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Ch160-Final Lap

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With the shades helping out, cleaning Chrys up and sterilizing all her wounds took less time than Sylver had thought it would. Sylver even washed the corpse that was acting as her temporary lungs and used some spare rags the dark elves didn’t need to mummify it.

Sylver was still sore all over, on account of [Kindred Spirit Mitigation] running a cheese grater against every single inch of him, inside and out, as well as the traces of the backlash from using 2nd tier magic for a split second.

Ria was thankfully silent during this time, but she seemed to have that awful ability to sense when Sylver was no longer genuinely occupied and was just stalling/pretending.

“What is this book? Why are you so afraid of it?” Ria asked as Sylver moved his hands away from Chrys’ forearm.

He’d done all that he could at the moment, the rest required someone with knowledge about the stuff inside her, as well as a safe environment for him to carry out the surgery.

“In my world, there are “gods,” with a lowercase G. They are manifestations of people’s wishes, sort of like if a million people gave up a drop of blood or a slice of bone, and someone built another person out of them,” Sylver explained, as he sat down onto his seat, and turned to face Ria properly.

She was still covering the book, but now she had 8 razor-thin legs sticking out of it, as well as several tendrils coming out of her “top”, that Sylver had understood served as her eyes and ears. Aside from the fact that she was much wider, she didn’t look that dissimilar to how she looked when he first met her.

“Yes, you’ve said that. But you said this isn’t a god or a demon, but something else,” Ria said, as Sylver summoned some water from his [Bound Bones] storage and used the floating ball of water to wash his hands.

“Something else is quite honestly all I can tell you about “what” this is. It’s a book that can control people. Except it can do more than that. It can enhance the people it controls. The records suggest it could boost a mage’s ability by roughly 50%. But the bigger threat is that it shares any information it receives. Anything one person controlled by the books knows, the others know too,” Sylver explained, somewhat slower than normal, as he did his best to find the right words to use.

“How do you stop it?” Ria asked as she made a bridge under her feet using her own liquid metal threads and then walked on that bridge to sit at the edge of the table near Sylver.

The room they were in was barely tall enough for Sylver to not hit his head at his full height and was made entirely out of metal, painted a very ugly green color. There was a small bed that Chrys currently occupied, with a small table built into the wall to the left of the bed, just big enough for two chairs. The wrapped up corpse was underneath Chrys’ bed, with two thick tubes coming out of its neck, and attached to Chrys’ neck.

“I’m going to be vague on specifics for the moment because I have no way of knowing who is listening in, but I was part of a group,” Sylver explained, and wanted to slam his fist on the table Ria was currently on as he realized he said “was.”

“I thought so, Spring always changed the topic whenever I asked about your past,” Ria said, as Sylver took a deep breath to steady himself.

“As far as I’m aware, there are only 3 items such as these. This book is one of them, another is a coin that changes color depending on who’s looking at it, and the other is either a dagger made out of a large grey tooth or a wooden box, that allegedly contains an identical wooden box inside,” Sylver explained, as he moved his hands around and formed a visual using [Mirage].

“And all 3 control people?” Ria asked.

“No, only the book does. We don’t know what the other 2 do, we only know their power comes from the same place as the book’s does. The source of information regarding what they do is unreliable, but suffice to say, they’re not as infectious as the book is. The belief is that they grant the wielder some form of immortality, but as I said, we don’t know,” Sylver said, as the coin, tooth dagger, and box, disappeared from the illusion so only the bright red book remained.

“So they’re still somewhere in your world?” Ria asked.

“There’s a lot of fucked up shit in my world. These three are more dangerous than anything else because they use an energy that isn’t native to my world,” Sylver explained and could see Ria’s eyes “widen” slightly at this, even if she didn’t have any actual eyes at the moment.

“What kind of energy is native to your world,” Ria said and sidestepped what she had wanted to ask entirely.

Sylver could feel a faint prickling on the inside of his skull and stopped himself from even coming close to forming the thought. He would figure it out eventually, Ria was already a bigger help than he could have ever imagined.

