Klara lowered her gaze to the page, her lips moving just enough to give voice to the inked scrawls.
"I know of the most famous War of the Four Emperors in the Fourth Epoch…" She paused, her mind filling in the shallow propaganda the Churches liked to dress up as 'history.' "…but the specific details and the main figures involved are limited to the information spread by the major Churches. For example, the 'Black Emperor' of the Solomon Empire."
Her brow furrowed. "It wasn't until today that this so-called Mr. Door finally answered my questions by letting me know who the remaining three emperors were…"
Her voice dipped, carrying each title with quiet weight. "The half-insane Blood Emperor of the Tudor Dynasty. The Night Emperor of the Trunsoest Empire. And the Emperor of the Underworld of the Southern Continent, also known as Death."
Audrey leaned forward unconsciously, her gloved hands folded tightly together. Alger's jaw was rigid, but his eyes shone with a keen sailor's hunger for secrets. Derrick blinked rapidly, his lips moving as though trying to memorize each word.
But Adrian?
"Death," he said, almost to himself. Flat, unblinking. A word that wasn't commentary so much as a judgment.
Klara kept reading before her nerves unraveled.
"According to Mr. Door's description, in this war that changed the situation of the entire world, the Black Emperor, the Blood Emperor, and the Night Emperor fell one after another. The Emperor of the Underworld reaped the greatest benefits."
She swallowed. Her eyes danced to the next lines.
"…But before their fall, there was another presence. A mirror wrought by no god, no emperor, but by a hand outside them all. It pacified their endless slaughter, reflecting their power back upon them until neither side could gain ground. For decades, the war simmered in silence beneath the glass surface of that Mirror, until…" Klara blinked and reread the sentence. "…until the creator itself shattered it."
Her stomach dropped.
"Pacified," Adrian murmured. One word, said like a verdict.
Klara didn't dare meet his eyes. She pressed forward instead, her voice steady.
"Having said that, Mr. Door added with profound significance that after over a century of 'digestion,' Death went mad… but also became stronger. Therefore, Death teamed up with the Primordial Demoness and brought about a Pale Disaster for the Northern Continent. Of course, this isn't something he witnessed personally, but rather something he hears when he comes close to the real world every month."
Her eyes flickered up from the page. Death went mad, but also became stronger… She almost laughed, brittle and humorless.
"Even deities can go mad?" Klara asked aloud, and the words hung in the gray fog.
"Hm." Adrian's voice slipped through the silence, low and nonchalant, as though he were confirming the obvious.
"What a horrifying sentence," Klara whispered, though her heart was pounding.
She turned the page, her voice tightening slightly.
"However, this also confirms my guess. Before the Fifth Epoch, those deities would often descend into the real world, directly interfering with the situation in the Northern and Southern Continents. They might even personally appear, just like Death."
"True," Adrian said softly.
Klara clenched her jaw. Would it kill him to stop commenting like he's the second author of this diary? Ugh, he's like one of those influencers that just slapped their reactions on a popular video.
"I asked Mr. Door if he had participated in the 'War of the Four Emperors.' If so, what role did he play? And what was the position the Seven Deities maintained in this war? What role did they play?
Klara flipped to the next paragraph, scanning it quickly before reading aloud.
"Mr. Door didn't answer my question. He only said in a teasing manner that the number of pre-eminent mighty figures in the Fourth Epoch far exceeds my imagination. And…" her voice slowed, "…that the Mirror's shattering unbound them. That nothing could hold them back once the glass that reflected them was gone."
Her hands tightened on the parchment.
Adrian tilted his head slightly, his silver eyes half-lidded. "Shattered," he said simply.
"Yes, thank you for the reminder," Klara muttered under her breath, glaring at the man before continuing.
"In addition, he also mentioned two laws. One is the Law of Beyonder Characteristics Indestructibility. The other is the Law of Similar Sequence Beyonder Characteristics Conservation. Both of which are consistent with what I've learned from that most secret and ancient organization… and also from some phenomena I have observed."
She let out a thin, bitter laugh, unable to help herself. "Heh. This can lead to many interesting conclusions. Terrifying ones. For example, when there are too many High-Sequence Beyonders in the same Sequence pathway, the Low-Sequence Beyonders would reduce. And vice versa."
Her voice fell to a whisper. "The Beyonder Characteristics had been fixed at the source. They will not increase or decrease."
Klara hesitated, staring at the words. Then, very softly, she read the last line.
"Does this mean there really is a God who created all the deities? An omnipotent, omniscient God? And everything… originated from Him?"
The page trembled in her fingers.
Silence fell like a curtain.
