Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

The dread and reverential respect that the House of Saxon inspired in others were fully justified. Although the Black Tower, currently governed by the Black Duke, showed a more diplomatic side, the centuries of gloom cemented by his ancestors would not be easily erased. The “Book of the Black Goat” represented the ultimate expression of that dark legacy, constituting a perverse relic of their lineage.

“Only the young master is permitted access to the Hell Library.”

As Dale moved through the underground gallery of the Apostolic Palace, he recalled the conditions agreed upon with Cardinal Nikolai. The steps, submerged in a dense gloom, gave the impression of never ending.

“Likewise, the Church is exempt from any responsibility for what occurs in the depths…”

His only benefit would be to extract a single magical tome. In return, Dale and the House of Saxon had to keep absolute secrecy about ecclesiastical mysteries. This was the core of the pact, consolidated through the famous White Tower spell known as “Geas.”

It was a mystical promise that intertwined the destinies of Dale and Nikolai. As long as the conditions of the Geas remained intact, reserve and mutual loyalty were guaranteed; if either party deliberately violated the pact, the Geas’s curse would act immediately, causing the violent rupture of their hearts.

“It is not as if divulging this information would generate a great impact anyway.”

Revealing secrets that only the chosen ones handled or causing the removal of certain high prelates would not alter the general landscape. Instead, by intertwining their threads with theirs through the Geas, the Church was bound to be a forced partner of the Saxon family. Obtaining ecclesiastical backing was equivalent to receiving the blessing of the deity itself. The benefit obtained by Dale in the Pontifical States of the Sixtina possessed incalculable value. Of course, all of this depended on whether he managed to leave the premises alive.

At the far end of the tunnel, barely lit by the flickering of a reddish lantern, the access to the abyss opened. A stone gate bearing a dismal inscription barred Dale’s advance.

“Abandon all hope, ye who cross this threshold.”

Just as his eyes traced the phrase… a shrill screech broke the silence.

In that stagnant atmosphere without air currents, the mystical garment he wore as dark attire, the “Shadow Cloak,” began to shake frantically. After subduing the dark reflections that twisted under his boots, Dale looked up.

It was a vibration born from the darkness.

Without hesitating, he advanced firmly, crossing the threshold of the netherworld.

That enclosure did not share its name with the abyss on a mere whim.

It was a colossal underground pit converted into a library repository. The cursed works guarded inside did not carry such a prohibition for trivial or merely immoral reasons. They were tomes bearing a colossal destructive potential, capable of channeling their strength only with harmful intentions. They constituted ungovernable relics, capable of breaking the sanity of their bearers and unleashing disasters.

However, in the same way that an illustrious fighter requires a legendary edge, a high magic book represents for a sorcerer what steel does for a warrior. Who would criticize a fighter for coveting an exceptional blade, even if it were a cursed weapon thirsty for lives and splattered by the misfortune of others?

With scholars of the mystical arts, it was the same. In fact, the hunger they felt for magical tomes far exceeded the longing of warriors for weapons.

“A sorcerer’s steel…”

To cite a few cases, Dale’s progenitor, the Black Duke, controlled the “Scales of the Heart,” while the Bloody Duke proudly displayed the “Book of Blood.”

Immersed in that dense and dark atmosphere, Dale extended his fingers. His goal was to find the magical volume he could truly carry as his own weapon.

“…!”

At that moment, a blade made of pure darkness emerged from the floor, tracing protective circles around him. He perceived a threatening vibration lurking in the shadows.

“Groooan…”

Identifying the threat required no great effort. It was the custodian assigned to the Hell Library. A puppet forced by oath to look after ecclesiastical interests even after having expired.

A Mummy Knight.

Dressed in light-colored armor and holding a blessed steel, his mortal remains had been preserved through a rigorous embalming process, freeing him from the usual putrefaction of the deceased. Brought back to activity thanks to sacred spells and the consecrations of clerics and white mages, he appeared as an albino apparition.

Still, being a puppet driven purely by mystical strings, how did he really differ from the “Death Knights” belonging to the Black Tower?

“What an irony…”

In past eras, a unified entity operated under the name of the “Black and White Tower,” dedicated to unraveling the enigmas of existence and death. At its core, insurmountable philosophical discrepancies arose regarding these concepts, fragmenting the group into rival factions that collided in total war.

Over time, chroniclers dubbed this conflict the “Great Battle of Black and White.”

The side of darkness, after suffering defeat alongside its commander, the imperishable Duke Frederick, suffered exile to the northern wastelands.

As compensation for the lost conflict, the Church and the White Tower confiscated the “Book of the Black Goat.” In return, the vanquished assumed the secular obligation of shielding the empire and the continental lands against the hosts of the demonic lords of the north.

Thus, Frederick assumed the role of founder of the Black Tower, initiating the lineage of the House of Saxon.

Such events cemented the foundations of the House of Saxon and the Black Tower, instilling that deep mystical heritage that endured until Dale’s days. While the Black Tower unraveled the enigmas hidden in the darkness, the White Tower distanced itself, pursuing the enlightenment of understanding.

“They are exactly the same thing.”

And that was the pure reality.

The combat against the Mummy Knight was resolved in a sigh.

Boom!

The mummified figure lunged aggressively, discharging its consecrated steel. Its momentum did not come from the necromantic arts of the Black Tower, but from the luminous flow channeled by the mages of light.

Upon detecting the aquatic and dark emanations that Dale gave off, the guardian immediately classified him as a target to be eradicated.

“The Church is exempt from any responsibility for what occurs in the depths.”

