Chapter 188: The Book of Mephistopheles.

Two weeks passed.

Nero remained in the cell, alone except for the rats and Gungnir.

He had been visited twice by Templars in large Crimson suits of armor.

Both times, the helmed figures opened the metal gate just long enough to toss in a small bundle of rations before slamming it shut again. The rations consisted of hard bread and a waterskin that was never quite full enough.

He survived on the rations and the rats. The dungeon had an abundance of them for some reason, and unlike him, they were a bit fat and plump from feeding on the discarded remains of the Templars.

Nero learned to lay still, waiting for them to approach, then striking fast. Or he set crude traps using straw and scraps of cloth, catching them when they came sniffing for food.

He killed them and ate them raw. The meat was tough and bitter, corrupted just enough to sustain him. Each rat gave him Ein Sof worth a fragment. It was not much, but it was enough to keep the Yin form stable.

During those two weeks, Nero did not sit idle.

He had summoned Gungnir on the first day, confirming that the Mark still functioned despite his imprisonment. The spear could be stored and retrieved at will, vanishing into the Mark’s subspace and reappearing in his hand when needed.

But Gungnir was not the only thing the Mark contained.

Besides the contents of his satchel which he was glad he had wisely kept there before hand, there was also something else…

Nero focused on the inverted cross, concentrating hard. He still wasn’t used to it.

After a minute, something shifted.

A book materialized in his hand.

It was smaller than he expected, perhaps the size of a large ledger, with a cover made from smooth black leather. The symbol of the inverted cross was embossed on the front, raised slightly, the lines glowing faintly with crimson light.

The Book of Mephistopheles.

Nero stared at it for a long moment, feeling the weight of it in his hand.

Then he opened it.

He had been trying to summon the book from the mark for two weeks now, and he had just succeeded recently.

The first page was blank. Then, as he watched, words began to appear, flowing across the parchment like ink spreading through water. The script was elegant, precise, written in a language he somehow understood despite never having seen it before.

“Knowledge is currency. Power is debt. All things have a price, and I am the keeper of accounts.”

The runes that appeared translated to this…

“—Demon God, Mephistopheles, Fourth Prince of the Seven Hells, Lord of Bargains and Keeper of Debts.”

Nero turned the page.

The next page was filled with runes…

Runes.

The text explained:

“Runes are the language of divinity. They are the foundation of all sorcery, the alphabet from which reality is written and rewritten. They are derived from interpretation of the stars, of the tides, of the movements of wind and stone and fire. Each rune is a concept made manifest, a word spoken by the universe itself.”

“Each rune is a god.”

*The runes granted to humanity by the Grigori are vestiges of their knowledge from before the Age of Gods, before their corruption became deep-seated. At that time, most of the Grigori truly wished to help mankind. They taught the language of creation, the symbols that could shape Ein Sof into form and function.*

Nero paused, frowning.

Who had written this?

Was is Mephistopheles?

It certainly didn’t sound like something a Demon God would write.

Or could it be that these entities were much closer to humans than he thought?

He thought about Eli then shook his head.

That… entity certainly seemed human. If that was how they all were, then…

Nero sighed.

The Grigori had been corrupted for over a hundred thousand years? But he had been told that the earth had endured corruption for eons upon eons. Since the very dawn of time.

’Wait… Could it be that Sariel and Orion became corrupted during the Age of Gods as well?’

Nero frowned.

Then he continued reading.

“To understand runes is to understand the language itself. Each symbol is a single character, a building block. Alone, they are limited. Combined, they form sentences, paragraphs, entire philosophies of power. But the mortal mind is not equipped to perceive them as the Divine do.”

*Thus, the runes taught to humanity are simplified Interpretations. Shadows of the true language, filtered through mortal consciousness so that they do not burn out the mind of the user.*

Nero turned the page and found a chart.

