The Royal Academy Library didn't smell like books. It smelled like silence.
It was a heavy, expensive silence, the kind that cost tuition fees to maintain. The carpet was thick enough to drown a body in, and the stained-glass windows turned the afternoon sun into pools of red and gold blood on the floor.
Caelus limped through the entrance. His ribs ached. Every breath hitched in his chest, a sharp reminder of the Prince's "Light Magic" shadow-whip from the arena.
He checked his wrist.
Life Force: 03:22:15
Three hours. He was rich.
But wealth was a trap. Three hours felt like a lifetime compared to forty minutes, which meant he was getting complacent. Complacency meant death.
"I need to be hated," Caelus whispered to a bust of the First Headmaster. "The sand attack was good. People think I'm scum. But I need them to think I'm irredeemable scum."
He scanned the cavernous room.
He needed a crime that was loud, offensive, but physically safe. No more duels. No more exploding wallets. He wanted something social.
His eyes landed on the East Wing. The Theology Section.
And there, sitting at a long oak table bathed in a shaft of pure white light, was Elara.
The Saintess.
She was reading a massive, leather-bound tome. Her posture was perfect. Her silver hair was braided with gold ribbons. She looked like a propaganda poster for the Church of Gaerath.
Perfect.
In the Empire, the Church was more powerful than the law. Insulting the Saintess? Bad. Insulting the Goddess in front of the Saintess? That was social suicide. That was a one-way ticket to expulsion and a lifetime of being spat on by grandmothers.
"Blasphemy," Caelus decided. "I'm going to commit blasphemy."
He adjusted his collar. He wiped the arena dust off his cheek. He marched toward her.
He didn't sneak. He let his boots thud heavily against the floor, breaking the library's sacred quiet. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Students looked up. He saw the recognition in their eyes.
"It's him." "The dirt-thrower." "Valerius trash."
Good. Watch this.
Caelus reached the table. Elara didn't look up. She was engrossed in the text, her finger tracing the lines of scripture.
Caelus slammed his hand down on the open page.
BAM.
The sound cracked through the library like a gunshot. Dust motes danced in the shockwave.
Elara froze. Her finger stopped moving.
Slowly, terrifyingly slowly, she looked up.
Her blue eyes were clear. Too clear. They didn't hold the fear he expected. They held a strange, shimmering intensity, like a lake right before it freezes over.
"Caelus," she said. Her voice was soft, but in the silence, it carried to the back rows.
"Saintess," Caelus sneered. He poured every ounce of aristocratic disdain he had left into the word. "Reading fairy tales?"
He grabbed the edge of the book.
It was The Codex of Gaerath. The First Edition. It was probably worth more than the Valerius estate.
"This trash," Caelus announced, loud enough for the librarians to hear, "is filled with lies. Your Goddess is a fraud. Your church is a scam."
He waited for the lightning bolt. He waited for the guards. He waited for Elara to slap him.
Elara just watched him. She tilted her head slightly, like a bird listening to a frequency humans couldn't hear.
"Lies?" she whispered.
"Lies," Caelus doubled down. "It says the Goddess protects the just. Look at me. I'm trash, and I'm still breathing. Where is your justice?"
He gripped the page.
Do it. Tear it. Be the monster.
He ripped.
RRRRRRIP.
The sound was wet and violent. The heavy parchment gave way, tearing from top to bottom. Caelus crumpled the page—a beautiful illumination of the Goddess descending from the heavens—in his fist.
He threw the paper ball at Elara's face.
It bounced off her forehead with a pathetic plink.
"There," Caelus panted, his heart hammering against his bruised ribs. "I defiled your scripture. I insulted your deity. I threw garbage at your face. Hate me."
He stepped back, waiting for the explosion. Waiting for the "Life Force Replenished" notification. Waiting for the hatred.
Elara closed her eyes.
She reached out and picked up the crumpled page. She smoothed it out on the table.
"Chapter 4, Verse 12," she recited, her voice trembling. "The Goddess descends to bless the Golden Hero."
She opened her eyes. They were wet.
"You tore it out."
"Yes!" Caelus yelled. "I destroyed it!"
"You removed the lie," Elara said.
Caelus blinked. "What?"
Elara stood up. The chair scraped loudly against the floor.
"You knew," she whispered, stepping toward him. "You knew that this verse... this specific verse... was added by the Third Pope to justify the royal bloodline's absolute authority."
Caelus backed away. "I... no, I just grabbed a random page..."
