The Mystery contained in every book and every page spread freely throughout the library.
Pages turned in the evening wind pouring down from the high windows, rustling like a thousand voices.
Though invisible to the naked eye, the Executors, wielders of miracle, could feel a great danger rapidly closing in.
Where the lamps shone brightest, row after row of towering bookshelves seemed almost to transform into giants spewing crimson magma, pressing down upon them under the radiance of Lu Kang's bright-lit robe.
Carelessness, and then carelessness again—
but this could hardly be blamed on them.
Lu Kang's methods came one after another in endless succession. He felt less like some self-taught mystic and more like a traditional magus backed by a complete and ancient system.
Yes.
That was the sensation the Executors knew.
They had only ever felt it before from magi who came from truly complete lineages—
the old houses of the Clock Tower in Western Europe, those hereditary families who possessed their own magical foundations and stood in open opposition to the Church.
The Executors exchanged glances.
They reached the same conclusion in an instant.
Not to retreat.
Not to run.
But to press forward with everything they had.
"Let all the nations hear my words.
Let every inhabitant of this world listen…"
They began to pray.
As if what stood around them were not the hostile domain of an enemy, not a library infused with heretical magecraft—
but a sacred church itself.
"High and low together, listen well, for man cannot redeem himself…"
They continued praying.
The three of them stood shoulder to shoulder amid the swirling pages, their chant spreading through the lamp-lit, towering hall filled with books and shadows.
Lu Kang listened.
He watched the gold-bright radiance rise from their bodies.
He watched the shadowy figure of something like an answering angel slowly form behind them.
It was light.
Boundless, sacred, and severe.
However impure the Church might be in secret,
true faith still existed within it.
Faith was not necessarily善.
But faith taken to an extreme…
was always madness.
"So this is Baptism Chant—the great miracle corresponding to a grand spell," Lu Kang murmured, realizing what they intended.
Every Executor was trained for combat. Like battle-oriented magi, they normally chose the fastest and simplest ways to invoke miracles, sacrificing power for speed, reducing the thickness of Mystery so that they could kill more efficiently.
The miracles they used were all modified forms.
Greater power meant greater danger.
Less power meant greater speed.
But there were some miracles which, like great ritual spells in magecraft, simply could not be simplified or abbreviated.
They required prayer.
They required chanting.
They required invocation.
They were higher and stronger great miracles.
And Baptism Chant was one such rite.
Ordinarily, in this age of thinning Mystery, it should have required hundreds or even thousands chanting in unison to manifest the radiance of God.
But it could still be forced into being by only a handful of people.
At a terrible cost.
A cost so terrible that it required their very lives.
They were preparing to self-destruct.
Willing to die if that was what it took to complete their mission.
Willing to sacrifice themselves if that was what it took to carry out what they believed to be the Church's absolute judgment upon a heretic.
Their expressions were solemn.
Their eyes shone with fervor.
Madmen.
Fanatics.
Lu Kang sighed inwardly.
He heard the chant growing louder and louder, but he did not try to stop them. He knew he couldn't. Baptism Chant was difficult to invoke, but once begun, it could no longer be interrupted cleanly. To interfere rashly would only cause worse consequences.
The proper way to deal with Mystery had always been the same: observe, analyze, and only then decide.
And observe was exactly what Lu Kang was doing.
He turned pages.
Through his thoughts, he manipulated every book, every sheet, every word in the library that he had inscribed with his own Mystery.
They were chanting.
Chanting a miracle that would reveal divine power.
And he was also assembling something.
Assembling a Mystery born from the future.
Light collided with light.
The library seemed split in two.
The many-colored brilliance of magecraft and the holy purity of miracles tore at one another, a contest between two systems of Mystery—each one gathering force before release.
Around them, the very environment seemed to smear into an abstract painting of warped light and motion—
like Van Gogh's stumbling turmoil,
or Picasso's interwoven blocks and lines.
And then, in the next instant—
the light exploded.
Lu Kang froze.
So did the three Executors.
The Baptism Chant stopped abruptly.
And in the divine radiance beginning to appear above and behind them, another figure took shape.
Their ritual had been tampered with.
What they had summoned was not God—
but something else.
And because of that, they would not have to pay with their lives.
"My, my. Wanting to throw your lives away so easily is hardly the mark of qualified Executors, is it?"
The voice that followed was clear and pleasant.
