The glass coffin moved forward in perfect silence, carried by hands that never truly touched the ground.The priests around it didn't blink. They didn't even walk—something unseen was dragging them forward, like puppets pulled by the invisible strings of punishment.
Luin didn't move.He stood in front of the hut, between it and Willem, his eyes not fixed on the coffin but on the air around it—because the air itself no longer felt like air.It was heavier. Slower. Full of sounds that weren't heard, only felt.
Then the procession stopped.
The priests opened their mouths all at once—but no sound came out.
The coffin opened on its own, responding to a will that didn't exist.
And from inside it…
came something that resembled a human.But not quite.
A woman—or what was left of one.
Half her face was bone, the other half still alive in a way that felt wrong. Her eyes didn't open, but Luin could feel that she saw not what was above him, but what lay beneath.
⸻
"The Transgressor…" she whispered.But the whisper wasn't a sound—it was a vibration that rippled through the bones of everyone who heard it.
"The unregistered bearer of breach… with intent to rebel… unsealed blood…"
Luin didn't step back.
He spoke quietly, almost evenly:"You're the ones who buried the truth. You've no right to accuse."
"We have every right. We wrote the first structure."
When she said that, the ritual began.
⸻
The ground behind the priests rose.
Feet of living stone emerged, and the walls began to breathe like a sick organism, while the sky split down the middle like a forbidden book being opened.
Luin extended his hand.
From his chest, the old tattoo—the thread born from the first seal—flared with a dull, mournful blue light.
But it wasn't enough.
This wasn't only a ritual attack—it was existential.
The woman—the ancient priestess—began to speak in languages no one knew. Each word erased a piece of reality around her.
The trees fell, but didn't strike the ground. They were simply… forgotten.
The stones under his feet vanished without heat, without smoke.
Then she said, directed only to him:
"Prepare for division."
⸻
Inside, Willem shouted:"Luin! Don't let her into your mind! That seal is punishment—not power!"
But Luin didn't answer.
Because the second seal had started to move.
Not upward—but inward.
As if something inside him had opened the door… not he himself.
Then—
he screamed.
And for the first time, the voice that came out wasn't his own.
⸻
When he screamed, it wasn't the ground that shook—
it was memory.
For a single instant—stolen from time itself—light disappeared.Then it returned, carrying a vision no one alive had lived.
⸻
Inside Luin's mind, a door opened.Small, crooked, surrounded by scars that weren't of flesh.Behind it—a mirror.
But not a normal one.Because it was looking at him.
The child was there. Himself.Him—but not him.Shivering, naked, wrists tied with threads of black ink.
And a voice from behind said:"You will only be human once something in you breaks beyond repair."
⸻
Outside, the priestess continued her prophecy:
"The second shall open upon the point of betrayal.And when it does, his tongue will cross beyond sound—and begin to name things that must never be named."
But she didn't finish.
Because the second seal imploded inward—
and what was within it became a fifth eye, staring out from behind the scar.Not a physical eye, but an inverted awareness—the sensation of seeing oneself as an enemy.
Luin bent forward, body convulsing.The ground beneath him was no longer ground—but reflections of all who had ever approached him.
Willem shouted,"Stop! If you cross that line—you'll never come back!"
But Luin didn't answer.
Because the word that was never meant to be spoken—he spoke it.
"I am not of this body."
⸻
The sky exploded.
The priestess screamed—but the scream came from every throat, even from silence itself.
Then she fell.
And with her, the ritual collapsed.
And for a moment, the world fell into a silence that felt like forgetting.
⸻
Willem ran to him, caught him—but stepped back when he saw the mark.
The second seal wasn't a tattoo this time.It was a thin eyelid in Luin's chest, opening and closing—as if something inside him was breathing without permission.
Willem's voice trembled:"You opened the second gate… without being deceived."
Luin lifted his gaze."No. I betrayed… myself."
Then he looked toward the hut—just as a nobleman stepped out from the shadows, clapping slowly, his eyes hiding something worse than lies.
⸻
He wasn't like other nobles.
Tall. Thin. Skin pale to the point of sickness.But his eyes—there was no aristocratic light in them.Only a chilling curiosity, as though he wasn't looking at Luin, but through him—at an old memory wearing human shape.
He approached quietly, clapping once more.
"Well done, Luin. I've been waiting to see you open the second seal."
Luin said nothing.
The noble continued, as if replies were unnecessary:"I've watched you since you entered the Eastern Province. Since you began talking more to your shadow than to people."
He glanced at Willem.
"And you… disappointed me. I thought you were wiser than to involve yourself with a creature being rebuilt."
Willem glared, eyes like fire.
"Why now?" he asked.
The noble smiled—coldly."Because the rites are complete. And because you, Willem, no longer have the luxury of protecting him."
