The name was not metaphorical.
The Book of Unbegun Things did not exist—because to begin writing it was to destroy it. It only survived in possibility, resting somewhere between thought and paper, sealed in the folds of a moment that never happened.
To find it, Vincer had to go where all unbeginnings gather.
Beneath Asemir's Old District, beneath forgotten blueprints and pre-war tunnels, in a place called:
> The Empty Stacks.
It was once a library. A rival to Alexandria. But unlike Alexandria, it burned on purpose—and no one remembers who lit the fire.
---
3:27 AM — The Descent
The door to the Empty Stacks did not open with keys. It opened with guilt.
You had to say a name you never told anyone—the name of a person you believe died because of you.
Vincer placed his hand on the rusted latch and whispered:
> "Elyra."
The door screamed as it opened.
The air inside was dry, static, brittle. Like a whisper too loud.
---
3:39 AM — The Dust Ritual
He pulled a pinch of bone ash from a pouch, blew it into the air, and whispered:
> "Marth Lexicon, 2nd Path. Echo Pattern. Memory Trace."
The dust swirled unnaturally, forming a reverse spiral that hovered in midair. Then it tilted—pointing down a hallway lined with scorched pages.
The Archive's dream residue was thick here. Symbols flickered on the walls, and books wrote and unwrote themselves in silence.
But the signal was clear:
> The Book of Unbegun Things was near.
So was something else.
---
The First Movement
He heard it behind him.
The shuffling rhythm of flesh on stone. Footsteps without intent. Like bones that remembered how to walk.
Then:
> "You've stepped into our lexicon uninvited, Seeker."
A voice coated in tar and honey.
Vincer turned slowly.
Two figures stood in the passage behind him—Crimson Index Hunters, wearing ceremonial garb: blood-stained robes with ink-sewn runes. Their faces were hidden beneath masks of cured skin shaped into the likeness of their ancestors.
> The Index sent archivists. That meant they weren't here to ask questions.
They were here to bind him.
---
Occultum Duel: Index Ritual vs. Vincer
> Enemy: Curator Merid Lexicon: SELVINE III — Emotional Imprinting Sacrament Claimed: Sacrificed joy at age 12.
> Enemy: Scribe Ghrell Lexicon: VORRHEIM IV — Blood Futures Sacrament Claimed: Carved a name into his back that no one ever reads aloud.
---
Round I: Setup
Merid raised a hand, slicing her palm.
Blood floated midair, glowing with emotional color—greenish-red, the hue of betrayed love. She flung it forward.
> "Lexicon Selvine: Imprint Sequence — Shame Loop."
The blood formed a ring around Vincer's feet and ignited.
His skin pulsed—his nervous system reacted. Regret flooded his brain. His limbs slowed. Muscles locked.
> The emotion was ritualized.
Now it could bind him physically.
---
Vincer's Response: Counter-Ritual
"Lexicon Kazura," he whispered. "Binding Rejection. Breath Two. Truth Twist."
He bit his tongue—hard. Blood trickled. He spoke a single sentence into the air:
> "I never regretted it."
The air bent, rejecting the shame-loop.
Selvine rituals thrived on unresolved emotion. But Kazura's Truth Speech rewrote perception.
Merid stumbled.
---
Round II: Ghrell Strikes
Ghrell pulled a dagger made from calcified heart-bone.
He shouted:
> "Vorrheim Lexicon: Future Cut! Bloodline Gash!"
He stabbed his own chest, and blood flowed—but didn't fall. Instead, it shaped itself into hundreds of threads, each representing a possible future wound he could inflict.
They launched like whips.
Vincer ducked, dodged two—but one thread grazed his shoulder.
His vision flickered. For a moment, he saw himself years ahead, dying in a room full of mirrors. That image became a memory, which his body accepted as real—and began to bleed preemptively.
> Vorrheim bloodlines don't wound the body. They wound the timeline.
---
Vincer's Inner Calculation
He couldn't beat both directly. Their Lexicons were faster in combat. More developed.
But Occultum isn't just about speed.
It's about narrative leverage.
He whispered:
> "Lexicon VIII: Null Form. Implicit Ritual. Reverse Sacrament."
He crushed the only item in his left hand: a broken pocketwatch. Not magical. Just sentimental.
The sacrifice activated the latent ritual he had stored inside the object.
The air dimmed.
His shadow spoke.
> "Past unowned. Future unwritten. Now devours."
The walls cracked. The light bent inward.
The blood-threads dissolved.
Merid screamed. Ghrell staggered backward. Their rituals failed—because Vincer had nullified the present moment through paradox.
For 3.2 seconds, nothing was real.
And only Vincer had trained to think in unreality.
---
Round III: The Killing Edge
> "You don't belong to a Lexicon," Merid said, gasping. "You are one."
Vincer approached.
He didn't strike with fists. He placed his hand on Merid's chest, and whispered:
> "You regret killing your sister to earn your glyph."
The shame reactivated. But now it turned inward.
Her glyph burned off her skin, rejected by her own soul.
She collapsed.
Ghrell screamed, rushing forward—
But Vincer had already activated a stored echo-loop from Lexicon II.
> "Marth Echo: Delay Reflection."
Ghrell's scream echoed five times in different tones. On the fifth, his heart ruptured.
He fell.
Silence returned.
---
The Book Appears
Once the ritualistic tension of the space dropped, the floor peeled open like a wound, revealing a void-lit pedestal.
Upon it sat a book bound in potential, inkless, weightless—its cover made of paper that never aged because it had never been created.
He approached.
The cover read:
> The Book of Unbegun Things
By ???
(Read only what you have not lived.)
---
He Opens It
There were no pages.
Until he thought of the name again.
> Elyra.
Pages formed.
And on them, he saw:
A version of himself who never burned the monastery.
Another who joined the Hollow Choir.
One who died at birth and became a dream parasite.
One who married. Had children. Watched them burn.
And one who read the 13th Lexicon willingly.
> That version had no eyes.
---
Chapter End
Vincer closed the Book and whispered:
> "This is only the first untruth."
Behind him, the door back was gone.
And in its place, a mirror opened.
Inside it, a voice whispered:
> "Come see the life that should have happened."