‘If I pass that corner, I should make it to the concealed passage,’ Alec thought as he looked around carefully. After taking a look at the librarian’s map, he realized that the second level of the library wasn’t a place that one could reach by randomly walking. The reason he had never seen the stairs leading there was because those stairs were literally unperceivable unless one had the necessary authorization.

‘This academy and its stupid obsession with anti-memes…’ Alec mentally reprimanded the authorities. He didn’t have any other encounters on the way to the stairs, which made him more worried than relaxed.

‘My theory still stands. There could be a demon that has absorbed the others in its proximity, and the demonized librarian might have just been an outlier,’ he thought. Then, he walked up to the spot shown on the map. He still couldn’t see the stairs, which made him look around while scratching his head. ‘Did I misread the map?’

However, as Alec contemplated his map-reading skills, he felt a pulsating sensation on the back of his head, somewhere slightly above his nape. Then, he remembered the fact that Professor Andrew had slapped that place before throwing him toward the library.

Circulating the mana in his body, Alec loaded the authorization. Suddenly, he noticed a flight of stairs leading up to a seemingly unassuming corridor in front of him. Obviously, Alec had to first climb those stairs to get a better view. Still, he couldn’t help but hope that the corridor was clean from demons. If there really was a demon, there was a very good chance that they were a former teaching staff. There weren’t many students that had access to the second level after all.

While climbing the stairs, Alec took a last look at the familiar first level. From there on out, it was unknown territory for him.

As he stepped foot in the corridor, Alec noted it to be a very sterile one. It stretched out tens of meters in front of him, which made it really hard to see the end. To the left of the corridor were neatly placed cathedral glass windows, giving the place a holy feeling. To the right were identical doors placed every five meters. When Alec walked up to tug on one of those doors, he noted it to be locked.

‘How exactly is this a library again?’ he mentally grumbled before pulling on the door with all his strength. Still, the door held on. Under the inhuman force exerted by Alec, the door didn’t even budge. ‘Whatever this is made of, it is an incredibly strong material.’

Letting go of the handle, Alec switched his gaze back toward the further end of the corridor.

‘Maybe these ones are like staff offices and the actual second level is at the end of this corridor. Yeah, that must be it…’ he thought. However, just as he was about to pass the halfway point, he felt a weird sensation, as if something had brushed past him.

‘What was that?’ he thought. They exchanged a few ideas with the mana brain. ‘Professor Andrew said that the second level of the library disturbs anti-memetic magic. Maybe the effects are starting to show, and I’m noticing some stuff I previously hadn’t noticed.’

Closing his eyes, Alec exhaled a gust of air. He urged his mana and circulated it through his brain. This was a slightly dangerous and unknown practice Alec had found in a book. One’s own mana had a mild blocking effect against other spells. Although it wasn’t much, if he needed a slight edge, this could be the thing that gave him that. There was a minuscule chance that he could permanently damage his brain if he made a mistake, but that was, again, a low probability.

As the mana kept circulating, a weird creaking noise made its way to Alec’s ears. In fact, the noise had always been there, but Alec had just noticed it. It sounded as if a really heavy object was placed on a metal floor, straining the floor in the process. Latching onto that noise, Alec noticed its source to be really close. Almost thirty centimeters away from his face.

With a horrified frown, Alec’s eyes shot open. In the meantime, he took a long stride backward with hardship, distancing himself from whatever was so close. When the noise he had latched onto led his mind to its source, and the anti-memetic effect on him broke, Alec saw his path to be blocked.

However, what blocked his path was hard to describe.

It was a wall, albeit not made from concrete, but made from bright pink flesh. The flesh wall had fused into the surroundings, covering the entire width and height of the corridor. There were small, tendril-like appendages, all varying from a length of five to ten centimeters stretching from its surface. All covered in a thick mucosa, slowly dripping and forming a pool in front of the thing.

Looking down, Alec noticed his shoes to be slightly covered with the mucus.

‘This must be the reason why I found it hard to jump away,’ Alec thought as he raised his foot to inspect the mucus closely. ‘This small amount… If I had accidentally touched that thing, I wouldn’t have been able to break free.’

The mucus was slowly but surely melting the sole of his shoe. After taking it off, Alec held it in his hand. He didn’t think about what could have happened any further, as he was feeling more and more uncomfortable whenever he did.

While at a standstill with the thing, he noticed a bulge in the middle of the flesh wall. It was hard to notice at first because of the color scheme but there was an unmistakable abnormality on the thing’s surface.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Looking at the shoe, Alec threw it over to accurately hit the bulge. When it did, the flesh over the bulge blossomed open like a flower. From inside, thousands of crooked teeth placed in a circular layout appeared. Tentacles shot forward, grabbing the shoe and pulling it in before the flesh sealed the deal by clamping shut.

The only thing noticeable from the outside was the horrifying creaking noise, which had become louder as the thing presumably chewed on his poor shoe.

Sweat dripping from his forehead, Alec gulped loudly. He ripped the memory of being so close to this monstrosity away and handed it over to the mana brain. Although the thing grumbled, it still accepted the horrific memory.

Relieved, Alec took another deep breath and browsed through the list of spells he knew. Now that he could use The Author’s Pen freely, he didn’t need to precisely remember the magic circles.

