Chapter 140 - Emotional Vault of a Listener

Illeana closed her eyes and unleashed her perception. A noisy vista of tones rang in her ears, and she frowned. They were nowhere near the clarity, expression, and pitch she'd experienced back in free representation.

So, she took a deep breath and focused harder, barely managing to activate the first vision of her shade sequence on top of the second one that was burning through her reserves already.

This one was called Dominant emotion tuning—practical in its naming as well as usage.

While activated, she could, well…sense the dominant emotions of her targets. It didn't sound very awe-inspiring, but there was something special about all the visions of her shade sequence.

They worked on other observers without her needing to contest with their singularity.

At least to a far lesser extent than most other viewpoints. Emotions-related shade sequences weren't notorious for no reason. They worked and built upon cues exhibited by one's physicality and body language that couldn't really be masked well by their singularity.

And that was just their inherent property. Her insights into each emotion or person in question could still boost their potency.

Glad I didn't actually become a Soul-Seer, she mused. Father had great intentions in setting her up with that sequence, and Silence of Soul strings was terrifyingly powerful, but its first three visions were nothing to write home about.

At least not when compared to the Listener sequence—the one she'd ended up going with for her first and second shade. It matched not just her viewpoint but also her construct of isolation—it had a subjective interpretation of emotions isolated by a sound-like construct.

Also, she should still be able to imprint Silence of Soulstrings once she reached the fourth shade.

This synergy of hers, paired with her non-existent shackles to her subjectivity, allowed her to acclimate her viewpoint to the shade sequence as naturally as breathing air. So much so that she felt like she was already halfway through the second shade in a mere few days.

There was just one little problem.

She had no clue how to get her hands on the observation records or resonance catalysts for its higher shades. This was why Father had advised her against following down this path. Even with all his resources, he had only found the record for its first shade.

Luckily, Duskfall had set too much into motion, and sequences that were considered broken were being dug up from myriads of ruins. She'd gotten her hands on its second shade—Empath's catalyst a couple days ago from the black market vendor who owed her his life.

This advancement was the only reason she could sit up here without being caught in her preposterous lies. The lack of pressure from Nexus was entirely unexpected, and as much as she liked to believe she could conduct her emotions perfectly, she knew it was impossible in that situation.

So she had done it. Vaulted her emotions. That was the other vision she'd kept on since the start of this confluence—Emotional Vault. It worked on the insights she had regarding her own emotions and tendencies.

The better she understood herself, the better the vision negated her emotions, pushing them into her psyche's vault. Yet, as the name suggested, these emotions weren't discarded; they were just muted temporarily.

The thought of backlash that awaited her for vaulting such strong emotions for so long was terrifying, but luckily, even her fear found itself stashed away, letting none of these silly notions mess with her judgment.

Her quick actions, Nexus' restrictions, and people's wild imagination had all come together, allowing her to pretend to be an Eterna, close to what her Father used to be.

Someone above all these deranged psychos and narcissists who thought they could treat the world that her Father had sacrificed himself for like their plaything. And she didn't want to waste this.

Except, she was having a hard time now that Rupert had dangled delicious meat in front of these hungry vultures. It sickened her, what they wanted to do. Sadly, even that feeling was elusive as the Emotional Vault stifled their tones.

She was surely raking in too much emotional debt because of how infuriating this Rupert guy was.

The man was essentially a devil in human skin. His plans and methods were far too elaborate. She remembered Father being annoyed by the scheming fundamentalists from the Coven of Truth, and now she understood his pain very well.

With a shake of her head, she focused on the tones around her. The muted, incoherent noise that wasn't very different from the whispers gave way to burning melodies and sharp sagas.

Which would be great, were it not for the dominant emotion they signified—greed. Due to a lack of insights, she could only tune into two emotions as of right now: sorrow and greed. After all, these were the two emotions she had observed the most since duskfall.

These tones flooding her ears were no doubt greed.