He turned back to Luin.
"I am Lord Reith, Third Overseer of the Inner Order of the White Church.And I've come to offer you something that will not be offered again."
Luin met his gaze—sparks flickering behind his eyes.
"You speak as if you own the truth."
Reith laughed, soft and bitter."I own something far better than truth… the power to distort it."
⸻
Willem moved, but Reith raised a finger—and time froze.
The air solidified. The trees stopped swaying.Light shattered in midair like fragile glass.
Only Luin remained unfrozen.
He shouted,"You sent the Church's men after me?"
Reith answered calmly,"No. I stopped them from killing you."
He stepped closer."Every seal you open brings you nearer to the edge.But not every edge leads to death—some lead to glory."
Luin spat at the ground."What do you want?"
Reith's tone turned quiet."I want to show you what lies behind the mirrors.I want you to finish what your father began."
Everything stopped.
Luin couldn't feel his body.
"My… father?"
But Reith didn't continue.The frozen world trembled, cracked—and time began to flow again.
Willem broke free, bleeding from his palms.
"Enough."
⸻
Luin stepped back."What were you going to say about my father?"
Reith smiled one last time."He wasn't a commoner, Luin.He was the first to break the system… and survive."
Then he vanished.
As if he had never existed.
Leaving Luin standing betweenthe dead priestess,the bleeding guardian,and the second seal—that refused to stop watching.
⸻
Luin sat by the cracked wall, hands trembling.The cold wasn't the cause—something inside him had begun to move,as if his blood no longer remembered the right paths through his body.
"The first to break the system… and survive."
He repeated the words in his mind, again and again,trying not to remember them—but to tear them out.
"My father…?"The voice that came out was hoarse,as though it wasn't made to speak that name.
He couldn't remember him.Not even his shadow.
All he knew was a grave, covered in ancient dirt,in a cemetery he hadn't visited since childhood.
"If he broke the system… then where did he go?And why was I left—like this?"
He rose slowly.
Willem sat nearby, soaked in sweat and blood,breathing hard after fighting the spell's hold.
Without looking at him, he said,"Lord Reith isn't a normal noble.He doesn't follow the Church's laws—he writes them."
Luin asked quietly,"You knew? About my father?"
Willem was silent for a long time.Then whispered,"I suspected.But I never knew—not until now."
⸻
That night, Luin didn't sleep.
He watched his shadow on the wall and began to write—not with ink, but with blood.
He drew one line, one sentence:
"I am not what they said I was."
Then he heard the heartbeat.
A strange pulse, not from his chest,but from the walls.From the bones.From the mirrors.From everything.
Something deep inside the world had begun to move—to remake itself.
And at dawn, he opened his eyes and said:
"I'll find the one who taught me to live without a name."
⸻
Finding the Library of Forbidden Dust was no easy task.
On the city's oldest maps, it didn't exist.In the Church's records, it was only a myth—a place said to have been swallowed between the lower floors of the buried cities,where knowledge rotted under ash,and paper carried curses that couldn't be erased.
But Reith had left Luin one thing before vanishing:a single word.
A forgotten name—"The Stair of Unmaking."
And it was enough.
⸻
"The place doesn't open for those who seek it,"said the blind man at the tunnel's gate."Only for those who cannot forget it."
His face was scarred with ink burns,his eyes hollow, draining light instead of reflecting it.
Luin said nothing.He simply stepped forward,in silence that felt like prayer.
Step after step, through corridors like the rings of a decaying dream,until he reached a rusted gate engraved with the words:
"Here, books die—so they may return as men."
⸻
The Library of Dust wasn't a library in the usual sense.
No shelves—only living walls that breathed,each surface tattooed with forgotten texts.
Titles like:
The Tenth Suffocation of God
The Biography of the Man Whose Name Was Written Before Birth
The Shattered Self: When Man Becomes a Seal
Luin walked between them, heart heavy,eyes passing over the words as if they were open mouths.
Until he found it.
A single page, nailed to the bone of the wall, titled:
"The Unborn Son: Heir of the Great Fracture."
⸻
When he read it, he heard his name.
"Luin Myrrh… or what remains of him."
The voice wasn't external—it came from within,as though someone had just woken inside him after a very long sleep.
Then came the pain.
Not in flesh—in memory.
Images, sounds, cries, flashes of white—then a child on a staircase,watching a woman scream behind glass,unable to hear her.
And a man in the robes of the Church—leaning close, whispering something—before driving a black needle into his neck.
⸻
He fell to the ground, gasping.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
A hand reached toward him—not human.
A hand marked with a tattoo of a closed eye.
And the voice said:
"The second seal awaits your betrayal, Luin.But remember…not every betrayal is against you."
End of Chapter 23