Chapter 119 Altered Reality!

Chapter 119 Altered Reality!
Seraph's POV

When I stepped into my room, I let out a deep breath, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

The curtains were tied back the same way I used to leave them. The faint scent of dried lavender lingered in the air. My bed was neatly made, the sheets smooth and untouched.
And there, resting at the center of my pillow—The hilt.

I approached slowly, my pulse steady but heavy in my ears. The metal caught the light from the window, the engraving along its base unmistakable. M’s mark was etched into the steel, sharp and precise, exactly as I remembered.

I picked it up. This had belonged to Maelis; she let me have it. The metal was cold against my hand.

My fingers traced the carved insignia. There was no distortion. No fading. No softness at the edges, like something imagined or fabricated.

It was here.

Lydian was real.

My shoulders sagged in deep relief as I sat at the edge of the bed. The room felt smaller now. I felt more anchored to the earth with this in my hand, as if the air itself understood that something had been proven.

I had not wandered, nor had I been confused. And I had not simply vanished.

Everything I remembered had actually happened.

I placed the hilt back where I found it and lay down beside it, staring at the ceiling as evening deepened beyond the window.

If history could be altered… then records could be altered.

It seemed I might have to visit an old friend for answers once more. The Archive would know.
It would answer me, as always.

I shut my eyes and welcomed the consuming blackness.

—

Morning came softly.

I dressed without hesitation and secured the hilt at my side beneath my cloak. The weight steadied me.

I hurried out of the house before anyone had a chance to stop me and walked through the streets with a mental map.

I arrived at the structure I had been to a hundred times before, and it looked different, like everything else—but not so much.

The Archive stood at the edge of the square, its stone façade older than most of the village. Ivy curled around its pillars. The heavy wooden doors were already open.

Inside, dust motes floated lazily in the filtered sunlight. Shelves rose high along the walls, packed with leather-bound volumes in careful rows. The scent of parchment and ink wrapped around me like memory.

I stepped in, and my eyes nearly watered at the familiar smell of the environment. Not everything could be altered or changed.

There were two huge pale pillars on both sides of the massive door, and the brown shelves seemed to be more stacked than before.

“Seraph?” a warm voice called. I turned.

Sister Thalen emerged from between two shelves, her grey hair pulled neatly beneath her veil, and her thick rimmed glasses taking up half of her face. She flashes me a genuinely kind smile.

“You’ve returned,” she said, stepping forward. “I heard, but I hoped it was true.”

I smiled faintly. “It is.”

She clasped her hands together. “You must come sit. It has been too long. Your favorite desk is still by the eastern window.”

She remembered. I smiled more brightly at her. She was always the kindest person, outside of Riko, that I warmed up to.

“I won’t be long,” I said gently. “I only need to look into a few things.”

“Of course,” she replied without suspicion. “You always did prefer the older shelves. Let me know if you need assistance.”

Normal. Entirely normal. I nodded gratefully at her, and she looked at me for a little longer, then whispered,
“So happy you're here.”

She said it and then disappeared before I could find a coherent response.

I moved toward the historical wing.

My fingers skimmed across spines as I searched. Agricultural reports. Tax ledgers. Council decrees. Harvest records. Festival documentation.

I pulled one volume after another and read through them quickly. Nothing of importance appeared.

I searched under Mythology. Then Legends of the Northlands.

Founding Myths of the Southern Realm.
Sacred Rites of Passage.
Every page I turned was orderly. Harmless. Predictable.

No mention of monsters. No king beyond a tear. No sacrificial rites tied to noble blood.

I knew I had seen a lot of those back when I was here, even fiction made out of those legends, but they were no longer here. I couldn’t seem to find them.

I found the disappearance records next.
My name was there.

“Seraph Kunter — Unaccounted for. Presumed voluntary departure.”

My jaw tightened. Voluntary. I replaced the book carefully. Then I searched harder.

Maps. Ancient conflicts. Pre-council histories. Temple manuscripts.

Nothing.

The world in these pages was clean, like none of those things had even been considered real.

Hours passed. I sat on the floor, then stood, then sat at the desk with more books, then rose again. The light shifted across the floor. My fingertips gathered dust from neglected spines.
Then, tucked between two theological volumes, I found something thinner.
On Sovereign Entities and Divine Hierarchies.
The leather was worn. I hadn’t even seen this one back then, yet it looked so worn and old, safely tucked away. I opened it.

Most of it spoke in abstractions. Power structures. Celestial influence. Ancient beings whose dominion extended beyond physical territory.

Then one passage caught my attention.

“Certain sovereign entities govern not through armies or decree, but through alteration.

Memory bends. Records follow. What is remembered becomes truth. What is erased becomes myth.”

My breath slowed. I read it again.

Memory bends. Records follow.

Then my eyes fell on the last line below the passage. “It was identified as the glamour.”
I closed the book gently. It was something forcing everyone to see things differently, but this didn’t feel like just glamour. It was bigger than that.

Unless anyone who entered the village was glamoured as well.

Documentation and existing histories had been tampered with, and it wasn’t like anyone but me would even notice.

I leaned back in the chair and let the realization settle into my bones. If this was the scale of power I had seen—

Since Lydian existed beneath layers of this altered reality, then whoever ruled there was not merely strong.

They were untouchable.

My fingers brushed the hilt hidden beneath my cloak. And there was only one person I knew like that.

Anzel.