“All the energies interact with one another in very specific ways. To a mage, Ki feels like hot sandpaper against their skin. To a cultivator, mana allegedly feels like something cold and slimy. I’ll give you a book on the subject later, but to make a long story short, the energy this book gives off feels like nothing I have ever felt,” Sylver said while trying to convey a feeling in visual terms.

The best he could manage was giving the lines emanating from the book a curly look, as opposed to the straight lines mana gave out, or the jagged lines representing Ki.

“I apologize, but I don’t quite understand why that makes it dangerous,” Ria said, as Sylver changed the visuals on the illusion again.

On the illusion, a man with straight lines coming off his skin approached a sword with straight lines coming out of it, and he waved his hand at it, and the lines coming from the sword disappeared. Another man with jagged lines coming off his skin approached a sword with jagged lines coming out of it, and he waved his hand at it, and the lines coming from the sword disappeared.

A third sword appeared with curly lines coming off it, and the curly lines floated towards the man with straight lines, and the man with jagged lines, and killed both of them.

“I can deal with a curse. A cultivator can deal with whatever the cultivator equivalent of a curse is. We can do this because it doesn’t matter how complicated or powerful something is, given enough time, it can be understood and defused. We can’t do that for something we can’t perceive,” Sylver explained, as he waved the illusions floating above him away.

Sylver would later realize that his visuals were wasted on Ria, considering she couldn’t see them, on account of her being incapable of perceiving mana.

“So to you, this book is the equivalent of a high-powered mage attacking you, while you’re unable to defend yourself?” Ria summarized.

“Every living creature has a sort of natural field within itself. It’s the reason I can’t just summon a fireball inside someone’s throat, or freeze or boil their blood. Well… I can, but I’m a special case. But more or less, yes. Except no one has any protection against the book,” Sylver explained.

“Then why isn’t it connected to anything in this world?” Ria asked.

“We know people without any mana in their system, the ones with no mana channels, are immune to it. The theory regarding that, is that the book uses something similar to mana, and therefore the materials and principles that block mana, block the book. It’s why it was stored within a large lead sphere,” Sylver explained and did his best to pull up as much information as he could manage regarding the book.

Truth be told, he knew very little about it. Sylver was practically a child when this thing surfaced, his involvement was limited to finding an empty realm to lock it up in, and then helping Nyx handle the people on Eira who were still connected to it.

Come to think of it, why didn’t the Ibis destroy it?

Nyx would never lock something up and throw away the key, she knows better than anyone how often the keys are found and the locks are unlocked.

Was Nyx even the one who handled it?

…

If not Nyx, then who?

Do I think Nyx was the one who did it because her grimoires are here? Am I misremembering? What if she came here afterward, and wasn’t even aware this was the realm the book was in? If Rose hadn’t told me to find this book specifically, I never would have known.

Sylver sometimes struggled to remember events that happened weeks ago, in his mind the book was ancient history.

“So how do you deal with something like this? Why is it here?” Ria asked as Sylver felt a slight coldness in the pit of his stomach.

“You deal with it, by throwing it into another world. The thought process was that it would weaken the people still connected to it, enough for us to kill them. And as crude of a method, as it is, it worked. The book should have been… Now that I say it out loud, it’s very very strange that it’s still in one piece. My group isn’t the kind to make a mistake like this…” Sylver said, as he reached up to his face and rubbed his chin.

“Are you sure it’s the same book?” Ria said, and Sylver slowly moved his head to the side to crack his neck, as he thought about it.

“I can’t say either way with 100% certainty. So I can’t say this isn’t just an identical copy. The cover is different from what I remember, but the feeling I got when I was near it… I believe it’s the same book. There are too many coincidences if it isn’t,” Sylver said, as he decided this line of thought was pointless.

Even if it was a different book, what he was planning on using it for wasn’t going to change.

A part of Sylver, a shortsighted and angry part, considered the possibility of using it as a bargaining chip.

Rose and Poppy must know what it was, Sylver could threaten bringing it to Eira and allowing it to take control of him.

