The gauze curtains high above the library windows stirred in the warm remains of sunlight.
The Executors stood before the towering shelves, their backs to the dark-red wood supports, now deepened further by the sunset's crimson stain. Grim-faced, they watched the boy standing alone in the central clearing of the library.
Lu Kang's long coat rippled around him. Dense, intricate silver formulas covered the fabric, shaping it from afar into something like tassels—
or wings.
Above him arched the curved dome of the library ceiling.
The glass chandelier hanging high overhead slowly lit up, like a moon beginning to rise.
The last echoes of Lu Kang's words faded.
And at that moment, the three Executors were indeed facing a situation they had foreseen—at least in part.
The miracle-based judgment they had tried to impose on Lu Kang had been meant to isolate him completely from the outside world and kill him while he was trapped.
And yes, they already knew that the robe he wore was a Mystic Code engraved with formulas, almost like a portable workshop.
They had prepared for that from the beginning.
Under the earlier total isolation, Lu Kang should have been unable to activate it at all.
Because beneath the confinement of miracles, the Mystery of magecraft could not properly be brought to life.
Miracles and magecraft, like Church and magi themselves, stood opposed to one another, rising as the other waned.
But what they had not expected was that Lu Kang would know the true source of the intelligence they had gathered.
Everything the Church had learned about Lu Kang had been pieced together from the traces Rasputin left behind after his death.
Rasputin had been a man of the Holy Church—one of the Executors themselves.
That was a fact.
And also a secret known only to the inner core of the Church: to other Executors, and to the great archbishops above them.
Yet Lu Kang, a mere priest, had spoken that truth out loud with absolute clarity.
No wonder they had wavered.
And because they wavered, the confinement and judgment of miracles had developed a single crack.
Lu Kang had used that crack to unfold his Mystic Code and break free.
"The plan has gone wrong," said the Executor standing directly before him.
This time the three no longer spoke in one voice. The shared cadence had been a requirement of the miracle ritual. Now that the rite had been broken, there was no need to maintain it.
"We don't know where you obtained that information," he continued, "but it changes nothing."
"We had thought to let you die in release," said the second Executor from Lu Kang's left rear.
"To die beneath divine judgment is better than to fall to hell and be butchered like a beast," said the third, standing behind Lu Kang to the right.
Three men.
Three alternating voices.
And as they spoke, the final residue of sunset outside sank below the horizon.
The outer world dimmed. The chandelier's light flickered once—
and went out.
Wind rose sharply.
The Executors vanished into darkness with the extinguished light.
And in the next moment, bright streaks of steel cut through the black—one the flashing line of a drawn longsword, another the rolling force of a fist that seemed to tear the air itself.
Three men.
Three directions.
The gap between the extinguishing of light and its return lasted only an instant.
Yet under the speed of the Executors, that instant seemed stretched into infinity.
Mystery, after all, was defined by being beyond ordinary understanding and measurement.
The moment ordinary men could fully comprehend it,
it would no longer be Mystery.
And what unfolded now was precisely the kind of scene ordinary people could not understand.
The Executors were not moving so much as vanishing and reappearing closer and closer to Lu Kang.
Each had drawn a different weapon.
The first, the one who had spoken first, wielded a knightly straight sword. He cut through the darkness suspended in that split second, the blade coming straight for Lu Kang—clean, decisive, without the slightest hesitation, like a battlefield master of arms.
The second wore miracle-wreathed gauntlets. His punch drove forward with the force of a swelling tide. His wrist snapped like a loaded spring, his body like a cannon carriage, his fist like the shell itself. A single strike carried the force of repeated bursts, as though divine thunder had been forged into a human arm.
The first was a weapons master.
The second, a master of close combat.
As the Holy Church's judgment arm against heresy, as the executioners within its own ranks, Executors were not defined merely by their understanding of miracle rites.
What mattered most was mastery of battle and killing.
To kill was their purpose.
To punish heresy was their end.
Their weapons were also Church tools known as ashen guns—arms imbued with miracle-based Mystery that could dissolve magecraft on contact.
Under such conditions, Lu Kang's defensive arts would be suppressed to the greatest possible degree.
As for the third man—while the first two attacked, he leapt upward in his black assassin-like robe. The silver cross at his chest swung violently.
And at the peak of his motion, that cross aligned with the extinguished chandelier above.
A spark of white light flared from the cross in the darkness.
Then, with the next breath, the chandelier lit once more.
And as the light returned, it descended with miracle-tainted brilliance from above, bathing floor, walls, shelves, and even the covers of every book in the library.
