John pictured a node on the empty skill tree lighting up near the “root,” a small, pale glow instead of a blazing sun.

  In his mind, he named it: Polyglot Insight. Then, because his class liked paradox, he added silently: Understanding Words that Were Never Mine.

  He pushed intent into that shape, letting his will settle around the idea until it felt solid.

  For a few heartbeats, nothing happened.

  Then the system chimed.

  A soft, crystalline sound rippled through his awareness, and text unfurled in front of him—hesitant at first, then firm.

  John exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, a sharp, quiet laugh escaping him. It had worked. Not a pre-packaged skill, not something from a menu—but his own definition, accepted and slotted into the once almost empty tree.

  He confirmed the purchase without hesitation, watching one faint node on the spectral branches flare from “Undefined” to a small, steady glow labeled Polyglot Insight (Lv 1).

  Heat tingled behind his eyes, then faded. The books around him seemed…different. Not clearer, not yet, but less hostile—like strangers whose voices he might soon recognize.

  He reached for the nearest tome in the jagged script and let his gaze settle on the first line, this time not fighting, just allowing the new skill to work.

  Slowly, the snarled glyphs began to untangle.

  This library was no longer a wall. It was a door.

  John settled more firmly at the worm-eaten table, the nearest tome pulled into the cone of weak light spilling from a guttering wall-sconce. The dust had barely resettled from his last attempt when he opened it again, this time letting Polyglot Insight hum softly at the back of his mind.

  The letters still looked alien—hooks, slashes, coils—but as his eyes tracked the first line, something in his perception twisted. The shapes didn’t change; his understanding did. Meaning seeped in like ink through paper.

  He began to read.

  The script resolved, haltingly at first:

  John’s brows knit. Before spirits. Decay as a force, but not a person. He flipped a page carefully; the parchment crackled. Who were these spirits? Not gods apparently, something younger?

  John thought. Wait, pantheons? Are these texts about gods? I am not sure if I can trust what I am reading here…

  He sat back for a heartbeat, letting that sink in. He isn’t just ‘god of decay’ because someone appointed him. He’s what happens when all the waste, all the abandoned things, wakes up.

  John kept reading.

  He moved to a second book, heavier, its spine reinforced with iron. Its title now flowed clearly in his mind: “Catechism of the Blessed Corrosion.” The irony made him snort under his breath.

  John’s stomach tightened. Lesser divinity of decay. One vampire had said he was a god. This text seems to hint that he might not be a lesser divinity but something beyond. But it seems to be written by a fanatic so who knows. Let us assume for now, he’s not on the level of the goddess of light who helped me, but he’s not some random demi-god either, that is for sure. The old man’s warning about Lilith sharpened—if she served this, she likely wasn’t just a local tyrant, maybe she was more than a vampire ruler.

  Further down the page, a crude woodcut illustration showed a many-armed shadow crouched over a field of corpses, each skeletal hand touching a different stage of decomposition—fresh blood, bloated flesh, bare bones, rich soil.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  The caption read:

  John’s gaze lingered on that last word. Myth. He likes things being forgotten and turned into stories. Or lies.

  He set that book aside and reached for a thinner volume bound in grey leather. The title: “On Hearts and Altars.”

  This one struck closer to what he needed.

  John reflected, his scholar craft working overtime. He had seen mortal remains of greater divinities encased in special crystals before. It did not seem like only their hearts though. Was it different, depending on the god? These books seem to contain very ancient and rare knowledge but it might be incomplete.

  A diagram followed: concentric circles around a stylized heart, veins radiating outward like rivers into terrain. He traced a finger along one “vein” labeled Suppurating Marsh, another labeled Charnel Forest.

  John breathed out slowly. So the Heart isn’t just symbolic. It’s literally saturating the land. If I find it… and somehow neutralize it… the corruption might recede.

  Another passage:

  He grimaced. That tracks with what the black-haired vampire said. “Cleansed of all that is green and colorful.” Their aesthetics really are upside down. But wait, weren’t the so called children of the Rotfather deformed brainless monstrosities? Did an entity like that write this book?

  He dragged another book closer, this one half-charred along its edge. Its title translated as “Litanies of the First Brood.” Most of it was hymns, but hymns sometimes hid coordinates.

  He skimmed until a recurring phrase caught his eye: “We march from the Teeth to the Heart.” The “Teeth,” from the accompanying woodcut, were jagged rock-spires—like the ones he’d seen surrounding this general region. Or could the teeth reference vampires?

  An entry deeper in:

  John frowned. Three days and nights for them. For me, in tiger or dragon body, a lot less. ‘Ground breathing’—maybe those fleshy plains I crossed? But there was no clear pulse yet. So the castle is the starting point. Good.

  Another line:

  He snorted softly. “Last a while.” Everyone else dies instantly. Dragons and demi-gods last minutes. And me… apparently I stroll around like it’s a stroll in a swamp, ugly yes, but not lethal. Am I blessed by this Rotfather? If yes, why? And I hope not! I feel like my immunity has other origins.

  This was a useful confirmation—his immunity really was unique.

  He shifted back to the catechism book and flipped to a later chapter, now that the polyglot skill was doing most of the heavy lifting.

  John’s grip tightened on the page. So if I just crush her, I might scatter Heart-fragments and make things worse. No wonder the old man had told him to be wary; this wasn’t a problem he could solve by “snap fingers, delete vampire queen.”

  Another passage chilled him further:

  He sat very still. So the empty castle isn’t just a random hunt. It might be a mass inward march. A ritual.

  If they were all walking toward the Heart right now, Lilith leading them, his window to move unseen inside her den was real—but his time to stop whatever ritual she intended might be shorter than he’d hoped.

  He pulled one last tome nearer, smaller, almost like a notebook. Its pages were cramped with a different hand—more hurried, more personal. The title translated simply as: “Notes of High Acolyte Selvar.”

  Skimming, he found something annotated with a shaky hand:

  Another line, underlined twice:

  John’s thoughts raced. If I wreck the castle without dealing with the Heart, I might unleash something worse. But if I can cut the link, or redirect it…

  The final note he read before closing the book:

  He shut the notebook gently and sat back, surrounded by leaning shelves and the soft hiss of settling dust.

  He now knew more than when he’d entered: what the Rotfather was, why his Heart mattered, how Lilith fit into that ecosystem, and what dangers came from crude solutions. The Heart was a planted organ of decay, its aura lethal to almost everyone. Lilith was effectively a walking shard-holder, her castle a regulator for one aspect of that Heart.

  Somewhere beyond these walls, under a sky of poisoned light, a mass of vampires might be marching toward a city of flesh wrapped around a god-core.

  John tapped the table once, resolve coalescing.

  The library had given him the shape of the monster.

  Now he had to decide how to break it without letting it spread.