Chapter 256: From the Bygone Age

A white window appeared before Ravian, red veins branching along its edges while dark shadows gathered behind the words.

[Examination in progress…]

He kept his hand on the stone and waited, using the time to inspect its surface. The cracks and protrusions were irregularly distributed, and he saw no inscription he could read or mark that explained the power he had sensed. He turned it slightly inside the box, and when he found nothing different, returned it to its previous position.

‘Have you found anything?’

[A complete examination is impossible in its current state.]

Ravian stared at the window before looking down at the stone.

‘You said you needed me to get close and touch it.’

[Both conditions have been met. However, the powers within the outer shell prevent a complete examination of its contents.]

[These powers date back to the Bygone Age.]

His eyes settled on the final words, and he recalled what he had read about that era in the Supreme Soul Academy’s Grand Archive. The name did not refer to a particular century or the reign of an ancient empire, but to a time when conflicts between the Taboos had spread so widely that beings throughout this vast world had been affected.

One book mentioned that dragon numbers had fallen sharply during that era, while other references linked it to the emergence of the seven races of the Children of Sin. The races that still fought humanity and caused havoc to this day had not always existed in the form the world knew now, but the records dealing with their beginnings had been far sparser than he had expected from an archive of that size.

The same was true of most material concerning the Bygone Age: scattered references in later books, citations of works that no longer existed, and major events without enough accompanying detail to understand how they had occurred. Many records of that era had been erased thousands of years ago, and he had found no clear explanation for that erasure in anything he read.

‘The age when the Taboos fought one another…’ he thought, looking at the stone again.

He had expected it to be old, but he had not known it belonged to an era when dragon numbers had dwindled and races that still possessed entire empires had emerged.

‘Can you tell me anything about that age that isn’t in the books?’

The window changed.

[Prohibian was widely used during the Bygone Age.]

[Its widespread use was a primary cause of extensive spiritual contamination among the population. The Great War occurred later.]

Ravian read both messages again, then slowly lifted his hand from the stone.

‘Prohibian?’

He did not need to look inside his book to remember the nature of the symbols he had spent so long studying. He could read them, but understanding the relationships between their meanings and uses still required concentration and effort. He already knew that being able to read Void of Prohibition did not make applying its contents simple or safe.

Even so, he had never imagined it had once been a language people used on that scale.

‘Did that contamination cause the war?’

[The available information is insufficient to determine that.]

Ravian nodded to himself. The System had told him the order of events and what had caused the contamination, but it had not said that was the sole cause of the war. Filling the gap between the two with a guess and treating it as fact would not be wise.

The matter was troubling enough without that. The language that had allowed him to understand Orc speech and read his own book was also associated with spiritual contamination on a scale far beyond one person or a small group. He had experienced the damage spiritual contamination could cause himself, and he needed no further experience to take that information seriously.

He looked at the stone, then at the palm that had held it before Layla and her guards.

‘And what about me? Why hasn’t what happened to the people who touched it before me happened to me?’

[Your current body is no longer equivalent to a human body.]

[Race: Human-Void.]

It was not the first time he had seen that classification, but he waited instead of closing the window, and more words followed.

[You have become half human and half Void. The Sovereign Pride Physique created this race unique to you, making the Void an inseparable part of your constitution.]

[No other being of your race exists in this world.]

Ravian lowered his eyes to his arm. The appearance he showed the squad was altered by the Mask of Loftiness, but he was not looking at its length or the shape of its muscles now. He was thinking about what remained beneath that appearance, however he changed it.

His body had been rebuilt, then developed again after absorbing the orc camp. He knew he was stronger than someone of his rank should have been, but physical strength was not all that had changed.

‘So it isn’t just that my skin has become tougher.’

[Your Void constitution allows you to resist the power leaking from the outer shell.]

[This resistance does not establish your ability to withstand everything within it.]

His gaze settled on the stone again. That explained why the guards had not seen what they expected when he held it, and why her questions about his hand had been more insistent than their demands that he return it to the box. Even so, he still did not know whether Layla knew anything about the shell itself or what it concealed.

‘All right. How do we get inside?’

[Remove the outer layers using Void flame, then repeat the examination.]

[You can use the same flame used to erode the orc camp and its remains.]

Ravian did not move immediately. He looked at the sides of the box and the space between them and the stone, then repositioned it with the part he intended to work on facing upward.

He moved his left hand away from the box and raised his right index finger, recalling how to form the flame and defining what he wanted it to consume. A small gray flame appeared above his finger, and he watched it for a moment before bringing it toward a protrusion on the stone’s surface.