But there wasn’t an Ibis around to quarantine it, send it to another realm, and then eradicate everyone who had been affected. Sylver’s mathematical question to Ria, moments after she touched the book, was the only test the Ibis had been able to use to find the people who were affected.

For whatever reason, their hive mind like information sharing ability struggled with something as simple and direct as multiplication. Except once they were under its influence for longer than a day, the test no longer worked. Nyx originally thought she could feel the change in the person’s soul, but she was proved wrong.

No, if Sylver wanted to force Poppy and Rose into talking, he needed something that wouldn’t kill him, and Lola, and Edmund, and quite literally everyone and everything that he cared about.

More importantly, was it worth it?

Difference in raw power aside, and that Rose presumably still had Ciege, Yeva, Ben, and probably everyone Sylver cared about as a hostage, what would Sylver gain if he went ahead with his extremely dangerous idea?

Best case scenario… All three are something god-like, and Sylver would be able to force them to reveal the location of the surviving Ibis members.

But if Rose knew where the others were, why didn’t she bait Sylver using them?

If they knew where someone other than Edmund was, why wait to reveal that information?

So Sylver wouldn’t try haggling for 2 Ibis members for 1 otherworldly trip and book destruction? Why bother, they held all the power if he tried to negotiate, it was Rose’s way or nothing.

Why did Rose bother with the woman in white thing, if Poppy eventually came here to reveal that it was her? Did Rose think I wouldn’t be able to get past level 100? Or is Poppy acting on her own, and Rose didn’t account for Poppy talking to me?

It could be that Poppy is working against Rose…

Sylver’s eyes focused on Ria for a moment, or more accurately, at the book hidden inside Ria.

Rose said she chose me for 4 reasons.

I’m capable enough to find and destroy the book.

I’m undead and can survive going through her spotty gate.

I’m familiar with the area.

And I’m able to open a gate to get back to Eira…

Why is being able to return to Eira part of the reason I was chosen? Was it because I wouldn’t have accepted her suggestion if I thought there wasn’t a way back?

Or is me leaving vital to whatever it is she’s doing here?

Chrys made a noise like a balloon being deflated for a second and pulled Sylver out of his trance-like state. After he checked to make sure it was simply air escaping out of one of the hollow areas inside her, Sylver went back to his chair and took a step back from his current predicament.

Aside from his pride being bruised, what had Poppy and Rose done to him?

As long as he got Edmund, the details were irrelevant.

Big picture, Sylver being insulted wasn’t important, even if Poppy slapped him across the face, it was an insignificant price to pay for finding Edmund.

Sylver didn’t like the thought of simply going along with the flow, being moved like some kind of brainless pawn, but the alternative was going against them.

3 women who were possibly related to a god, or worse…

Are go-

They’re from the same world as the book is!

Sylver suppressed a smile, but he could see by the faint twitching of Ria’s antenna she noticed the change in him.

It fits! The roundabout way of handling everything, the odd feeling I got from them, the fact that Rose knew the system isn’t supposed to be here!

That’s why the consequences to them telling me anything about the Ibis were so dire. Except she lied, I wouldn’t be the one punished, they would… But knowing the gods, they’d kill me and my friends off too, just for the fun of it, so it wasn’t a complete lie…

Wait, why would they want the book destroyed if that’s the case?

…

Because…

They have a limited influence… and the book is taking up precious potential influence… that’s worthless to them because it’s in another realm?

Gods that use apostles never have more than 8, for this very reason. Why wouldn’t they just make me bring the book to Eira?

Because they knew I wouldn’t do it, even for Edmund, since it would kill all of us anyway?

But they must have known I would recognize it…

If they’re gods from another world, how much influence would the gods in Eira allow them to have?

Are they so small that the gods of Eira didn’t notice them? Are they so powerful that the gods have no choice but to let them do as they wished? Are they under the influence of laws from their old world?

