Code Ascendant: The Soldier Who Leveled Past Reality
Chapter 26 – The Library That Shouldn't Exist
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The stench of scorched ozone still lingered in the air.
Aaron Velcris stood motionless in the aftermath of the battle against the Tempest Warden, the reality around him still flickering with residual energy. His armor—once pristine—was cracked and steaming, bearing the scars of the symbiotic overdrive he had triggered moments before. His breath came slow, shallow. Not from fatigue, but from the weight of realization that followed victory.
The corridor behind him was silent, the lights dimming as if the very citadel acknowledged the defeat of one of its key sentinels. Ahead, past the fallen warden, loomed a shimmering archway—massive, circular, and humming with Reality Sync interference. Runes spiraled across its surface in unpredictable pulses, some ancient, others newer, like overlapping code from divergent timelines.
Aaron took a step forward. His RS-I pinged.
> [SYSTEM NOTICE]
Reality Layer Violation Detected: Encrypted Knowledge Domain Ahead
Access Level: Omega-Class Restricted
Warning: Entry May Alter Cognitive Integrity
He exhaled. "Of course it will."
Behind him, Vana limped forward, her right gauntlet shattered, her obsidian skin bleeding silver from multiple cuts. "Whatever this place is… it's not meant for mortals."
Aaron glanced at her. "We're not exactly mortal anymore, are we?"
She smiled faintly, then winced. "Fair. But my instincts are screaming. This place—it predates the system. Hell, it might predate the Velcris bloodline."
That caught Aaron's attention. Predating his lineage meant this wasn't just a knowledge vault—it was a relic from an age that even Primordials whispered about.
He stepped through the archway.
The world melted around him—not with heat, but with silence.
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The Library That Shouldn't Exist wasn't a room. It was a void that simulated endless architecture—shelves stretching up and down, sideways and diagonally, folding into themselves like origami tessellations. Books hovered, rotated, vanished, and reappeared elsewhere. The very air buzzed with ancient encryption, as if thoughts had become static data flowing through every breath.
Aaron's HUD began streaming unreadable characters. The RS-I fought to stabilize.
> [SYSTEM WARNING]
RS-I struggling to parse multidimensional data nodes
Neural integrity: 97% and declining…
"Aargh." Aaron grunted, clutching his head. Memories—not his—began seeping into his consciousness. Glimpses of wars fought across the ruins of Saturn's moons, pacts made in blood and radiation, voices that echoed in ultraviolet.
Then—stability. A flat tone rang, and a being materialized.
It wasn't human.
Not entirely.
It resembled a librarian—tall, robed in data stream patterns, its face hidden beneath a porcelain mask covered in ever-shifting glyphs. Its voice echoed directly in Aaron's mind.
> "Welcome, Symbiote-Bearer. You have breached the Veil of Archive Null."
Vana appeared behind him moments later, eyes wide as she saw the being.
> "This is a forbidden sector," the librarian continued. "You were not supposed to survive the gate guardian."
Aaron stepped forward, eyeing the figure.
"I didn't just survive. I unlocked the third symbiotic node in the process."
The librarian paused. Its mask shifted to a rune shaped like a question mark.
> [Symbiosis Update Unlocked]
→ Node III: Thoughtform Symbiosis
Abilities:
• Archive Cognition (Read minds, predict behavior from knowledge footprints)
• Lexicon Burst (Weaponize stored knowledge as psychic energy)
• Semantic Reconstruction (Rebuild destroyed ideas or theories into reality-based applications)
Aaron gasped. The powers didn't feel raw like mana or ki. They felt inevitable, like they were simply waiting for someone to claim them.
The librarian nodded, as if satisfied.
"You seek the Chronicle of the Fallen Accord, do you not?"
Aaron's eyes narrowed. "How do you—"
"It is written upon your RS-I's trajectory script. You're bound to this path by the ancient Symbiote Concord."
The words sent a chill down his spine. That term—the Symbiote Concord—had only ever appeared once, back when he accidentally triggered the first interface override. It had nearly killed him.
"You will face three tests," the librarian continued. "One of Memory. One of Morality. One of Madness. If you survive them, the Chronicle will be yours. Fail, and your mind shall remain part of the archive forever."
Vana tried to interject. "He's not doing this alone."
The librarian's mask changed again, revealing a blank mirror.
"The archive only permits one per cycle."
Before Aaron could protest, the floor vanished beneath him.
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He awoke in a field of white.
Not snow.
Pages.
The ground was made of ancient manuscripts, all blank, fluttering in an unseen wind. He looked down—he was unarmed. Stripped of armor, reduced to a simple version of himself.
> [TEST ONE: Memory]
"Walk the chapters of your pain. Rewrite none. Accept all."
Before him appeared a version of himself at fifteen, kneeling in front of a burning house—his family's. The night the Velcris estate fell. The night the military declared his bloodline traitorous. The night he was reborn into vengeance.
He walked.
Scene after scene played—his first kill, his betrayal by Commandant Rikar, the activation of the Symbiote during the torture trials at Camp Blackgale.
Each step pressed into the pages beneath him, his memories writing themselves onto the ground.
He stumbled at one—Kara.
Her face.
The day he failed to save her from the collapsing lab beneath New Marseille. Her scream still echoed.
He paused, trembling.
A whisper entered his mind.
> "To accept pain is to wield it."
He stepped forward. The pages stopped fluttering.
---
A gate of ink formed, and he passed through.
Test Two: Morality.
He stood in a control room overlooking Earth. A hologram showed the planet on the brink of collapse—wars, famine, corruption.
A console blinked before him.
> Command Authorization: Launch Celestial Protocol
Effect: Reset entire human society, erasing 83% of population
Alternative: Do nothing. Watch extinction play out.
Aaron stared.
It wasn't hypothetical. His RS-I verified the feed as real-time from a parallel Earth shard synced via the archive.
His hands hovered over the controls.
"Choose," said a voice behind him.
He turned. It was Kara.
Not her ghost—a construct of his guilt.
"Let them die, and you lose your humanity. Save them, and risk everything you've built."
Aaron clenched his fists.
"I… I won't play God."
He walked away.
The console faded. The test dissolved.
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Test Three: Madness.
This one was different.
He was alone.
Truly alone.
No HUD.
No system.
No voice.
No heartbeat.
Just… silence.
Aaron floated in the black void of thought, untethered. Memories bled into each other. His identity frayed.
How long had he been here?
Hours?
Years?
He began reciting the Velcris creed to anchor himself.
But then, laughter.
His own.
Split across timelines, versions of Aaron mocked him—one a tyrant general, one a broken child, one a system-possessed husk.
"Which are you?" they demanded.
Aaron steadied his breath.
"All of them," he whispered. "And none."
That answer shattered the void.
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He awoke, kneeling before the librarian again.
Only this time, the being knelt as well.
"You have passed."
A tome hovered between them—bound in obsidian flesh, glowing faintly.
> [You Have Acquired: Chronicle of the Fallen Accord]
Contents:
• Origins of the Symbiote War
• Forbidden Reality Scripts
• Names of the Nine Root Evokers
• The Fifth Law of System Creation
> System Integration Beginning...
New Skill Tree Unlocked: Reality Bending
Aaron rose.
Power surged through him—not like before, not explosive—but steady, cold, fundamental. The kind of power that changed rules, not just battles.
Vana reappeared, rushing to his side.
"What happened?!"
He turned to her slowly, eyes glowing with rune-fire.
"We just became dangerous to the people who think they run this reality."
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End of Chapter 26
Next: Chapter 27 – "The Evoker's Sigil"