If his existence were to be extinguished prematurely in this place, the blame would fall solely upon Dale’s shoulders. The “Geas” used by the White Tower functioned similarly to twenty-first-century termination clauses, meticulously designed to evade any legal commitment.

“I will not give them the satisfaction of their plans working.”

Clang!

A shadowy edge sprouted from the ground under Dale, abruptly stopping the Mummy Knight’s charge. Leaning heavily, he quickly took distance. Amidst that absolute blackness that would instill panic and bewilderment in anyone, Dale’s serenity remained unalterable.

On the contrary, he experienced a wave of relief.

There, he did not need to limit himself to the role of a simple third-circle sorcerer, nor pretend to be the greatest promise of the kingdom or the prodigy heir of a ducal lineage. Free from the judgmental gazes of society, he had the freedom to act without ties.

With the edges of the “Shadow Cloak” fluttering violently at his back, Dale uttered the words of power.

“Shadow Bullet.”

This time he dispensed with the icy fragments he usually manifested in public. The discharges were molded from the cloak’s dark emanations, concentrating at his feet.

And the attack was not limited to an isolated execution. Transforming the shadowy edges into high-precision projectiles, he made a movement with his fingers. Emulating the continuous burst of a repeating weapon, a barrage of dark projectiles hit the custodian head-on.

The breastplate, previously reinforced by the clerics’ blessings, ended up cracked and reduced to rubble. The whitish body, preserved artificially, suffered the same fate. The darkness projectiles embedded themselves in the Mummy Knight’s tissues, consuming him from the inside like voracious parasites.

They had transformed into living projectiles of pure darkness. A spell loaded with poisonous intentions like few had ever been seen.

Leaving behind the shattered remains of the guardian, Dale resumed his march. In the heart of this convoluted abyss, the search for the true treasure he required continued.

Volumes cataloged under the label of forbidden schools of thought do not physically corrupt or destroy readers on their own. Instead, high magic tomes operate under different rules.

Sorcery is the faculty of manifesting ideas in the physical plane and, just as an ordinary text conveys the thought of its creator, a mystical volume is impregnated with the will of the mage who conceived it. Forbidden tomes are those whose contents harbor extremely harmful and destructive philosophies.

That was the reason why the site was named the Hell Library. A territory altered by the concentration of corrupt wills and harmful concepts.

“Orienting oneself in an environment with these characteristics is almost utopian.”

Despite the difficulties, the strategy to follow was perfectly defined. Concentrating his abilities on the icy element, he molded a sharp fragment of ice and made a cut in his palm.

Drip.

The vital fluid began to sprout from the incision.

“I, Dale of Saxon.”

He invoked the blood heritage that carried the dark essence of the Saxon lineage.

“In my capacity as the legitimate successor of the lineage that shares the heritage of the Immortal Duke, I demand your presence.”

Drop after drop.

“… Oh, Black Goat of the Wood with a Thousand Young.”

Drip, drip, drip.

“I command you to honor the pact concluded with the lineage of darkness and to manifest before me.”

Just when the scarlet fluid began to accumulate at Dale’s feet…

“It’s blood, blood of an extraordinary lineage!”

“The warm vital fluid of a sorcerer!”

“He longs to consolidate a pact with us!”

“Boy, come to me! I will grant you unlimited potential!”

From multiple directions, an amalgam of illusory whispers began to invade the space. In this plane where the borders between the tangible and the imaginary are blurred, the perverse magnetism of the grimoires stalked Dale, behaving like aquatic predators detecting the trail of a wounded prey.

It was at that precise moment.

“Disperse! That creature belongs to me as a contractor!”

The voices of the other tomes suddenly died out, replaced by a dense and terrifying current of murderous hostility.

“I can perceive it clearly, the resentment and thirst for destruction! It is the very fragrance of carnage!”

Immediately, the environment underwent a radical mutation. The mental space enclosed in the magical tome materialized around Dale. A domain built between the pages of the book.

Human remains scattered everywhere, severed limbs and internal remains littered the floor. A scene of perpetual devastation extended as far as the eye could see. On top of a hill formed by spoils, the corporeal representation of the volume manifested.

─ I will erase each of your rivals from existence.

An executor holding an axe of a brilliant crimson hue.

─ We will enjoy a banquet of spoils and sail in the fluids of those who dare cross your path.

Only one tome was capable of recreating such a scenario.

The “Book of Massacre.”

The work where the infamous blood sorcerer, Duchamp, captured his mental plane and his harmful metaphysical conceptions. The quintessence of mass executions and the most perverse mysteries of hematic arts were summarized in that bloody work. Its level of power and transcendence were incalculable.

“The rules restrict the extraction to a single tome.”

Despite the offer, Dale made a slight gesture of refusal with his head.

“You are not the object of my search.”

He fixed his gaze on the Book of Massacre.

“Retire.”

─ Do you dare to dismiss my proposal?

Dale held his posture with a new gesture, which caused the grimoire’s manifestation to raise its crimson axe in a show of aggression. Dale’s rejection carried a direct consequence.

─ Do you suppose you have the capacity to leave this place alive?

The executioner’s steel gave off a lethal, icy glow.

“I do not visualize any impediment to achieving it.”

Maintaining absolute calm, Dale nodded. He turned his back on that representation of perpetual destruction, intertwining extreme cold with the purified flow of his dark arts.

That domain saturated with vital fluids of the Book of Massacre represented nothing more than an inconsequential scenario for Dale, incapable of altering his pulse in the slightest. It meant nothing if compared to the experiences of that dark and snowy winter night.