There were four kinds of people within the Cross-World Library.

  The librarians never formally categorized them, it wasn’t written in any ledger or carved into the marble halls, but anyone who had spent enough time here could recognize the patterns.

  The first kind were the chosen ones.

  They arrived convinced the universe revolved around them.

  Most of them came from worlds saturated with transmigration fiction, regression stories, or prophecy-driven epics. Armed with half-baked future knowledge and inflated confidence, they treated every story dive like a script they were meant to exploit. They chased “flag events,” hoarded resources before calamities, tried to groom protagonists into obedient allies, and spoke in phrases like this is where the plot should diverge or this wasn’t supposed to happen yet.

  Some of them survived.

  Most of them died.

  The Library had a cruel way of punishing people who mistook information for wisdom.

  The second kind were people like Zoey.

  They didn’t need delusions of destiny because reality had already been kind to them.

  They came from worlds with established systems, magic academies, cultivation sects, knight orders, demon wars. They had trained bodies, sharpened instincts, and minds already conditioned for violence and survival. They adapted fast, too fast sometimes. Their early success often hardened into arrogance, and arrogance, in the Library, was a debt collector that always came knocking eventually.

  Zoey was a textbook example.

  A princess in one world, a veteran mercenary in another, and now a high-ranked Bookkeeper with enough combat experience to make most newcomers tremble. She had earned her confidence, but she also knew how easy it was to forget how fragile people without that background could be.

  The third kind were people like Giselle.

  Born from the Canvas.

  A world within the Library itself.

  Canvas-born Bookkeepers grew up surrounded by records, dives, rankings, and the unspoken rules of cross-world survival. They didn’t have memories of Earth, or magic academies, or collapsing civilizations. They learned the Library the same way others learned language, naturally, instinctively.

  They didn’t romanticize story dives.

  They understood them.

  Giselle had never needed to “adjust” to the Library. She had always belonged to it.

  And then.

  There were the wild cards.

  Unpredictable.

  Uncomfortable.

  Dangerous in ways even the Library struggled to quantify.

  They didn’t behave like protagonists, veterans, or natives. They reacted strangely to pressure. They ignored optimal paths, made reckless decisions, survived situations they had no business walking away from, and somehow, against all statistical logic, came out ahead.

  They didn’t win because they were strong.

  They won because they refused to play the game the way everyone else expected.

  Those were the ones you watched carefully.

  Because sooner or later, they broke something important.

  “You said he chose The Demon Lord of Calamity blueprint, right?”

  Zoey’s voice cut through the quiet hum of the viewing lounge.

  She lounged sideways on a velvet couch, one leg tucked beneath her, the other lazily dangling as she ate a slice of cake that probably cost more credits than a low-ranked Bookkeeper made in a month. The giant screen in front of us showed footage from a newbie’s story dive, Jayden Brise, currently embedded in a closed modern fantasy world.

  Giselle sat across from her, posture straight, eyes focused on the screen rather than Zoey.

  “Yeah,” Giselle replied calmly. “He thought he could get Izanus as a summoned creature.”

  Zoey snorted, frosting smudging slightly at the corner of her lips. “Bold. Stupid. Kind of adorable.”

  “He misunderstood the reward,” Giselle said. “Which is understandable. It was his first ruined world.”

  “I’ll bet you a hundred credits,” Zoey continued, waving her fork vaguely toward the screen, “that he grabs every vaguely demonic or momentum-based record he can find and assumes that’s enough to complete a Grandine-rank blueprint.”

  Giselle didn’t even blink. “That’s a losing bet.”

  Zoey raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “We’ve all been there,” Giselle said. “Grandine blueprints don’t care about quantity. They care about foundation. One perfect material doesn’t fill a slot. You need layers. Redundancy. Structural similarity.”

  Zoey sighed dramatically. “There goes my easy money.”

  She leaned back, glancing sideways at Giselle. “Still. Watching newbies struggle is half the fun.”

  Something about her tone was off.

  There was mockery, yes, but it lacked the usual sharp edge. No contempt. No dismissal. Just… amusement.

  That alone was enough to make me suspicious.

  Zoey noticed my silence and turned toward me, eyes gleaming with mischief.

  “What about you, Suzi?” she asked, a smirk curling on her lips. “You want in on the bet?”

  I crossed my arms, unimpressed. “No.”