Once again, he used miracle to sever Lu Kang's connection to the surrounding Mystery.
It was not as complete or as lasting as the earlier confinement.
Only a momentary severance.
But a moment was enough to deny Lu Kang any use of external power while dealing with the attacks closing in from every side.
"Accept the judgment of God," the three Executors said together, "you priest who have betrayed the faith, you sinner who cultivate the demonic arts of heretical magecraft!"
Sword, fist, and light all converged upon Lu Kang at once.
Wind roared.
Their movement sent loose books flying from the shelves.
Even the floor trembled beneath their steps, dust and grit leaping into the air.
Light blurred. Shadows crossed.
And then—
countless books opened all at once.
Lu Kang narrowed his eyes into the oncoming attacks and isolation.
Time seemed to stretch again.
But this time it was not merely a change in perception.
It was a change in reality itself.
The Executors slowed.
They could clearly feel their own movements being delayed, as though the weight of invisible resistance had suddenly wrapped itself around their bodies—or as though consciousness and physical reality had been torn apart from one another.
Lu Kang's eyes reflected the blade before him and the thunderous fist behind him.
They were moving…
very slowly.
He exhaled and said in a calm voice, "That's why I said—if the Burial Agency didn't come personally, then this is all rather disappointing."
"A pity, really. I prepared a gift for you."
A triumphant smile spread across his face.
"You thought that in these fifty-three days, I had turned this library itself into my workshop, didn't you?"
He lifted his gaze toward the Executor above—the one who had once again used miracle to sever his link with the library.
That man had done exactly what Lu Kang said: used the miraculous light to cut off Lu Kang from the walls, the dome, the shelves, even the covers of the books.
Whether Lu Kang had transformed the library into a workshop or not, that method should have prevented him from drawing on any Mystery in the space.
It was a countermeasure born of generations of Executors fighting magi within workshops when no other choice remained.
A method that had always worked.
Only this time—
it had failed.
"You guessed wrong."
Watching them move in slow motion, while his own body remained perfectly normal, Lu Kang stepped easily around the sword and fist, both delayed many times over.
The robe covering his body, alive with fine inscriptions, trailed a bright arc through the air.
In the scattered afterglow, the boy walked to a bookshelf and bent to pick up a fallen book.
Then he slowly opened it.
The paper was yellowed with age.
And every page glowed.
Every word on every page held a magical formula.
Yes.
The Executors had guessed wrong.
Fifty-three days.
Five hundred and thirty hours.
He had never once altered the structure of the library itself.
What he had altered…
were the books.
He had inscribed his own magical marks upon them.
Had recorded formulas upon their pages.
One book was a single, infinitely compressed magecraft.
And once linked together—
they formed an immense field.
A sanctuary of magecraft.
This was Lu Kang's third sanctuary.
Together with the formulas on his robe and the magecraft engraved upon his skin, it resonated in threefold harmony.
It slowed the movement of space itself.
While the robe and the skin-engraving accelerated Lu Kang's body.
Thus, within this place, he remained as swift as ever—
while to the Executors who had entered, he had become lightning.
"You can isolate the library. The walls. The dome. The shelves. Even the covers of the books," Lu Kang said with a smile as he closed the book in his hands.
"But you cannot touch every page of every book."
Snap.
The book shut.
And with the impact of page against page, the outermost Sanctuary formula closed as well.
The world returned to normal.
The Executors' sluggish movements snapped back to full speed—but the sword and fist had already missed their target. The brief miracle that had isolated the inside from the outside reached its limit and collapsed.
They withdrew their weapons and regained their footing. The third dropped from above to the floor.
All three stared with even greater gravity than before at the boy standing before them beneath the now miracle-cleansed light of the chandelier.
The young priest stood before the shelves, one book in hand, backed by a sea of books stretching behind him.
His robe still shone with silver light.
The book still rested in his hands.
And yet, in that moment, the Executors felt a strange illusion take hold of them—
as though they were no longer in a library at all,
but standing atop the book in Lu Kang's hands,
standing between the folds of its pages…
at his complete mercy.
Magecraft: Record Sanctuary.
Here—
every word held Mystery.
Mystery that belonged to him.
