Chapter 954: That’s bad.
The stairs were too narrow for that group.
Not physically. Strax, Samira, Daniela, and Cassandra were in human form, and the Heavenly Emperor walked with firm posture beside Derick. Frieren and Ouroboros followed in the middle, surrounded by protection. There was room for everyone to pass.
But the staircase felt cramped for another reason.
Each step downward took a little more sound from the world above. First, the muffled shouts from the hall disappeared. Then the soldiers’ footsteps. Then the distant echo of the bells. Within a few meters, all that remained was the noise of sand trickling through the cracks in the walls and the overly controlled breathing of those present.
The palace’s white marble gradually turned yellowish.
Then gray.
Then ancient.
The lower walls no longer seemed part of the Heavenly Capital. They were made of rough stone, covered in inscriptions scratched over one another across centuries. Some looked imperial. Others predated the Empire. Others should not have been anywhere, because the symbols moved when someone tried to stare at them for too long.
Frieren raised a small runic lamp.
The light grew weak.
"This is bad," Daniela said.
Samira looked at her.
"Are you talking about the light or everything?"
"Yes."
The Emperor ran his fingers over one of the inscriptions on the wall, without quite touching it.
"I did not know this section existed."
Derick looked at him.
"Your Majesty?"
"The official underground archives are two levels above. This staircase should not exist."
Strax stopped for an instant.
Everyone stopped with him.
Ouroboros stood motionless in the middle of the staircase, her eyes turned downward.
"It has always existed."
The Emperor slowly turned.
"Explain."
"But it was forgotten on purpose."
Frieren closed the instrument box with a low click.
"So the Capital has an entire forgotten wing beneath the imperial palace."
Daniela let out a dry laugh.
"Did you people really have to build the seat of government on top of something like this?"
Derick did not answer.
The Emperor continued looking at the inscriptions, and for the first time since they had arrived, Strax saw something beyond worry in him.
He saw real discomfort.
"My grandfather ordered the reorganization of the ancient archives," the Emperor said. "Some sectors were sealed because they contained unstable records."
Samira raised an eyebrow.
"Unstable records?"
Frieren answered before he could.
"Documents that alter memory, identity, lineage, ownership, oath, or legal existence."
Daniela looked at her.
"How do you say that so normally?"
"Because, unfortunately, it makes sense."
The sand on the walls increased.
It no longer fell in thin streams. It ran as if the stone were sweating desert. Some grains did not descend. They rose. Sliding upward against gravity, entering higher cracks and forming small letters before falling apart.
Cassandra observed.
"It is writing."
Strax looked.
The letters were too fast, but one word appeared whole before turning to dust.
Arrived.
Samira drew her sword.
"He knows."
"He called us," Ouroboros said.
"Even better," Samira replied. "Then he knows we are going to hit him."
Strax started walking again.
At the end of the staircase, there was a dark bronze door.
It was not large. It had no golden ornaments, no imperial crests, no visible lock. Only a smooth, old surface, marked by seven empty circles arranged around a closed eye.
Frieren became serious.
"Seven circles."
Cassandra moved closer.
"Seven crowns."
The Emperor touched the sword at his waist, but did not draw it yet.
"This door is beneath my palace?"
Strax looked at him.
"I am curious too."
The door opened on its own.
No creak.
No resistance.
It simply slid into the wall, revealing an immense hall on the other side.
The forgotten archives did not look like an ordinary library.
They were an organized abyss.
Shelves rose toward a ceiling that could barely be seen. Narrow bridges connected stone platforms. Chains held enormous books shut with padlocks. Metal cylinders turned slowly in the air, each one covered in engraved names. Thousands of cards, plaques, marked bones, and parchment strips hung like dry leaves from dead trees. The light came from pale globes fixed between the shelves, but no shadow seemed to obey them.
At the center of that place stood a long table.
And before it stood Vaelis.
Or what used that name.
He was tall and thin, dressed in imperial archivist clothing, but his skin looked like paper stretched over bone. His hair was too white, not from age, but from fading. His eyes were dark, almost ordinary, except when the light passed through them and revealed a golden gleam deep inside.
Vaelis smiled.
"Emperor. Strax. You arrived together. That is more than I expected."
Strax took a step.
Frieren held his arm.
"Wait."
