SWNOVELXO Chapter 30: The Stories of the Seven Apostles.
Volume 1: Path – [Academy Arc]
Chapter 30: The Stories of the Seven Apostles.
The midday blocks ended with World History class, and now the Afternoon session has begun.
This is a free period where students can study whatever they like, and the venue is the library. The library is divided into three identical buildings, each with three floors.
First-year students are assigned to Building 1. Within this building, students can access higher floors based on their rank.
All books and novels are the same across the three buildings. The division exists solely to give students more personal space and to prevent potential bullying from upperclassmen.
Each library building is enormous uniformly constructed, as if copy-pasted in design each one spanning roughly half the size of a football field.
The library primarily holds theory-based books, followed by a significant collection of history texts, and then novels in third place.
Caelus entered the library during his free block, while Aiv had gone to the first block's training grounds to practice his swordsmanship. Aiv already had a solid foundation of knowledge, but Caelus was still learning. Although Caelus enjoyed reading, he found formal school study dull and frustrating.
He did want to train, but at the moment, his curiosity about the world's hidden history tugged at him stronger than the urge to swing a Tachi.
He walked inside, raising his chronolink toward a small glass screen mounted near the entrance. A soft chime confirmed his identity before the doors slid open with a gentle hiss.
Since his rank was above 100, he was only allowed access to the first floor. Students ranked between 100 and 50 could access the second floor, while the top 50 students from Rank 50 to Rank 1 were granted entry to the third floor, which housed the most advanced and restricted materials.
'At least, that's what Aiv told me. He's been really helpful to me, I have to give some treats when I have a good amount of merits.'
Caelus didn't think too much as he walked to the History section. There, he explored the books one by one, noting their titles and cover designs.
One book caught his eye with a beautiful cover, and the title was The Stories of the Seven Apostles.
The name was written in an elegant font, and the cover was also beautifully designed. For some reason, Caelus had a habit of not picking up books with covers he didn't like, even though he knew the quote 'Don't judge a book by its cover.' For him, it was the opposite; he judged a book by its cover.
If it was old and tattered, he believed there might be hidden techniques or secrets written inside by an old sage or a demon waiting for someone to open the book to take over their body.
He's read some novels in his free time over the past three years, but not many, since each novel has between 1,000 to 2,000 chapters.
He took the book as he walked out of the section and went to the chairs, where some students were already taking the books they wanted and started reading them. Some were talking while reading together, and a couple was sitting on the same chair and lap, reading to each other.
Caelus only observed but didn't care about it, since he had already given his heart to someone and they are dead now. Why would he want to envy other couples? It is a wrong thing to do in his opinion. Envying others just because you lost means you are thinking everybody should experience your situation, and for Caelus, he doesn't want something like that to happen to anyone.
Nobody can feel the pain of someone who has lost everyone he held dear, and he knows how hard it will be to lose everything. Caelus's only escape from this was his luck in meeting Mr. Michael and Aiv.
This helped him realize that one needs to move on from the past, but also not forget it, because the past is the only thing that can teach us how to behave in the present and future.
That is why he doesn't want to envy anyone; in his opinion, everyone gets their chances, and they just need to find an opportunity to seize them. As for Caelus, he failed to grasp his chance; he prolonged his opportunity until it withered away in the river of time.
Caelus realized all of this today in the morning when Aiv talked with him. He regretted it, he regretted not expressing his feelings and taking her to the amusement park, but no one can change a past that is already done.
So, even with his heart filled with regrets, he still moved on.
Caelus sat in one of the corners of the table in the shadows, where the sunlight falling inside through the window was less intense and the light was dim.
He opened the book. It was not a large book; it was medium-sized, and it had many pages.
Caelus opened the first page and saw drawings. The drawings were drawn by hand, judging by their appearance.
There was a heading in the middle of the first page made by drawings.
'The language is something I know or don't know.' When Caelus saw the drawings, he felt two feelings, one language felt unknown, the second yet understandable to him.
Even though the letters are weird and unknown.
Ҩʮᘮᖰ𖼆ꖦ𐑮 ⸸ꑓꖦ𐑮 ᭥⸸ 𖼆ʮꖦ ⵊꖦᎶץሸሸץሸᎶ
When he looked at the letters on the page, he understood the heading immediately. The name was 'Chapter Zero - The Beginning.'
'Why can I understand this language, which I don't even know? Is this because of my awakening? Does everyone understand it the same way I do?' Caelus thought about it, but couldn't get an answer by just asking himself, because how the hell would he know about others unless he asked them personally?
So he decided to ask a random person later to find out, not now. Since he sat on this book, he has to read at least a few pages, and also, because he can read it, even though it's in a different language, he wants to read and discover the uniqueness of this book.
He flipped the page as he saw a new drawing on it. The drawing was a huge map on which were different names of each region. This is what Caelus understood from the drawing.
There were words written in the corner of the page, faded slightly by time, and in the center was a haunting illustration rendered entirely in a deep black painting style.
--
"It was at the beginning of human civilization, when mankind founded empires and built societies across the world. It was a long, long time ago. Most humans lived a prosperous life, though some were less fortunate.
At that time, there was only one massive continent which was a supercontinent called Pangaea.
Pangaea was the combination of all the seven continents that exist today."
--
Caelus examined the many civilizations' names, each labeled in minuscule handwriting across different regions of the supercontinent Pangaea.
After a while of observing them, he looked at the opposite page was another black-painted drawing. This one depicted an abyss-like hole, pitch-black and jagged, as if torn violently from the earth. From its depths emerged a grotesque hand, skeletal and monstrous, reaching toward the surface with elongated, clawed fingers.
Beside it was a more gruesome scene, a demon with six twisted, asymmetrical eyes and long, katana-like blades for arms. The demon was shown impaling a screaming man through the chest, and its grotesque mouth was stuffed with half a human brain. Around them lay the broken bodies of countless humans, scattered like discarded puppets, drawn with raw, chilling detail in the same shadowy ink.
--
'Damn, if I didn't already witness Uriel's death with my own eyes, I would've thrown up right here,' Caelus muttered under his breath.
He glanced back down and continued reading.
--
"When the world flowed peacefully, undisturbed and balanced, that was when disaster struck.
A cataclysm swept across the land, nearly bringing an end to all living beings.
The cause? Demons.
Cruel, relentless monsters who hunted the living especially craving the flesh of humans and their brains.
These Demons came from the depths of hell, tearing through the earth via crimson-hued portals that erupted from the ground."
--
He turned to the next page, and his breath caught.
A massive black-ink painting stretched across both pages, drawn horizontally to capture the full scope of the scene. It depicted a battlefield which is blood-soaked and chaotic. Warriors, few enough to be counted on two hands, were seen fighting desperately against towering Demons. Their blades met claws, but the imbalance was clear.
The ground was littered with the corpses of hundreds of human fighters, their bodies inked in stark contrast against the pitch-black monstrosities they faced.
--
"At first, only one or two Demons appeared. But soon, many more emerged.
The human warriors of that time were not Awakeners. They possessed no powers, no blessings only their physical strength and courage.
But could mere flesh endure the powers of a Demon? The answer for that question was no.
Even after giving everything they had, it still took a thousand human warriors to bring down just one or two Demons.
And in the end, only a few of them lived so few that their number could be counted on a single hand."
--
[End Of Chapter - 30]
Sorry for the late I was building up the lore and connecting some plot points so as to not mess any flow.