On the left side were symbols he recognized—the Elder Futhark, the runic alphabet used by ancient human civilizations which he had learned quite a bit of at the Elkerling settlement. Twenty-four characters, each with a name and a meaning.

***

**Fehu** – Wealth, cattle, the flow of resources

**Uruz** – Strength, endurance, primal force

**Thurisaz** – Gateway, thorn, the boundary between worlds

**Ansuz** – Communication, breath, divine inspiration

**Raidho** – Journey, movement, the wheel

***

The list continued, each rune accompanied by a description of its meaning and its application in sorcery.

On the right side of the chart were different symbols. These were the Divine Runes, the original language from which the mortal versions had been derived. They looked similar to the Elder Futhark, but a fair bit more complex, as though seen through distorted glass. Simply looking at them for too long made the back of Nero’s eyes ache.

He tried to focus on one—the Divine version of **Ansuz**, the rune of communication.

Pain lanced through his skull suddenly and his nose began to bleed.

Nero jerked back, gasping, his hand going to his face. Blood dripped from his nostrils, warm and wet, staining his fingers. The ache in his head throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

He closed the book and set it down, breathing hard.

The mortal runes, he could learn. The Divine Runes were beyond him.

For now…

Nero wiped the blood from his face and opened the book again, turning back to the section on mortal runes. If he could not understand the language of gods, he would start with the language of men.

He began to study.

**Fehu** represented wealth, but also flow. It was the movement of resources, the circulation of energy. In runic sorcery, it could be used to draw Ein Sof toward the user, to pull ambient energy from the environment and store it.

**Uruz** was strength, endurance. It reinforced the body, hardened the flesh, made the user resistant to damage.

**Thurisaz** was a boundary, a threshold. It created barriers, wards, defenses. It could also be inverted to break through barriers, to pierce protections.

Nero read through the descriptions, committing them to memory. Each rune was a tool, only a piece of a larger system. Their combinations were endless, and while some combinations were more sensible than others, when combined properly, they could form spells, enchantments, rituals.

Just like Shadow Shift and Vineheart, and even Heretic Eyes.

The Grigori had taught humanity this language.

Nero thought about that as he studied. The Grigori had been messengers once, beings of pure Ein Sof without desire or will. Humanity had worshipped them, and that worship had given them consciousness, identity, and finally corruption.

The runes were a gift from before that corruption had fully taken hold. A moment of clarity, of genuine benevolence, before the Grigori became the monsters they were now.

Or perhaps the gift itself had been the beginning of the corruption. Knowledge was dangerous, after all. Power corrupted too. The Grigori had given humanity the tools to reshape the world, and in doing so, they had bound themselves to humanity’s desires.

Nero did not know. The Book of Mephistopheles did not provide answers, only information.

He continued reading.

Over the following days, Nero studied the runes

with his eyes that could see even in the absence of light.

The book seemed to never run out of pages. Every time he finished a section, a new one seemed to appear, expanding on concepts he had just learned, introducing new combinations of runes.

Each rune carried meaning beyond its surface definition. They were layered, complex, and capable of shifting based on context and intent. A single rune could have a dozen interpretations depending on how it was used.

And the more Nero learned, the more he understood how dangerous this knowledge was.

Runes were not not simple symbolism.

To carve a rune was to impose will upon the world, to force Ein Sof into a specific shape and function.

The Church controlled this knowledge. They kept it locked away, accessible only to those who had proven their loyalty, their faith, their willingness to serve without question.

Because if everyone knew how to manipulate runes, if every peasant and merchant and soldier understood how to bend reality to their will, the world would collapse into utter chaos.

Nero closed the book and leaned back against the cold stone wall.

He understood now why the Church feared heresy so deeply.

If belief shaped reality, and worship created gods, then knowledge— true knowledge…

was the most dangerous thing in the world…

The Mark of Mephistopheles burned faintly on the back of his hand, glowing crimson in the darkness.

Nero stared at it for a long time.

Then he opened the book again and continued reading.

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