The figure manifested overhead as a transparent projection. Its gaze swept across the Executors below—
and then fixed squarely on Lu Kang.
It was watching Lu Kang Luvister.
"Lady Kichijouin Kiara of the Burial Agency?" the three Executors cried out, astonished and relieved.
The newcomer was indeed from the Burial Agency—the strongest division of the Church's Executor corps, a department where monsters gathered among monsters.
Though their ritual had been interrupted, if she had appeared…
"Oh, I'm very happy you're not angry that I rewrote your ritual without asking," the projection said lightly. "But alas, I'm only a miracle-projection here, not the real thing. I don't have all that much power."
Then she turned fully toward Lu Kang.
"So, since matters have come this far… how about we each take a step back, Priest Lu Kang Luvister?"
Lu Kang did not answer immediately.
He stood atop the domain woven from books and words, staring at her.
"Kichijouin Kiara…" He tasted the name and felt it was eerily familiar.
How could it not be?
This was, after all, a counterpart of Kiara Sessyoin—the one who in another form belonged to the Seven Beasts that arose from humanity and yet destroyed humanity.
"So you know me," Kichijouin Kiara said pleasantly. "That makes things easier. I was just transferred to Russia, you see, and such a large mess broke out before I even had time to get my bearings. How troublesome. Fortunately… you at least seem to be someone who can listen to reason."
Though her projection was translucent and wavering, Lu Kang could still make out the unmistakable outline beneath the nun's habit.
He said, "And what sort of 'step back' do you have in mind?"
"Naturally," she said, "the rule laid down by King Solomon over Mystery itself: render unto God what is God's, and unto man what is man's."
"So long as you stop here and leave the court, we won't pursue you no matter where you go. After all, you've already glimpsed the structure of miracles. That much gain should be enough for you, shouldn't it?"
Her clear and melodious voice did nothing to persuade Lu Kang—
but it made the three Executors below change color immediately.
"You let him glimpse the structure of miracles?"
Only then did they realize that in the course of their judgment, they had effectively exposed the inner workings of the Church's miracle-system to a heretic hidden within their own ranks.
And yes, Lu Kang had used them to observe a system of Mystery entirely separate from magecraft.
But he had no intention of accepting Kiara's proposal.
"That's something I won with my own hands," he said. "And once I've taken something, it's mine. What—you intend to bargain with me using what already belongs to me?"
So the negotiation had failed.
Kiara paused, faintly surprised, as if she had wanted to say more.
Lu Kang did not let her.
He believed that the power of language did not lose much to the power of magecraft.
But now the time for words had passed.
This contest—
this entanglement—
had gone on long enough.
"Just as you said," he said calmly. "Render unto God what is God's. That is the law set down across time by Solomon, creator of magecraft, and Christ, origin of miracles—the law that defines the two poles of modern Mystery."
"But what I would rather say is this: what belongs to Solomon belongs to Solomon. What belongs to Christ belongs to Christ. And as for me—"
"I want all of it."
With that, Lu Kang opened the book he had been holding all along.
At that same instant, every book in the library flew open.
Countless letters lit up with flowing radiance, like stars igniting across the night sky. Firefly-like lights spread through the entire library, surrounding all of them in the vast central hall already encircled by shelves.
The Mystery he had been gathering and preparing burst forth at last in full.
And then, as though every word in the room had become one, the countless letters combined into a single, unfinished symbol—
like the closing of a thick and ancient grimoire.
"The negotiations are over," said Kiara's projection. Her tone remained calm. "But next time, it won't be ordinary Executors who come."
She was not angry.
She was not displeased.
If anything—
she sounded almost delighted.
"Then next time," Lu Kang replied without fear, "it had better be you in person, Kichijouin Kiara."
Within the simulation, Lu Kang did not fear her.
What he lacked most in the world of Mystery was precisely the sort of stepping stone that would let him make his name.
The next second—
with a deep, resonant hum—
the countless words fused into one,
and then burst apart in a flood of light that drowned the entire library.
The Executors and Kichijouin Kiara's projection vanished beneath it together.
[You drive away the Church Executors and Kichijouin Kiara of the Burial Agency.]
[You know this act is an outright provocation against the ancient Holy Church, but you are not afraid—both because you do not fear false death, and because you see this as an opportunity.]
[You have now obtained an initial understanding of the structure of miracles.]
[And you have the beginnings of an idea as to how bloodline and crest might be fused into a mystery-system of your own.]
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