Chapter 133 - Worst Fear and Hierarchy

An indigo velvet frock coat billowed with the man's each step as air combusted on his right, only for it to freeze over on his left. It looked like his legs were moving backward, but his body glided forward.

In this paradoxical display that made no sense, he held onto his top hat, flashing a smile that graced his sleek jaw and sharp features, raising goosebumps all over Vern's body.

FUCK ME!

It's Hensen! Hensen Vehen. Vern screamed internally, his body trembling from the implications alone.

He involuntarily hid behind the pillar next to him as one destructive scenario after another flitted through his mind, reminding him of all the brutalities this man had inflicted on him.

The vicious promise he'd made; an unconditional pursuit through the ends of the world. This was one case where even escaping to the death trap that was the land of the dark sun wouldn't work. Hensen might just chase him down there.

Fuck! Fuck!! Fuck!!! This is bad. Sweat formed on his forehead, and his knees felt weak. He hadn't planned for this at all. Yes, he had high expectations coming in here, but this was too much even for his imagination.

He was nowhere near ready to face this man. . . . With every step he took, Vern feared he'd suddenly snap his head in his direction and tear him apart in an instant. Vern continued to watch with bated breath, his heart beating so loud it trumped the hubbub of the people outside.

No. No. No. Calm. I need to calm down. He hasn't even glanced at me a single time.

Hope growing in Vern's chest, he watched the man stroll up the stairs.

One step.

Two.

With every step he ascended, Vern's chest tightened. He didn't need someone to tell him what these stairs represented. It definitely had something to do with the number of shades in one's perception.

Maybe they weren't perfect quantifications of the shades because that first man had managed to leap higher with some extra effort, but it was clearly a measure of strength.

Three.

Four.

Fuck you. Just stop, man! The more powerful the Hensen, the lower his chances of surviving an assault.

Five.

Vern gritted his teeth, zeroing in on the man's indigo shoes, which didn’t do anything paradoxical after the third step. . . . A lump formed in Vern’s throat when they raised another time, but instead of heading up, they turned, and Hensen ambled inside the semi-circular row of lavish mini-thrones.

Hahhh, Vern finally breathed. He's probably a Fifth Shade Observer.

On one hand, Vern was glad that Hensen wasn't more powerful than Esther's mom, but on the other, it terrified him that he was supposed to survive the pursuit of someone as powerful as her—the Puppeteer of Crimson Court.

Vern's eyes continued to follow Hensen without blinking. The man skipped past the observer already sitting by the aisle before stopping in the middle of the whole row, flopping down without a care in the world.

He even tipped his hat to a couple observers above himself and to Vern's surprise, the seats of said observers rotated on some invisible axis—almost floating to facilitate this otherwise awkward interaction.

Vern suddenly had the urge to check under these chairs that looked like mini thrones and see what kind of machinery hid beneath it all. Hmm, what if it isn't a mechanical art but some weird vision?

Heh. It was an absurd thought to have in this situation, but this distraction went a long way to help him slow down and analyze this properly. It seems like he really doesn't know I'm here.

Which logically made sense, given the man had never even met him—at least not since the time turned back. However, Vern most feared their shared connection with the Third Rune. What if there was some way for rune bearers to sense each other?

He rubbed his chin. Hmm, my rune's supposed to be derivative of his. If I remember correctly, he said he'll sense it whenever I use the rune. He rapped his fingers on the glass in a wave and kept staring at Hensen’s chilling smile for a while.

Soon, he came to a conclusion. As long as I don't activate the rune in Hensen's Vicinity, he shouldn't be able to sense me.

There was obviously no guarantee that this was the case, but the evidence was right in front of him. The man was literally meters away from him but hadn't given Vern a second of his life.

Could the identity interference by this place be messing up with his senses, too?

Hahh… Vern deflated as his heart finally calmed down. These were all half-baked ideas, but it looked like he might be in the clear and survive this unexpected meeting.

"Damn."

This had really given him the shock of his life. Hensen had haunted him like a reaper every time he was forced to rely on the Third rune. Heck, the visions this man had used were still some of the most bizarre Vern had ever experienced. Now that he’d appeared so suddenly, it would instead be abnormal to not be scared.

