Chapter 277: The Earth Library

The passage continued downward. For several minutes, the only sounds were their footsteps and the faint grinding of ancient mechanisms somewhere beneath the stone.

The deeper they went, the warmer the air became. That alone was strange. They had expected the underground city to grow colder as they descended. Instead, a faint warmth surrounded them, almost like sunlight had somehow been trapped beneath the earth.

Arthur noticed it first. Then Athena stopped. "Wait."

Everyone turned toward her. She was staring ahead.

"What is it?" Mithra asked.

Athena didn’t answer immediately, stepping forward instead. The corridor ended, and beyond it was a doorway. No, calling it a doorway was too small. It was an enormous stone archway, easily thirty meters tall, covered from top to bottom in carved symbols, the same golden symbol they’d seen throughout the ancient city at its center.

The symbol of the Mirrors.

Arthur approached, and the King Mark on his hand gave a faint pulse. The stone doors began to move.

GRRRRRR...

Dust fell from the ceiling as two enormous slabs of stone slowly separated, warm golden light spilling through the opening. Everyone went silent.

Arthur stepped through first, and stopped. For once, even he didn’t immediately say anything.

The chamber beyond was enormous, far larger than anything they’d seen beneath the city. Rows upon rows of stone shelves stretched into the darkness, some ten meters tall, others even larger, thousands of stone tablets resting inside them, some thin and rectangular, others shaped like discs, cylinders, or strange geometric plates. Murals covered entire walls. Maps were carved into the floor. Statues stood between the shelves, depicting humans, Beasts, and figures Arthur didn’t recognize. Golden lines ran across the ceiling like a gigantic constellation.

And everywhere, there were records. Records of ancient Beasts. Records of tribes. Records of cities. Records of wars. Records of things that had existed thousands of years before Mythal had ever been built.

Sun slowly lowered his staff. "...This place is insane."

Kong climbed onto his shoulder and stared into the darkness. Even the little Stone Monkey seemed unusually quiet.

Athena wasn’t listening. She’d already walked several meters into the library, her eyes moving rapidly from one tablet to another. "This isn’t a library."

Mithra raised an eyebrow. "You’re standing in a library."

"No." Athena pointed toward the nearest shelf. "This is an archive." She walked toward it. "There is a difference."

Arthur followed. "What difference?"

"A library stores knowledge." She carefully brushed dust from a tablet. "An archive preserves history." She looked around. "And this place was built to preserve everything."

Arthur glanced toward the endless shelves. "Everything?"

Athena nodded slowly. "Everything they considered important."

Her voice had changed, something almost reverent in it. Arthur had seen Athena excited before. He’d never seen her like this. She looked like someone had dropped her into a treasure vault. Except the treasure wasn’t gold. It was information.

...

They split up. Athena immediately claimed one section, Mithra joining her after a few minutes, mostly because Athena had begun talking to herself. Sun explored the larger maps. Kong wandered between statues. Eden floated beside Arthur, looking around with wide eyes. Star bounced along behind them.

Boing.

Arthur glanced down. Star had stopped beside a small stone tablet, stretching itself toward it before recoiling.

Boing!

He crouched. "What did you find?"

Star wiggled. He looked at the tablet, a Beast with six legs and enormous horns, several unfamiliar symbols below it. "Probably a Beast record."

Star bounced again.

He smiled. "You want to know what it becomes?"

Boing!

"You know I can’t see that unless I touch it."

Star immediately flattened itself against the tablet. He sighed. "You’re getting impatient." Star bounced happily, and he placed his hand against the ancient stone.

Nothing happened. Of course. It wasn’t alive.

He pulled his hand away. "Still doesn’t work." Star sagged. Eden giggled. "He’s disappointed."

Arthur looked at her. "You’re enjoying this."

"A little."

He shook his head, then looked toward Athena, standing before an enormous mural.

