Chapter 19

“Sound is, as we all know, an omnipresent factor in the world. As vibrations, even heat gives off faint amounts of sound, and the world around us reflects that. Nearly every being can perceive sound in some form (aside from outliers and those who are impaired, of course) and use it to their advantage. However, according to Balareth, there are two places in the world where sound does not ever exist: one of them we shall not speak of, but the other appears to be a place of knowledge, where some sort of “anti sound” exists. Needless to say, if there is a being that is capable of muffling noise to such a degree, it must be powerful and very dangerous.” - a scrap from the journal of Ket the Sage, former leader of the humans and one of the three leaders of the Omnic Empire.

Bundo was, through all of the hubbub, still in the ship. He had already gone out to get ingredients for food and materials to repair the ship with, and was currently checking out their pantry to see how the cured meats was doing when he paused. Spices, powders, and other ingredients dropped to the floor as the diminutive elf felt a cold shock go through him. Something was wrong. Something that wasn’t supposed to be here approached, and it was pissed.

Meanwhile, Victor and Levi were still dashing along, with Levi having found a second wind and going neck and neck with him.

“So which class six entity do you think they’re trying to summon?”, asked Levi as she lept from roof to roof.

“Not quite sure. I only know their properties as a whole and some bits about their effects based on records from my hometown’s library. I think Bundo knows more about this stuff than I do. Speaking of, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

Shocked, the pair stood as the orb of the Librarian’s dominion slowly passed through buildings, its epicenter seemingly radiating from below the town hall. As they watched, they saw the buildings that crossed the event horizon of it turn into bookshelves, already stocked with brand-new tomes with glossy finishings on their covers.

Levi slapped her head, the noise making a Clank on the rusty tin roof she stood on as her weight shifted.

“Of course it was right under the noses of the leader’s area. They wouldn’t think to search right beneath their feet. Jeez, haven’t these people read a single mystery novel in their life?”

“Evidently not. See those thingies that are going after people down there?”, responded Victor off-handedly.

Populace, alarmed by what was happening, shouted then clutched their throats, confused on what was happening to them. The paper humanoids then used their bulky arms to snap their necks with a sickening splunch in a superhuman display of brute force.

“Yes. what about them?”

“Well, they’re only going after people who seem to be making noise. I think you should go in and scout, with stealth being your forte and whatnot.”

Levi grumbled a bit, but couldn’t find any arguments as to why she shouldn’t lead the way. Taking off her shoes, so made sure the soft pads on the bottom of her feet wouldn’t get injured on the ground before silently making footfall down beyond the border of the library.

As Victor watched, Levi began showing off her combat skills. Unlike Victor, who simply juggled multiple necessary courses of action and did them, Levi was very much a one-track kind of person. As befitting of an assassin, Levi deftly dodged around an attackers and slashed them with an odd-looking meat cleaver. For some reason that defied all Victor knew, she somehow managed to evade his sight, flickering oddly and having her motions stutter in an unnatural way.

Blades flashing, paper golem after paper golem fell to it’s knees, clutching slashed throats. As levi entered farther into the Rift, Victor’s toes began touching the very edge of the rift.

Backing away slowly, he saw a figure darting along the Main street, walking on walls and springboarding off of corpses. As it entered the orb that was expanding rapidly, he stiffened. Reflexively, he yelled.

“SILK! DON’T MAKE NOISE! IT ATTRACTS MONSTERS AND HURTS PEOPLE WHO SCREAM! DON’T-”

Before he could finish his sentence, he saw something coming at him. Twisting his body, he dodged it, and saw that it was a giant rail of translucent, parchment-like flesh inscribed with runes, somehow phasing through matter. It was right where his vocal chords had been not a minute ago.

Furthermore, his outburst had attracted the attention of all the abominations that were busy carting away books covered in some pale pinkish substance - an unknown sort of animal hid, perhaps - he took out his knives.

What happened next was difficult to explain. To an outside, it would have looked like some sort of black shadow was bouncing around the cityscape, pushing through whatever poor creature that was clumsily swinging at it.

From Victor’s perspective, it was him versus a nearly endless horde of enemies, all spoiling to snap every bone in his body. Even worse, they now attracted even large lumbering brutes covered in what Victor now realised was human skin in a cruel caricature of a book covering. Carrying swords, Victor saw them streaming from the epicenter of the event, where a massive tower of bookshelves was rising into the sky.

Things went up a difficult notch when he saw that whenever his knives clashed with either the metal-studded hide armour or the distinctly metallic swords, it made a muted but still audible noise. Thus, there were also the ethereal flesh-harpoon attacks to deal with, making it nigh-impossible to dodge. In fact, his hair clipped one while he was horizontally spinning to avoid two swords slashing both at his feet and his head, the clanking of his knives redirecting the sword attracting the scarred aberration’s attention. The tuft of black hair quickly turned white and mutated wildly, before turning brittle and falling off once he cut the unruly strand with his weapon.

Jujmping away to have a quick break, he adjusted his black ring that he stole from the vault all those years ago - a good luck charm for him. Spinning his knives in his hands around his fingers, he rolled his head cracked his knuckles.

“Let’s get dangerous”, he said as he leapt at them with renewed vigor. He was going to draw attention away from Levi or die trying.