Chapter 136 - Rebirth

The third Eterna, whose face was hidden behind the veil, walked towards the center of the highest row, his cane tapping on the ground rhythmically.

Haze shifted, and out came an unnaturally deep voice, "I see that Estefans don't plan on giving everyone the time to chew on this information and make their own decisions." He shook his head and added with a tone that slowly became more natural, "An unsightly state of affairs, really."

Tap Tap

Horace stopped in his tracks, and the parchment that was almost in Vern's grasp remained out of reach. Everyone turned towards the voice, intrigued. However, Vern's sense for the structure of this hierarchy allowed him to notice more.

Some were surprised by this chain of events, but many clearly expected it. He couldn't pinpoint why because it was a more intuitive understanding of this whole structure than concrete ideas, so he put his eyes to work where he sensed anomalies and instantly found evidence for his suspicions.

That priest from Asea's church is clearly smiling, and so is that teenager in fourth row. Vern quickly found many more with similar expressions. What is going on here?

In but a few seconds, the haze receded, and the man stood at the top, an anomaly in human guise, commanding an inexplicable reverence without a crown to his name. Clad in the finest of black clothing in existence with layer after layer of fashionable elements, each embroidered with golden patterns, he stopped everyone in their tracks. Draped over this masterful fashion was a black cloak, its gold-etched tall collar framing that hazy face.

Haze that receded by the second. Even Vern held his breath as the fog slowly lifted and the man's face appeared… . . . The crowd lulled for a second before it erupted.

"It's the omniscient one!" shouted the guy sitting ahead of Vern.

Many stood up from their seats and bowed in elaborate gestures.

"Greetings, Omniscient one!"

"Junior pays his respects to the coven master," yelled a man in the fourth row whose whole body was fitted with hundreds of contraptions, each serving a function Vern couldn't even begin to fathom.

To Vern's surprise, Hensen was glaring at the man. However, that expression was gone as quickly as it came.

"An Eterna of Gazebinder sequence here? We're fucked!" rasped a man who'd hidden his identity as he quickly hid his face under a scarf.

"He knows who we are, doesn't he?" chimed in another one of the kind, his unnatural deep voice trembling.

That’s when an ancient-looking man who was clearly from the eastern continents commented, "Hah, don't worry, children, I am pretty sure even Eternas can't overrule the nexus' veil."

The scrawny man sitting next to him snapped his neck towards the old one, his face a mask of terror, "What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you trying to provoke a literal god?"

The ancient one just laughed it off, "Haha, don't worry, son. It's not like the omniscient one can descend the stairs until we in the lower rows exit the nexus."

However, their discourse quickly got suppressed as more voices joined in. "We thought the omniscient one won't have time for meetings like these…"

"Please help the city of Kerinza, lord omniscient one. We're stuck…"

"What is the coven working on next? Can we…"

Similar exclamations rose from all over, but Vern didn't have the mind to focus on them any longer. A terrible sense of unease arose within him as he took in the sight of the 'omniscient one.'

Thin, angular features on pale skin with a sharp nose and sleek brows. Green bulbous earrings and backcombed wavy dark hair. However, they were all but backdrops.

His most striking features were those eyes.

Black threads sutured his eyelids to the skin underneath, crisscrossing in a macabre fashion that contrasted with the pure white light spilling out from the gaps around the lids. The threads looked strained beyond measure, almost as if they couldn't rein in the immeasurable power oozing from the eyes sealed behind them.

A shudder went down Vern's spine. Yet, there was more.

A third eye.

A tattoo of a cross with four points on its end graced the center of his forehead, framing the pearl-shaped crease that sat in the middle of it all. It wasn't apparent, but Vern was more than sure that another pupil, one more terrifying than his normal ones, was hidden underneath.

Vern's pulse raced the longer he looked at it.