"Arthur!" Her voice immediately caught everyone’s attention, and they gathered around her.

The mural covered almost the entire wall. At first glance it appeared to depict five enormous structures, each one surrounded by different symbols, the first burning with flames, the second surrounded by waves, the third embedded within mountains and roots, the fourth surrounded by strange patterns resembling stars, the fifth surrounded by symbols Arthur couldn’t understand. In the center was a gigantic circular structure, five lines connecting each Mirror to it.

Arthur stared. "Those are the Mirrors."

Athena nodded. "Exactly."

Luna had gone completely still, stepping closer, her eyes moving across the symbols surrounding the central structure. "I know those."

Arthur looked at her. "From the Venus Tribe?"

She nodded. "My grandfather taught me some of them." She reached toward one symbol but stopped before touching it. "This one means guardian." She moved to another. "This means return." Then another. "Memory." Her expression slowly changed. "But these symbols shouldn’t be here."

"Why?"

"Because the Venus Tribe never created them." She looked at the mural. "We inherited them."

Silence followed. Athena’s eyes narrowed. "From the people who built this place."

Luna nodded. "I think so."

Arthur looked back at the mural. Five Mirrors. Five paths. One central structure. He remembered the murals from the residential district, the same symbols, the same figures, the same deliberate placement.

His eyes narrowed. "So they weren’t scattered randomly."

Athena looked at him. "No." She turned toward the enormous mural. "They were placed."

Arthur stared at the central structure. "For what?"

Athena didn’t answer. She walked closer to the mural, her fingers tracing one of the golden lines connecting the Earth Mirror to the central structure, her expression growing increasingly serious. "That’s what they were trying to accomplish."

...

They spent the next hour searching. The deeper they went, the stranger the records became. One section contained detailed drawings of ancient Beasts, some species Arthur recognized, others with completely unfamiliar bodies. Records of Beasts that could live underground. Beasts that could survive in mana storms. Beasts that apparently migrated between different Mana Realms. Several records described creatures with no modern equivalent at all.

Arthur found one tablet depicting an enormous Beast with wings made of crystal. Another showed a creature that appeared to have been born from a tree. Another depicted a serpent wrapped around a mountain.

Athena couldn’t stop herself. "Look at this." She held up a stone tablet. "This species hasn’t been recorded in modern Beastology."

Mithra looked at it. "Can it still exist?"

"We don’t know." Athena’s eyes gleamed. "That is exactly why we need to preserve this."

Mithra smiled. "I think you’ve found your dream room."

Athena ignored her.

Sun eventually called from the opposite side. "You people might want to see this."

Arthur walked over. Sun stood before a massive map carved directly into the floor, depicting the Everglades, or at least what had once been the Everglades, forests that no longer existed, rivers that had changed course, cities buried beneath the current landscape, dozens of symbols marking ancient structures.

Arthur crouched. "How old is this?"

Athena examined it. "Older than the modern kingdoms."

Sun pointed toward the eastern side. "This wasn’t there when we entered." A large symbol had been carved beneath the modern city, a circular mark.

Arthur recognized it immediately. "The Earth Mirror."

Sun nodded. "And look at this." He pointed toward another mark, then another. Five locations, spread across the ancient world.

Arthur slowly stood. "The other Mirrors."

Athena walked over, her expression hardening. "They were connected."

Arthur looked at her. "Not just metaphorically."

"No." She pointed at the map. "Look at the routes." Thin lines connected the five locations, but they didn’t stop there, continuing beyond them, forming a massive geometric pattern across the continent, and at the center was a single symbol.

The same symbol from the mural. The central structure.

Arthur stared at it. "What is that?"

Athena shook her head. "I don’t know." That answer seemed to bother her. Athena always had an answer, even when it was uncertain. This time she had nothing.

...

Luna had moved deeper into the archive. Arthur found her standing before a wall covered in familiar symbols, unmoving. He approached. "You okay?"

