Chapter 190 - The Advocates of Axiom

Mr. Axiom stared down everyone in this oppressive silence, his very presence making it hard to breathe.

Fortunately, with a wave of his hand, the pressure that bore down on the entire place disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

With a thump, the man in armor fell to his knees and looked up at the mysterious figure with a terrified expression as his body shuddered non-stop.

Illeana couldn't help but chuckle, Mr. Axiom singlehandedly restrained dozens of high shade observers, including two Eternas, and you think you can play around in his presence?

She shook her head, Such ignorance.

However, she didn't let the schadenfreude consume her presence of mind. While everyone stared in stunned silence, Illeana's mind was exploding in excitement.

She didn't know what she expected coming in here, but this was better than that. Mr. Axiom clearly had a reason for pulling everyone here, and while she had no clue of his grand plans, she knew what she had to do.

She raised her skirt's edge and drew her leg back before curtsying in full regal etiquette as she declared, "Good Evening, Mr. Axiom."

All the eyes instantly turned towards her, but her focus was solely on the being atop the stairs, who returned her a terse nod.

Yes! she cheered in her heart before returning to her reserved pose. Not for long, though…

"Greetings, Lord Axiom. It's…it's a pleasure to be in your presence again," eked out a guy she remembered from the confluence. He wore an oversized hood with pointless cords and rugged aqueous fabric.

Not just that, his voice, while a little different than last time, was easy to pinpoint for her as a Listener. She didn't need to see his face to be clear that he was the same person who supported her against Rupert.

He exposed the crimes the man had committed against the Lorendale clan.

But something is different. She couldn't pinpoint the emotions the man had because they weren't grief or sorrow, but they were different than before.

A part of her wanted to pull out her violin and begin coaxing different tones out of him to better observe exactly what had changed in such a short time. Fortunately, her self-control was better than that.

Can't make a fool of myself in front of Mr. Axiom once again, she resolved. Last time, her emotions were a mess, and she'd left a not-so-great impression. Something she was hoping to fix this time.

I shouldn't pretend to be better than I am.

None of these people could make out her face, and the dress she wore was different from last time, unlike the guy in the hood who made it obvious. As long as she was careful, it shouldn't be hard for her to present herself totally differently.

She didn't think anyone else from Confluence was here, but even if someone was, it shouldn't be too hard to fool them, given the circumstances.

Obviously, except Mr. Axiom. He already knew my real abilities back during the confluence, much less right now.

That was fine.

She had to do her best to decipher Mr. Axiom's intentions and find a snug position in his plans if they didn't run counter to her personal perspective. She'd generally do everything to steer clear of a higher power, but Mr. Axiom was different.

This person—no, being was not the same as everyone else. She'd only gotten a glimpse of his plans and perspective through the few words he'd spoken during the confluence, but he had one of the grandest…if not the greatest ideologies she'd encountered throughout her life.

Even loftier than Father.

And as much as she hated thinking about it, not having any kind of backing was making her path to revenge a miserable one. One, where she had to stay on the run and rely on Father's trinkets to barely survive day after day.

Play it by the ear, she sighed and resolved herself, fully focusing on her surroundings, observing the fellows around her.

"Ax…Axiom? Like the Axioms of observation?" asked a short girl in indigo overalls, her tone clearly confused. Most others matched her puzzled energy, but there was one who suddenly shot straight up.

"Nexus of Elyndor…Axiom…Nexus…this…," he gasped as his eyes turned wide. Resting both hands on his pure white robe, the man instantly knelt down and exclaimed, "GOD! I—I am in the presence of a god!"

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The rest of the observers distanced themselves from him, but their expressions turned a notch solemn.

With a smack, the man slammed his head into the ground and shouted, "A great one! An Elden one! This is my destiny come true. Finally, the purpose of my life has arrived. Oh—"

He continued on in an unclear language, which put everyone, including Illeana, on guard, but when nothing happened after a while, people slowly relaxed once again.

Turning towards her, the burly man asked, "What do you mean when you say Axiom, kind lady?" With every word, he stole glances in the direction of Mr. Axiom.

She didn't mind answering this.

Crossing one hand across to her shoulder, she answered with a hint of respect to her words, "They are the Zeroth Axiom of Observation—Balance."

Everyone turned silent and listened to her as the masked figure watched them all without a hint of emotion. Even the man banging his head on the floor slowed down to listen.