However, the omniscient one in question raised his hand and the chatter died down, but before he could say anything, the Estefan ruler from the seventh row interrupted with a frown, "What are you doing here, coven master? We came to an agreement that Master Seras will be attending the confluence, not you."

The Coven master held the staff with both his hands and leaned on it before his lips parted, "Plans change, Your Majesty Keras, the one who stole fate, and I'm glad they did. Seems like you were planning on foul play. Not explaining the full range of options available to us—possibly even stripping us of our only chance at a comeback as a species? That’s low, even for you."

Hohh? Vern set aside the agitation borne from the man's appearance and focused. It seemed like there was more to this than met the eye.

"Hah," King Keras scoffed, "That's defamation, and you know it. Horace was going to get to that in a bit."

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Coven Master smiled, and his sutured eyes curved without any problem to match the expression, "Yes, but you see, that'd be too late."

Then, he shifted his torso and addressed the whole crowd with a broad gesture, "You see, my fellow Visionaries, observing that parchment they're handing out would have permanently tainted your opinions, incepting a bias on how the artifact should behave, preemptively rendering the other option a worse choice."

Ahh. That's a thing? Vern retracted his outstretched arm and frowned. Seems like the lack of prior knowledge is also crucial for pulling off a proper 'consensus.'

"Haha," he laughed lightly and shook his head, "Do any of you really believe that a dozen stupid observers can figure out the inner workings of what is literally a piece of god in a mere ten days?"

"Don't do this, coven master. Please!" Shouted Horace from behind Vern, a pleading tone marking his words. "We picked this method of delivery after intense deliberation and debate with our seers and your fundamentalists. This is the only surefire way to assure the continued existence of our realm. We cannot leave it up to your whims. What you propose will result in nothing but chaos and doom. It is—"

"Shut up." interjected the man at the top sharply, his eyebrows growing fierce.

Thump

The parchments in his hand scattered on the ground as the burly man fell on his knees, a trickle of blood leaking out of his eyes.

King Keras suddenly shot up and barked, "Rupert! What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

Vern's mind reeled when he heard that name, but Rupert pointed his cane at King, "You shut up, too."

"Rupert!" yelled back the King, "End this charade right now! What you're trying to do will do nothing but dampen the effect of the eventual consensus using the insights we gathered."

Rupert dropped his smile and leaned forward, enunciating each word with a dangerous tone, "I…"

An invisible barrier tried stopping his descent to the seventh row, but that third eye on his forehead flashed red, "Said…"

Rupert's face crossed the threshold for the briefest of the instants, and he demanded, "SHUT UP!" . . . Keras's expression grew horrified, but it was too late."Aghhh!!!" he shrieked, followed by his body turning limp. The woman sitting next to Keras, who supported him in time, was the only reason he didn't hit his head on the floor.

Rupert smirked, the small gap of that vertical eye closing like it had never been disturbed, "You're lucky I'm under the nexus' restrictions, or..."

The dead silence that followed that threat was more than enough to prove its effect.

He pulled his face back and dug the heel further, "Mere seventh-shade regressed rabble thinks they can stop me from telling everyone the truth? Deprive our species the greatest and possibly the only opportunity to make a comeback from this utter disaster? You aren't an Eterna anymore, Keras, and it'll be in your best interest to act like it."

After a while, he scoffed, "What a joke!"

The whole hall remained silent, and even that ancient man from before was trembling in his seat. Clearly, he realized that the restrictions of nexus only went so far, and if this half-god wanted him dead, it wasn't out of the question.

Vern, however, flipped through his notes like some demon had possessed him.

No…no…no. Fuck!

It's him. It's him!

Multiple pages worth of notes detailed all his conjectures and the little information he had managed to dig up from Vigil's library on that name.

Sterling Rupert.

The mastermind behind the targeted mass murder of Fundamentalists during the Duskfall.

Public information regarding this man was close to none.

Before he created the spheres that revolutionized the interior lighting industry, he was said to hail from the Artez continent. Vern had no means to look further into his origins because Artez was literally on the other side of the planet compared to Quartzford.

