Andras screamed curses and death threats as we severed his limbs. Even when he was little more than a worm on the ground, the incessant howling never lulled for a moment. I considered cutting out his tongue as well but ultimately decided against it on the slim chance we could still get some information out of him. That would come another day, though. For now, he would be moved to Dragon’s Nest, where Mare could keep watch over him.

With all the Demons dealt with, the battle quickly came to an end. The last of the Demonkin were hunted down until none remained. There was nothing we could do about the blood mist, but at least the area was safe, though not entirely comfortable. The stench of rotten eggs and decayed flesh was omnipresent. No domain or glyph could truly get rid of it completely. All I could do was put up with it as I started recovering the energy spent during the battle.

An invisible whirlwind formed around me as power flooded into the center of my chest, where a tiny green marble had embedded itself deep within the sternum bone. Chaotic energy of the world was converted by the core before being turned into a torrent of bright green flames. Power burned as it flooded through my veins and flesh.

I had recovered my former power from the Chronicle, but my rush to join the fight had left the process only half finished. What was hidden within the book was equivalent to a power plant. The core could generate boundless power, but its reserves were far from full. That would take time.

It was a common problem among those that reached a certain level of power within the Thirteen Divisions. Creating a core that could convert energy in your surroundings into usable power was a reliable method that many used to bypass excess strain on the body and prevent unwanted mutations that arose from absorbing too much chaotic energy at once. The only downside was that it was heavily reliant on how much energy was present in your surroundings. Once your storage capacity for power became large enough, it could take days to completely recover unless you had access to unique resources. It was a negligible shortcoming compared to the massive increase in power it brought.

Creating a core was a dividing point between the strong and the minimum requirement before you could even be considered for the title of Ace. It was a process that could take years or even decades of constant effort. My repeated deaths allowed me to become more familiar with the process than probably any other person in the Divisions, but even then, it would have taken me at least a year to create a core the size of a grain of rice and the power output would have been less than a tenth of the one I had regained from the Chronicle.

With a heavy hand, I reached out to touch the soft leatherbound book that I had strived so hard to retrieve. So many problems could have been avoided if I had just gotten the book sooner. So many desperate struggles for survival would have been so easy. So many more people could have survived.

I absentmindedly traced the nine infinity symbols overlapping each other on the front cover as I imagined how different things could have been. My fingers trembled with each pass over the symbols.

“Nine, huh?” I mumbled with a chuckle, “That’s new. I wonder which poor unfortunate soul was tied to our dysfunctional family while I was dead.” Raising my voice, I turned to Mare nearby. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you?”

Mare shrugged nonchalantly as she worked with Svend, poking Donte’s sore body with a complex-looking medical contraption covered with over a dozen sharp needles. “Why bother asking me? Wouldn’t you know who it is if you simply opened the book and looked?”

I frowned at her response. My gaze lingered on the simple brown leather. I could feel the rough cut of the pages against my fingers with a welling sense of dread. “I’d rather not,” I whispered softly.

“You will have to pay the price of using the Chronicle eventually. Are you really that scared of what you might see?” Mare replied without glancing in my direction. She looked like she was intently focused on the device in front of her, but I recognized the trepidation in her eyes. She was purposefully trying to avoid looking in my direction for the same reason I didn’t want to open the book.

We were afraid of what we might see.

Donte struggled and failed to sit up. He groaned in pain at the effort before giving up.

“What price? What exactly is that book, and how did it let you use those incredible powers earlier?” He asked innocently.

“The Chronicle is…” I replied hesitantly. My mouth hung open for a moment as I tried to think of a way to explain it. “Exactly as the name implies. It is a record, a history of everything the book has ever come into contact with. It does not just transcribe events, though. Emotions, thoughts, your deepest darkest desires… All of it is recorded within its pages. Even the innate talent of the one wielding the Chronicle can be copied onto its pages. Even without considering its battle potential, the knowledge contained within the book is enough to be considered among the top ten armaments in the Thirteen Divisions. Actually using the Chronicle, though, is unpleasant.”

“Why is that?” Donte asked as I paused hesitantly.

