"A memory?" I furrowed my brow, 'Does it mean a trade?'
"You will lose a fragment of your memory," the voice continued, smooth and pitiless. "It is the price your mother decided on. Without it, I am afraid I can't help you. To gain the truth of the future, one must sacrifice the weight of the past."
Before I could even protest or ask which memory he intended to take, the ink images began to rotate. At first, it was a slow, hypnotic churn, but it quickly gained speed, spiraling into a violent, dark vortex.
The symbols blurred into long, obsidian streaks, and then, in the blink of an eye, the galaxy expanded outward like a silent explosion.
My eyes were forced to close; the sheer pressure of the displaced air was so intense it felt like needles pricking my eyelids.
Swish!
With a sharp, rushing sound, the wind died down as suddenly as it had started. I tentatively opened my eyes, and my jaw nearly hit the floor. I was met with something truly out of this world.
The void was gone. The things that were missing before had manifested out of the ink. Towering bookshelves made of a material that looked like crystallized starlight stretched upward into the golden mist, higher than the eye could see.
Millions of volumes lined the walls, but they weren't just normal books. They were glowing—some with a soft, ethereal silver and others with a pulsing, regal gold.
The only things still missing were the chairs and tables where one should sit and write and read; this wasn't a place for study, it was a vault for eternity.
'Now it looks like a Divine Library,' I thought, stunned. 'It looked more like a Mystery Library before.'
"Look closely, Rio Aragon," the Librarian's voice drifted from behind a shelf. "The silver volumes are the lives that have been lived. The golden ones... those are the lives that were supposed to be."
He walked toward a specific section, and reached out for a thick book.
It wasn't gold, nor was it silver. It didn't glow with the soft light of a life lived or the regal shimmer of a destiny promised. Instead, it felt like a hole in reality itself, drawing the light out of the air.
"The silver volumes are common lives," the Librarian explained, his voice echoing through the towering shelves. "To read one, the price is mere flesh—a limb, a finger, a drop of blood. The golden ones are the chronicles of the Great; to touch them, one must sacrifice their most loved ones. A heart for a heart."
He placed the silver book back into its slot with a click that sounded like a closing casket. Then, he stretched out his hand toward the misty heights of the library.
Swish!
From somewhere far above, a sound like a falcon's dive cut through the silence. A thin book, its cover wrapped in what looked like charred dragon-hide, flew into his palm. It didn't glow; it burned with a low, flickering dark mana,
"This is a Legendary Class record," the Librarian hissed. "Under normal circumstances, to read a single page requires your soul to be bound to the afterlife—a permanent tether to the realm of the dead. But your mother..."
He paused, tracing the singed edges of the cover with an ink-stained finger.
"...she broke every rule. She bypassed the cosmic scales and set the requirements impossibly low, just for you. She didn't want the world to take more from you than it already had."
I stepped forward, my breath hitching as the dark mana from the book brushed against my skin. It felt cold, like ice, yet it made my blood boil.
"So, the price is my memories?" I asked.
The Librarian turned the book over. On the back, written in a script that looked like dried blood, was a single line of text that I could somehow read despite never seeing the language before.
"The price is not your soul, Rio. It is your 'conviction'."
The Librarian opened the book. Instead of a screen or a memory, a single, needle-thin quill made of obsidian drifted out of the pages and floated toward my chest.
"She knew you would be a 'replacement' for a soul that died. She knew you would be confused, weak, and hunted. So, she left you this. To read her truth, you must pierce your own heart with this quill and sign your name on the blank page. You must choose, right here and now."
I looked at the obsidian needle, then at the burning book. The screen in the corner of my eye flickered.
[LEGENDARY ITEM DETECTED: THE BLOOD-INK TESTAMENT]
[WARNING: ACCEPTING THE CONTRACT WILL PERMANENTLY ALTER THE 'MAIN PLOT' ]
"If I sign it," I mumbled, "will I stop dying?"
"No," the Librarian replied. "It will only give you knowledge of what has happened. The ink can show you the path, but it cannot walk it for you. You have to figure out everything yourself."
He held the charred book steady, the dark mana licking at his ink-stained fingers like a hungry pet.
"And do not forget, Prince," he added. "The requirement of the book is conviction, yes. But the Divine Library itself is a marketplace of the soul. For me to hand this legendary record over, I still require my payment. I still need your 'Memories'."
I looked at the obsidian quill. It was hovering centimeters from my white shirt, vibrating with a low, ominous hum.
"Everything has a double price," I muttered, a bitter taste in my mouth. "The book wants my heart, and you want my past."
"Precisely," the Librarian hissed. "The memory of your first victory. The one that made you feel as though the world was yours to conquer. Give it to me, and the testament opens."
I hesitated. My 'first victory'? Was it the time I finally passed that impossible exam back in Pakistan? Or maybe the first time I stood up to the creditors? As I focused on the thought, I felt the memory begin to vibrate, detaching from my mind like a scab.
'If I lose that... will anything change?'
I looked at the pigeon screen. [RESONANCE STABILITY: 3.5%]. I didn't have the luxury of sentiment. If I didn't take this deal, I won't lose my memory but I will lose my future.
"Take it,"
The moment the words left my mouth, something inside me resisted.
Not logically.
Not consciously.
My fingers twitched, like I was trying to grab onto something slipping away, a feeling, a moment.
A version of myself that refused to disappear.
Then—
It was gone.
A sudden, chilling sensation of emptiness washed over me. A specific warmth in my chest vanished, leaving behind a cold, clinical void where a sense of pride used to be. I knew I had won something once, but I could no longer remember the joy of it.
[CORE MEMORY EXCHANGED: 'THE TASTE OF TRIUMPH']
[PERSONALITY TRAIT 'AMBITION' HAS BEEN WEAKENED]