She nodded. "I think so." She touched her chest. "These are Venus Tribe records."

He looked at the wall. "Records of your tribe?"

"Not exactly." She studied the carvings. "These describe the guardians."

"The guardians of the Mirrors?"

"Yes." Her expression became distant. "My people weren’t the first guardians."

Arthur looked at her, and she continued. "We inherited the duty."

That explained something. The Venus Tribe hadn’t simply stumbled across the Earth Mirror. They had been connected to it for generations, the knowledge passed down.

Guardianship.

Memory.

Return.

Authority.

The same words appeared again and again. Arthur’s eyes moved across the wall. Then he noticed something. A section had been scratched away, not weathered, not damaged by age. Destroyed. Someone had deliberately carved away the stone.

He stepped closer. Athena noticed. "What is it?"

He pointed. "Someone removed this."

Athena examined the damaged section, her expression changing, and immediately began searching nearby walls. "There are more."

They looked around. She was right. Several sections had been destroyed, not randomly, each missing section positioned around the same five-Mirror diagram.

Mithra frowned. "Someone went through all this trouble just to destroy a few carvings?"

"Not a few," Athena said, pointing farther down the wall. "Look."

A huge portion of the archive had been deliberately destroyed. Dozens of tablets shattered. Entire sections of murals scraped away. The stone floor broken exactly where another diagram should have been.

Arthur walked slowly toward it. "What was here?"

Athena didn’t answer, beginning to examine the fragments instead. One tablet still held part of a symbol. Another had half a sentence. Another contained a diagram with four lines.

Arthur crouched and picked up one of the pieces. Only three words remained.

Five... become...

The rest was gone. His eyes narrowed. "Five become what?"

Athena shook her head. "We need more."

They searched. Nothing. Every piece that could have completed the sentence was missing.

Arthur walked back toward the giant mural. Five Mirrors. One central structure. Five lines. And the entire section explaining their combined purpose had been erased. Someone hadn’t simply forgotten the information. Someone had wanted it gone.

He stared at the destroyed records. "Someone really didn’t want people knowing that."

Athena slowly nodded. "No." She looked at the broken tablets. "They wanted the Mirrors to be found."

Arthur glanced at her. "But not understood."

Athena met his eyes. "That seems to be the case."

A chill moved through the chamber, because that meant whoever had destroyed these records had known something. They had known the Mirrors would eventually be discovered, and they had deliberately left behind enough information to lead someone toward them. Just not enough to reveal what happened after all five were gathered.

...

Arthur turned back toward the mural. The golden lines suddenly seemed different. Before, they had looked like connections. Now they looked like instructions.

Five Mirrors. Five locations. One central point.

And the King Mark on Arthur’s hand began to glow. Faintly. Not enough for anyone else to notice. He covered it with his sleeve, his eyes remaining fixed on the mural.

For a brief moment, one of the missing sections seemed to shimmer, not because the stone had changed, but because something behind it had reacted. Arthur stepped closer, and the glow disappeared.

He frowned. Eden floated beside him. "Arthur?"

"Nothing."

He looked at the mural again. Nothing happened. But Arthur couldn’t shake the feeling that the archive wasn’t merely showing them history. It was waiting for someone to understand it.

And somewhere beneath the ancient city, five forgotten powers were still connected to something that had never truly stopped functioning.

Arthur looked toward the dark passage leading deeper underground. "Let’s keep going."

Athena glanced at him. "Why?"

He smiled faintly. "Because if they destroyed the answer here..." His gaze settled on the distant golden symbol. "Then they probably didn’t destroy it everywhere."

And beneath their feet, far deeper than the library, something ancient shifted.

THOOM.

The entire archive trembled. Dust fell from the ceiling. Everyone looked around.

Sun tightened his grip on his staff. "That didn’t sound like a library."

Arthur’s King Mark burned beneath his sleeve.

And somewhere in the darkness below them, something answered.