This vision would generally make her feel the same emotion that she tuned into, but the vault captured even that, essentially negating the drawbacks of Dominant emotional tuning. At least for now, she sighed. The backlash was going to be ugly.

Careful not to focus on the Eternas in the top row, she wielded her perception like a weapon. She had no wish to antagonize the other Eternas, especially when there was a possibility they would sense her vision.

The Lord of Primordial Blood may not remember it, but he'd fought on the frontlines alongside her father beyond the time. At least from her understanding of the events. Father mentioned he would be up there with him, resisting the descent of the Unseen One.

And as much as she wanted to tune into the dominant emotions of Rupert, she knew that'd be stupid. Nexus's pressure on the eighth row was unable to restrict him completely, and she didn't want to take any chances.

So, she focused on the rows beneath herself. Different pitches and tones of greed arose from the individuals. From the so-called visionaries who were supposed to wield the wisdom of the sun and the strength of the moon.

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She had heard legends of them and even idolized some, but right now, there was little difference between them and some petty, mundane politician. Avarice took hold of their mind. The allure of becoming omniscient gods was evidently too much, even for these otherwise aloof and sophisticated individuals.

Illeana lamented the state of affairs when only King Keras and his wife's tone crooned with sorrow in all thirty or so high-shade observers. The rest of the tones came together in a chorus of insatiable greed, their tones harmonizing in a disgusting crescendo.

Pathetic. She'd hoped to see at least a few in higher rows who would rise against this terrible mandate. Alas, morality wasn't a requirement to become a visionary, and it showed.

This, however, was an unexpected note in her symphony. If even a few were ready to sing tunes of opposition, she would have dogged Rupert's choice and trashed his mandate, but this just felt like a song without a chorus.

Her forcefully pacified mind, devoid of any emotions, churned, hoping to figure out her next course of action. And soon, it arrived at the most logical conclusion.

Give in.

As much as she loathed the idea of working with these conniving bastards to foster what was essentially a hyper-surveilled society that aimed to kill all free thought, her mind told her that was her only choice.

Rupert already held all the chords, and she lacked the means to alter the tune.

There were risks of them finding out about her true strength—a mere second shade observer, but she still had her Father's artifacts with her. They had limited representation to their name, and she couldn't bring herself to use them unless absolutely necessary, but they would be more than enough to scare even Rupert and let her exist among them at her rightful position.

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She feared this exact situation. For she had no other reason to hold her tongue against this sinister mandate which aimed to rear humanity like some sheep in a pen.

After all, a mind watched is a mind caged. It might tide them over this one hump on the road, but down the line, it would stifle innovation and evolution. Surely, all these people knew this in their inner hearts, too. Yet, it seemed their priorities were far too skewed.

Not like she was much different. After all, she couldn't allow them into her thoughts, no matter what. And the only way to guarantee that was to fall in line.

Her usual emotional self would disagree with such a callous decision, but the more she observed everyone's greed and tendencies, the clearer it became that there wasn't anything else she could do.

The other two options of relocating to a smaller dimension and waging an all-out world war against pollution were clearly inferior to this choice for the crowd.

Ahh, she groaned. I shouldn't vault my emotions unless absolutely necessary. She couldn't stop now, for Rupert would surely notice something off, but it was clear that vaulting emotions was a double-edged sword.

It allowed her purely rational thought, but it also made it easy for her to go against her own values. Running counter to one's viewpoint was one quick way to cut their journey as an observer short. And it was worse for her.

Because of how well her shade sequence suited her, she had yet to dissociate her actions as an observer from her actions as Illeana. And Illeana would never choose to trust the world that Father saved with these despicable opportunists.

If she didn't sort out her thoughts soon, she would essentially be inviting the whispers to feast on the contradictions within her viewpoint and rend her from inside-out.

Ughh. She leaned on the back of her chair and tuned back into the emotions of observers. Maybe the lower shade ones were better?

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She lost all hope when she reached the second row from the bottom. The chanting that spoke of greed for power was more intense here than even middle shades.

