Baili Qing raised her gaze and looked toward the direction from which the aged voice had come.
Surrounded and crowded by countless enormous bookshelves, a broken stone platform floated amid slabs of stone both large and small. The platform was shaped like an altar, its edges covered in reliefs and weathered cracks. At its center rested a gigantic Crystal Skull that clearly did not belong to a human. The skull was entirely crystalline, with a long, narrow face, sunken eye sockets, and jagged, ferocious teeth. It bore the features of some enormous reptile. It lay quietly on the platform, and even the skull alone was about the size of an adult human.
A faint glow flickered in the Crystal Skull's eye sockets. When Baili Qing approached, it brightened slightly, and a hoarse voice came from within the bone cavity. "Go on. What do you want to know this time?"
"Still information about the 'Classical Era'—the Boundary Bridge, the Dark Star, and the Othergod that descended, whose name was 'Omen.'" Baili Qing calmly stared into the Crystal Skull's eye sockets.
"...Don't blame me for not warning you. Digging for information from the 'Depths' is very dangerous, and rarely yields anything," the glow in the Crystal Skull's sockets flickered. "Checking a few more times won't reveal anything new, Colorless Descendant. This is a dead library. Everything that should be here is already here, and anything that isn't here will never be here."
"I brought a more effective 'medium' this time." Baili Qing raised a hand and pointed at her own head. "It might be able to 'draw' something deeper out."
The Crystal Skull was silent for a moment. "...Show me."
Baili Qing gave a slight nod, then half-closed her eyes.
At some point, a hazy mist had already gathered behind her. A