Vaelis looked at her, amused.
"Ah, the scholar. You understand a little, do you not?"
"I understand that you trapped the room."
"Of course."
Daniela sighed.
"I hate when they admit it."
Samira smiled.
"I prefer it."
Strax did not take his eyes off Vaelis.
"You touched my daughter."
"I did not touch her. I merely pointed the path to the one who wanted to remember."
The air grew heavier.
"Choose your last words better," Strax said.
Vaelis laughed softly.
"That is amusing coming from you. A being with so much power, and still so bound to small words like daughter, home, threat, revenge."
"They work well."
"They work for creatures that still have limits."
The Emperor took a step forward.
"Vaelis Oranth, for treason against the Imperial Crown, arcane conspiracy, and violation of the forgotten seals, I order you to surrender."
Vaelis looked at him.
And smiled with pity.
"You still think your title has weight here."
The Emperor raised his hand, and a golden chain appeared around Vaelis.
For an instant, it seemed to work.
The chain closed around his arms, neck, and chest. The imperial seals glowed, trying to bind him by authority, blood, and law. Vaelis merely tilted his head.
Then the chains began to rust.
Not physically.
The symbols on them faded.
One by one, the letters of the imperial decree disappeared.
The Emperor went rigid.
Derick drew his sword.
"Your Majesty!"
The Emperor’s hand trembled.
Vaelis opened his arms, and all the metal cylinders around them began to spin faster.
"Do you know the problem with empires? They write everything. Laws. Lineages. Oaths. Titles. True names. Coronation names. War names. Childhood names. They keep it all in places like this and then pretend paper is dead."
Frieren went pale.
"He is inside the imperial records."
"No," Vaelis said. "I am the archivist. I simply learned how to read deeply."
The floor opened.
Not in a fall.
In writing.
Golden lines appeared beneath everyone’s feet, forming circles around the group. Each circle contained letters trying to adjust to the names of those present. Samira cut her own circle before it could finish. Daniela leapt back and drove a blade into the floor, splitting another inscription. Cassandra raised a mana barrier, but the letters began climbing up its surface like ants.
Frieren shouted:
"Do not let them complete!"
Strax stomped hard.
White Fire exploded around him, burning the circle before a single letter could fix itself. Ouroboros, however, stood still for half a second.
It was enough.
A golden thread rose from the floor and touched her ankle.
She gasped.
Strax turned in the same instant.
"Ouroboros!"
The word came out before Frieren could stop him.
Vaelis smiled.
"Thank you."
The golden thread became seven lines.
All of them climbed up Ouroboros’s body at once, binding arms, neck, chest, and mouth. She tried to cut the threads with her hands, but the lines were not holding flesh. They were holding meaning. Existence. Presence.
Frieren threw a talisman.
The line devoured it before it touched.
Samira advanced, but a wall of record plaques fell between her and Ouroboros, forming a barrier made of ancient names. Daniela tried to go around the side, but the floor tilted like a turning page, throwing her against a shelf. Cassandra caught Daniela with mana before she fell into the abyss between the platforms.
Strax advanced straight ahead.
Vaelis raised one finger.
The Emperor shouted.
"No!"
Too late.
The floor beneath Strax opened a circle with an ancient name engraved in gold.
Not his name.
A title.
White and black dragon.
The circle could not bind him, but it managed to make the space around his feet hesitate for a fraction. Just a fraction. Enough for Vaelis to pull his hand.
Ouroboros was torn backward.
She did not fall.
She was erased from the place where she stood.
The lines pulled her into a suspended metal cylinder, which closed with a dry sound.
Everyone felt it.
It was not like seeing someone captured.
It was like forgetting for one second that someone had been there.
Daniela blinked, confused.
"Who..."
She stopped.
Her face went pale.
"No. No, no, no. Who was there?"
Samira turned her head quickly.
"There was someone in our group."
Cassandra pressed her hands against her temples.
"Ouro... Ouro..."
The name slipped away.
Strax stood motionless.
Not because he had forgotten.
Because he was holding the memory by brute force.
The air around him cracked.
"Ouroboros."
The cylinder trembled when he said it.
Vaelis lost his smile for an instant.
"You held on."
Strax looked at him.
"Give her back."
The word came low.
Very low.
Vaelis recovered his smile.
"No."
