It took Damien a few seconds to understand the gravity of Henry’s words.

“I thought you said you’ve been watching humans for millennia,” Damien said, crossing his arms. “This book doesn’t look all that old.”

“Just open it!” Henry snapped. “Maybe it’s just the title.”

Damien shrugged and flipped through the book, opening it to a page near the middle. It looked like complete gibberish to him, but there were a few runes along the edges of the book that seemed to resemble ones that Damien already knew.

“No, no, no!” Henry muttered, talking faster with every word. “This isn’t possible! Half of these words don’t make sense, and many others are just used incorrectly!”

Damien closed the book and set it back on the shelf. Henry descended into confused muttering and didn’t bother to stop him. He scratched his chin and furrowed his brow as he walked.

He stopped only a few paces later.

“Henry?” Damien whispered.

“What?”

“What year is it?”

“What do you mean?” Henry asked. Damien could feel the annoyance radiating off the creature within his mind. “Why would an immortal creature care about something like that?”

“Just tell me the year,” Damien pressed. “You claim to know everything that mortals do, so it shouldn’t be hard for you. The calendar started counting when humanity made their first summon. How many years ago was that?”

“One thousand and forty three,” Henry replied irritably. “But I don’t see how this will–”

Henry trailed off as he heard Damien’s thoughts before the boy could speak them.

“That’s wrong,” Damien said, shaking his head. “I turned seventeen on the sixth day and the sixth month of five thousand and fifty two. I was born in Five thousand and thirty five.

“Impossible!” Henry said, but Damien could tell that the creature didn’t believe his own words.

“Why would I lie? I don’t gain anything from it,” Damien said, setting back off towards the back of the library while Henry had a mental breakdown within his head.

“I spent four thousand years traveling from the void to the Mortal Plane!” Henry muttered. “How much history did I miss?”

“You’re immortal, aren’t you?” Damien asked.

“As far as I’m aware – yes. But four thousand years, while nothing to me, is enough for entire empires to rise and fall multiple times. So much knowledge lost…”

“I don’t see why that matters so much,” Damien said, squeezing in between two bookshelves and nearly knocking several musty tomes to the ground. “You just wanted to destroy everything anyways. Why do you care if you missed information?”

“You don’t understand,” Henry said. His fury and sadness was enough to involuntarily bring tears to Damien’s eyes. “Do you know how blessed mortals are? Creativity is a spark, boy. Mortals are like dry straw lit by that spark. They burn out in the blink of an eye, but shine brightly as they do. Immortal beings are more like metal. We have no spark, so we watch mortals. They create – we control. I have more power than any human could ever begin to dream of, but my magic is simply an improvement on your own.”

Damien didn’t respond immidiately. He wiped the tears from his eyes and glanced around to make sure that nobody else was in this section of the library. Luckily, it was so large that there was nobody in sight.

“I can see why that would suck,” Damien said awkwardly, inwardly cursing himself. He hadn’t had much experience consoling other humans, much less otherworldly murderous creatures with a passion for learning. “Not to make what you went through trivial, but you’re here now, right? This library is huge. I’m sure we could find the important –”

Damien’s body went rigid. His shadow bubbled and popped beneath him as dozens of closed eyes appeared within it. They opened as one, revealing grey, milky pupils that were decidedly inhuman.

“Brilliant!” Henry exclaimed. “You’re right! We stand in a massive repository of knowledge. It might not be the same as watching everything happen, but I can still learn the important events secondhand!”

“Henry, control yourself,” Damien snapped. The eyes blinked closed and vanished in an instant. “And I’m not going to read every book in this library. I’d die of old age long before I got through a quarter of them.”

“…please?”

“No. We’ll find a list of information the library has later, and then I can read the books that you’re the most interested in,” Damien said, leaving no room for argument. “Now, I want to start learning magic already! The cultivation section can’t be much farther, so please control yourself. I don’t want to have to explain why my shadow has more eyeballs than I do.”

Henry’s response was a grumbling sigh. He faded into the back of Damien’s mind, and the boy continued deeper into the library. Even though he was surrounded by endless rows of books, the library did not become monotonous.

Many of the shelves were twisted and warped, bending over aisles or even blocking them. Somehow, books remained in their proper spots even when they were perpendicular to the ground.

The building seemed to have a character that changed based on the sections. Damien must have passed nearly a hundred sections before he finally came to the first open space he’d seen since he entered the maze of books.

A large hallway stretched out before him, disappearing to the sides. Hundreds of other aisles led up to it, and an equal number of doors lined the other side. There were several chairs and desks placed along the hallway, and a few of them were actually occupied by students.

Inscribed metal plaques burning with magical orange energy had been placed above each door. Damien stepped into the hallway and walked up to one of the doors, peering up at the plaque.

“Cultivation methods: Dance methods,” he whispered to himself. He squinted up at the piece of metal, but he’d read it correctly. “Dance?”

“It works,” Henry replied. “Not for you, though. It’s not practical to teach you how to dance. I know you better than you know yourself, and you can’t do anything as intricate as this. You’re no thin sword meant for beautiful displays. A hammer is what you are – a big, ugly one with spikes.”

Thank you.

“Anytime,” Henry said cheerfully. “Now, we’ll still have to come check this section out. Maybe humans invented some new dance methods while I was on my trip. Until then, look for cultivation methods that are a little more simple.”