Adrian Vale opened the book titled The Second War of Gods, expecting revelations—timelines, divine conflicts, names and deaths inked into the skin of time.
But the pages were blank.
No titles. No symbols. No story.
Just a single envelope, pressed flat into the inside cover as if it had always belonged there. The wax seal was dark, smooth, shaped like a closed eye. It looked ancient, but intact—waiting.
Adrian frowned.
"Right," he muttered. "Of course."
He lifted the envelope and cracked the seal. The wax peeled cleanly, too clean for something this old.
Inside was a folded letter. The paper felt strangely light in his hands. The ink shimmered faintly, not like magic, but like something that had been written with memory instead of pigment.
He opened it and began to read.
The Letter written in Bone Ink
"To the one who came after me, It must have been unbearable — the Soul Ocean.
The silence. The burning. The centuries of forgetting.
I won't ask who you were before. It no longer matters. This place — the Underworld — is the pit beneath every reality. A graveyard beneath all realms, from the lowest mortal planes to the divine skies.
I was like you once. Broken. Dying. And then chosen.
The Death Scripture waits in the throne room.
Cultivate it, and you will escape this abyss. Your soul will inhabit a body in Eltherion — the only world where the Laws remain alive and where gods can still be born.
The Death Scripture is powerful. Too powerful.
But be warned: once you bind yourself to a Law, you are no longer fully human.
You can never be able to change the Law you cultivate again. Try, and you will either be torn apart, or worse — become a Bizarre: a senseless, monstrous echo of your former self.
All Laws bind. Once chosen, they own you.
Any being on the same Path who ranks higher can influence your mind. And if the god of that Path still lives, you are their servant forever. You won't even know you're serving them.
I did not have a choice. I chose Death.
Now I am a Celestial, one with bone and silence. I can walk between realms, and so I returned here — once. Just once — to leave behind what I never had:
A choice.
I have hidden two forbidden Scriptures here, beyond the Veil Room where the breathless statues cry:
The Scripture of Fractured Truth — tied to the Law of Contradiction.
If you ascend to Realizer Step 12, the Underworld will reject you. It cannot tolerate contradiction — and you will be flung from it.
The Scripture of Knowledge — tied to the Law of Knowledge.
Upon reaching Step 12, it will offer you a single forbidden truth.
Choose wisely. Ask it how to be reborn into Eltherion.
They are both dangerous. They are both salvation.
Do not be hasty. Read. Understand. Choose.
May you remain yourself.
– Celine
Adrian folded the letter slowly and slipped it into his coat pocket.
"So for now I can't even go back to my original world"
He ponder for sometimes.
"Well, Make sense my body probably turn to ashes now"
"If the so call law power is so powerful it must have a method to send me back once I'm on the higher level"
"Three choices," he murmured. "And no do-overs."
He paced across the quiet marble floor of the living library.
"The Death Scripture's right there. Obvious. Easy."
He stopped walking.
"Too easy."
He turned toward the exit of the library, steps measured, thoughtful. The Temple's layout responded to intent. The hallway widened.
Beyond the final archway, he entered the Throne Room.
It was silent.
The ceiling vanished into eternal dark. Black marble stretched outward like a frozen sea. The throne stood on a raised platform of ribs and stone — not a seat of authority, but a memorial.
And there it was.
A massive skull, fractured down the center. It wore a crown made of rusted iron and bone—jagged, throned, ancient.
Empty sockets stared at the far wall.
Adrian stopped at the foot of the dais.
"So. You're really gone."
He said it without grief.
Just fact.
Death had no god.
But its remnants lingered.
At the base of the throne, a pedestal rose from the stone — curved like a vertebra, with one book resting atop it. The cover was black leather, worn smooth with time. Its title pulsed faintly in bone-white letters:
Scripture of the Hollow Grave (Law of Death)
Adrian stared at it.
He didn't touch it at first.
Just looked.
"So easy to pick up," he whispered. "So easy to regret."
He waited a moment longer.
Then, slowly, he reached out and took it.
The book was warm. Heavy with promise.
He held it in both hands.
And then turned.
"I'll find the other two first," he said. "Then I'll decide."
He tucked the Scripture of Death under his arm.
And walked into the corridor.