Strax exploded.
He crossed the distance between them with White Fire and Black Ice in his hands. Vaelis did not try to block. He merely opened another record.
This time, he did not aim at Strax.
He aimed at the Emperor.
A golden cylinder above the hall opened, revealing a long strip written in ancient blood and liquid gold. The Emperor raised his barrier, but the letters passed through it as if they had the right.
Derick stepped in front.
The letters passed through Derick too.
They did not wound him.
They simply ignored him.
Then they touched the Emperor’s chest.
He fell to his knees.
The entire Capital trembled.
Up above, in the world above, the golden barriers protecting the city flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then failed for one full second.
Vaelis laughed.
"Ah. The coronation name still works."
Frieren widened her eyes.
"He stole a fragment of the imperial name."
Strax turned.
The Emperor was trying to breathe, one hand on his chest, his eyes gold for an instant before returning to normal. Derick held him by the shoulders.
"Your Majesty!"
The Emperor gripped Derick’s arm hard.
"Do not... let..."
His voice failed.
Vaelis opened his arms.
"Now the city does not fully know who commands it."
Above them, a distant crash echoed.
Then another.
Then screams.
Monica’s voice came from Frieren’s crystal, distorted.
"Strax! The Capital’s barriers fell for an instant. Sand is appearing in the lower districts. I repeat, sand inside the city."
Frieren grabbed the crystal.
"We are in the archives. Ouroboros was captured inside the records. The Emperor had a fragment of his name stolen."
On the other side, there was half a second of silence.
Then Monica said:
"This is much worse than I expected."
Daniela, still trying to stand, shouted:
"What were you expecting?"
"Something bad. Not this."
The entire hall began to turn.
The shelves moved, rearranging corridors. Bridges broke and rebuilt themselves elsewhere. Name cylinders descended from the ceiling like pendulums. Record plaques flew through the air, forming walls between them.
Vaelis retreated without walking, carried by his own shadow.
"I wanted only the living crown. But you brought better things. An Emperor. An impossible dragon. And the one who sees threads."
Strax launched himself at him again.
This time, Samira went with him.
Cassandra opened a path with a burst of mana, Daniela cut two plaques in the air, and Frieren threw a runic chain at the cylinder where Ouroboros had been trapped. The chain touched the metal and immediately began to lose letters.
Frieren screamed in pain and released it before her own name could be pulled along.
Strax reached Vaelis.
His hand closed on the archivist’s shoulder.
For one second, he gripped flesh.
Then skin turned to paper.
Vaelis’s body tore itself into hundreds of old cards, each with a different name written on it. Strax burned half of them with White Fire, but the other half scattered through the hall like dead birds, entering the shelves.
Vaelis’s voice came from all sides.
"Descend farther if you want to recover her."
The floor beneath the group split.
It did not collapse entirely.
It chose.
Strax, Samira, and the Emperor fell through an opening.
Derick tried to grab him, but Cassandra pulled Derick back before he could be taken too. Daniela jumped to reach Samira, but a wall of records closed between them. Frieren tried to throw an anchor to Strax, but the line was cut by a blade of golden paper.
In an instant, the group was divided.
Strax fell into hot darkness.
Samira came beside him, striking against a lower bridge and rolling over rough stone. The Emperor fell more heavily, protected only by a weak golden barrier that shattered on impact.
Above, the hole closed.
The last thing Strax heard before the silence was Daniela shouting his name.
Then everything went dark.
Not completely.
At the bottom of that deeper level, there was light.
Golden.
A massive eye, drawn on the floor by thousands of stolen names, slowly opened beneath them.
The Emperor spat blood and raised his head.
"This room..."
Strax slowly stood.
"You know it?"
The Emperor looked at the eye on the floor, pale.
"No. But it knows me."
Samira picked up the greatsword and stood, even while limping.
"Great. We are trapped under the Capital with a half-stolen Emperor, a friend erased inside a cylinder, and an eye on the floor."
Strax looked at the golden eye.
From the other side, something looked back.
And, for the first time, it did not seem distant.
The voice came low, satisfied, almost complete.
"Dragon."
Strax opened both hands.
White Fire and Black Ice ignited.
But before he could attack, the eye said another word.
Not his name.
The little girl’s name.
Far in the North, very far away, the heart chamber cracked.