In between, she couldn't tune into the dominant emotions of some people, but more than two-thirds were definitely full of greed for this opportunity. Alas, the lack of greed in middle shade observers wasn’t of much use given how some of them were already ‘voted out’ to be overseers by others.

A majority, she repeated, trying and failing to get it to sink in.

That's when her perception reached the lowest point of the hall, and a melody unlike any other assaulted her ears.

Huh…? She opened her eyes and turned her head back. Her peripheral vision landed on the lone figure sitting at the bottommost row. He looked just like any other guy who'd hidden his identity.

She absentmindedly twirled a strand of hair about her finger and thought, It's him. She'd entertained the idea that he might be in the same situation as herself—someone unfettered by the pressure of the nexus. However, his actions made her doubt the conjecture.

Yes, he did hesitate quite a bit before settling down there, but many who faced this pressure for the first time were also disoriented just like him.

Soon, however, she lost that train of thought, and confusion overwhelmed her. She focused harder on perceiving his Dominant emotion.

It's definitely greed, but—

Her eyebrows furrowed as she struggled to pinpoint the emotion each of his actions sang of so melodiously. It was no doubt another form of greed, but it was unlike others in the room.

As she tried and failed one time after another to figure out the exact emotion he was emitting, the power-hungry egotists around her used excuse after excuse to justify why this Council of Overseers was in everyone's best interests.

"I can't believe Coven Master is so magnanimous as to share his grand visions with us lowly ones."

"Indeed, the world would be a far better place if all of us would come together and govern all its intricacies."

"It's a sacrifice, but one that must be made for the prosperity of our civilization."

Illeana sneered. Weren’t you vehemently denouncing this same mandate just minutes ago? It was fascinating how their tunes changed the moment their interests were taken care of.

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However, the thought that she'd have to say something along the same lines to show her acceptance of this mandate soured her mood quickly, only for even that to be vaulted away.

It was almost surreal, and annoyingly, her vaulted emotions made it so this insane and terrible chain of events felt utterly mundane. As if putting shackles on all of humanity's thoughts was just another day in life.

Feeling her activation of the Emotional vault faltering, she discontinued this line of thought and returned to impassively scrutinizing the unique emotion of that man in the bottom row.

It is set in stone. She reasoned. There's no stopping this council of Overseers now. I should aim to solidify my position instead.

Slowly, she turned her chair in the direction of that man, not making her actions or gaze too obvious. That's when she noticed something peculiar and her eyes almost widened in reaction.

Wait! Aren't those the glyphs of Elyndor? What is he doing with them? She sat straighter, her eyes glued to the golden sparks that found themselves pulled towards his quill as if it was some vortex.

She'd been able to see these glyphs since her enlightenment. Alas, she didn't have one whit of talent in their comprehension. Not even Father's artifacts helped her in that regard.

Her mind whirled, Is he sending someone a note right now? What would be the point of that? Even if he notified observers outside this meeting of what was about to transpire, it wouldn't change a damned thing.

Nexus was essentially cut off from reality, after all.

However, before she could become too sure of her conjecture, something changed, and a fully solid glyph floated above the man's convergence note.

She tilted her head, wondering, This never happens to me. Nor had she seen it happen when others used their convergence notes.

She was supposed to be impassive, but a hint of excitement somehow flared within her heart as she watched him write one glyph after another.

The crowd took this time to work themselves towards a faux consensus of words—as if their minds weren't already one.

Two, Three, Four, she counted as the number of glyphs surrounding the guy increased, new ones emerging and floating around him faster than the prior.

What is he doing? she questioned, only to be amazed by her own curiosity.

It looks like the vault can't contain all my emotions properly. Hmm, or maybe it's because I have never really analyzed my own curiosity deeply.

However, that's when someone in the fourth row smacked their chair with a loud Thump followed by a shout. "Hah. Fuck this. I don't care anymore. Fuck you, Rupert!"