Chapter 48: Within the Vault of the First Spell
Jean floated in a void not governed by gravity, time, or logic. Stars bloomed and faded around her like breath. She wasn't falling. She wasn't flying. She was simply being—her soul unmoored.
Eclipsion shimmered at her side, but the sword felt distant, as if part of her had been peeled away in entry.
Then, from the dark, a platform emerged—a spiral of glowing white stone adorned with runes that pulsed like a heartbeat. Jean landed softly, feet touching down upon divine architecture carved in a language older than gods.
Before her stood a figure.
Not Celeste.
Not a human.
But something else—clad in robes woven from nebulae, its face hidden behind a mask of mirrored light.
> "Welcome, Emissary," it spoke in a hundred voices, male and female, old and young. "You have entered the Origin Plane—heart of all spellcraft, sealed since the Age of Makers."
Jean didn't bow.
"I came for the Codex."
The being tilted its head. "Then you must answer."
A second platform drifted into view, and upon it lay the Primordial Codex—a book bound in chains of starlight, each link pulsing with locked intent. The very air around it warped.
> "To claim the First Spell is to accept judgment," the being warned. "Its knowledge burns. Its words demand sacrifice. What will you give?"
Jean stepped forward.
"Myself."
The chains groaned.
> "And if it breaks you?"
Jean's voice was calm. "Then I wasn't meant to save the world."
The being raised its hand.
A light engulfed her.
---
Elsewhere—just beyond the mountain's reach—Ryan Magus stood inside the lower Vault, holding a corrupted shard of an imitation Codex, forged from fractured spells and forbidden faith.
Screams echoed from his acolytes as they were consumed one by one—devoured by the unstable energy.
But Ryan stood firm.
"I don't need the real Codex," he whispered. "I only need its echo."
And in his hands, the false Codex opened.
A single word burned into his skin.
"Unmake."
---
Back within the true Vault, Jean screamed.
Not from pain—but from the flood of truths poured into her mind.
She saw the birth of the world.
The betrayal of gods.
The origin of dragons—not monsters, but divine enforcers, exiled for refusing to serve flawed human creation.
And she saw Antares, not as a beast… but as a fallen guardian, broken by loss, seeking to end the world to stop its endless corruption.
Jean collapsed to her knees.
Tears streamed down her face.
"I… understand now."
The chains shattered.
The Codex opened.
And light poured into her soul.
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