Parallel Memory

Chapter 607: The Records Stir

Zero closed the chronicle with trembling hands, the echoes of Xalvar’s words still burning in his mind like fresh scars. For a long while, he could only hear the hollow rhythm of his breath, feel the taut silence of the room press against him. The chamber of records was vast yet suffocating, an ocean of dust-laden shelves reaching into shadows that swallowed the edges of sight.

He rose from where he sat, stepping away from the lectern as if distance alone could grant clarity. His gaze trailed upward to the tall ceiling where faint motes of light seeped in through slits of stone, scattered like stars barely daring to shine in a place so heavy with ancient weight.

That was when Lilith’s soft voice cut through his wandering thoughts.

"My father once told me..." she began, fingers brushing over the spine of a nearby tome as though caressing a living creature, "...that this room is not what it seems. He said it is almost... alive."

Zero turned, his brows knitting. Lilith’s eyes gleamed faintly violet in the dimness, unreadable, yet carrying a serenity that contrasted the sharp turmoil twisting within him.

"Alive?" he echoed.

"Yes," she replied, stepping closer, her gaze moving to the sealed doors at the far end of the chamber. "To those it does not favor, it casts them out. To those it allows within... it shows them precisely what they need. Not always what they want, but what they need most to see."

Her words struck something deep inside him, a quiet dread mixed with awe.

"And you believe that?" he asked, his voice low.

Lilith’s lips curved into a faint smile, though tinged with melancholy. "I never knew if he spoke in riddles or truths. My father enjoyed both. But when I stand here with you now..." she paused, placing her palm gently on the edge of the chronicle he had just abandoned, "...I cannot help but think he was right."

Zero’s chest tightened. The book before him—cold, heavy, silent until moments ago—had felt too responsive, too willing to open its heart. He remembered how easily the pages had flipped before, as though guided by unseen hands.

And then, without warning, the chronicle shuddered.

It was subtle at first, a faint rustle as though stirred by a breath of wind, though the air in the chamber was perfectly still. Zero froze, eyes narrowing, while Lilith stepped back, her lips parting in muted surprise.

The chronicle opened on its own. Pages turned swiftly, faster than any mortal hand could manage, fluttering in a storm of parchment until they stopped with a decisive snap.

Zero swallowed. The book had chosen.

The page glowed faintly, ink shimmering like fresh-drawn blood under moonlight. He could not look away. With halting steps, he returned to the lectern and let his fingers rest on the edge of the parchment. It was warm. Almost pulsing.

Lilith’s voice, hushed now, whispered at his side: "It woke up."

Zero nodded wordlessly. His breath felt shallow as his eyes scanned the text, and the chronicle spoke of an era long past.

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"Five brave souls stood before the palace gates of despair, where the devil king’s shadow consumed the very heavens. They did not falter, though the weight of countless slain lay upon their hearts."

Zero read silently, his eyes tracing each gilded letter as the tale unfurled before him.

There had been five: a healer whose hands mended flesh and spirit alike, a spear-bearer whose strikes cleaved through fiends, a mage whose flames and shields turned aside tides of corruption, a guardian whose shield stood unbroken like a mountain, and two swordsmen whose arts mirrored night and day—shadow and starlight, yin and yang.

Together they stormed the gates. The devil army poured like endless tides of darkness, yet the five pressed forward, their bond a bulwark against despair.

Zero’s heart pounded as the words painted scenes so vivid he could almost hear the clash of steel, the screams of demons, the cries of mortals who refused to yield. He saw the healer’s radiance weaving through the battlefield, mending wounds faster than they could be dealt, while the mage’s sorcery blazed across the field, turning night into fleeting dawn.

The spear user drove forward with relentless precision, a tempest that carved open paths for his comrades. The guardian stood at the fore, shield raised, absorbing blow after blow that would have ended lesser men.

And the two swordsmen...

Zero lingered there, staring at the ink. One cloaked in shadows, swift as death’s whisper. The other wielding starlight itself, his blade gleaming like a shard of dawn. Together, they danced a deadly balance, each covering the other’s weakness, their strikes in harmony, their wills entwined.

He trembled as the chronicle described their confrontation with the devil king. Six nights and seven days the battle raged, neither side yielding, both realms holding their breath. Guards and henchmen surged to aid their king, only to be intercepted—blocked, stalled, and defeated by the healer, the spear user, the mage, and the guardian, who fought tirelessly to keep the field clear.

Until at last, drained but unbroken, the two swordsmen unleashed their final gambit. Shadow and starlight fused, their strongest strikes combined into a single devastating arc.

The devil king shielded himself with all his might, his dark barrier towering like an impenetrable wall. Yet the strike broke through.

And so the tyrant fell.

The chronicle fell silent there, the ink dimming to ordinary black, the glow fading as though the story itself had exhaled its last.

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Zero exhaled slowly, unaware until then that he had been holding his breath.

He felt Lilith’s gaze upon him, steady and searching. His hands shook faintly as he let them slip away from the parchment.

"It showed you what you needed to see," Lilith murmured.

Zero didn’t reply immediately. His mind churned. The two swordsmen—their union of light and darkness, their battle that lasted days without yielding—it gnawed at him. Was this truly the past? Or was the chronicle pointing toward something yet to come?

His throat tightened as Xalvar’s voice echoed once more in memory: You were the reason they died.

Zero clenched his fists. He had thought gaining the SS-rank skill had changed his fate, rewriting a script that once belonged to a character in a novel. But now, staring at the chronicle’s testimony, he wasn’t so sure. The fortune teller’s words, the talk of bloodlines, of destiny written in cycles—it all pressed against him like an iron shackle.

Perhaps he wasn’t walking free of fate. Perhaps he was stepping directly into it.

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Lilith’s voice broke through his thoughts again, softer now. "Zero... what did you see?"

He hesitated, then closed the chronicle gently, the weight of its silence somehow heavier than before.

"Not just the past," he whispered, almost to himself. "Maybe... the path ahead."

Lilith said nothing, only watched as his eyes, shadowed with doubt and fire alike, turned toward the vast shelves surrounding them.

The record room had chosen him. And that choice carried meaning he could no longer ignore.