Besides that, the man had neither prior publications nor any famous lectures. Which wasn't too out of the norm for fundamentalists, given their reclusive and research-focused tendencies.

However, there was one problem, even with this limited information. Those purple lighting spheres—his first publication were featured on the front page of the coven's journal for this year, eclipsing even the inventions with far more significant impact on society innovated during the same period.

Yes, his spheres had major practical applications. Still, they weren't nearly important enough to overshadow the breakthrough in steam velocity engines that halved the cost of passenger airships for intra-continental trips.

Vern remembered there was some drama regarding this unfairness in a couple newspapers and gossip journals, but the coven never issued an official statement or explanation regarding their choices. Soon, it all blew over, and no one remembered it.

Now, however, it all made sense. Until today, Vern didn't know that 'coven master' was a thing. But if such a master existed and they wanted to push something on the front page for themselves or under an alias, it'd be a child's play.

Given the context, motives, and power of this man, it all just made sense.

Vern closed his notepad and stared at him with cold eyes, a seething rage bubbling within him. He's the one who orchestrated the deaths of all fundamentalists.

There were some assumptions and leaps of logic here, but Vern was pretty sure that even if this man hadn't been the mastermind, he'd undoubtedly played a part. It'd make no sense for an 'omniscient gazebinder' to not know about such a massive conspiracy in his own coven.

Ironic that the leader of a fundamentalist coven would be the one who sentenced those very people to damnation.

This quickly changed Vern's views on the current situation. Just a second ago, he was inclined to agree that it was insidious of Estefans to partially reveal the matter as per their narrative.

Now? He felt King Keras and Horace might have had good reasons to do so. At least better than Rupert's.

He rubbed his forehead. What the hell is he up to now?

This whole thing reminded him of Captain Akira. Heck, both of them even kept their eyes hidden by one means or the other. And that man genuinely scared Vern to a degree.

Tap.

Suddenly, Rupert shattered the silence with his cane and spoke, "Now that we've dealt with the obstructions, let me present you the real choices."

He extended his arm beyond himself in a vague artistic expression and eloquently relayed, "What Estefans propose is rejuvenation. A continuation of the misery that each and every one of our cities, countries, and continents are facing this very instant. A clear path to doom, destruction, and eventual madness."

No one spoke, but their demeanors had clearly become a notch more solemn, and Vern was no exception. He was taking each of Rupert's words with a mountain of salt, but it would be foolish to pre-emptively disregard it without hearing his side of the coin.

"It is a proposal that will further prolong our suffering but would do nothing to ward off the cosmic menace that looms over our realm. I dare not speak their names, but the influence of Elden Ones among the mortals and observers alike is multiplying, and it won't be long before outsiders will be sitting up here in our places."

Passion filled each of his words, and he gesticulated to supplement his thoughts, but it had the opposite effect on Vern with those mutilated eyes and the trembling King Keras. "Now, given the opportunity to rewrite the very laws of reality itself, if all we do is mindlessly parrot and reinforce the ancient ones, how would things ever turn for the better?"

“If our species is so cowardly, we might as well just give in to whispers and stop resisting. Why bother fighting against these horrors? Why risk our lives daily, if we're just going to pass up the opportunity to turn the tide on a global scale?"

Tap!

"All for…what?"

He scanned the crowd and snickered, "Safety?"

"Assurance?"

“Hope?”

"Hahahaha." he laughed, "Let me tell you. Nothing they've got on that parchment is guaranteeing success. There's no assurance that affirming what it says will actually give us a new lease on life. It's nothing less than a gamble."

“A big fucking one at that.”

He raised his cane high and slammed it back down with a loud tap.

"So, for those who still don't understand what I'm getting at, let me make it simple for you."

"Instead of Rejuvenation, I propose…" he paused, and his smile widened.

.

.

.

"Rebirth."