  Zoey blinked. “Wow. Straight to the point.”

  “I’m not stupid,” I replied flatly. “And I don’t gamble on obvious outcomes.”

  Giselle hid a faint smile behind her teacup.

  Zoey chuckled. “Cold. I like it.”

  “Besides,” I added, eyes flicking briefly toward the screen, “I have no interest in some newbie.”

  That part was true.

  Mostly.

  Unlike Zoey, I hadn’t come from a world that forged warriors or heroes.

  Like Giselle, I was born within the Library.

  Canvas-born.

  The difference was, my older half-sister was a prodigy.

  A genuine one.

  Her name carried weight in the higher tiers of the Library. She had climbed ranks at a terrifying pace, shattered dome records, and completed blueprints most Bookkeepers only whispered about. And for reasons no one quite understood, she adored me.

  That single fact shaped my existence more than any record ever could.

  People with higher ranks treated me carefully, not out of fear, but out of respect. Some out of genuine goodwill. Others out of self-preservation.

  I didn’t need to prove myself.

  Which meant I had the luxury of watching others instead.

  On the screen, Jayden struggled through Spectrum training, bloodied, exhausted, stubbornly pushing forward despite lacking talent comparable to the protagonist of that world.

  Zoey followed my gaze and hummed softly.

  “Still,” she said, almost thoughtfully, “he’s interesting.”

  Giselle nodded. “He cleared a ruined world on his first dive.”

  “With luck,” Zoey said.

  “With choices,” Giselle corrected.

  I didn’t say anything.

  But for the first time since this conversation began, I watched the screen a little more closely.

  Wild cards were annoying.

  They disrupted predictions.

  And the Library...

  For all its systems, ranks, and rules-

  Loved nothing more than someone it couldn’t quite categorize yet.

  “Gah!”

  The air was ripped from my lungs as a concussive wave of red spectrum energy slammed into my stomach. The impact didn’t burn like a piercing shot, nor did it slice cleanly through muscle. Instead, it compressed everything inward, flesh, bone, breath, before violently rebounding.

  I skidded backward across the reinforced training floor, boots screeching uselessly as my body rolled once, twice, before slamming into the padded wall.

  I coughed, the sound wet and ugly.

  Dark red splattered across the white tiles.

  My vision swam, ears ringing as if someone had struck a bell inside my skull.

  “Tch.”

  Mako clicked his tongue in annoyance rather than concern.

  “Your progress is very inconsistent,” he said, arms crossed as he looked down at me. Purple spectrum energy faintly crackled along his veins, subtle but ever-present, like a predator that never truly slept. “It’s like you can execute one specific move perfectly and completely fall apart everywhere else.”

  I forced myself upright, one knee digging into the floor as I spat blood to the side.

  “And the move I’m trying to teach you,” Mako continued, “is an easy one.”

  A translucent page flickered into existence before my eyes.

  Red Spectrum: Blunt Impact

  Rank: Iron

  Record Size: 10 (30)

  Rating: 7

  Cheap.

  Efficient.

  And utterly mediocre.

  The ability condensed red spectrum energy into a dense, short-range shockwave, ideal for crowd control, breaking guards, or knocking opponents off balance. Simple execution. Low cost. Reliable results.

  But the rating…

  I clenched my fist.

  Seven.

  Every time Mako demonstrated it, the rating shifted slightly—7.4, 7.6, once even 7.9—but it never crossed the threshold.

  Never reached ten.

  Never reached record-worthy perfection.

  And I couldn’t exactly tell a senior purple spectrum agent to “do it better.”

  My chest rose and fell unevenly as I tried to steady my breathing.

  “We’re done for today,” Mako said after a moment, clearly bored. “We’ll start training your blue spectrum next time.”

  He turned without waiting for a response and walked off, boots echoing against the training hall floor.

  The doors slid shut behind him with a hiss.

  Silence followed.

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  I remained where I was, sitting on the ground with my back against the wall, teeth clenched so tightly my jaw ached.

  I wasn’t rushing.

  I knew that.

  This wasn’t like the ruined world, where survival demanded immediate results or death followed swiftly behind. I had time here, resources, mentors, structure.

  And yet…

  Seeing no progress.

  Seeing weeks of training amount to almost understanding something, but never quite reaching the level I needed without recording an ability...

  It gnawed at me.

  Because I knew exactly what I was missing.

