Chapter 32 Part 3

But she wasn’t a native of this world to begin with, and she probably lacked the innate knack for this sort of thing. No matter how she scrutinized it, she couldn’t make heads or tails of anything. After a moment, she admitted honestly, “Um… but I really don’t see anything at all.”

Liya let out a soft chuckle from behind her. “It’s not about seeing.”

“It’s about feeling it.”

Ling Ze rose from his chair and stepped aside.

Meng Yiran stared intently at the array, leaning in closer without realizing it. She had no idea if she was doing this right, but something about it felt off—the fine sands that formed the magic array seemed to glimmer faintly. It wasn’t a reflection of the room’s lights; they were glowing on their own.

“Do you see it—er, do you see the magic array glowing?” she asked.

Teacher Liya and the Ling Family siblings exchanged glances. Ling Ge, ever the quick one, answered, “Nope.”

She explained, “All the energy’s been depleted. It can’t possibly glow.”

Meng Yiran reached out to shield the magic array from the overhead light, just like she used to as a kid, diving under the covers to check her glow-in-the-dark watch in the dark.

But the instant her hand drew near the magic array, the once-dim pattern lit up for real—not a flash, but steadily glowing for a full two or three seconds.

Overjoyed, Meng Yiran pulled her hand back and turned excitedly to the others. “Did you see that? It really…”

She trailed off, because she noticed the incredibly complicated looks on Teacher Liya’s and Ling Ze’s faces—too many emotions swirling there for her to sort out.

