Once the doors clicked shut, the room fell into a heavy silence. Alaric moved his hands gently and slowly, beginning to undo the fastenings of Julian’s sweat-soaked clothes. He gathered a basin of water and a cloth, intending to wipe the cold sweat from Julian’s skin.

However, as Alaric leaned in with the damp rag, Julian suddenly lunged upward. Using every bit of the little strength he could muster, he wrapped his arms tightly around Alaric’s neck and his body trembled.

The conversation with the god of Light came flooding back—the revelations of traps, souls, and ancient betrayals—leaving Julian trembling with a deep-seated fear. He had not yet read the book of his soul as promised, but the sheer weight of what he did know had him terrified.

"Julian?" Alaric called out, his voice laced with confusion and concern as he held the damp cloth mid-air.

Julian only tightened his hold, his face burying into the crook of Alaric’s neck to muffle his voice.

"Just hold me, Lucien. Just like this. I... I need it."

Alaric froze, the damp cloth forgotten in his hand as Julian’s weight pressed against him. The scholar was usually so composed, a man who kept his emotions tucked behind a tutor’s patient smile, but now he was shaking—a violent, rhythmic tremor that spoke of a terror deeper than physical exhaustion.

"I have you," Alaric murmured, dropping the rag back into the basin and wrapping his massive arms around Julian’s smaller frame. He pulled him closer. "I’m not going anywhere. Whatever you saw up there... it cannot reach you here."

Julian didn’t respond. How could he tell Alaric that whatever he saw up there was the least of his problems?

His mind was a storm of black slabs, divine whispers, and the horrifying realization that his entire existence in this world—the system, the quests, the very body he inhabited—was a meticulously crafted cage. The Light had called him Alias, who had once been a creator, and a traitor to the now Fallen God was not just a distant antagonist but a jilted partner seeking a thousand years of vengeance.

The warmth of Alaric’s skin against his cheek was the only thing that felt real. The lover you fought to save. The words burned in his mind.

"Lucien," Julian choked out, his voice muffled against Alaric’s neck. "If... if the world was just a script, and every move we made was written by someone who hated us... would it change anything? Would you still stay?"

Alaric’s grip tightened, his fingers digging slightly into the damp fabric of Julian’s undershirt. He didn’t understand the question, but he understood the desperation behind it. Julian had definitely heard something from the light. That was why he was so scared now, and he was asking such a strange question.

"I am a man of the North, Julian," Alaric said, his voice low, and steady in the dark. "We do not care for scripts or prophecies. I am here because I chose to be. I stay because you are mine. Let the gods write what they want; I will burn the parchment before I let them take you."

Julian let out a rough breath, his trembling slowly subsiding into a heavy, bone-deep weariness.

Alaric was just mortal, so he could not fight the gods, and yet he had so much confidence that if a god stood in front of him now, he would win. It was blind confidence since he did not know the full might of the gods.

They create infinite spaces, they create worlds, they create life... and they have the power to take back all of it with the snap of their fingers.

Julian did not know where the confidence came from but it was this sort of thing that calmed his racing heart, blind or not.

"Thank you," Julian whispered, his eyes finally fluttering shut.

The heat in his chest had finally cooled, leaving behind a hollow ache that only Alaric’s presence seemed to fill. He was terrified of the memories waiting for him in his sleep, but he was ready to face it.

Alaric did not move, even as Julian’s breathing turned rhythmic and heavy with the onset of sleep.

He simply held him, a dark protector watching over the scholar as the dawn began to bleach the world outside their windows.

In the silence of his slumber, Julian did not find darkness. Instead, he found himself standing once more within that infinite, humming whiteness. The gazebo and the tea table were gone, replaced by a vast, shimmering void that felt like the inside of a star.

"Are you ready to read the book of your soul?" the Light asked, its voice vibrating through Julian’s very essence.

Julian looked at his own hands; they were translucent here, glowing with a faint, steady pulse. He wasn’t sure he was ready—the fear from earlier still clung to him like a second skin—but he could not stay in the dark any longer. He needed to know who Alias was and why the Fallen God had turned a world into a torture chamber.

"Yes," Julian said, his voice steady. "Show me."

Suddenly, the whiteness around him began to fracture. Thousands of flickering images ignited in the air, swirling around him like a violent storm of glass. They were tapes of motion—fragments of hundreds of different lives. He saw himself in rags, in armor in a battlefield, in silk before a vast multitude, and in a high school classroom. He saw himself dying, being born, crying, and laughing across different worlds and centuries.

The images spun faster and faster, a kaleidoscope of color that began to consolidate, pulling together into a single, massive volume that manifested in the air before him. The cover was bound in a material that looked like woven starlight.

As the book opened, a blinding radiance spilled from the pages, and the voice of the Light rang out with a new, somber weight.

"You will not be able to interfere at any point, so do not think you can change anything," the Light warned. "You must simply be a spectator of the records of the past. Witness the foundation of your beginning."

Julian reached out, his fingers brushing the first page. The whiteness vanished, replaced by a world that felt more real than the one he had left behind in Alaric’s arms.

The record began.

{End of Volume 2}