‘Let’s go with this…’ he mentally muttered before writing on his left palm.

[Dispersion Point]

This spell was of second circle and was a mix between telekinetic and fire magic. It was rare to see someone use it, because of the complexity of its usage and the benefits it brought. However, Alec skipped most of those problems with the help of The Author’s Pen and had a seemingly stationary target that was perfect for practice.

A magic circle appeared from Alec’s hand. When he snapped his finger stylishly, the magic circle spun to activation.

There wasn’t a visual cue coming from Alec’s hand, but the effects were apparent nonetheless. Small flame particles appeared next to the demon’s mouth, then expanded and cut parts off from the thick flesh shell covering it before disappearing.

The thing bellowed in agony, as its cavity was now left unguarded. Wasting no time, Alec wrote a couple of fireballs and bombarded the monster’s mouth. Although his mana went down to about 60% of his maximum pool, Alec didn’t hesitate. What was mana if he wasn’t going to use it after all?

As the fire battered against the wall’s fleshy interiors, Alec finally managed to break through. The wall was punctured, and the corridor behind it was revealed.

‘I can’t believe I managed to get through all this stuff pretty much untouched. If I had taken one more step, my fate would have been the same as my shoe’s,’ he thought before walking forward. The remains of the flesh wall were scattered throughout, and he didn’t want to come in contact with it at all. So instead, he picked up his pace and jumped over the remains, crossing to the other side.

‘Huh, the end of the corridor was closer than I thought,’ he realized. There was a double door, about twenty meters down the way.

However, as he was walking, Alec heard gurgling noises from behind him. With a raised brow, he turned around to see what was going on.

And when he did, his mouth opened and closed in awe.

The remains of the flesh wall had merged together at some point, forming a skinless humanoid body, secreting a very thick cloud of miasma.

Alec and the skinless body looked at each other. Well, at least, Alec stared into the thing’s empty eye sockets.

Then, he turned around and dashed toward the double door.

‘Professor told me that I would be safe once inside the second level!’ he thought.

As he tilted his head slightly to gauge the situation, he noticed the monster to be incredibly fast, almost three times faster than he was.

“Fuck! It’s going to catch up!” he shouted as The Author’s Pen moved in his hand. Alec was already running at the speed of a car, and the monster was much faster than that.

At that smallest window of time, Alec’s mind churned with ideas at an impossible speed before settling on the fastest of them all.

His hand moved in a blur, writing down four letters.

[VOID]

Nothing seemed to have changed for the first few milliseconds. However, as Alec’s mana dipped to a dangerously low level, he turned around mid-stride and looked at the monster with a nervous but satisfied grin. The thing’s footstep sounds had completely disappeared, even though it was still running at the same speed.

However, a sudden rush of air pulled the two closer to each other, leaving at most four meters of distance between them. Then, a deafening explosion resounded. A shockwave spread out, shattering all the windows in the corridor. While Alec was launched toward the double door, rag-dolling through the air, the monster’s speed was drastically reduced. The air itself seemed to heat up as the smell of burnt flesh started emanating from the monster.

No matter, Alec hit the double door and broke through, rolling on the ground and finding himself in the middle of the library.

Then, the monster entered through the gate. Invisible ward arrays activated in an instant, ripping apart the monster into pieces in mere seconds.

Laying down on the ground motionless, Alec felt his broken ribs pricking the insides of his chest cavity. Still, he disregarded the pain and pushed himself to sit upright. Looking at the monster’s remains, A twisted grin appeared on Alec’s face.

“Haha! Argh… I shouldn’t have laughed…” He muttered. Then, he took out a low grade health potion and mana potion he had been keeping as backup. He downed them in one go and started eyeing his surroundings curiously

“I’m inside…” He talked to himself. ‘Simply being inside here shouldn’t be enough for the anti-memetic magic to break,’ Alec thought. Then, he suddenly felt an awkward pressure on his chest. Reaching into his shirt, he grabbed ahold of something.

‘What the fuck is this?’ he questioned. In his hand was a vial worn as a necklace, filled with a potion he had no memory of creating. The only thing he knew was the fact that something was written on it.

[Average Grade Mental Cleansing Potion]

“Oh…”

Understanding that he must have created this at one point and forgot about it, Alec didn’t hesitate.

‘This thing was made for today. I can feel it.’

Downing the potion in one go, he felt his mind relax. Unlike the first level, the second level of the library was illuminated by the lights coming from the windows. Probably because anyone who came here could create their own light source without any problem.

However, as the mental cleansing potion took effect, Alec felt his head spin. Everything and nothing changed around him at once. He touched around his eyes to see if there was blood, but couldn’t find any. The gentle lights of the afternoon sun shining through the window were replaced by a horrible, blood-red crimson after all.

“What is…” he muttered. Pushing himself off the ground with hardship, he walked up to a nearby window and looked outside, toward the sky. When his eyes adjusted to the situation, Alec felt like he had just been shot in the head.

“The sky…” he muttered, horrified.

There, in the cloudless and crimson-red sky polluted by dark dots spread randomly throughout like little bugs, Alec saw the sun. A sun that had gone completely dark, like a hole had been punched through the atmosphere itself.

And when he did so, unfamiliar words escaped his mouth.

“The sky is dead…”