Vern shook his head.

Hope things stay the same once I get out there.

This reminded him of something odd, and he surveyed the faces of people who had already taken a seat. Very few of them had hidden their identities. Do they not fear for their personal safety? Or maybe they have some kind of backing?

This launched him into a cascade of thoughts. He hadn't noticed it until now, but their reaction to all this was pretty tame. No one had even expressed their curiosity aloud. Unlike him, who was still unsure what the hell was going on, they were patient.

So, they already know what's going to happen? Vern nodded to himself. That made sense. Yes, a few seemed lost while a couple had hidden their faces, but most were clearly prepared for this. This gave him quite a lot of insight into the overall structure of this event.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Surely, these people knew about this confluence beforehand. . . . His mind, now somewhat relaxed, quickly fell into his previous ponderings. One after another, more gates unlocked, and new observers joined the fray while Vern tried to figure out the fundamentals they used.

There was a wide variety, actually. He even doubted that some observers embodied multiple fundamentals, not just one. There was an obvious one where icicles formed in the air behind a lady and then floated still. Vern believed they were some combination of Creation, Transformation, Preservation, or Force.

Icicles could have been formed either by the way of pure creation, or by transforming the moisture in the air into solid icicles. Once they were formed by either of these methods, they could then be suspended in the air by applying an inverse force or preserving the whole space around them.

There was a mix of possibilities, but it was straightforward.

However, Hensen's case, for example, was a troublesome one. His visions weren't directly about heat and cold—which would've put it in the same fundamentals of Creation or Transformation as before.

They were deeper. As per Vern's experience from back in the library, he believed there was a higher concept at play here than simple temperature. Hmm, Contradiction, maybe? Or Paradox? Which brought him back to the same question.

What fundamentals?

Or it might be more nuanced like mine. I use Balance on Structure right now, but there's a possibility I could implement Balance on other fundamentals in the future.

That was to say, each of Hensen's visions encompassed different fundamentals. The heat and ice could be using the ones like the last example, but that paradoxical movement of his body might be related to the fundamental of Cognition—creating the illusion of paradox.

That might be it. Vern nodded to himself. . . . More and more people filled the hall, and Vern's excitement multiplied. Just what the hell is about to happen here? He was beyond stoked to figure out why such an impressive ensemble was gathered.

True to the order the voice had implied—those who came out later sat lower than those who came before. Given Vern had yet to be allowed out, it meant that he would be sitting beneath all these people.

Hahh. I'm probably the weakest here. It sucked, but what could he do?

He impatiently rapped on the glass wall, analyzing the neat little hierarchy that came together out there as more and more observers found their seats.

Surprisingly, there were only two people in the top row—the man who invigorated old blood and another one who had hidden their identity. The row beneath it—seventh, had four observers.

The one underneath it, however, had a significant jump—almost all twenty seats were occupied. The fifth row was about the same—including Hensen.

Yet, after that came another sharp drop in numbers. Fourth row only had seven people, while third had four, and the second only had two observers, with none in the bottom row.

Vern furrowed his brows, staring at this odd arrangement. The pattern didn't make much sense to him. Why would they invite such a weird distribution of observers? What were the criteria? It'd be one thing if they only invited people of higher shades, but that wasn't the case.

Because if they invited all the world's fifth shade observers, why wasn't Esther's mother here?

There is some logic to all of it. I just can’t see it.

On some other day, he wouldn't have tried too hard, but when he’d compiled the keywords of each fundamental a while ago, he hadn't glossed over his own. Structure wasn't just about buildings or physical compositions.

It's about societal structures and hierarchies, too. . . . Snap. The moment he acknowledged that fact, it was as if something clicked in his mind and the fog covering it faded away, and new ideas popped up like candy.

Huh. What? Why? Vern had the mind to write down to analyze this weird phenomenon, but he already had an inkling from his prior analyses. His tenet of Instability before Stability also only helped him deepen the shade on his perception if he intentionally restored the balance.

If he just performed the tenet's actions without conscious effort, their effect would be dampened significantly.

So, in the same vein, now that I acknowledged that this specific pattern of people signifies a structure, I can see it better? Vern nodded. Observation never failed to mesmerize him with its consistent yet obtuse logic.

