Chapter 138: We Know Nothing
Arthur now found himself surrounded by the towering shelves and hushed atmosphere of the school’s extensive library, a vast repository of knowledge that had taken considerable effort to navigate. The building itself was an impressive structure, with high vaulted ceilings and natural light streaming through tall windows, creating the perfect environment for serious research and study. It had taken him quite a while and some assistance from the helpful but overworked librarians to locate the specific books he was seeking, but after persistent searching through multiple sections and catalogs, he finally found himself settled at a sturdy wooden table near one of the large windows.
Before him lay a carefully selected stack of books, each one representing hours of potential reading and discovery. The first volume he opened was a comprehensive tome on the history of the second realm, known as Aragon. The book’s worn leather binding and yellowed pages suggested it had been consulted by many researchers before him, each seeking to understand the mysterious realm that had become so central to their world’s survival.
According to the detailed text, Aragon was, as far as current research could determine, a realm consisting of only one massive continent. However, that single landmass was described as being double the size of the largest continent on Earth, making it an almost incomprehensibly vast territory filled with diverse landscapes, climates, and ecosystems. The book contained hand-drawn maps that attempted to chart the known regions, though large sections were marked with ominous notations like "unexplored territory" and "dangerous zones."
The continent had once contained numerous kingdoms and city-states, some of which had maintained peaceful relations with their neighbors while others had been locked in constant territorial disputes and resource wars. From what the researchers and explorers had managed to piece together through archaeological evidence and surviving records, that realm had been no stranger to conflict and warfare long before the void creatures had ever appeared on the scene.
What struck Arthur as particularly tragic was how utterly unprepared the inhabitants of Aragon had been for the arrival of the void creatures. Despite their political sophistication and military experience with conventional warfare, they had been so technologically and magically disadvantaged compared to the otherworldly threats that they hadn’t stood much of a chance when the void creatures had finally showed up. The book contained several sobering accounts of once-great cities reduced to empty ruins within days of the void invasion, their populations either killed or transformed into something far worse.
Besides these basic historical facts and geographical details, however, there wasn’t much concrete information available about the second realm. The book repeatedly acknowledged gaps in knowledge, areas where researchers simply had no reliable data to work with. Most of the information had been gathered from brief expeditions by chosen who had managed to return alive, and their accounts were often fragmented, contradictory, or colored by the trauma of their experiences.
Growing increasingly frustrated with the limited scope of information available, Arthur moved on to examine the other volumes in his carefully selected stack. Each subsequent book focused on different aspects of the realms, with several devoted specifically to the various gods and divine entities. He spent hours poring over these texts, reading detailed theological discussions and comparative analyses of divine hierarchies and pantheons.
However, after several hours of intensive reading, Arthur began to realize with growing disappointment that these academic books wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know from his experiences in the second realm. The scholars and researchers, despite their best efforts and extensive theoretical knowledge, were working with incomplete information and secondhand accounts.
’I was right,’ Arthur thought to himself with a mixture of vindication and frustration. ’We really know nothing. These books are just dressed-up speculation based on fragments of information.’
The realization that the academic establishment knew so little about the realms that had become central to humanity’s survival was both disappointing and somewhat liberating. It meant that his own experiences and observations were potentially more valuable than he had initially realized, but it also highlighted just how much humanity was fumbling in the dark when it came to understanding their new reality.
After closing the final book with a dissatisfied sigh, Arthur decided to shift his research focus entirely. He made his way over to one of the library’s public computer terminals, settling into the somewhat uncomfortable chair as the machine slowly booted up. His goal now was to catch up on the major events and developments that had occurred during the almost two years he had been absent.