  And I was deliberately refusing to take it.

  Footsteps approached.

  Light. Careful.

  “Hey.”

  I lifted my head.

  Luis stood a few steps away, dressed in standard SDA training gear, short bright orange hair damp with sweat. There was genuine concern in his eyes, not the polite kind, not the professional kind, but the honest reaction of someone who hadn’t yet learned how dangerous curiosity could be.

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  I exhaled slowly. “I’m fine. Just got battered during training.”

  Luis frowned slightly. “That didn’t look normal.”

  I shrugged. “Depends on your definition of normal.”

  He hesitated, then sat down beside me, back against the wall as well.

  “My training never ends like that,” he said after a moment.

  I closed my eyes.

  Because you’re the protagonist.

  Because the world bends around you.

  Because you don’t need to understand why things work, you just do them, and the system rewards you for it.

  But I didn’t say any of that.

  I just sighed.

  “Good for you,” I replied.

  Luis scratched the back of his head, clearly unsure whether that was sarcasm or sincerity.

  “I mean… I’m not saying it to brag,” he said quickly. “It’s just, when something doesn’t work, Asha tells me to try again and it usually clicks.”

  Lucky bastard.

  I had no right to be angry at him.

  Luis didn’t know what the Cross-World Library was. He didn’t know that his path was curated, reinforced, nudged gently toward success. He didn’t know that his very existence here was a narrative pillar, protected by probability and causality alike.

  And I wasn’t about to explain it.

  Our conversation was cut short by a sharp, shrill sound that tore through the base.

  ALARMS.

  Red lights flared across the training hall ceiling as an automated voice echoed through the corridors.

  “Warning. Warning. Hostile entities detected within SDA Base Perimeter. All personnel proceed to defensive positions immediately.”

  Luis shot to his feet.

  “What the hell?” he muttered.

  My blood ran cold.

  That wasn’t a drill.

  The alarms escalated, overlapping tones signaling a full breach, not an external threat, not a wandering Frade, but something already inside the perimeter.

  Then the second announcement came.

  “Threat classification: Human hostiles. Cultist affiliation confirmed.”

  Cultists.

  My fingers tightened.

  Frade worshippers.

  Fanatics who believed Frades were divine beings, harbingers of evolution or judgment depending on the sect. Most of them were lunatics. A dangerous minority were trained.

  And some...

  Some could use spectrum energy.

  The floor trembled.

  A distant explosion rattled the walls, followed by screams echoing down the corridor.

  Luis looked at me, eyes wide.

  “We should-”

  “Go,” I interrupted, forcing myself to stand. Pain flared through my abdomen, but adrenaline dulled it enough. “Find Asha or your squad.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  For a fraction of a second, he looked like he wanted to argue.

  Then instinct won.

  Luis sprinted toward the exit.

  I activated my book.

  The pages fluttered rapidly, stopping on red spectrum entries as I took a steadying breath.

  So this is how it happens.

  The base’s internal defenses engaged, automated turrets unfolding from ceiling compartments, blue spectrum barriers sealing off civilian sections, emergency shutters slamming shut to isolate combat zones.

  But cultists didn’t attack bases like this without preparation.

  The first explosion hit the adjacent corridor.

  The wall disintegrated inward, concrete and metal screaming as it was torn apart by compressed yellow spectrum energy.

  Figures emerged through the smoke.

  Robes, dark crimson and black, etched with warped Frade sigils.

  And eyes.

  Glowing.

  One of them raised his hand.

  Red spectrum energy surged.

  I dove to the side just as a beam scorched through the space where my head had been.

  I rolled, came up on one knee, and fired instinctively.

  A narrow red beam lanced forward, striking the cultist in the shoulder and punching him back into the rubble.

  No kill.

  Damn it.

  Another cultist leapt forward, body reinforced with yellow spectrum energy, movements unnaturally fast.

  I braced.

  Red spectrum: Blunt Impact.

  The shockwave erupted from my palm, slamming into his chest.

  He flew backward, and laughed.

  “Too weak!” he snarled, blood trickling from his mouth as he staggered upright. “Your energy trembles!”

  Purple spectrum flared behind him.

  A distortion rippled through the air as gravity twisted, my body suddenly feeling ten times heavier.

  I slammed into the floor, bones creaking under the pressure.

  So they had purple users too.

  Of course they did.

