The hospital room was silent, everyone lost in their own thoughts.Marcellus, sitting quietly in the corner, seemed almost detached from the room itself.His fingertips were ice-cold, his palms slick with sweat. The veins at his wrist pulsed faintly, and an uncontrollable chill climbed up his spine, as if something long-buried had been uncovered—surging from the depths of his soul and shaking him to his core. His entire body trembled, ever so slightly.Adrian and Elise glanced over, thinking his reaction came from grief—finally learning the truth behind his parents’ death, overwhelmed by sorrow and despair.But only Marcellus knew:What swirled in his mind was not just sadness.It was something far more destructive—an unbearable, earth-shattering truth.The revelations in the diary hit like a hammer striking still water, shattering and reshaping over a decade of memories.From Celesta’s death…To Edgar’s descent into madness…To the scattered shards of the Grail, the rebuilding of the
“So let me repeat—”Livia stood before the group. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried an unmistakable calm and authority.“From now on, aside from the three of us, no one is allowed near the building where the vault is. No exceptions. Not even for something as simple as retrieving supplies—go around.”She paused, letting her eyes sweep across the room, lingering briefly on Elias and Marcellus, then continued:“Even the three of us—only if absolutely necessary. And when we do, we must report our movements and state immediately. No one goes in alone.”“And one more thing—”Her tone grew even more solemn.“Starting tomorrow, the three of us will meet at the hospital every day at noon. Elias and Marcellus will observe and document our condition. If we do fall under its influence, it’ll be caught—and stopped—right away.”No one responded, but everyone nodded firmly, as though holding back a rising tide of unease in their hearts.As Livia finished speaking, a thought nearly escaped her li
The air seemed to freeze.Aside from Livia, everyone else in the room was caught in a silence too heavy to name—something between stunned quiet and suffocating pressure.No one could speak.Celesta’s sacrifice.Edgar’s descent into madness.The Grail’s lure and its terrible cost…It all crashed down on them like a storm, sweeping through the heart.Even Marcellus and Elias—sons of the very people at the heart of this tale—sat motionless, eyes hollow, still unable to process the weight of what they’d just heard.Adrian swallowed hard. His eyes drifted to the now-closed diary. His throat bobbed once, twice—then finally, he broke the silence:“…This is… hard to believe.”Elise nodded slowly, her voice tentative:“The thing we’re looking for… is it even something good?Or maybe… maybe we were never meant to find it at all.”Adrian turned to his sister, unease flickering in his eyes.“Should we destroy it?”All eyes turned to Livia.She didn’t respond right away.But only for a moment.Her
The final page of the diary closed with a soft whisper, and the room was swallowed by a silence so heavy it felt solid.Outside, the sunlight was gentle, spilling through the window and casting shifting patterns across the hospital floor. And there it lay—the yellowed diary, quietly resting like a sleeping witness,its ten-year-old secrets finally laid bare.No one spoke.As if even a breath might disturb the shadow pressing on everyone’s hearts.The diary shut beneath Livia’s fingertips, the aged pages still holding a trace of warmth—as though their long-gone author had only just stepped away.Livia sat still.Her fingers traced the brittle cover, worn thin by time.But her gaze had already sunk deep into something darker—a near-dizzying haze of thought.She didn’t cry.But her heart—her heart ached unbearably.As if something were being slowly drawn from the depths of her chest—and she couldn’t breathe.She wasn’t Celesta’s daughter.She hadn’t been born in that era.She hadn’t
Entry XIVI can no longer remember how long it’s been.Day by day, my body grows weaker.Even holding a pen feels impossible now.We haven’t left this land for so long.Even just going down the old well to glimpse the base—we have to support each other just to descend the stone steps.Sometimes I wonder…Have we simply been too close for too long?It’s sealed, yes.We swore to keep it buried.We only ever look at it from afar.But even so,its power creeps like vines from the depths of the earth,coiling around us, dragging us slowly into the abyss.We used to say we were just afraid of someone stealing it—but now I know the truth.We… can’t bear to be away from it.If we go a day without seeing it, we feel ill,uneasy in our skin,restless, aching.Only when we’re near it does the pain stop.Only in its presence do we feel… calm.It’s terrifying.We vowed never to let the Grail return to the world,but somehow—I began to dream of it.In the dreams, the shattered Grail reassembles i
Entry XIICelesta is dead.She left so peacefully, and yet the tremor she left in our hearts will never fade.After the explosion, the abandoned factory was filled with the stench of gunpowder and scorched earth.The shards of the Grail were nowhere to be found.Edgar knelt beside her, like a statue that had lost its soul.He didn’t cry.He didn’t scream.He simply held her cold hand, silently, mechanically.At that moment, I thought he would collapse, rage, destroy all of us in his grief.But he didn’t.He merely lifted his head to look at us. His voice was hoarse and low:“You… destroyed her only hope.”“Her hope was to destroy the Grail!” I shouted back.But then I saw it—a flicker of madness, stubborn and wild, begin to glow behind his eyes.“She didn’t understand…She didn’t know…If I can gather the fragments,I can save her…I can bring her back…”He wasn’t really talking to me.He was trying to convince himself.That desperate longing twisted his once-calm face.This man, onc