"You tore out the corruption," Elara's voice rose, gaining a frantic, holy fervor. "You looked at the holy text, saw the poison inserted by men to control us, and you purged it."
She looked at the book. Then she looked at Caelus.
"You aren't attacking the faith, Caelus. You're purifying it."
"No!" Caelus shrieked. He looked around at the students. They were staring, mouths open. "I am attacking it! I hate the book! I hate the font!"
Elara didn't listen. She dropped to her knees.
It wasn't a graceful, courtly curtsy. It was a heavy, thudding collapse of total submission. Her white robes pooled around her on the library floor. She clasped her hands together, looking up at him like he was the second coming.
"Forgive us," she cried out.
The librarians gasped.
"The Saintess..." "She's kneeling." "Why is she kneeling to the trash?" "Did you hear her? He exposed a false verse!" "He's a theologian!" "He's a reformer!"
Caelus stared down at her. He felt a cold sweat break out on his back.
"Stand up," he hissed. "Elara, get up. You are ruining my reputation. I am a villain. I am bad. I throw sand!"
"You carry the burden of the truth," Elara said, grabbing the hem of his trousers. "You act the monster so we can see the flaws in our own holiness. You martyr your reputation to save our souls."
She pressed her forehead against his boot.
Narrative Deviation.
The bold text slammed into his vision, hovering over Elara's prostrate form.
Action: Scripture Desecration.Interpretation: Divine Reformation.Witnesses: 40 Students, 3 Librarians, 1 Hidden Cardinal.
"A Cardinal?" Caelus squeaked. He looked up at the balcony. A figure in red robes was leaning over the railing, stroking his beard thoughtfully.
Calculating...
"Don't do it," Caelus begged the System. "Don't you dare."
Result: Heroic Act of Faith.Penalty Applied.
A sledgehammer of pain hit his chest. It felt like his heart was being squeezed by a cold hand. The air left his lungs.
Life Force: 01:41:05
He lost half. Again.
Caelus staggered back, trying to shake Elara off his leg. "Get off! You're killing me! Literally killing me!"
"I will follow you," Elara vowed, clinging tighter. "I will help you tear the lies from this world, page by page."
"I just want to live!" Caelus yelled.
He yanked his leg free, stumbling backward into a cart of books. The cart tipped over with a deafening crash. Encyclopedia of Demons, Vol 1-12 spilled onto the floor.
"Chaos," Caelus pointed at the mess. "Look! I made a mess! I am disorderly!"
"He's disrupting the established order," a student whispered in awe.
"He's overturning the old knowledge."
Caelus turned and ran.
He sprinted past the checkout desk, past the stunned librarians, and out into the corridor. He didn't stop until he was three hallways away, hiding behind a statue of a gargoyle that looked suspiciously like the Principal.
He slid down the wall, clutching his chest.
01:40:00
"It's rigged," he wheezed. "The whole world is rigged."
He looked at his hand. He was still holding a piece of the page he had torn out.
It was the corner. It just said The Golden Hero.
He crushed it into dust.
"Why won't they let me be evil?" he asked the gargoyle.
The gargoyle didn't answer. But the smell of ozone drifted down the hallway, accompanied by the clicking of heels.
"Well done," a voice purred.
Caelus looked up.
Isolde was standing there. She held a glass of wine, despite being in the middle of a school hallway at 2 PM.
"You have the Church in chaos," she said, a wicked smile playing on her lips. "The Cardinal is already writing a letter to the Pope about the 'Young Prophet of Valerius'."
Caelus put his head between his knees. "I hate you. I hate all of you."
"Good," Isolde said. "Hate is fuel."
She dropped a small, heavy pouch next to him. It clinked.
"Your allowance," she said. "Go buy some oil. If you want to be a villain, Caelus, stop tearing paper."
She leaned down, her lips brushing his ear.
"Burn something."
Caelus watched her walk away. He looked at the pouch. He opened it.
It was full of gold coins. And a single, small vial of alchemist's fire.
New Opportunity Detected.Objective: Arson.Potential Reward: Massive.
Caelus stared at the vial. The liquid inside swirled, orange and angry.
"Burn something," he repeated.
He looked back toward the library. He thought about Elara kneeling. He thought about the Prince's charm.
"Fine," Caelus whispered. A desperate, unhinged grin tugged at his lips. "You want fire? I'll give you fire."
He stood up.
He needed a map of the Archives.