-------
April Special Days *Sale 20%*
patreon.com/RuneA
-------
I, Herta's Fiancé, the Universe's Number One Male Fist (114 Chapter (Simulpub-Full) )
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Succubus in Sixth Street (400 Chapter)
Reborn in Type-Moon, My Sister is Aoko Aozaki (254 Chapter)
MyGO!! A Story Voiced by Me (140 Chapter)
BLEACH: Blade of Purification (158 Chapter)
Konoha: Starting the Game as Yoriichi (400 Chapter)
My Real Job is Spying on Konoha, but I'm Also its Hokage (140 Chapter)
The Pinnacle of the Navy! Starting from Being Captured by Garp (172 Chapter)
Watching Yu-Gi-Oh! short videos is making the veteran players lose...(80 Chapter)
Uma Musume : The Trainer Who Just Wants to Live (261 Chapter) (Ending)
Zenless Zone Zero The Random Kamen Rider (200 Chapter)
Genshin Impact: It All Began With Me Being Stepped On by Arlecchino (120 Chapter)
Naruto: I Can Synthesize Summoning Beasts (96 Chapter)
Demon Slayer: The Great Swordsman's System, Disciple of Yoriichi (140 Chapter)
My Wife is a General, but I'm an Emanator of Abundance! (160 Chapter)
Type-Moon: My Nine-Fold Path (140 Chapter)
Uma Musume: They're Peeking at My Diary, and All of Tracen is Panickin (Ending)
The Wild History of Type-Moon world (70 Chapter)
Reborn in Conan, But I Refuse to Be the Bad Guy (80 Chapter)
Ruan Mei is begging me to go back? But there's no going back anymore (140 Chapter)
Just a Slacker at Tracen Academy (165 Chapter)
Survival in Blue Archive (70 Chapter)
Kimetsu no Yaiba: Doma Wasn't Hated Today, Either (100 Chapter)
The Vibe of This Chat Group is a Little Off (100 Chapter)
Heartbreak Simulator: I Broke Them and Made Them Cry (80 Chapter)
The Talentless Trainer Doesn't Want to Restart (80 Chapter)
A Journey Starting as a Quincy (80 Chapter)
Uma Musume: The Master of Romance Obstruction (80 Chapter)
Uma Musume: You Can't Be a Hero Without a Little Chemical Enhancement (40 Chapter)
Honkai Impact 3rd Your Boyfriend is Really Amazing (40 Chapter)
Warhammer 40K: My Fiancée, Fulgrim (180 Chapter)
Classroom of the Elite: Trying to Capture Me! (120 Chapter)
Genshin Impact My Named Senji Muramas (150 Chapter)
A Chef, the Vice-Captain of the Rocks Pirates? (160 Chapter)
Naruto : My Uchiha Girlfriend is Too Tsundere (130 Chapter)
Type-Moon: Reincarnated in a Lostbelt, I Became the Alien God (90 Chapter)
The Way These Horse Girls Look at Me Is Terrifying! (160 Chapter)
Naruto: Tsunade's Deskmate (130 Chapter)
I Just Want to Live a Normal (50 Chapter).
Genshin Impact: A Hundred Confessions? It's Just a System Task (70 Chapter)
OnePiece : Starting as a Veteran of the Roger Pirates (60 Chapter)
Uma Musume : I Have Special Horse Taming Techniques (190 Chapter)
Uma Musume : My other self is a Horse Girl (130 Chapter)
Jujutsu Kaisen : All Affection Stats Maxed Out (200 Chapter)
Satou Kazuma's Decision to Live by Swindling, Starting from Re:Zero (60 Chapter)
Bleach : Ichigo! Take Over the Soul Society (89 Chapter)
Crossover Anime: The Master of Plagiarism with a 'Love Obstacle (140 Chapter)
Arknights Succubus Nurturing System, But I'm a Quiet Office Worker (90 Chapter)
Genshin Impact: Using My Personas to Break the Hearts of Players (50 Chapter)
One Punch Man : i am King? (150 Chapter)
Genshin: My Stats Are Irresistible (70 Chapter)
Naruto: Master of Dream Fulfillment! (70 Chapter)
Why Are All My Chat Group Friends Spin-Off Characters? (130 Chapter)
Arknights : Batman System (30 Chapter)
Chat Group: Swapping Bodies with the Bad-Ending Herta from the Start (80 Chapter)
DanMachi: Why Did My Dungeon Turn Into a Soulslike Game? (130 Chapter)
Losing Money on Uma Musume...What Do You Mean You Actually Won? (120 Chapter)
I'm Gotou Hitori—Who Are You? (40 Chapter)
