Ancient Tome

The Ancient Tome is a book brought from the Vampires' homeworld whose annals shaped their plans for the Fissures. Its account of the “Reversal of the Time's Axis” offered the surviving Vampires a route back to their lost world, but later deciphering exposed a contradiction in the plan as they understood it. The real tome is distinct from a copy of a future diary that was deliberately made to resemble an ancient book.

History

Promise of a return

After migrating to Earth, the Vampires spend forty years studying Fissures, the gaps between worlds or dimensions. Their objective rests on a legend recorded in the Ancient Tome: if a Fissure is opened to its fullest extent, the “Reversal of the Time's Axis” may become possible. They interpret this as a means to enter the Fissure's deepest point, reach their homeworld in its past, and prevent the apocalypse that destroyed it. That reading supplies the ideological basis for their attempt to force open a Fissure, although the chapter presents the outcome as a belief upheld by their Lord rather than as a proven property of the book. (Chapter 46)

Deciphering the contradiction

After the Lord's defeat, Bathory reports a conclusion obtained by deciphering the tome: travelling through time and between dimensions at the same time is impossible. According to her account, the Lord sought passage to another dimension rather than a return to the past. Her subordinates continue interpreting the results of his research while natural Fissures remain a threat to Earth, separating the practical danger of the phenomenon from the failed promise that the tome would carry the Vampires home. (Chapter 157)

The work continues on an institutional scale. Roughly two thousand el Las Vampires beneath a pharmaceutical-company building are occupied with deciphering and researching an ancient tome while the rest of their faction operates outside. The book is therefore more than a relic or private possession: it remains a central research source even after the original plan fractures. The supplied account does not specify which passages they decode, how complete their translation becomes, or whether the surviving work produces a usable Fissure technique. (Chapter 163)

The false tome distinguished

Lillia later explains that two separate books had been involved in the Vampire factions' research. She kept an original future diary inside herself through Spiritualisation, commissioned a copy disguised as an “ancient tome,” and placed that copy in an underground vault for the Lord to take. The Lord alone researched the disguised diary. The other Vampires instead studied the real Ancient Tome that their people had carried from their homeworld. A later account shows the future diary's author instructing Lillia to make that deceptive copy, confirming that its antique appearance was deliberate rather than evidence that it was the historical tome. (Chapters 164 and 170)

Abilities and properties

• Historical record: Its annals preserve the legend called the “Reversal of the Time's Axis,” which connects a fully opened Fissure with possible access to the past of the Vampires' homeworld. The record inspires decades of Fissure study, but the supplied chapters never demonstrate the reversal occurring as described. (Chapter 46)
• Technical source: Vampire researchers can decipher the tome and derive conclusions about travel through time and across dimensions. One reported conclusion is that both transitions cannot be performed simultaneously. The text does not reveal the tome's language, authorship, age, completeness, or the exact reasoning behind that result. (Chapters 157 and 163)
• Research significance, not direct activation: The tome informs Fissure research, but no supplied scene shows the physical book opening a Fissure, powering a ritual, transporting a reader, or casting a spell by itself. Its classification as magical does not establish an autonomous magical effect.
• Uncertain reliability: Its legend is treated as a possibility and is interpreted through the authority of the Vampire Lord. Later findings undermine the combined time-and-dimension plan, so its statements should not be treated as a guaranteed operating manual. (Chapters 46 and 157)
• Identity limit: The real Ancient Tome is the homeworld volume studied by the broader Vampire faction. It is not the magically preserved original diary, nor the diary copy disguised as an ancient tome and researched exclusively by the Lord. (Chapters 164 and 170)

Ownership and custody