Audrey sat utterly still, her eyes wide and shimmering. Derrick's mouth opened, closed, opened again like a fish stranded on land. Alger rubbed his chin, the sharp creases on his face deepening as though to carve the thought into his bones.
And Adrian?
His lips curved faintly. He didn't say a word this time. He didn't need to. His silence weighed more than his comments had.
Klara exhaled slowly, folding the diary page back down.
That's… a lot of information, she thought with a dry, inward sigh. Roselle, you melodramatic lunatic, could you have crammed anything else in there? Maybe your breakfast order?
But no—her hand still trembled, her pulse still raced, because beneath the sarcasm, one thought refused to leave her.
The Mirror.
It pacified them once. And then it shattered.
What type of being could hold back an entire war just by existing… and pacified… what a strangely… specific word to use. Was it the mirror that stopped the war or did it do so just by its existence alone?
Her eyes flicked up to Adrian, unbidden, searching his unruffled face for any crack. Any reflection. Any truth.
Nothing.
Just silver eyes looking back, calm, unblinking, as though daring her to ask.
So she ignored them.
For as long as she'd studied, Klara had believed the neat little narrative every textbook, every dusty professor, every Church-approved history insisted on: the Solomon Empire, then the Tudor Dynasty, then the Trunsoest Empire. One line after another, like dominos falling in order, maybe with a few scraps of restoration or chaos in between.
But staring at the diary now, she felt her stomach twist.
"All three… existed at the same time?" she whispered in her mind, not daring to say it aloud.
If Roselle—or rather, this damn Mr. Door—was right, then the foundation of everything she had memorized, debated, tested on, was wrong. No, worse than wrong. It was propaganda.
Her chest tightened. Do you have any idea how many nights I spent studying maps, dates, genealogies, professors barking about 'political transitions' as if we actually understood the mess? And now you're telling me it was a three-way staring contest of emperors with delusions of godhood?
The words on the page blurred slightly as her thoughts raced.She suddenly thought of the original Klara, who was filled with interest towards archeology and the history regarding the Fourth Epoch. A sense of fulfillment filled his chest with her shoulders feeling lighter at the that she had fulfilled her wish, which was gone the moment it came as her thoughts returned to the matter at hand.
And Death… did Death already become a deity during that war? Or was he just some freak at Sequence 1, stretching out his life until he snapped? Mr. Door didn't clarify. Of course he didn't. Why would the walking mystery box hand out easy answers?
She bit her lip. Deities going mad… horrifying barely begins to cover it. If someone like Roselle—the overdramatic, self-indulgent narcissist Roselle—called it horrifying, then it had to be the kind of terror that makes even legends curl up and weep.
Her pulse thudded in her ears.
Evil gods… maybe they aren't evil at all. Maybe they're just the same old gods, cracked open like porcelain teapots, spilling insanity into the world. What happens if they all fall like that? Wouldn't that mean… one day… there'll only be evil gods left?
Her laugh, dry and brittle, stayed trapped in her throat. Great. End of days. Nice to know my tuition and sleepless nights got me a degree in "We're All Screwed 101."
Klara forced her gaze back to the lines, trying to anchor herself.
She thought of the Black Emperor again—the contradictions she'd stumbled across in the Antigonus notebook versus what her professors had drilled into her head. She'd always wondered: Was there really a succession of emperors each carrying the same title? Or… had it always been the same man? The same monster, stretching centuries past human limits?
Her hands trembled faintly. If Sequence 1 really is the peak of a pathway, then it makes sense. Someone at the peak could sit on a throne for hundreds of years. Or a thousand. Black Emperor wasn't a dynasty, he was the dynasty.
Her throat went dry. And if that's true… then the other emperors weren't any less terrifying. No wonder they called it the War of the Four Emperors. It wasn't just politics—it was gods-in-the-making butchering each other. And a strange Mirror that kept them in check, somehow holding them down, until it shattered…
Her mind spun faster, dragging her into spirals she couldn't slow. Mr. Door… who the hell are you? A survivor? A witness? A player? And why did Roselle only leave crumbs? All those "accidents" and "experiments" he never explained—was that his way of saying "figure it out yourself, future readers, good luck not losing your minds"?
She skimmed the next lines, clinging to them like lifelines. The Laws: Indestructibility. Conservation. Words that sounded so neat, so harmless, until you thought about what they actually meant.
If characteristics can't be destroyed, if they just shuffle around endlessly, then all those artifacts, all those saints, all those monsters—they're just recycling the same essence. And if there are too many high-sequence beings, then the low ones vanish? That doesn't even fit reality. Unless—
Her thoughts stopped dead.
Unless the gods themselves cheat the rules. Unless they're "gifting" something. Or maybe they're balancing the equation in blood. The fall of the Nation of the Evernight… was that just conservation playing out? Too much power pooled in one place, so the whole thing cracked under its own weight?
