While ascending the spiraling stone stairs toward the 4th Floor, the sound of their footsteps echoed softly, breaking the silence of the tower.
Alphonse, whose mind was still actively dissecting the interactions on the previous floor, finally voiced his deduction.
"If they truly once possessed Storage Rings capable of halting the flow of time within," Alphonse spoke softly to his two friends, without looking back, "it means the Ancient Era civilization in this world did not merely use magic as an offensive tool or for manipulating basic elements."
Alphonse narrowed his eyes, piecing the puzzle together.
"They manipulated the laws of physics and tore through the boundaries of space-time itself. This civilization once stood at the apex of astonishing advancement, before whatever event befell them caused everything to regress far back to this point."
As soon as they set foot at the top of the stairs, the sight of the 4th Floor welcomed them with a layout vastly different from the floors below.
This room no longer displayed artifact cases. On the left side, there was a row of long wooden counters dedicated to transactions specifically for magic spellbooks. On the right side, heavy double metal doors were shut tight, adorned with writing indicating it was a closed hall for Mage Assessments.
Meanwhile, in the center of this floor, stretched a rather expansive library with rows of tall wooden shelves filled with literature.
The visitors on this floor were far sparser, almost entirely dominated by people wearing magic robes with various faction emblems.
Alphonse's eyes were immediately drawn to the rows of library shelves. On the other hand, Vrischil's gaze locked onto the metal doors of the assessment hall.
"Alphonse," Vrischil called out with a flat face. "I will observe the assessment process in that hall."
Alphonse nodded in agreement. Knowing the average strength of potential enemies or allies was the foundation of any combat strategy. He then turned to Arcus, asking via a glance where he intended to go.
Arcus snorted softly.
"I will follow Vrischil," Arcus answered casually, leaning against the wall. "Reading piles of rotting paper is far too boring for a free-spirited man like me."
"Besides, I want to see with my own eyes whether the mages in that hall can impress me with their tricks... or if they will only make me laugh," Arcus smiled arrogantly.
Parting ways with his two friends, Alphonse stepped alone into the library area. The distinct scent of old parchment, dust, and dried ink immediately filled his senses.
He walked down the aisle of shelves until he found a round table in the corner of the room. Behind that table sat an old man serving as the librarian.
His body was wrapped in a wool robe far too thick for the environment inside the tower, and glasses with incredibly thick round lenses perched on the bridge of his nose, making his eyes look much larger than their normal size.
Utilizing the remnants of his salvaged aristocratic authority, Alphonse approached the table.
"Excuse me," Alphonse greeted in a polite yet commanding tone. "Where might I find historical literature discussing the Ancient Era?"
The old librarian looked up. He observed Alphonse for a moment from behind his thick lenses, then raised a trembling, wrinkled finger. He pointed toward the furthest wooden shelf in the corner of the room, looking dark, desolate, and rarely touched.
"Look for a book titled Chronicle of the Torn Sky," the old librarian said.
Thanking him with a slight nod, Alphonse walked toward the designated corner. His fingertips traced the spines of books thickly coated in dust, wiping away the clinging cobwebs.
Suddenly, his movement stopped at a book with a black leather cover that had begun to peel and rot with age.
On its front cover, the title was engraved in fading gold ink: Chronicle of the Torn Sky.
Alphonse pulled the thick tome out, blew the dust off its cover, and opened it beneath the glow of the nearest crystal lamp. Its initial pages presented text written in an archaic linguistic style.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he read the descriptions of the Ancient Era's golden age. The writing did not exaggerate, yet what it described was truly astonishing.
The book recorded how the civilizations of humans and other races in the past were capable of creating giant ships of metal that did not sail on water, but navigated the sea of stars in the cosmos.
There were records of continent-scale magic spells capable of sweeping mountains clean into flat land, or parting the oceans with a single swing of a staff.
On the next page, Alphonse found a legend dedicated to the figure of the 'Ancient Elf Queen'—a ruler said to possess the power to invert the cycle of nature itself to create an eternal spring for her people.
However, as Alphonse turned to the following page, the tone of the writing within the chronicle changed drastically.
The grandeur and golden glory evaporated without a trace, replaced by suffocating despair. An illustration filled an entire page.
The illustration depicted the sky literally tearing itself apart, forming jagged black rifts above the continent.
The text beside it explained the onset of a tragedy. The Invasion of the Abyss.
A dimension of darkness tore open, and demonic entities descended upon the world of Orion. The chronicle wrote that the power of those Abyss creatures was so massive and unstoppable, that they annihilated civilization within a matter of years and swallowed the majority of the continent into a sea of blood.
Alphonse's breath hitched as he read the final paragraph of that chapter.
Right when the world stood on the brink of total annihilation and hope had been entirely extinguished, the book recorded an event of awakening. From the ashes of despair, ten grand existences rose, later known in history as the 10 Guardians.
Through a series of epic battles that unfortunately were not recorded in detail, these ten grand heroes succeeded in destroying the main gate of the Abyss.
They forced the demonic army to retreat into the darkness of their dimension, leaving behind the shattered remnants of civilization, which now had to crawl back up from ground zero to build a new world.
The silence of the library corner became the witness to Alphonse's thirst for answers. With his heart beating slightly faster, he turned the page of the Chronicle of the Torn Sky, preparing to read the most crucial part: the epic battle that ended the Abyss invasion and, most importantly, the true identities of the ten entities known as the 10 Guardians.
However, instead of finding the continuation text, his fingertips only touched the torn remnants of paper at the base of the binding.
The page containing the conclusion of the cosmic war had been forcibly removed. Not by the rot of age, but by the hand of someone who had intentionally ripped it out.
