The library gave nothing else.
Niko's fingers tore dust-covered tomes from the shelves, flipping brittle pages that crumbled at the touch. Old doctrine, overwritten prophecies, cult prayers disguised as history—he tossed them aside one by one. His hands moved faster. His breath grew sharper. His patience thinned.
Another book. More half-truths.
Another scroll. Diagrams that looped into madness.
Another bound journal. Just a worshiper's ravings, written in symbols that bled off the page.
He let it drop to the stone floor with a soft thud.
"…Trash," Niko muttered, brushing ash and parchment from his hands. He eyed the rows of books—hundreds of them. All empty. All lying.
He looked up at the cracked ceiling, shaking his head. "This stupid cult. Always hiding the gold under piles of garbage."
He glanced back at the book of Chalice—the torn tale—still lying open where he'd left it.
Only a few useful things… But damn, were they useful.
A sudden laugh burst from his chest. Sharp. Exasperated. A little amused. A little unhinged.
He stood fully, cloak fluttering around his legs. The golden dragon crest on his shoulder caught a sliver of light from a flickering rune-lamp above, gleaming faintly.
"That's it then," he said to himself, rolling his shoulders. "Time to find him."
The Speaker.
His footsteps echoed once as he left the ruined library behind, but only once. The next instant—
FWIP.
Energy crackled at his heels.
Tendrils of bluish-white light snapped out like lashes, grabbing the archways and pillars of the cult's underground corridors. In the blink of an eye, Niko slingshotted forward, zooming through the passages in bursts of raw momentum, his cloak billowing behind him like smoke caught in wind.
Anyone watching—if any cultist still lurked alive in these halls—would have seen a flash of motion: a boy, maybe 5'9", clad in the black robes of the cult, marked with their dragon, but moving like no one they'd ever seen.
A streak of defiance.
A comet wearing a traitor's uniform.
He tore through the underpassages of the underground sanctum, muttering to himself between the rush of wind and swinging arcs:
"Let's see if fate favors you now, old man."
SWOOSH.
Around a curve.
FWIP.
Over a collapsed altar.
His eyes burned with certainty. He had learned enough to ask real questions now—and demand real answers.
And nothing—nothing—was going to stop him from dragging them out of the Speaker's mouth.
Niko's momentum slowed as uncertainty crept in.
He didn't exactly know where he was going.
The path through the underground cult compound had twisted too many times, and ever since burnout had hit him like a collapsing sun—leaving him unconscious, chained, and forced to awaken in cold steel—his internal compass had frayed.
Back near the Speaker's chamber, he guessed.
Or close to it.
He took a breath and turned into a narrow hallway, hugging the edge of memory. He stepped past the scorched imprint on the floor—where he'd landed from his last slingshot burst—and began down the adjacent corridor.
Voices.
Two guards.
Unaware.
Perfect.
BZZT—CRACK—WHIP.
A quick burst of tendrils. Blinding speed. Two bodies hit the ground before the echo of their footsteps could die.
Only one remained conscious.
Niko stalked forward.
Tendrils lashed from his back and pinned the remaining man against the wall, wrapping tight around his chest and limbs. The guard tried to scream, but a tendril snapped over his mouth.
The boy stood silently in front of him—his expression unreadable, eyes deep and black like a tunnel that never ended. His blue-black hair caught the artificial wind drifting through the vents above, casting eerie shadows over the half-lit hallway.
The guard trembled.
Those eyes—they weren't human. They were the eyes of something else. Something older.
Something hollow.
Without a word, Niko peeled the tendril away from the guard's mouth.
"Who was the Speaker at the cult gathering?" he asked.
The guard flinched. His voice shook. "D-do you mean the… First Prophet?"
Niko's eyes narrowed. "The First Prophet?"
The man nodded frantically. "Y-yeah. The only one left. The others—Second through Fifth—they're all dead. They've been gone for years. Some say they were taken by their own punishments… others say the House rejected them."
Niko's breath caught.
The First Prophet was the only one left… and he was the Speaker.
"How many were there total?" he asked.
"Five. Five Prophets, each ruling one of the old dominions down here. Each bound to a different truth. The First led us through fire… the Second through silence… the Third through ruin… the Fourth by the false light… and the Fifth ruled over the bones of the forgotten."
Niko's mind snapped into motion.
The Book of Chalice… the Northern Banner… One of those dominions must've been the war god's sect.
It fit.
The war god, the fallen sectors, and the way this cult was still operating down here like a decaying empire. It wasn't just a religious fanatic cell—it was the leftovers of a dead civilization.
"Good," Niko muttered, more to himself.
Then he crouched down, slowly, so that his shadow fell long over the trembling guard.
To the man on the wall, it was a nightmare.
Niko's cloak swayed around him like a death shroud, dragon crest glinting dimly in the flickering light. His tendrils hovered in the air like waiting fangs.
"Where is he now?" Niko asked, voice cold and dry.
"Wh-why… why do you want to know?" the guard stammered.
Niko didn't reply.
He simply tilted his head.
And stared.
The silence stretched. His eyes held no malice. But no mercy either.
Just stillness.
A void pretending to be a boy.
"…The High Convergence Hall," the guard said at last. "It's where we held the meeting. From here—go down the main passage, straight through the devout gate. Then left when you see the arch with the three-eyed flame."
Niko nodded once. "Thanks."
Then, with mechanical precision, he delivered a single tendril-strike to the side of the guard's head.
THNK.
Unconscious.
The tendrils uncoiled and retreated.
Niko straightened, brushing dust from his shoulder. His boots pressed softly against the ground as he resumed walking—calm, focused, moving like a phantom reborn.
He didn't glance back.
Anyone witnessing the scene—if such a witness could exist in the shadows—would only see a boy, maybe 5'9, clad in a cultist's cloak marked by a golden dragon, boots skimming the floor as he rocketed forward through the hallways of a dead religion.
Muttering under his breath.
"…Time to find him."