The truth was never buried—just shelved behind a bathroom stall and wrapped in cursed silence. Some secrets don't scream; they whisper, through crumbling pages and cursed breath, begging to be read by the wrong person at the worst possible time.
Flashback – Between Chapter 140 and 141
The sun had begun its slow descent behind the fractured skyline of Velvora, gilding its ruins in fading firelight. Warm gold painted the edges of broken towers and glassless windows, giving the illusion that the city, despite its fractured soul, still remembered what it meant to be alive.
Inside a second-story office-apartment tucked between two collapsing buildings, time had softened into something sleepy. Mugs of forgotten coffee littered the table—half-empty, some with floating dust, one with a spider who'd made its peace with caffeine. Asher's desk bore the weight of a dozen open books, their pages curling as if recoiling from what they held.
The space looked lived-in, used, but never quite rested in.
Lucien leaned against the wall, his eyes half-lidded with the kind of exhaustion that didn't come from sleepless nights—but from truths that chipped at the bones. Rosa lounged with her boots kicked up, balancing a book on one thigh. Ira sat cross-legged on the floor, her hand lightly tracing symbols on the spine of a leatherbound volume that trembled under her touch, as if it remembered something terrible.
They weren't just friends anymore. They were co-conspirators against something ancient.
And maybe, something older than that.
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The Weight of Questions
"I still don't get it," Rosa said, finally breaking the silence that had blanketed them for the past hour. Her voice had that note—half curious, half defiant. "Five Thrones? Why would something so... massive... exist without any record? Who built them? Gods? Kings? Stagehands with too much flair?"
Lucien rubbed at the corner of his eye, then looked away. "Each Dominion has one. And yet they don't fit. It's like they were retrofitted into the world's architecture. Like someone changed the script halfway through the play and hoped we wouldn't notice."
"They're not just artifacts," Ira murmured, her gaze distant. "They're stories. Curses. Things that think. I can feel it… like they're waiting."
"Waiting for what?" Asher's voice was calm, but under the surface, the tension coiled. "To wake up? To judge us? Or to... finish something we never knew started?"
Rosa groaned and leaned her head back over the armrest of the couch. "I hate it. I hate that we're stuck reacting instead of doing. It's like we're just dancers in someone else's ending."
Lucien gave a lopsided grin. "Then maybe it's time we cut the strings."
Lucien's voice dropped into something conspiratorial. "If there's any place that might still remember the script—unedited—it's the library. Not the public part. That place is a hollow shrine now. But underneath…"
Rosa raised an eyebrow, interest piqued. "You're talking about the Old Stacks, aren't you?"
Lucien nodded. "The Ancient Curse Section. Supposedly untouched. Pre-Rewrite. They built the marble facade over it, like painting lipstick on a ghost."
Asher's voice was quiet. "Then that's where we go."
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A Shitty Piece of Lore
The library was never meant to be merely read—it was meant to be survived. When Velvora was rewritten, its public archive became a sterilized tomb. But beneath that curated ignorance lies a section unerasable by time or curse. The Ancient Curse Section—the place even Archivists fear to alphabetize.
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The Library's Enchantment
The library loomed like a mausoleum dressed for a gala—grand, but wrong in the quiet ways. Its entrance, a yawning arch of obsidian stone lined with glowing glyphs, seemed to breathe as the four approached. The automatic doors didn't open; they parted, as though the building were exhaling.
Inside, the air smelled of burning paper, ancient ink, and something sweet and acrid that none of them could place—like incense and decay had struck a truce.
High chandeliers flickered with artificial flame. The shelves seemed to stretch upward forever, into darkness that no lantern could reach. And at every intersection, the murals of forgotten gods watched. Some wept. Some smiled. Some were gagged.
Rosa twirled once in the entryway, arms outstretched. "It's like someone buried a cathedral and forgot to put up a sign."
Lucien kept walking. "Behave. These books might file a complaint."
Rosa winked. "Let 'em. I've been banned from classier places than this."
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Searching for Truth
The group dispersed. Rosa and Ira became cartographers of chaos, flipping through atlases that depicted Velvora's shifting geography like a city with a mood disorder. Lucien traced bloodlines that led nowhere, his finger tapping over names struck from history. Asher found himself near a shattered window, his own reflection barely recognizable.
Behind the glass, Velvora burned in slow silence.
And inside him, a question repeated:
What does it mean if the world is already lost… and we're just arguing about what flavor the ash tastes like?
An hour in, the mood cracked—thanks to biology.
