Chapter 260: The Central Chamber

“You say that like I went looking for it.”

I knelt beside Kevin and Vivianne, checking their pulses. Still alive. Just unconscious. The teleportation had hit them harder than I expected—probably because they’d never been dragged across half the continent in a single instant before.

Evelina stepped away from the fountain, her boots clicking against the polished marble. She circled the two bodies like a cat inspecting a pair of drowned mice.

“You brought them here unconscious.”

“They’ll wake up.”

“You dropped them on the floor.”

“They’ll wake up sore.”

She stopped beside me, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. That look—the one that said she was deciding whether to be amused or annoyed—played across her features.

“And the library? You’re certain this place is safe?”

[Photographic Memory]

I went over the novel’s description again. The Xenian Library—built by a mad archmage three centuries ago and hidden between the mountains. It was a miracle I found it at all. It took me hours just to find an image of the nearest location and manually track it down before I could even begin teleporting Evelina here.

It was stocked with books that could kill you as easily as teach you. The trials were lethal, but the rewards… they were more than enough as compensation.

“The trials are lethal,” I said honestly, “but the rewards are worth it. And we need the edge.”

“We.”

“You, me, Kevin, Vivianne. Marcellus is handling his own people. We handle ours.”

Evelina was quiet for a moment. Then she sighed, uncrossed her arms, and crouched down beside me. Her hand found my shoulder, not hard, not soft. Just there.

“You could’ve warned me before you teleported me into a death trap.”

“I called.”

“A call that only said ’new training location, be ready’ is not a warning, Cael.”

“Seemed like one to me.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m going to kill you.”

“After we save the continent, sure. Put it on the calendar.”

A snort escaped her, almost against her will. She shook her head, stood up, and extended a hand to help me to my feet. I took it.

The library stretched around us in every direction, towering shelves that vanished into shadows overhead, spiral staircases that led nowhere and everywhere, reading nooks carved into walls like birds’ nests. The painted windows showed scenes I didn’t recognize: battles, ceremonies, someone tearing a star out of the sky.

“The book said there’s a central chamber,” I said, scanning the rows. “Where the first trial begins. We need to find it before they wake up.”

“You make it sound like we don’t have a few weeks still remaining.”

Evelina followed close behind as I started walking, her eyes sweeping across the shelves with a caution born of too many bad experiences. Every few steps, her gaze would linger on a particular book, some bound in leather, others in what looked suspiciously like skin, before she forced herself to look away.

“We might be,” I admitted. “The trials adjust based on how many people are participating. If Kevin and Vivianne wake up before we find the central chamber, the difficulty could spike. It’s better we take on the hardest trials for now and have them deal with the easy ones.”

“Spike how?”

“Dunno. Just said ’the library adapts to the unprepared.’”

“And you know this, why?”

“Do you still need to ask?”

“No, not really.” Evelina smiled.

I focused on the [Photographic Memory] still running in the back of my mind, comparing every corridor, every intersection, every spiral staircase to the fragments I’d managed to piece together from the novel.

The Xenian Library wasn’t supposed to be easy to navigate. That was the point. The mad archmage who built it had wanted to test more than just magical talent—he’d wanted to test resolve, intelligence, and the ability to recognize when you were being led in circles.

And we were definitely being led in circles.

“We’ve passed that statue three times,” Evelina said, pointing at a weathered bust of some long-dead mage with cracks running down its face.

“I know.”

“The first time, you said it marked the entrance to the eastern reading wing.”

“It does.”

“The second time, you said it was a decoy placed there to confuse us.”

“It is.”

“And now?”

“I’m honestly not sure.”

“Cael…”

She crossed her arms and spoke in a tone laced with something close to motherly disappointment, as if she had genuinely expected better from me.

And she wasn’t wrong.

“I was kidding.”

I gave her a cheeky smile. I knew exactly what I was doing—I’d been retracing the path Julius would’ve taken over and over, after all. By this point, I understood how the illusion worked. I just wanted to mess with her.

“I was this close to hitting you with a fireball…”

“You just want to incinerate my clothes so you can get a better look at me.”

“That’d just be an unintended bonus on top of the physical harm I’m about to inflict.”

“Come on, just a bonus?”

“I’ve seen you naked countless times already. I may be thirsty, but not that thirsty…”

“Well, you’ve got a point.”

***

After fifty loops, we finally managed to escape what felt like an endless illusion. The purpose of the trap was simple: to make anyone exploring the library second-guess themselves and turn back.

It was actually the first trial in fact—a test of willpower meant to see who was determined and stubborn enough to endure repeating the loop fifty times just for a chance at power. Sadly, the first trial came with no reward.

“Didn’t think it would actually end.”

Evelina said, twirling a strand of her white hair as she stared at the towering central hall. More specifically, at the massive structure standing before it, fitted with two doors. Each one was so enormous it looked more like the entrance to a great city than a doorway.

“I didn’t think it would be this big…”

“Same, to be honest.”

Even knowing what to expect from the novel, it still wasn’t enough for me to truly grasp the scale of this thing.

Damn, it was huge…

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