I sighed in annoyance. “Because you can’t simply read the book. The words on the pages don’t have any significance. Instead, you directly experience the event recorded. You feel every emotion. You think every thought.” While talking, I picked up a nearby pebble and tossed it at Donte. “If I wanted, the Chronicle could tell me the exact components that make up that rock down to the tiniest of atoms, but in order to access that information, I would have to experience the life of the rock—unthinking, unfeeling, and lifeless for millions of years. I can choose to cut that recollection short because it’s just a rock, but when I use an innate talent recorded in the Chronicle, there is no time to pick the perfect memory I want. In those circumstances, the book picks for me, directly selecting the effect I desire from its pages. Through experience, I have learned to suppress the effect so that it does not impact me during battle, but there is a limit to how long I can steel my mind. As soon as I relax, those nightmares will flood my consciousness, and I will be forced to relive those desperate battles.”

Donte furrowed his brow in through. “Wait, you didn’t use your own power before. Does that mean you will experience someone else’s life?”

“Correct,” I replied with a curt nod, “in order, I will have to experience part of my own life, Azriel’s, the annoying goody two-shoes from the Eighth Division, and worst of all, my teacher’s.”

Donte became slightly fidgety as he considered the implications. “Can you experience anyone’s life?”

I gave Donte a mischievous grin. “Why? Is there something you want to hide?”

“er… no… I just…” Donte stuttered.

“Relax. The Chronicle isn’t that powerful. People are more complicated than rocks. Unless I completely fill your body with my own energy, a rather deadly process, it will only record the perspective of the person holding the book.” I raised a curious eyebrow as Donte gave a sigh of relief. Not wanting to let him rest easy, though, I continued with a grin. “Of course, the leader of the Eighth Division is one of the most powerful telepaths ever born. If I really wanted to peer into all the dirty little secrets in your mind, it wouldn’t be hard.”

Donte chuckled nervously as he quickly changed the subject away from himself. “If the book can’t record other people’s past without killing them, how can you use the talents of the Division commanders? They are not dead, right?”

“You watched me talk to my teacher back when we first arrived in Kala.” I replied with a roll of my eyes, “No, unfortunately, the Chronicle has several conditions when it comes to using someone else’s innate talent. Even if I record their past, it doesn’t mean I can reproduce their talents. That is only done through the extremely tedious process of creating a copy of the Chronicle for that person to use and can only be done for those bearing the Aevus name. In the past one thousand three hundred years, there have only ever been eight… or, I guess now, nine people able to wield the Chronicle and share their talent with the others. Only three of which are long dead.”

“That’s too bad. Imagine if you could have thousands of talents at your fingertips.”

“Imagine thousands of people knowing your deepest secrets and darkest impulses,” I scoffed, “It is not for no reason that out of the four students my teacher has brought into the family, two want him dead while Azreal and I avoid him like the plague.” I stood up with a sigh and brushed the dirt off my tattered clothes. “Regardless, it will not be of much use against Envy. His ability to copy any talent he sees means I must wait until the perfect moment. Otherwise, he will gain access to some of the most dangerous talents across the Thirteen Divisions.”

The faint sounds of distant voices echoed in my head as my heart was disturbed by the thought of what was to come. The slight loss in concentration brought a flood of emotions to the breaking point. The Chronicle demanded its price, and I would not be able to resist it for much longer.

The faces in the blood mist filled my vision. I clenched my fist. The pressure of Envy’s imminent arrival weighed on my chest as I thought of what was to come. Dom sacrificed his life to buy us time, but it was not much. We had less than a month if I was optimistic, and I couldn’t afford to waste even a minute of that time in visions of the past.

I tried to distract my mind by considering various options I had available to me, but all that did was make the suppressed emotion well up even stronger. I had reclaimed my greatest weapon, the Chronicle, but its use was limited against Envy. I regained the power of my peak, but even when I was at my best, I had never been stronger than the Demon. We gathered an army from half a dozen countries, but it had lost more than half its number in the subsequent battles brought by his subordinate Demons. No matter how I thought about it, Envy outclassed me in every way.

As I was lost in thought, internally battling against the imminent price I had to pay, a figure descended from the sky. Familiar auburn hair lit by the sporadic glint of golden light. It would have been a beautiful sight if not for the expression of pure rage on Sebastion’s face. The sparks of light emitting from his body were only his barely contained murderous intent made physical.

I could feel the heat radiating from Sebastion’s skin like a roaring fire. His innate talent was only a step away from completely losing control. His footsteps were heavy as he landed on the broken and debris-ridden ground. Underneath the mask of fury, I could see the grief in his eyes as he approached me. I felt my chest hurt at the sight. I looked down to the ground, unable to meet the man’s accusatory gaze.

I did not even try to fight back as Sebastion grabbed hold of the front of my shirt and lifted me off the ground like a doll. “Where is my father?” He growled.