the elegant handwriting. He smelled the faint scent of lavender clinging to the paper.
It was Seraphina's diary.
He turned the brittle pages and read her calculated descent into absolute madness.
She was brilliant and arrogant.
She rebelled against the Church because wanted power beyond Zhalyr's grace.
She found it in necromancy.
Her daily entries detailed gruesome experiments.
She possessed a chilling conviction to purify Phaedra.
She wanted a new order ruled by the strong.
Raziel frowned and sadness filled his chest. "What an idiot you were."
The most promising scribe in the academy turned into a monster.
He read the last entry.
The date was weeks before the crypt attack from his past life.
The handwriting was frantic. The ink ran from tear stains on the parchment.
'The moment is near, the ritual is ready and the sacrifice will be executed. Phaedra will be reborn.'
'A kingdom of the powerful. Ruled by those who accept true power beyond a dying god.'
Raziel froze.
'Wait.'
'This entry is wrong. In my timeline, Seraphina disappeared weeks before the attack.'
'Was she hiding here? Did she change the plan?'
His brain processed the massive implication.
Suddenly, the air in the secret chamber rotted. The stench of decay hit him.
His veteran instinct screamed.
DANGER!
A shadow detached from the darkness behind a bookshelf.
It moved at inhuman speed.
Raziel reacted, but a black leather glove grabbed his face.
Not his mouth. His whole face.
The physical force was brutal, the bones of his skull bent under the pressure.
CRACK!
The assassin lifted Raziel off the stone floor.
He slammed Raziel backward against the heavy bookshelf. The rotten wood snapped and shattered.
Centuries-old books and scrolls rained down around him.
The impact knocked the air from his lungs and black spots appeared in his vision.
He kicked and scratched the arm. The grip on his skull was immovable.
Then, the environment broke.
The dim magical candlelight didn't blow out. It systematically failed.
Harsh, flickering static replaced the light. It burned his eyes.
The assassin's physical body violently fragmented.
The edges of the killer tore and glitched.
Polygons snapped back and forth like the data failed to render in reality.
A terrifying overlay manifested over the assassin.
A holographic projection rendered in translucent, vibrating polygons of crimson and absolute black.
It was her.
A voice whispered in his ear.
It possessed a metallic, synthetic distortion. It bypassed his eardrums and drilled directly into his brain.
"Curiosity killed the cat, right, little priest?"
Raziel blinked through his blurry vision. The digital lips of the crimson hologram moved in flawless synchronization with the assassin's vocal cords.
"Looking for lore drops to change the future?"
The grip loosened. Raziel dropped his head to the side.
He gasped for air. His lungs burned.
He stared up at the glitching entity pinning him to the wood.
Shadows hid the physical face of the assassin. The digital face overlaid upon it was crystal clear.
Two points of algorithmic crimson light shone with cold, bored intelligence.
She hacked into a physical body just to mock him.
Cold sweat soaked Raziel's back.
"Zion?"
Before the Player smiled, blood-red text violently hijacked Raziel's vision. It drowned out the entire room.
[PARADOX LEVEL THREAT DETECTED]
[FOREIGN PROXY OVERRIDE VIOLATING WORLD PHYSICS]
[NULLIFYING PROTOCOLS]
[RECOMMENDED ACTION: ERROR - IMPOSSIBLE TO CALCULATE]