"Oh no," Rosa said, pausing mid-page and clutching her stomach. "That's it. I'm about to commit war crimes in my pants. Emergency evacuation. Do not follow me. I mean it."
Lucien didn't look up. "No danger of that."
"Liar," she tossed back, smirking. "You'd follow me into hell if my pants were tight enough."
And with that, she vanished into a narrow hallway marked Ladies, hips swaying like punctuation.
The restroom was a disgrace—tiles cracked, mirrors fogged with mildew, and a constant drip-drip-drip like the heartbeat of something dying slowly. Rosa took the stall furthest from the door and sat with a theatrical groan.
"You know," she muttered, "I've fought bone witches and serial dreamwalkers, and yet this… this is the real horror."
Then she noticed it.
Behind the toilet: a small, round metal pan wedged oddly beneath the plumbing. Curious despite herself, Rosa reached out and flipped it. The moment she did, the floor shuddered.
Click.
The stall wall hissed, and a panel slid aside.
Behind it: a narrow tunnel.
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The Ancient Curse Section
The passage was barely wide enough to stand upright. The scent of old blood and forgotten mildew clung to the stones. Rosa cursed under her breath, pulling up her pants.
"I swear to every shit god and saint… if I die with my pants down, I'm haunting this place."
At the tunnel's end: a rusted door.
Carved into it, in curling, unnatural script:
ANCIENT CURSE
She exhaled sharply. "Of course."
Asher, Lucien, and Ira followed the sound of movement. They found Rosa standing in the doorway, her silhouette framed by a sickly green light.
Lucien's eyes narrowed. "What the hell did you touch?"
"Nothing... yet," Rosa replied with a grin. "But if this is what I think it is… we're about to get answers. Or devoured."
"Maybe both," Asher muttered.
Together, they entered.
This was no library. It was a vault of atrocities.
Shelves made of bone. Books stitched from skin. Jars of preserved memories, suspended in glowing liquid. One book was chained to the ceiling, slowly spinning like it wanted to escape gravity—or sanity.
And the pressure. It felt like the air was watching.
Rosa clenched her stomach. Her eyes went wide. "Oh no. No no no…"
Lucien looked up. "You okay?"
"I'm about to give birth to a demon turd the size of a sin."
"Too much information."
"Too real," she hissed. "I swear to every Watcher in this godsforsaken city, if I shit myself in this gorgeous coat—"
But then Ira stopped walking.
Her eyes locked onto a single relic in a glass dome: a silver hairpin with a gemstone that pulsed faintly—like a heartbeat.
"It's… singing," she whispered.
"Don't—" Asher began, but too late.
Her fingers touched the glass.
Her body went stiff.
A deep, ancient voice poured from her throat in a language none should remember. Her eyes turned white. Her mouth opened too wide.
Lucien rushed forward.
But Asher was faster. His aura ignited, a dark flame curled in gold. He placed two fingers to Ira's forehead and whispered a word not meant for this world.
Snap.
The curse broke.
Ira collapsed into his arms, coughing, eyes wet with terror.
Rosa whispered, "You didn't even chant…"
Asher didn't reply.
Around them, the cursed artifacts reacted, twitching in their displays. The library groaned.
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The Infinity Castle Moment
The ground beneath them shifted, the walls folding inward like paper caught in a breeze. Bookshelves twisted into impossible angles, staircases rose and vanished. The room became a labyrinth—an infinity castle of cursed knowledge.
Lucien cursed as he stumbled, trying to stay upright. "What the hell is happening?!"
Rosa didn't have time to answer. The pressure in her gut reached a catastrophic climax. She let out a strangled squeal as her bowels finally gave up. "Oh no—no, no, no—!"
With an explosive crack, the seat of her pants tore open—shit and all—right as she fell backward onto Lucien. Her legs spread instinctively, her skirt hiked up, and Lucien found himself nose-deep in Rosa's sweet, spicy scent, her expression an erotic mixture of relief and embarrassment.
Rosa let out a moan of both horror and something else entirely. "Oh god, Lucien… this is so embarrassing… but also… kinda hot?"
Lucien's muffled voice: "Rosa, I swear to every unholy thing in this city, get off me—!"
As the room shifted around them, Asher alone stood unmoving—eyes locked on a massive tome that had appeared in the center of the room. Bound in maroon leather, its cover was cracked like dry earth. Strange symbols crawled across it like worms in a grave.
He reached for it, his fingers brushing the spine——and it opened in a flash of white light, swallowing them whole.
[End Of Chapter144]
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