The city slept, but Mohamed did not.
He stood alone inside the deepest chamber of the library, a place Selene had forbidden him from entering until now. The air here was different—older, heavier, as if every breath carried centuries of suppressed thought. The walls were not lined with books, but with symbols carved directly into stone.
Circles within squares.
Triangles intersecting lines.
Trees branching upward and downward at the same time.
Mohamed felt it immediately.
This isn't knowledge… this is architecture.
Selene stepped behind him, her footsteps silent. "This is where truths are not written," she said, "but encoded. The world's most dangerous knowledge was never spoken. It was built."
Mohamed traced a symbol with his fingers. The moment he touched it, a memory fragment ignited violently inside his mind.
He saw stone temples older than Egypt, massive structures aligned with stars that no longer existed in the sky. Men and women moved through them wearing robes marked with familiar symbols—symbols he now recognized.
"This," Selene said, her voice echoing through the chamber, "is where Freemasonry truly began. Not as a brotherhood—but as survivors."
The vision shifted.
He saw scholars mapping consciousness like geometry. A Tree of Light, its branches flowing both upward and downward, humans climbing it not with ladders—but with awareness.
"Kabbalah was never meant for the masses," Selene continued. "Not because it was sacred… but because it was dangerous. Ascension without balance creates monsters."
The vision shattered again.
Now he saw robed figures in Rome, locking away scrolls, sealing underground vaults, deciding what humanity could know—and what it must forget.
"The Vatican didn't destroy knowledge," Selene said quietly. "They imprisoned it."
Mohamed staggered backward, heart racing.
"So they weren't enemies," he whispered.
"No," Selene replied. "They were containment systems."
The symbols on the wall began to glow.
Not with light—but with memory.
Mohamed realized something terrifying.
"These symbols… they're interfaces."
"Yes," Selene said. "Reality responds to structure. Geometry shapes consciousness. That's why Faromet wears form. That's why the Eclipse Order builds rituals instead of weapons."
Mohamed clenched his fists.
"And the Eclipse Order?"
Selene's eyes hardened. "They believe containment was a mistake. That humanity must be forced into evolution."
A new symbol activated.
A circle eclipsing a sun.
Mohamed felt nausea.
"That's their ultimate ritual," Selene said. "They call it The Final Eclipse."
The chamber darkened.
A voice—not loud, not distant—inside Mohamed's mind.
"Truth was never meant to be hidden."
The air froze.
Faromet.
Mohamed's breath caught. His memories trembled, fragments flickering dangerously.
"Freemasons feared chaos. Kabbalists feared imbalance. The Vatican feared loss of control."
The symbols on the wall twisted, rearranging themselves into a single unified pattern.
"I fear nothing."
Faromet's presence pressed down like gravity itself.
"They delayed extinction. I will complete evolution."
Mohamed dropped to one knee, sweat pouring from his face. Every instinct screamed to resist—but another part of him understood.
Faromet wasn't lying.
He was logical.
Cold.
Terrifyingly reasonable.
"You use sacrifice," Mohamed growled.
"Sacrifice is inevitable," Faromet replied. "Every civilization was built on it. I simply refuse to pretend otherwise."
Selene stepped forward, her voice sharp as a blade.
"You were human once."
Silence.
Then Faromet spoke again, softer now.
"Yes."
The symbols cracked.
"And that is why I know… Mohamed terrifies me."
Mohamed's eyes snapped open.
"Because he touches truth without ritual. Without blood. Without ego."
The presence began to fade.
"Tell him this," Faromet said to Selene.
"The Final Eclipse requires 22 convergences.
When the last aligns… memory itself will end."
The chamber went still.
The symbols dimmed.
The pressure vanished.
Mohamed collapsed against the wall, breathing hard.
"Twenty-two…" he whispered.
Selene nodded slowly. "Not chapters. Not rituals."
She met his eyes.
"Twenty-two moments where reality can be rewritten."
Mohamed stood.
His fear was gone.
Replaced by something far more dangerous.
Clarity.
"Then we stop them," he said.
Selene's lips curved faintly.
"No," she replied.
"We outgrow them."