Ahh, fuck. I did get sidetracked.

He focused back on the hierarchy, and his sharpened insight seemed to form the image of a diamond-shaped structure in his mind. He hadn't bothered trying to observe them using his perception, and it seemed he wouldn't need to. Clearly, the Balance affected more than just his perception, they evolved his very thoughts to an extent.

After a dozen seconds, his best conjecture was that this pattern had something to do with an observational concept he had read up on in Vena's archive last week when he couldn't cram the fighting stances anymore.

Shackles of Subjectivity.

It was somewhat of a loose idea that determined the upper limit of complexity of concepts that one's viewpoint could capture in lower shades. The more shocking and eye-opening one's enlightenment, the more thoroughly the shackles would be broken.

That was to say, if he had a simpler enlightenment, he might have been unable to properly form his viewpoint of Balance because of how high and encompassing of a concept it was. In Hensen's own words, Vern had broken the shackles entirely.

In simpler words, the ruder the awakening, the better.

A part of him even believed that most of the things he could see but others couldn't—like the gash in the sky and runes were also a result of differences in the extent to which one’s shackles were broken.

However, most weren't as fortunate—or unfortunate, depending on how one looked—as him. Everyone only had one real opportunity to shatter the shackles significantly, and that was enlightenment.

However, it wasn’t that straightforward. A higher enlightenment came with its own difficulties.

If one was mentally weak, they would become a raving vegetable long before they could consolidate their viewpoint from too rude of an awakening to the subjective reality.

Another problem was finding sources of a higher enlightenment. Many lineages had their secrets for doing so, and they guarded it as tightly as their observation records. Heck, he'd even found a list of noble houses in Elmhurst where the strength of their enlightenment methods was ranked.

The only way to further loosen one's shackles after initial enlightenment was to experience events shocking enough to rattle one's whole worldview. They were opportunities that could only be grasped with power or luck.

Most people didn't have either.

It might seem odd to try to connect this concept to the sitting arrangement of the observers in the hall outside, but Vern was getting more confident by the second that the criteria had something to do with these shackles.

He believed that 'Visionaries' invited here were just observers who had crossed some threshold on how much they'd broken out of these shackles—and a high one at that. So, it made sense that there were little to no people in the lower seats since they'd have to have survived a brutal enlightenment.

Whereas people with five or six shades in their perception were powerful enough to capture the said opportunities for another awakening.

However, this idea, if considered in isolation, couldn’t explain why there were only five or so observers in the seventh and eighth rows. But that can be explained by something even simpler—the harsh reality of progressing as an observer.

It was clear that ascending to the seventh or eighth shade was a monumentally difficult task. So much so that the whole planet only had two such people.

Vern interrupted himself, Well, maybe more than two, but then their shackles of subjectivity must be tighter than everyone here. Given how intricately linked one's power is to the shackles of subjectivity, there probably still aren't many of that shade.

Which went to show that the path of an observer was a bleak one. Billions of people on the planet, yet only a couple or so managed to reach close to the top.

Vern felt a pressure settle down on his shoulder. Lady Sylphina hadn't explicitly said it, but if he was to shade his perception with all eight of the fundamentals, he would have to beat the same—no, worse odds than the two sitting up there.

If he wanted to rescue Ari from those disgusting leeches, he would have to become stronger than that priest in white in the sixth row.

If he wanted to achieve his ideal of a more balanced world, he would have to rise above billions.

"…"

His chest tightened at the thought. He knew he had many advantages unique to himself, but if only vague powers that didn't directly strengthen him were enough to reach the higher shades, there would have been at least a dozen more observers on that top row.

And this is when the throne above all these rows is empty. Just how strong would one have to be to stand up there? Surely, the pressure alone would be so terrifying it’ll be impossible to mount.

Even though he tried his best to not let the weight of this monumental task crush him, the anxiety still took root in his heart.

That's when the world suddenly turned silent.

Vern looked up and saw that everyone from top to bottom had their chairs turned to face the newcomer on the stairs. After a short second, the hall exploded in murmurs.

Vern's eyes quickly found the target and widened as one of his prior assumptions came crashing down without any regard.

How is this even possible?