  I gritted my teeth, forcing red spectrum energy through my limbs, muscles screaming as I pushed back against the gravity well.

  Another explosion rocked the base.

  Over the emergency channel, frantic voices overlapped.

  “Sector C breached!”

  “We’ve got Frades, no, cultists summoning Frades inside the hangar!”

  “Medical wing compromised!”

  My heart sank.

  They weren’t just attacking.

  They were making a statement.

  The purple user raised his hand to crush me further, and then his head snapped sideways.

  A blue spectrum projectile tore through his skull.

  His gravity field collapsed instantly.

  Dmitri stepped through the smoke, rifle humming with residual energy.

  “Move,” he barked.

  Behind him, Yuri reinforced the corridor with blue barriers while Marco and Imelda engaged the remaining cultists head-on, yellow spectrum flaring as they clashed in brutal close-quarters combat.

  I staggered to my feet, ignoring the pain.

  “Jayden,” Dmitri snapped. “You’re with me. Support fire only.”

  I nodded.

  We moved.

  The base had become a war zone.

  Cultists poured from hidden access points, maintenance shafts, service elevators, even emergency tunnels no longer used by staff. Some fought with disciplined formations. Others screamed praises to Frades as they charged recklessly, bodies already partially mutated.

  One summoned a quadrupedal Frade mid-hallway.

  White spectrum energy surged as the creature was forcibly dragged into existence, tearing through reality like a wound.

  It didn’t last long.

  A coordinated barrage of red and blue spectrum energy tore it apart.

  But the damage was done.

  Blood stained the floors.

  Walls burned.

  And above it all-

  Laughter.

  A robed figure stood on the upper walkway, arms raised.

  “Behold!” he cried. “The Frades answer our devotion! Your order is a lie, they are the truth!”

  Purple spectrum energy surged wildly around him.

  Too unstable.

  Too powerful.

  Dmitri cursed under his breath.

  “Jayden,” he said quietly. “Aim.”

  I raised my hand, red spectrum condensing at my fingertips.

  For the first time...

  I didn’t think about ratings.

  I didn’t think about recording.

  I thought about stopping him.

  The beam fired.

  Perfectly straight.

  Perfectly timed.

  It punched through the cultist’s chest and detonated inside him.

  Silence followed.

  Then the battle surged on.

  And somewhere in the chaos-

  I felt it.

  A fracture.

  Not in the base.

  Not in my body.

  But in the path I had been so carefully trying to walk.

  Because for the first time since arriving in this world-

  I wasn’t watching the story unfold.

  I was standing in the middle of it.

  The first thing I realized was that the alarms weren’t meant for someone like me.

  They were meant to warn everyone else.

  I sprinted through the corridor, boots pounding against the metal floor as emergency shutters slammed down behind me, sealing off sections of the base with mechanical finality. Red lights strobed overhead, bathing everything in harsh crimson, making the hallways feel narrower, more claustrophobic.

  Smoke drifted through the vents.

  Someone screamed.

  I clenched my jaw and pushed harder.

  Find Asha.

  That was my only coherent thought.

  I didn’t understand the base’s layout as well as the veterans, but instinct guided me toward the training wing intersection, the place senior agents always passed through during drills.

  The floor shook beneath my feet.

  A shockwave rippled through the corridor ahead, throwing debris and shattered wall panels into the air. I skidded to a halt just in time to see a group of cultists burst through the smoke.

  Five of them.

  Robes marked with twisted Frade sigils, eyes glowing with unstable spectrum energy.

  One of them spotted me.

  “Oh?” he crooned. “Another lamb.”

  Red spectrum energy flared.

  I didn’t think.

  I reacted.

  Blue spectrum energy surged from my feet, propelling me backward just as a beam scorched through the air where my chest had been. The heat washed over my skin, close enough to burn.

  I landed, twisted, and fired.

  Red spectrum: Piercing Shot.

  The beam punched through the cultist’s throat.

  He dropped instantly.

  The others didn’t hesitate.

  Yellow spectrum flared as two of them charged, bodies reinforced far beyond normal human limits. The third raised his hands, purple energy warping the space between us.

  The pressure hit me like a truck.

  My knees buckled.

  Too slow.

  Something inside me snapped.

  Not emotionally.

  Structurally.

  Black spectrum energy erupted from my core.

  It wasn’t loud.

  It wasn’t flashy.