Alphonse's brow furrowed deeply. He examined the remaining final pages meticulously, hoping to find a fragment of information. There was nothing.
However, as he flipped to the back of the rotting leather cover, his eyes caught a single line of writing nearly faded in the bottom corner. A simple name left by the author: Eon.
Refusing to surrender to this dead end, Alphonse brought the worn book back to the eccentric old librarian's table.
"Forgive me," Alphonse said in a calm tone. "Is there any other literature in this library discussing the '10 Guardians'? This book appears to be missing several of its pages."
The old librarian stopped his scribbling. He looked up, adjusted his thick-lensed glasses, and stared at Alphonse with an incredibly strange look—as if the handsome young man before him had just asked for directions to the sun.
"You want to know about the 10 Guardians?" the librarian asked, his voice hoarse and low. "Not the 4 Gods?"
Alphonse was slightly stunned. A wild question sparked in his mind. Why does the history believed by this librarian only remember the number four, and not ten?
Yet, he kept his expression perfectly flat. He maintained his smile and nodded slowly. "Yes. The 10 Guardians."
Exhaling a long sigh as if indulging an eccentric youth obsessed with bedtime fairy tales, the old librarian raised his hand. He pointed toward another aisle of shelves just as desolate as the previous one.
"Look on the far shelf over there. There is an ancient poetry collection book titled The Ballad of the Ten Stars."
Alphonse immediately headed to the indicated location. It only took him a few minutes to find the thin book with a faded blue cloth cover. He opened it.
This book was not a rigid historical record, but a collection of epic poems describing the Guardians as if they were living constellations descended from the sky to judge the demons.
Although written in poetry form, the metaphors within provided a profoundly clear picture regarding the scale of their power. As Alphonse read stanza by stanza, his mind caught visualizations of terrifying, colossal strength.
Sylvegard, The Emerald Cradle
This forest was not born from a seed blown by the wind,
But rose from the womb of a torn earth.
As ancient roots ripped through the soil,
Green vines crawled wild.
Binding tight. Choking to death.
No water nourishes this land.
Only the blood of demon legions seeping slowly into the roots.
Now, beneath the shadow of the giant Treant standing tall,
This forest is a monument,
Tightly guarding the mass grave that blossomed into life.
Lumina, The Faceless Light
Her presence was not preceded by hymns of praise,
But a blinding light tearing the heart of the night.
As the silence shattered, the heavens spewed judgment.
A thousand blades of light descended roaring.
Piercing flesh. Pulverizing the earth.
No mercy for those who bear sin.
For behind the majestic flap of the angel's wings,
It is not the warmth of salvation that descends to greet,
But the shadows of death freezing the soul.
Zephyroth, The White Tempest
The gale sweeping this land is not foul weather,
But a holy roar that freezes the blood.
As the span of giant white wings cleaves the storm,
A shadow darts. Lunges. Tears through flesh.
Even an entity as strong as a Demon Lord is forced to fall prostrate,
Its arrogance shredded by the fangs of the tiger ruling the skies.
No remnants of resistance are left on the battlefield,
For when the sovereign of the tempest descends to the arena,
Death arrives as fast as a chilling breath.
Gajapati, The Zenith Behemoth
The earth does not tremble out of fear,
But wails as that giant weight begins to step.
When its colossal tusks are raised, the dark clouds in the sky tear apart.
A single stomp descends, smashing the land.
Stone cracks. Walls collapse. Crumbling into dust.
To the demon legions hiding behind the arrogance of fortresses,
There are no defensive tactics that hold meaning.
Everything is crushed and leveled to the ground,
Pulverized beneath the march of the elephant that never hesitates.
The barrage of information slammed into Alphonse's mind once again. These poems depicted the forms of the Guardians as giant monsters and colossal holy entities.
As he visualized the scale of power of those gigantic creatures, his memory was dragged back to the traumatic moment in the Akashic space.
The shadow of the Eye staring at him from the vacuum of outer space—the eye that siphoned all his energy dry and made him shudder in absolute terror—flashed across his mind again. Did that eye entity possess a scale of power equivalent to the creatures described in these poems? Or did that eye belong to one of the Guardians?
With his heart beating fast, a mixture of enthusiasm and horror lurking in the back of his mind, Alphonse turned the page of the book rapidly. He wanted to find the last six stanzas of poetry to uncover the remaining six Guardian names.
The movement of his hand froze in mid-air.
The next page... was torn out roughly.
The jagged edges of the paper were the only things left from the remainder of the book's pages. The existence of the other six Guardians had been eradicated from that page, exactly like what had happened to the chronicle book earlier.
Alphonse's breath exhaled roughly. His jaw hardened.
Behind his monocle, his golden eyes narrowed sharply, suppressing his anger. His grip on the edge of the book tightened until the cloth cover nearly tore. He was furious. Frustration boiled in his chest.
The most important fact regarding the history of this world—the identities of its past rulers—had been deliberately erased by someone.
Trying to calm himself, Alphonse forced his hand to skip to the closing epilogue page, which was the only page still intact at the back.
The epilogue text wrote that after the great war ended, all races worshipped these 10 Guardians as their savior gods. However, unfortunately, the majority of those grand entities fell into a deep slumber, while several others vanished without a trace, leaving the shattered world to the survivors.
Alphonse closed the poetry collection book with a turbulent mix of frustration and awe. As he turned the book over to place it back on the shelf, his eyes fell upon the back cover of The Ballad of the Ten Stars.
He found a mystery carved into a common thread connecting the two books he had discovered.
In the bottom corner of that cover, neatly engraved, was the exact same author's name as the writer of the Chronicle of the Torn Sky.
Eon.