Were You Ever Even a Uma Musume? Stop Making Things Up! (78 Chapter)
Moon Project: A Full-Time Love Adventure for the Lobotomy Corporation (75 Chapter)
The Leisurely Days of the Hyuga Main House (65 Chapter)
Arknights : A Draco Surviving in a Matriarchal Terra (189 Chapter)
Arknights: What if My Luck Is Too Good? (135 Chapter)
Honkai: The Romance System Only Shows Up After I Marry Mei (55 Chapter)
Arknights: Who Are You Calling Repressed, X?! (145 Chapter)
The Chat Group Only Arrived After I'd Cleared the Game (102 Chapter)
Gojo Satoru Flat-Out Refuses to Admit He's a Supporting Character (40 Chapter)
Chat Group Isn't Supposed to Be Like This! (30 Chapter)
If You're Moriarty...then Who Am I? (140 Chapter)
Uma Musume: Since I "Can't See," They Take Turns Stealing My Underwear (50 Chapter)
Arknights: Why Are All My "Brothers" Girls? (54 Chapter)
Danmachi: Start Training Haki (59 Chapter)
Emiya Shirou's Rebirth (30 Chapter)
I Can Get Stronger Just by AFK'ing—So I Joined a Chat Group (50 Chapter)
Endfield: I Can Always Pull Out One Yuan (65 Chapter)
Limbus Company : I Started a Company in Project Moon (50 Chapter)
Lobotomy: Do Cooks of Alley 23 Dream of Bloodfiend Knights? (50 Chapter)
DanMachi: Freya Familia's "One-Blade Shura" (60 Chapter)
DanMachi: Emiya, the Great Hero Becomes the Protagonist (90 Chapter)
TYPE-MOON: One Special Instance Every Week (40 Chapter)
From Danmachi: The Abundance Apothecary (70 Chapter)
Lord Shadow Descends on DanMachi (90 Chapter)
Fuse with Me, Exusiai! (41 Chapter)
Honkai: Star Rail — After I Die, I Forge Their Madness (60 Chapter)
DanMachi: The Last Zeus Familia (95 Chapter)
Endfield: Arknights Heroic Spirit Summoning (75 Chapter)
Toyokawa Family Finances (105 Chapter)
Starting From DanMachi to Become Stronger (90 Chapter)
DanMachi: My Familia Is Made Up Entirely of Heroines from Every World! (75 Chapter)
Arknights: My Intel Refreshes Daily (110 Chapter)
Digimon : I Never Meant to Do Evil, Even Though I Wasn't Chosen (40 Chapter)
Miss Holmes Could Never Be the Losing Heroine! (40 Chapter)
Takayama Gamu at Tracen Academy (40 Chapter)
Legendary Trainer Takes on MYGO (40 Chapter)
Arknights : Yandere Game: The Operators Have Come Knocking (100 Chapter)
Arknights: This Dating Sim Is Seriously Wrong! (120 Chapter)
Arknights : Ch'en Hui-chieh, I'm Done Being the Good Guy! (50 Chapter)
Type-Moon: Wasn't This Supposed to Be a Family Simulator? Why Am I the Family Heirloom? (40 Chapter)
Honkai: Star Rail : The Trailblazer Only Wants a Peaceful Life (45 Chapter)
Arknights: The Unlucky Dad? But I've Got the Chronicle of Time! (55 Chapter)
The Wheelchair War God Is Speedrunning Hogwarts (50 Chapter)
DanMachi: The Elemental Blaster of Orario (45 Chapter)
Playing Honkai in Star Rail (30 Chapter)
As an Alien, I'm Solo Leveling in Warhammer 40K (30 Chapter)
Arknights: A Symbiote's Survival Guide (70 Chapter)
My Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck Is Built Entirely from Stuff I Picked Up (30 Chapter)
I Can Hear the Thoughts of Uma Mutsume (30 Chapter)
Dead-Men Chat Group: Winning the Resurrection Bracket (40 Chapter)
Zenless Zone Zero: Saving the World While Falling in Love! (40 Chapter)
Demon Slayer: My Breathing Techniques Can Be Leveled Up (50 Chapter)
Type-Moon Age of Gods: Starting with a Simulation as Heracles (10 Chapter)
Terra Love Trap: They All Want Me to Themselves (30 Chapter)
Dimensional Ranking: Top Ten Saviors (30 Chapter)
Jujutsu Kaisen: Naoya Zen'in Wants to Stay Alive! (30 Chapter)
Bleach: This Everyday Multiverse Is Seriously Falling Apart! (30 Chapter)
If there's a particular novel you're enjoying on Patron, please give it a 'like' so I know to focus on it