Only innocent Ling Ge had her eyes stretched wide, brimming with pure shock and admiration.

~~~

The portrait, an oil painting, shattered to fragments before it could smash down on Tong Yuwu’s head. The bits scattered harmlessly to the floor.

Tong Yuwu yanked her high heel free and scanned her surroundings warily.

She quickly realized she wasn’t battling any particular entity. No—she was up against the entire surrounding Space Element.

The floorboards cracked open with ravenous fissures wherever she stepped; one misstep, and she’d plunge right in. Plaster peeled from the walls she passed, even when nothing hung there, flaking off to smother her face. Wall sconces, rickety tables and chairs missing limbs, dust-caked bookshelves, even the square pillars—in this bizarre Space Element, they all sprang to life, united by a single obsession.

To kill her at any cost.

Fortunately, these assaults were still within Tong Yuwu’s means to handle. In the end, once every object in her line of sight finally went still, she felt the surrounding Space Element compressing in on her from all sides.

She had never experienced this sensation before, yet it felt strangely familiar—the very method she often employed against things she loathed.

And so, two forces with seemingly identical effects clashed against each other. The key difference was that Tong Yuwu had transformed from the initial aggressor, the one actively destroying, into a mere resistor.

Gritting her teeth to hold on, she glanced down and spotted a card lying at her feet, reduced to just its upper half.

“When midnight falls and the moon rises directly above the library, everything will return to normal. That’s when you can leave without issue.”

Tong Yuwu narrowed her eyes as a flood of information flashed through her mind.

If the card’s writer knew that destroying objects on the second floor carried such danger, it meant they had unwittingly broken this rule themselves. Yet they had survived in the end and left behind these cards, proving the trap was not inescapable.

The biggest clue lay in the deadline on the card—

“When midnight falls and the moon rises directly above the library.”

Tong Yuwu looked up at the nearby skylight.

The moon hung motionless in the western night sky, far from reaching its zenith.

But even enduring until that moment would spell failure for her.

Sweat beaded on the Noble Miss’s face as she murmured to herself, “I… have to get back soon.”

The words seemed to sap her strength instantly. The survival space she had barely maintained shrank by more than half in a flash; she could no longer even hold her arms outstretched.

Tong Yuwu could only clasp her arms tightly to her chest, bloodshot veins threading through her clear purple eyes.

Her opponent clearly aimed to crush her in one decisive strike, channeling even greater power to squeeze the space around her. After a silent, soundless struggle, a resounding bang echoed as thick smoke billowed from where Tong Yuwu had stood.

It appeared to signal victory, but the lurking presence in the space showed no trace of satisfaction. Every portrait on the second floor’s walls turned its head in unison, like figures in oil paintings, their eyes locked unblinkingly on the dense fog, determined to pierce it.

As the dust began to settle, only a pool of blood remained on the ground—no sign of anything else.

A faint tremor rippled through the space without warning, like the harbinger of rage.

At that instant, Tong Yuwu reappeared, blood still staining the corners of her mouth, and the contest for survival space reignited.

This time, the roles reversed: Tong Yuwu pinned down the source of the earlier tremor with her power.

After a barrage of invisible spatial compressions and contractions, a faint silver pinpoint of light was trapped suspended in the air.

Pale-faced but with lips reddened by her own blood, the Noble Miss glided forward with elegant steps. She gazed at the light and curled her lips. “Got you.”

The silver light flickered leisurely, as if mocking her naivety.

In the next moment, the vast space warped violently. When the distortion faded, the light had vanished into thin air.

Tong Yuwu froze for a split second, then furrowed her brow. Her gaze swept darkly over the surroundings as she tensed every fiber of her being in full alert.

But with the light’s disappearance, the bizarre attacks ceased as well. She stood motionless for over a minute, the area deathly silent. All the inanimate objects remained quietly in place, devoid of their former frenzy.

She coughed lightly twice and turned to head east.

At the familiar spot, the staircase was still missing. The fragments of the bookshelf she had shattered first lay scattered about, exuding a stale aura of death.

Countless pages littered the ground at her feet—these fragile sheets were the only things in the space that hadn’t joined the chaos. As Tong Yuwu looked down, she spotted a bold headline on one journal: the death notice of Hwaser Sevier, that legendary Monarch.

Insight struck her like lightning.

She had studied the First Library’s layout, but even without that knowledge, anyone would know libraries grouped similar books together. The pieces on Hwaser Sevier’s ascension to Saint Magus Mentor and his death were both from journals, so why were they so far apart—one on the east side of the Open-air Area, the other on the west?

Tong Yuwu frowned and kept searching for clues. Before long, she found another on a nearby bookshelf.

The page had clearly been ripped from a bound volume, only half intact. It bore a plant illustration, but just the upper portion: plump, drooping fruits with no stems in sight.

In that moment, it all clicked.

The books on the east and west sides of the Open-air Area were the same type, meaning they belonged together. Yet for some reason, the space here had glitched, forcing them apart. That misalignment was what blocked the staircase—the true exit.

Those who had been trapped before mistakenly believed they were lost because no matter where they went, they encountered the same types of books. In truth, they had simply been wandering in circles within a folded space.

But before Tong Yuwu could devise a way to break free, that sensation of being watched returned—

The vanishing light spots had not signaled a truce; they marked only a temporary ceasefire after a back-and-forth struggle.

And now, the ceasefire was over.

Rustling sounds filled the air as the shattered remnants of the bookshelves on the ground shifted. They floated upward, rearranging themselves, each one angling its sharpest edge toward Tong Yuwu.

She merely blinked, and the fragments surged forward, closing in on her in an instant. Fortunately, she was ready. Her eyes locked on the empty air, and no matter how keen the edges slicing through the space around her, they halted at least a handspan away, unable to press closer.

Even as she poured her full strength into holding them at bay, Tong Yuwu’s gaze darted between her surroundings and the far side of the open-air area.

To escape, she needed to unfold the space and restore it to its original state.

It sounded utterly impossible, yet there was a way.

Fire mages commanded flames, wind mages bent the breeze to their will. Until tonight, Tong Yuwu had known only that she wielded some mysterious power without understanding its nature—or even whether it fell under the umbrella of magic at all. But in her clash with the strange entity haunting the second floor, she had glimpsed the truth.

She could manipulate space.

Her purple eyes deepened gradually, like ink bleeding into a dreamlike starlit haze, thick and impenetrable.

Tong Yuwu rose slowly into the air—or rather, the entire region of space around her began to shift away from its proper alignment. Taking the east-west centerline of the Second Floor Open-Air Area as its axis, it flipped languidly toward the opposite side.

When silence fell once more, the clashing force faded away. Tong Yuwu opened her eyes to find herself standing on the western edge of the open-air area, beneath rows of neatly aligned bookshelves heaped with splintered wood.

The torn scrap reporting Hwaser Sevier’s death still lay at her feet. She bent to retrieve it, placing it atop the adjacent shelf—right on the periodical chronicling his ascension to Saint Magus Mentor.

She lifted the long-forgotten kerosene lamp and set off eastward once more, her footsteps echoing in steady taps that never faltered.

As she passed the center of the open-air area, she spotted a white-glowing object hovering in the air. Drawing nearer, the glow dissipated, and a small Third-Order Crystal Magic Cube dropped into her palm, perfectly sized to fit there. Its interior divided into twenty-seven distinct spaces—independent, yet harmoniously linked. As she focused on it, the tiny toy before her seemed to expand; she gazed upon the surrounding area from an overhead, godlike vantage.

The spatial folds on the second floor had been smoothed flat. The staircase linking the entire Library reappeared in the eastern corner. The untouched third floor differed starkly from the floors below—not a reading room at all, but more akin to a simple living space or study.

The well-mannered Noble Miss felt no pressing urge to pry. She gave it a cursory glance and looked away.

After a moment’s thought, she reached out and gave the magic cube a gentle twist.

Space warped around her, and in the blink of an eye, she who had stood at the heart of the second floor materialized at the staircase entrance.

The Noble Miss arched a brow, a flicker of emotion crossing her face—only to cough softly a moment later, thin threads of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.

She frowned, drawing a silk handkerchief from her bosom to dab it clean with care.