The air in the dark corner of the library was thick enough to taste, a mix of dust and the trio's own held breath. The intricate diagram spread before them was a revelation, a ghost of the school's original, monstrous intention. Endless tunnels snaked like roots beneath the familiar classrooms and dormitories, a subterranean labyrinth all converging on that single, ominous chamber: The Heart.
Leon traced the lines with a forensic focus. “This confirms the architecture of the containment. It's not incidental. This ‘Heart’ must be the school's engine. The purpose.”
Alice’s sharp eyes scanned through all the details, leaving no stone unturned. “Here,” she whispered, her finger hovering over a point on the diagram that aligned with the courtyard. “The Weeping Stone. It's labeled as a ‘Primary Resonance Conduit’.”
Conduit. This was the connection. Heart pounding against his rib cage, Niles carefully turned the brittle page, expecting schematics, equations, the operational secrets of the stone laid bare.
But the next page was a wound.
Where there should have been the secrets of the Weeping Stone, there was only a jagged, violent tear. The page had been ripped from the portfolio, leaving behind a frayed edge and a void.
“A torn page,” Leon stated, his voice flat. “Someone preserved the map but destroyed the manual. They wanted the structure known, but not its function.”
Frustration curdled their triumph. They had the blueprint of the cage, but the instructions for the lock were missing. They frantically flipped through the rest of the portfolio.
It was the same story. Each tunnel, each ancillary chamber was meticulously detailed—ventilation shafts, old supply routes, pressure seals. But every path was a cul-de-sac that ultimately fed back into the central, blank space of The Heart. The portfolio described a circulatory system with no explanation of the organ at its centre.
“The Heart is the answer,” Niles said, his voice tight with a desperate focus. “Everything leads there. The ‘Absolved’, the energy drain, the purpose... it's all in that chamber. But the diagram shows no entrance. It's like the core was meant to be inaccessible, even on the original plans.”
9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8gmZT9lC51
Niles torn the map out of the book and hid the page inside his pocket for later use. When he proceeded to place the book inside the shelf, a page slipped out from the book.
Leon picked up the page and his whole body froze the moment he saw what was inside the page.
“Leon? Leon! You're scaring us...” Alice whispered softly, her gaze concerning and full of worries.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSbnqgXVKa8
Niles snatched the paper from his hand, and his gaze widen when he witness the content—three figures, a skinny boy, a stern boy and a gentle girl were standing in front of the Weeping Stone. All of them were placing their hands on the stone.
“Is that... me?” Alice pointed at the girl with her trembling hand, peeking at the picture behind Niles' left shoulder.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMEXPPsorMf
Leon’s finger trembled as he pointed to the stern boy in the drawing. His own face, rendered in faded ink, stared back with an unsettling resolve. “That’s… me.”9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxDh9UMbG7w
The air, already thick, turned to ice. The diagram was one thing—an architectural horror. This was something else entirely. This was intimate. This was them.
“It’s a prediction,” Niles breathed, his analytical mind grappling with the impossible. “Or a… a requirement. A recorded outcome.” He turned the page over. On the back, in the same spidery hand as the diagram’s labels, was a single line of text:
The Triad at the Conduit: Initiation of the Purification.
“It’s not an event that has happened,” Leon said, his voice hollow and empty.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYfiMi9g9Qz
“No, it is not.” Niles agreed, he paused before continuing. “It’s a process. And we’re meant to start it.”9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPgzRMsKxby
Alice hugged herself tightly, looking from the drawing to her own hands as if they were foreign objects. “The Purification... is this what Mr. Henderson warned us about?”9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2KLQzAED2T
Niles’s mind was a whirlwind, cross-referencing data at lightning speed. The torn page about the Weeping Stone’s operation… the drawing of the three of them in front of the Weeping Stone… the “Absolved” being drained…9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF4VI8cOyu4
As they stared at the drawing, a low, resonant hum began to pulse through the library’s stone floor—the familiar whisper, but stronger, clearer. It seemed to thrum in time with Niles’s heartbeat, where the folded map lay against his chest. The Weeping Stone was no longer just a clue; it was calling.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfS2l19fYbl
Alice gasped, pressing her hands to her ears. “It’s different… it’s pulling, drawing us...”
“It knows we found the drawing,” Leon said, horror dawning. “The system is aware.”
Niles fought the irrational urge to run, not away, but towards the courtyard. A deep, illogical part of his mind whispered that the answers weren’t in a book, but in the act itself. To touch the stone, to complete the circuit, to know what the Purification was, even at the risk of starting it.
“We have a choice,” Niles said, his voice strained against the psychic pull. “We follow the logical path: hide, investigate, use the map. Or we confront the illogical head-on. We go to the stone, but on our terms. We prepare, we set safeguards, we try to use the moment of ‘Initiation’ not to be purified, but to hack the system from the inside—at the point of connection.”9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyLwGcGp3nL
It was the ultimate risk. To willingly step into the prophecy’s frame, hoping their combined will—Niles’s logic, Leon’s discipline, Alice’s perception—could override the script.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSKx05ceTDg
and then Add to home screen.