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n“Did you find anything?” Shara asked, moving closer to Ning to see what was written.

nNing explained the general situation surrounding the empire, asking if she knew about any of it beforehand. Then, he showed the redacted sections that were crossed out with pens until not a single letter could be seen through the book at all.

n“It’s talking about some commander taking part in a battle, but all information regarding who he was or what he did is completely missing,” Ning explained. “I’m trying to see if there is anything I missed, but so far, there hasn’t been any.”

nNing flipped the page, turning it to the next one. There were fewer redacted sections here, through which he could see that the commander of the battalion had died in the war against The Golden Republic. From what Ning could tell, he had died some 22 years ago.

nAny information about how he had died had been fully cleared out.

nNing turned the page and continued reading for a while. There were more mentions of the war, about a terrible loss in the Fool’s Pass, and then a victorious battle in Largan’s Pass. There was some piece about the people trying to go past the mountains to invade, only to be met with rolling rocks that came down from the top of the mountain.

nThere were watchposts in every location around the mountain and it was simply impossible to invade the place easily.

nNing reached another set of redacted sections and read through the thing. He tried his best to piece together whatever he could understand and…

n“Hmm?” he was a little surprised this time.

n‘Many credible sources note that was attacked by a Vengeful Spirit. However, . It was noted that was .’

n“Attacked by a Vengeful spirit?” Ning thought. The only way a Vengeful Spirit could attack someone was by first taking over someone. And if it had taken over someone, the book would’ve called it a possessed individual, not a vengeful spirit.

n‘So it was truly just the spirit that attacked him. But… the ‘however’ suggests that it didn’t work. Did that mean…’

nThe only ones who could fight off a possession by themselves were Overtakers. They were a lot more vulnerable to possession by a Spirit, but inversely, they were also the only ones who could directly fight it. Otherwise, one had to get an Exorcist to get rid of them, which didn’t seem to have been the case.

n‘But the word Overtaker would’ve been shown. It wouldn’t have been redacted. It must be something else,’ Ning thought, his eyes slowly moving toward Shara. He couldn’t help but wonder…

n‘Holy **!’ he thought, remembering the Spirit Frank that had tried to take possession of her. Instead of either struggling to take over her body or outright just doing it, Frank had instead been taken away from this world.

n“This man was the same as you,” Ning said. “Someone who is immune to possession and can instead take away the energy surrounding the Spirit that is trying to possess you.”

nShara read through the bit and nodded. “I can also do that thing where their powers don’t work on me. That bald man’s paper things didn’t stick to me like yours did.”

nNing nodded. “You can nullify powers too,” he thought. “So, you’re a Nullifier.”

nShara raised an eyebrow. “Is that what I am? Is that written somewhere?” she asked.

nNing waited and shook his head.

nHe had randomly tried a word to see if he hit the mark right. It appeared he was not. At least, his system didn’t ding in his mind.

n‘Either I’m wrong, or I can’t just guess,’ Ning thought. They read through a little more, reaching the sections that were about the war mostly.

nThere were a few more redacted sections about people, each of which ended up redacted as well. There wasn’t much more to learn from the book.

n‘The power to nullify other people’s powers, and the power to destroy spirit,’ Ning thought. ‘Is she called an Anti-Spirit?’

nNo ding once again.

n‘I should stop just guessing.’

nNing closed the book, now sure that there wasn’t more he could find from it. The book was about the History of the Onyx empire, written to the present day, which for the book happened to be 15 years ago.

nThere was nothing more for him to read here. Ning called the young man again and asked if there was another issue with this book, for the last 15 years.

n“No, you’ll have to find newspapers for those. There aren’t any actual books,” the young man said.

n“Do you guys keep newspapers?” Ning asked.

n“Some,” the young man answered, thinking for a bit.

n“About this redacted section, do you think there will be newspapers that I can read without any censorship?” he asked.

nThe young man’s eyes widened suddenly and he quickly looked around. “Keep your voice down,” he said, getting close. “Listen, never talk about censorship. The command for censorship comes from the Empire itself. Unless you want to get on their wrong side, you’re better off forgetting that. Just read what you’re allowed to and be done with it.”

nNing couldn’t say he was surprised by the fear in the young man’s eyes.

n“I understand,” Ning said. “I won’t ask for it again.”

nThe young man nodded. “Anything else you guys want to read?” he asked.

n“No, thank you. We’re fine with this.”

nNing went through the book one more time to see if he missed something and left the library when he was done with it. He and Shara walked out of the library and saw that the sun had begun its descent in the sky.

n“We spent nearly 5 hours in there,” he said with a bit of a chuckle. “Are you hungry by any chance?”

nShara nodded. “Quite,” she said, looking famished.

n“Let’s go get something to eat then. We will rest for the night and then leave for the next city early morning tomorrow,” Ning said and went to look for a restaurant nearby.

nSearch the Nôvel(F)ire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

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