"Why can you speak so smoothly now?" he asked, puzzled. The Tome had always spoken in broken, fragmented lines.
"My consciousness recovered after you attached the crystal," the Tome replied. "Now I can give you clearer instructions. But first, you need to return home and bring your scanner device. We'll need it for the analysis."
Kaivan clenched his fist. "I don't want to wait. I want to kill Vella," he said, voice low, thick with hatred. He glared at the book. "You said you could plan everything. So tell me, what's our plan?"
The Tome fell silent for a moment.
Then, firmly: "Not now, Kaivan. You're not ready. You're a human with limited strength. Facing Vella without preparation is suicide."
Kaivan slammed his fist onto the table, anger burning in his eyes. "Then why bring me here if there's nothing I can do?!"
"I said not now, not never," the Tome answered. "You need time. I will help you prepare. Rush in now, and you'll end up like Teh Kira, or worse."
Kaivan stood frozen in the cold laboratory. His anger slowly ebbed, replaced by a bitter realization, the Tome was right. He wasn't strong enough. Yet the sting of helplessness still pierced him. He let his eyes wander through the room filled with strange instruments until they stopped on a row of large capsules in the corner.
They shimmered with a soft blue glow. A digital display in front of them counted downward, numbers falling one by one like a silent warning.
"What is this…?" he whispered. He stepped closer, watching the numbers continue to drop.
A sudden impact shook the entire room.
"BOOM!"
The sound echoed through the walls, the floor trembling beneath his feet. Kaivan spun around, alarmed. "What's happening upstairs?"
The Tome on the table vibrated violently, blue light pulsing from between its pages.
"Kaivan, pull out my crystal, now!" its voice demanded, urgent and sharp.
Without hesitation, Kaivan pried the crystal from its cover. The blue light vanished at once, leaving only the sterile glow of the lab's lamps. He stared at the crystal in his hand, then glanced toward a wall monitor.
The CCTV feed showed the upper floor of the house.
Kaivan's breath caught.
A small boy, no more than six years old, walked calmly through the hall. Dressed in white pajamas, with pitch-black hair, pale skin, and wide expressionless eyes, he moved like a doll brought to life.
"Who… is that?" Kaivan murmured.
The boy continued down the corridor, his face blank, emotionless.
Suddenly the Tome trembled again. New words appeared across its open page:
"He is the wielder of the Omnihorror Tome."
"The wielder of… Omnihorror? A kid that young?" Kaivan stared at the monitor, unease creeping up his spine. The boy looked harmless, but every instinct screamed otherwise.
More words surfaced:
"Before Prophet Adam was sent down, there existed two beings, Hinn and Binn. Some survived. Some had descendants. That child is one of them. His true age exceeds one hundred thousand years."
Kaivan almost dropped the crystal.
"One hundred thousand, what?! How is that even possible?" His voice shook as he watched the monitor.
But before he could gather his thoughts, the child vanished, swallowed by darkness in an instant.
"Where did he go?" Kaivan's panic rose. "He was just there!"
New writing etched itself urgently onto the Tome's surface:
"His goal is me. When my crystal was activated, a fragment of my power awakened, that's what drew him here."
Kaivan frowned. "Wait. If I removed your crystal, shouldn't your energy be gone? How are you still writing?"
The Tome paused. Then more words appeared, slower this time:
"I transferred part of my energy into the Omnidream crystal. Enough to survive ten years without my main core."
Hearing that, Kaivan walked toward the lift leading to the surface and stepped out of the house. "Alright, if that's how it is… I should go home first and grab a few things."