  It was absolute.

  The pressure vanished.

  The purple distortion collapsed inward, crushing its wielder as if gravity itself had turned against him. His bones snapped with a wet crunch, body folding unnaturally before crumpling to the floor.

  The two yellow users froze.

  Their fear tasted… sharp.

  I moved.

  Blue spectrum propelled me forward, yellow reinforced my limbs, red condensed into my fist.

  One punch.

  The cultist flew backward, spine shattering as he slammed into the wall hard enough to crater reinforced plating.

  The last one tried to flee.

  I raised my hand.

  Red spectrum, no.

  Black spectrum.

  A condensed pulse erupted.

  He ceased to exist.

  I stood there, breathing hard, staring at my trembling hands.

  “What… was that?” I whispered.

  I’d used all three energies before.

  Separately.

  Together, though?

  This felt different.

  Smoother.

  Like my body understood what it was doing.

  Footsteps thundered toward me.

  Asha emerged from the smoke, blade drawn, eyes sharp, and then widened when she saw the carnage.

  “Luis,” she said slowly. “Did you do this?”

  “I-” I swallowed. “I think so.”

  Her gaze flicked to the crushed purple user, then to the wall crater, then back to me.

  “…Stay close,” she said finally. “Things just escalated.”

  As if summoned by her words, the base shook violently.

  A roar echoed through the lower levels.

  Not human.

  Not Frade.

  Something worse.

  The comms crackled to life.

  “All units, priority alert! Cultists have completed a partial ritual in Sector D!”

  “Unknown hybrid entity manifesting!”

  “Repeat, this is not a standard Frade!”

  Asha cursed under her breath.

  “They’re trying to force an ascension,” she muttered. “Idiots.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means,” she said grimly, “they’re sacrificing themselves to create something they can’t control.”

  We moved.

  Fast.

  Sector D was already a ruin by the time we arrived.

  The walls were warped inward, fused by heat and pressure. Bodies, cultists and agents alike, littered the floor. Some were crushed. Others looked… hollowed out.

  At the center of it all stood the thing they’d created.

  Humanoid.

  Barely.

  Its body was an amalgamation of flesh and fractured Frade components, multiple limbs fused together, white spectrum sigils burned directly into its skin. Purple energy twisted around it constantly, distorting the air.

  But the worst part...

  It was thinking.

  Its eyes locked onto us.

  And smiled.

  “Ah…” it said, voice layered and wrong. “More offerings.”

  Asha raised her weapon.

  “Luis,” she said quietly. “This one’s dangerous. Stay back.”

  I didn’t move.

  The thing tilted its head.

  “…You,” it said, gaze snapping to me. “You are wrong.”

  Black spectrum energy stirred inside me again, responding to the threat like a living thing.

  “I don’t know what you are,” I said, voice steadier than I felt. “But you’re not walking out of here.”

  The hybrid laughed.

  “Bold.”

  It moved.

  The floor folded as it crossed the distance between us, purple spectrum bending space to close the gap instantly.

  Asha reacted first, blue barriers flaring as she intercepted, blade clashing against hardened flesh.

  She was thrown aside.

  Hard.

  I caught her instinctively, yellow spectrum reinforcing my arms as we skidded backward.

  She coughed. “Don’t - engage it alone.”

  Too late.

  The thing was already upon us.

  Black spectrum surged.

  Time slowed.

  I saw the distortions, the energy flows, the instability in its form.

  It’s incomplete.

  Forced.

  Breaking itself just to exist.

  I stepped forward.

  Red condensed.

  Blue aligned.

  Yellow reinforced.

  Black unified.

  My fist met its chest.

  There was no explosion.

  No flash.

  Just a sound like glass shattering across reality itself.

  The hybrid froze.

  Cracks spread across its body, light leaking from within as its unstable energies collapsed inward.

  It looked down at the damage.

  “…Impossible,” it whispered.

  Then it imploded.

  Silence fell.

  The base alarms began to wind down.

  I stood there, chest heaving, hands shaking violently now that the adrenaline faded.

  Asha stared at me.

  So did the other agents arriving moments later.

  Fear.

  Awe.

  Suspicion.

  Somewhere, deeper in the base, I felt it-

  Eyes watching.

  Decisions being made.

  Because this wasn’t just an attack.

  It was an introduction.

  And I had just announced myself to the entire system.