SSS Talent: From Tra Chapter 535: An Important Meeting [VI]

Chapter 535: Chapter 535: An Important eting [VI]

Caelum’s voice cut cleanly through the room.

"I’ve found sothing you should read, Young Master."

Trafalgar turned at once. Darian did too.

Caelum was standing near the far side of the chamber with three loose sheets in one hand and a thinner page in the other, one far more worn than the rest. He had already separated them from the surrounding clutter, which by itself said enough. If Caelum had called him over for this, it was not worthless.

Trafalgar crossed the room and took the page first.

The handwriting was different.

Not the denser, colder script used for mixtures, observations, and asurents. This one had more pressure behind it, more unevenness in the strokes, as if the writer had been recording sothing quickly while it was still fresh in his mind.

"Icarus?" Trafalgar asked.

Caelum inclined his head. "It appears so."

Darian stayed beside them in silence.

Trafalgar began reading.

The first lines were enough to narrow the room around him.

"Its speech grows clearer each day. It asked

today whether we, too, have forgotten our first ho. I told it our bloodlines govern this world and do not speak of exile. It laughed at that. Laughed."

Trafalgar’s fingers tightened slightly around the page.

He kept reading.

"What we call void is not emptiness to them. It is territory. History. Hunger, yes, but not only hunger. There are multitudes there. More than our side has ever imagined. Millions perhaps.’"

Darian’s ears twitched.

"Millions?" he asked quietly.

Trafalgar did not answer him yet. He continued down the page.

"They wait. That was the word it used most often. Wait. Not for victory, but for release. It claims they do not know when the day will co, only that it must co, because confinent cannot be eternal. They can only manifest through what we call Rifts, and even that is imperfect. Most are broken by passage. Distorted and reduced. But passage remains passage."

That made Trafalgar go still.

The room seed colder than before.

Caelum remained motionless beside him, but his attention had sharpened.

Darian spoke this ti. "Read that part again."

Trafalgar did.

This ti slower.

"They can only manifest through what we call Rifts..."

Darian’s jaw tightened.

"So that really is the only way."

"For now," Trafalgar said.

He turned to the next page

"It resents the lesser creatures sent through before it. It calls them damaged returns, minds stripped down by bad crossings and poor vessels. It insisted they are not the true face of its people, only the remnants that reach us most often. When I explained how our world sees them, it did not rage. It pitied us."

Darian let out a slow breath. "That thing pitied us."

Trafalgar lowered the sheet just enough to answer. "That’s not the worst part."

He raised it again.

"Its kind rember. They organize. They preserve nas, ranks, defeats, bloodlines, failed incursions, closed scars, and those lost on the other side of passage. It asked

which of our bloodlines still keep old power. It asked which bloodlines hold the highest authority. It asked whether the ancient blood remains in this age."

That line sat heavily in Trafalgar’s chest.

Ancient blood.

aning the Primordial bloodline.

Darian understood enough from the expression on Trafalgar’s face not to interrupt.

Caelum was the one who asked, "Does it ntion why?"

Trafalgar turned the page.

"I think it does."

The next section was shorter, but every line bit deeper than the last.

"It told

that when the door opens properly, the first to pass will not be the strongest. Strength has failed before. Beasts have failed before. The first true return will co through mory, language, and understanding. It says our side mistakes survival for ignorance. It says its rulers have waited through ages longer than our kingdoms can record."

Darian’s hand closed around the edge of the table near him.

"Rulers."

Trafalgar nodded once.

"So there is hierarchy there too," Darian said.

He kept going.

"When I asked whether they intended conquest, it asked

whether I considered caged n dangerous when handed a key."

No one said anything for several breaths.

Trafalgar read the last section on the page, and this one sounded closer to a conclusion than an observation.

"I am increasingly convinced that our world has misunderstood the Rifts from the beginning. We treat them as wounds through which Void Creatures spill. That is only the outer truth. They are breaches between worlds, and on the other side waits not a species of monsters alone, but a civilization shaped by confinent, war, and mory. If one of them returns with language intact, then our age is already later than we think."

Trafalgar lowered the page.

This ti he did answer Darian.

"That is what Caelum ant before. Icarus was not trying to make it speak for curiosity alone. He was refining it. Feeding it. and teaching it our world so that if it escaped, it would return carrying sothing worth far more than claws."

"Knowledge," Darian said.

"Yeah."

Caelum extended a hand, and Trafalgar passed him the page. Caelum read it himself, expression as unreadable as ever, though when he finished there was a faint hardness around his mouth.

"This changes the scale of the problem."

"It really does," Trafalgar said.

Darian remained quiet for a mont, absorbing it. When he spoke again, his voice had lost whatever remained of its earlier distance.

"If this is true, then the creature that escaped didn’t just survive."

"No," Trafalgar said. "It went ho carrying our nas, structure, and our weaknesses."

Silence returned.

After a while, Trafalgar looked around the room again. Shelves full of scattered research. Tables thick with notes. Vials. Experint logs. Fragnts. Too many pieces to leave behind.

"I’m taking everything relevant."

Darian nodded imdiately. "Of course."

"There’s too much here to sort properly now." Trafalgar turned toward one of the side shelves and found what looked like an old leather hand-case, sothing ant for docunts rather than travel. Dust coated the top, but the clasp still worked. "This will do."

He set it on the table, opened it, and started filling it.

The pages written in the strange script went in first. After that, the sheets on the sap mixture, the alchemist’s involvent, the notebook pages in Icarus’s hand, and every loose paper that seed even remotely tied to the void creature or the experints. Caelum helped without needing to be told, choosing fast and cleanly. Darian joined them too, more careful than quick, but useful all the sa.

By the ti they were done, the hand-case was heavy.

Trafalgar closed it and tested the weight in one hand.

’Barth’s going to have fun with this.’

Trafalgar closed the case properly and turned toward Darian.

"Darian, I think you’re going to have to inform the Council of Sages about this eventually. But first, let

pull every bit of information I can out of what’s written here. After that, I’ll contact you with a plan."

Darian did not hesitate. He inclined his head at once and answered, "As you command, Trafalgar du Morgain. I will wait for now."

Trafalgar glanced at Caelum.

That was enough.

Caelum understood imdiately what sat beneath those words. Everything they had found in this room was dangerous enough to disturb the balance of the world if released carelessly. The existence of millions of void creatures waiting in another dinsion, the fact that they rembered, organized, and learned, the knowledge that the one who escaped had returned carrying information about this world, none of that could be thrown into the open without control.

For now, it was better to keep quiet.

Trafalgar tightened his hand around the case and turned toward the exit.

’Looks like coming here before going with Zafira was the right choice.’

A faint thought followed right after.

’Hm. Seems my vacation won’t be boring after all.’