She dragged a hand down her face. Which means every step I take, every ritual, every scrap of a potion is just walking on a rigged board where the rules don't change—but the pieces do. Fantastic.
Her eyes burned as she tried to keep reading.
Artifacts as potion ingredients. Sure. If you don't mind a side order of screaming madness with your dose. "Remove all latent dangers," they say. Easy. Just cut out the part that makes it lethal and unstable. Like plucking the venom out of a snake. Brilliant. Utterly brilliant. Who came up with this nightmare system?
Her breath hitched as her gaze lingered on the last section.
Epoch of the Gods. That's what the ruins called it. And it makes sense now. They were here. They walked. They interfered. They fought. So what changed? Why don't they descend anymore? Why did they stop revealing themselves? Did someone lock the door to their playground—or did they decide we weren't worth the trouble anymore?
Her chest felt heavy, like the fog itself was pressing down.
If it weren't for rituals still working, if we didn't still get whispers, miracles, nudges… people would've started doubting they even exist. A godless age. Maybe that's what we're in already. Maybe this is all just echoes of something that's gone.
Her head bowed slightly, and she let the thoughts wash over her, gray and suffocating. She didn't even notice she'd gone still, silent, not even blinking at the page anymore.
—snap—
Klara jerked upright.
Her wide eyes landed on Adrian, who had leaned forward just enough to snap his fingers directly in front of her face. Controlled. Unamused.
And in his other hand—like it was the most natural thing in the world—was another sheet of paper, pulled clean out of the silver reflection he'd conjured.
She stared at it dumbly as he extended it toward her.
No words. No explanation. Just the quiet gleam of his eyes, the tilt of his hand offering the page.
Klara took it with stiff fingers, her heart hammering like she'd been caught red-handed.
"…Thanks," she muttered, her voice softer than she'd meant it to be.
The next few pages blurred by under Adrian's fingers. Four in total, each flipped with an ease that said he was already used to disappointment.
Klara leaned in unconsciously, trying to catch the flickers of words as they passed. No more Mr. Door… shame. She'd been so lost in her thoughts earlier that she had nearly missed the shape of a world rewritten, the Mirror Path's whispers between lines.
Now it was back to Roselle's usual antics.
She pressed her lips together as the next page was set down.
10th September. I've endured it for a long time, but I still can't help but complain a little. I must've had f**king sht for brains to choose the Savant path, right?*
Klara blinked, then stifled a laugh. Even Roselle's bitterness managed to sound like parody.
She read further, her smile thinning.
No combat powers. Reliance on external items. Memory here, ritualistic magic there, strong physique maybe if you're lucky. Tinkering, analyzing, cataloguing, producing toys while everyone else is throwing fireballs. An auxiliary path in all but name.
Klara's mind wandered again. Funny. That's exactly what Fool didn't let me do. Didn't let me fight. Pulled me back every time like I was too fragile for the dance. Maybe he wasn't wrong. Maybe some paths really are better built to stand in the shadows, watching, thinking, preparing, than to strike outright.
Her eyes drifted to Adrian.
The man who'd just conjured a mirror, pulled pages out of reflections, and revealed truths like breathing. Confidence. Certain. Watching them all with that smirk, as if nothing could surprise him.
The Mirror Path must be the same, Klara realized slowly. Auxiliary. A path that deals in concepts, truths, reflections, not brute force. A path meant to support, reveal, manipulate—but not kill. Not directly.
Her hands curled slightly on the table.
But then… why call him Executioner?
The thought sank into her like ice. An auxiliary pathway, capable of killing combat pathways. Capable of cutting down lions and wolves, saints and emperors. Mirrors aren't harmless, not if they can reflect weakness, turn power back on its wielder, bare lies until they unravel. The Mirror has to have combat abilities… terrible ones. Otherwise the name wouldn't make sense.
Her throat tightened as the realization built.
He isn't just a lion that breathes fire, or one that grew wings overnight. He isn't even a beast with scales. If the Mirror Path can execute even the combat-focused ones, if it really can turn strength back onto itself… then he isn't a lion at all anymore.
Her gaze locked on Adrian, who sat with his usual silence, flipping pages like he had all the time in the world.
He's a dragon. A dragon with claws hidden behind a smile, with fire that burns only when it chooses to, with wings that blot out escape. A fire-breathing, flying, scaled dragon.
Klara forced herself to swallow and looked back down at the page.
Roselle's voice rang on in ink:
…Consul Roselle Gustav. I like that name.
Her lips twitched into a smile, but it was brittle, strained.
Because all she could think was: The lion just grew scales.
And she wasn't sure if she'd survive standing in front of a dragon.