Why not send someone who wouldn’t know what the book was, and would touch it? Making a gate isn’t that difficult, the Garden has more than enough resources to do it…

I’m certainly capable, but I can’t be the only one who could do this…

On a hunch more than any real reason, Sylver reached into his robe and pulled out the small box that contained Nyx’s grimoires.

The box turned into a chest, and Sylver very gently removed the one with the Eldar rite. Along with the one with the framework Sylver saw when he fought Poppy and Nyx was trying to decode, the realm traveling grimoire, and the one that contained Nyx’s attempts to bind a death lord.

They made sense as 4 incomplete grimoires.

But when Sylver placed them next to each other, he could practically see the gradual change of Nyx’s ink as she immediately started writing in the next one.

These weren’t 4 half-finished grimoires; it was 1 grimoire that she had separated into 4.

More than that, the ones Sylver had initially dismissed as simple low-level 8th tier necromancy, made so much more sense when he considered them part of a whole.

Sylver grabbed Ria and hid her inside his robe, as he stood up and walked out of his room. Thanks to Spring scouting the place out while he slept, Sylver knew exactly where to go.

The various dark elves spread out through the room turned to stare at the intruder for a moment, before they all went back to whatever it was they were doing. Mostly sitting in front of small rectangular screens, and pressing physical buttons to interact with them.

“Could I have a moment in private please,” Sylver asked while he gestured towards the captain of the ship.

“Did you manage to recover what you came to recover,” Sylver asked quietly, as soon as the man was done closing the door.

In Sylver’s… mixture of dread and excitement, he honestly couldn’t see the man as anything other than a hat that marked him out to be the leader.

The captain stared at him for a while and seemed to be doing a great job of grinding his teeth away.

“No. The power came back before they could return, everyone is presumed dead,” the captain answered.

Sylver nodded that he understood and walked out of the room, and returned back to Chrys.

“What was that about?” Ria asked, as soon as Sylver closed the door.

“I have good news and bad news,” Sylver said, as he pulled Nyx’s grimoires out, and started reading through all 21 of them, slowly and with extra attention on all the useless details he had previously only skimmed over.

“Bad news first,” Ria said, with a worried, and almost accusatory tone while looking at Chrys.

“We have to stay here a little longer than I initially planned. Because if I’m right, if I just destroy the book, we’ll be killed before we can leave,” Sylver thought out loud, as he spotted another mistake in Nyx’s notes.

There was a pattern to them, Nyx didn’t make these kinds of mistakes.

“And the good news?” Ria asked.

Sylver was so engrossed in decoding the mistakes in the framework that it took Spring physically moving him away from them for him to answer her.

“Oh, the good news, right. The first is that I think I know how to stop us from getting killed. The second is that I might be able to find out why this realm is the way it is. And the third is that I think finally have a bargaining chip to get some straight answers out of certain people,” Sylver explained, as he went back to reading through the grimoires and started writing out the mistakes he found on a separate sheet of paper.

“The current plan is to fix Chrys up enough that she’ll stay alive while I’m not here, and then go to the source of the Dark Year. I need some time to finish decoding everything to be certain,” Sylver said quietly, as the random corrections began to form the basis of a spell.

He wasn’t entirely sure as to what Nyx had been trying to achieve here, but he would figure it out one way or another.

One thing was for certain, Rose wasn’t going to tell him where Edmund was if he simply destroyed the book. Because if Sylver was reading Nyx’s grimoires right, the death lord was going to come after anyone trying to leave this realm.

The moment Sylver opened a gate, the death lord would intercept it and would kill everyone it could get its hands on.

Thankfully, if Sylver was reading everything right, there was a way of dealing with it.

And gods from another world or not, everyone, is afraid of a death lord. Especially one controlled by a somewhat experienced necromancer.

There were still some parts that didn’t make sense to Sylver, but at least now he could have a proper conversation with Rose.

Assuming Sylver was right, and the death lord wasn’t going to kill him, and then absorb his soul.

But when given the choice between getting killed by a death lord while trying to open a gate, and getting killed by a death lord while trying to bring it under his control, the choice was easy.

On top of that, Sylver had a really good feeling about this.