Chapter 1: Night of Century

"Last –"

A word written on the cover of a book, one of many that were sitting on our father's shelves. After the word were texts covered by messy trails of dried ink. This is it. This is the one. I picked it up and walked back to my bedroom, one I shared with all my eleven siblings.

 And as I walked, I began to ponder

'Now, what am I even doing? I've never disobeyed him like this before so why did I decide to do this?— No, stop, stop thinking about it. If your little brothers see you shaking this hard just because of a book, how would they feel? Put yourself together R'torias. Dad is a reasonable person, he won't punish us just because of a book right?'

"Brother!" 

A harsh and blunt voice from a man freaked me out.

"Argh!"

It was from Atlas, the second son, who was leaning his back against the bedroom door with his arms crossed.

"Oh, Atlas?! What are you doing here?" 

He looked at me, indifferently without a word.

Never had he told lies or disobeyed our father's order. And often, when someone breaks the rules, he takes the matter on himself.

'Great, now I have even less clue if he's on my tail or not.' I thought to myself.

"So you did get the book, after all?" He said, looking at it in my hand.

I nodded.

 "Did Father allows it?" His tone started to get more serious. 

"No." My voice shook with pressure as his eyes relentlessly pierced through my soul.

"Like he ever will—"

 His gaze loosened its intensity as he opened the door.

 "Get inside the room and do your job."

"You're with me this time?"

"Only once."

He answered in an annoyed voice. 

Our dad was not much of a strict person. Even when our eldest brother got into a fight. He came back home bloodied from head to toe and our father's first response was a laugh. The only thing he ordered us was to not open this book. Not that opening it will lead to the end of the world because it contained dark magic or anything. It's just a book that he wrote and that's the only thing I know. 

Realizing that to continue pondering wouldn't give me any answers, I stopped and entered the room. Atlas followed closely and shutted the door as I noticed a wooden chair prepared for me.

"So are all of us here?" I asked as I sat down.

"Count." Atlas answered with a deep, indifferent voice as he walked to his seat.

"Fine" And so I gazed around the room filled with eleven children sitting in curiosity.

"Looks like all of us are here. Now, let us begin." 

My hand started draining all the knowledge written in the book. A blessing or power within our blood. I've waited for so long for this moment, the time I could finally put it into some action.