The air on Floor 4 tasted different. Metallic. Old. Like rust and dried ink.
Sera's voice crackled in my earpiece, strained. "Eastern wing is… holding. Frost field active. Drawing them in. You have a window, Liam. A short one."
"Understood."
I moved. The corridors here were wider, the ceilings vaulted. And the walls… they weren't just walls. They were covered in flowing, glowing script. Ancient text that pulsed with a faint, blue light. It wasn't decoration. It felt like a warning. Or a record.
My Codex was a quiet weight in my jacket's inner pocket. Four permanent skills. One temporary slot, empty and waiting.
The Ink Welder was my target. A D-rank support-type. Its skill, *Ink Shield*, was the objective. A hardened barrier. Perfect for someone with no innate defense. Sera's intel placed it in the western wing's central archive, a chamber lined with stone tablets instead of shelves.
I rounded a corner and froze.
The archive chamber was ahead, its massive stone doors slightly ajar. And in front of it, standing sentinel, were two ink beasts.
Not one. Two.
The one on the left was the Welder. A hunched, humanoid figure sculpted from glossy, black ink, its hands fused into wide, flat tools. It was smaller than I expected. Dense.
The one on the right was the problem.
Taller. Sleeker. Its form was less defined, shifting slightly, like wet ink on a page. An Ink Scribe. D-rank. Sera's briefing flashed in my mind: *Capable of temporary skill replication. Observational mimicry. High intelligence.*
Two-on-one. Bad math.
The tablets on the walls were not local dialect. Three of them carried a trade script I had last seen on a shipping manifest outside the Records Division — Northern Library provenance, confirmed route.
I assessed my toolkit. Ink Bite for close-up corrosion. Ink Needle for precision strikes. Shadow Step for evasion. Thread Trap for area control. Four skills. Against two D-ranks, one of which could copy me.
The Scribe's head—a faceless, smooth oval—turned toward my hiding spot.
It knew.
No time for a better plan. I moved.
I burst from the corridor, Ink Needle already forming in my right hand. I aimed for the Welder. A test.
The Welder didn't dodge. It raised a fused hand. Ink flowed from its form, hardening in mid-air into a semi-transparent, dark gray shield. My Needle struck it with a sharp *tink* and shattered into motes of fading ink.
*Ink Shield. Confirmed.*
The Scribe moved. Not toward me. It flowed to the side, its body rippling. Watching.
I needed to separate them. My left hand swept out, trailing faint, sticky threads of ink. *Thread Trap.* I laid it between them, a barely visible web across the chamber floor.
The Welder took a step forward, then stopped, sensing the trap. The Scribe simply looked down at the threads, then back at me.
Then it shimmered.
And vanished.
A cold spike drove into my gut. I triggered *Shadow Step* on instinct, blurring two meters to the left. The air where I'd been standing rippled, and the Scribe reappeared, one elongated arm striking empty space.
It had copied Shadow Step. After seeing it once.
My one advantage in mobility—gone.
It turned its blank face toward me. I could feel it studying me. Learning.
The Welder, emboldened, began to advance, its shield reforming, larger this time. A wall of hardened ink.
Think. Adapt.
The Scribe's copy was temporary. Fresh. Mine was permanent. Practiced. There had to be a lag. A half-second of difference.
I backed toward the chamber's center, drawing them in. The Welder came straight on, shield first. The Scribe flickered, using its stolen Shadow Step to flank me.
Now.
I pivoted, ignoring the Welder for a heartbeat. I focused on the Scribe. As it blurred toward my right side, I didn't try to out-predict it. I matched it.
I triggered *Shadow Step* at the same moment it did.
Two identical movements. Two bursts of displaced air.
We reappeared three meters apart, facing each other. But I was settled. Stable. The Scribe's form wavered, just for an instant, as it adjusted to the unfamiliar skill.
A half-second. That was all.
My right hand was already up. *Ink Needle.* Not thrown. Held. I lunged, not with skill, but with raw speed, driving the needle-point toward the core of light in its chest.
It tried to phase away again. Too slow.
The needle pierced the shifting ink. There was a sound like tearing parchment. The Scribe froze, then collapsed into a pool of inert, black fluid.
One down.
A shadow fell over me. I dropped and rolled.
The Welder's shield slammed into the stone floor where I'd been, cracking the ancient tablet. It loomed over me, tool-hands raised to crush.
No room for Needle. No time for Step.
I brought my left hand up, palm open. *Ink Bite.*
My hand met the lower edge of its ink shield. The corrosive skill activated. A sizzling, static hiss. The hardened ink under my palm bubbled and dissolved, eaten away in a circle the size of my fist.
The Welder recoiled, trying to reform the shield. I didn't let it.
I pushed forward, my right hand forming another Ink Needle. I drove it through the weakened, corroded point in the shield.
The needle slid through. Into the Welder's core.
It shuddered. The shield dissolved into mist. The creature let out a low, grinding sigh, like stone on stone, and slumped to the floor. Its body began to dissipate.
My Codex pulsed. Warm. Urgent.
I pulled it out as I stood, breathing hard.
[[Codex Panel — Transcription Log]
Target: Ink Welder (D-grade)
Skill Detected: Ink Shield (D-grade)
─────────────────
Transcription successful.
[Ink Shield (D-grade) added to Temporary Slot 5.]
[Timer: 24:00:00]
─────────────────
[Slot Status: 4/5 Permanent. 1/1 Temporary.]]
Information arrived at once: weight distribution, ink-density modulation, activation triggers. A dome of hardened ink. Defensive. Static.
I looked at the fading corpse of the Scribe. It had copied my Shadow Step. A temporary theft, just like mine.
For a second, I wondered what its Codex would have looked like. If it even had one.
Sera's voice hissed in my ear, tight with pain. "Liam. Status. The frost field is… fluctuating. They're pushing harder."
"Welder is down. Shield is copied. Scribe is also down."
A pause. A faint, shaky exhale. "Good. Get to the extraction point. West wing, sub-chamber Delta. Don't… don't go back the way you came. The eastern pull is too strong now. You'll get swarmed."
"Understood. On my way."
I took one last look at the archive chamber. The glowing text on the walls seemed brighter. One phrase, repeated on a nearby tablet, caught my eye. It wasn't in any language I knew, but the meaning surfaced in my mind, cold and clear:
*The Author is asleep. Do not turn the page.*
I turned and ran.
The route to sub-chamber Delta was a maze of lesser corridors, the stone here rough, uninscribed. My footsteps echoed. The temporary skill, *Ink Shield*, sat in my mental inventory like a loaded gun. A twenty-four hour clock was ticking in the back of my skull.
I found the sub-chamber—a small, circular room with a single, heavy metal door on the far side. The extraction point. It was empty.
I leaned against the wall, catching my breath. I pulled out my canteen and took a long drink. The water was warm.
That's when I felt it. A vibration through the floor. A rhythmic, heavy *thud*. *Thud*. *Thud*.
Coming from the door.
Not from the other side.
From inside the wall itself.
I straightened up, canteen forgotten. I moved toward the metal door, my hand not going for a weapon, but for the wall beside it. The stone was cold. I pressed my palm flat against it.
*Thud.*
The vibration traveled up my arm. Something was in the walls. Something big. And it was moving toward this chamber.
Sera's warning echoed. *Don't go back the way you came.*
She never said anything about what was already here.
The metal door's handle began to turn, from the inside.