"The being who singlehandedly postponed a calamity that would've ended the world as we know it. The savior who rescued us from a fate of becoming objects of surveillance for petty man-made gods."

"Calamity…?" asked the girl on the far side of the hall, her head full of red hair. "Man-made gods…? You must be exaggerating."

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Vern watched the exchange without any response as those simple words from the pretender lady almost instantly had a bolstering effect on the dying flame of Axiom's singularity inside him.

The small wick that was barely holding on in stormy seas from overuse found a semblance of stability, escaping the fate of being sniffed out.

Vern wanted to sigh in relief and thank the pretender lady for speaking for him. After all, the effect of those words would've been lukewarm if they came from his own mouth in this situation.

So, he maintained his posture, trying hard not to fixate on the spark on the finger of the guy with the terrible fashion sense. He was the third person on the fate list beneath himself. His 'echoes' that he'd found out were quite intriguing.

And some of it started to make sense now.

He still couldn't believe this person was also on the fate list. He remembered the guy from the confluence and how he'd shown a moving film of a massacre that was allegedly committed by Rupert.

Yet, all that was secondary.

What mattered to Vern was the spark.

Not once. Literally, not even once had someone ever managed to wield the lightning. The best they ever achieved was a short-lived spark that died out in a couple of seconds.

It was one of the greatest enigma in the fundamentalist circles. Hundreds of dedicated researchers had spent years, if not decades, on the subject matter with nothing to show for it. All theories suggested it should be possible to store lightning, yet it never worked in practice.

Something was missing. Something no one had ever figured out.

Many fundamentalists had breathed their last in their attempt to harness lightning, yet here was someone who was effortlessly generating a spark from his own fingers and even using it as a source of illumination.

He wielded lightning in his hands like it was nothing. Maybe it's not the same lightning that we studied? Or maybe it was an entirely different concept borne out of this person's viewpoint?

Vern didn't know, and that made him terribly curious. He also remembered how this guy seemed to know things about the Institute and its successors, Lorendales. All the things Vern desperately wanted to learn more about.

I need to keep him around no matter what, Vern resolved, quickly shifting his plans on the fly to accommodate this new variable.

A lot was going through his head, but it still wasn't time for him to speak.

The very person he was focusing on suddenly spoke up, adding to the Pretender lady's words, "Lord Axiom, as their moniker suggests, is an arbiter of Balance. The entity whose goal is to maintain reality's equilibrium."

One after another, he succinctly regaled what happened during the confluence.

Vern watched it with a smile behind the mask. Seems like my efforts during the confluence weren't in vain. Even without his meddling, these two were singing his praises non-stop. Fortunately, he'd begun to mentally separate Axiom and himself, or his embarrassment alone would've given the act away.

It was especially hard to control himself when that one guy was slamming his head into the ground, proclaiming that he'd given him purpose. It also helped that none of what they said was a lie. It was true, just not…accurate.

At that moment, a woman wearing the gear of a melee warrior spoke with an edge to her voice, "And we're supposed to believe all that? When did this happen? Where is the proof? Why should it matter to us? What does this have to do with us being forced in here?"

The lightning guy with poor fashion was rendered speechless, but the pretender lady spoke up without missing a beat, "You get pulled into a meeting place of gods where people of unknown origin are gathered by incomprehensible means, and your first instinct is to doubt the master of the place. A being who can very easily crush you?"

She then shook her head, "I must commend your intelligence and sense of self-preservation."

The original warrior woman's face reddened, and she clenched her fists tight, but words refused to leave her tongue, and she finally looked away, a bit of trepidation leaking in. Vern narrowed his eyes and mentally marked her. She was clearly trouble.

He was ready to counter her in his own majestic manner, but well, this was fine, too. The less he said, the better.

Soon, however, the questions became repetitive, and one of the older-looking gentlemen walked forward from the crowd of ten and bowed deeply before speaking, "It is an honor to be in your presence, oh great one."

He then inhaled sharply and spoke in a terrified tone, "However, I do wonder why we've been brought here. And while I don't distrust the lady's words, my sources had other things to say about the one with the moniker of Axiom."

Other things, huh?

His body shuddered, but he stood taller, a defiant expression on his face. "And while I understand this might be a foolish thing to say in front of you, I have no plans to be manipulated by an evil god. One who wishes to herald a rein of terror in these dark times."

The observers who'd been silent up until now suddenly turned defensive as the tension in the hall rose to another level, the instability of the structure leaning inevitably towards instability.

"Ev—evil?" stammered one of the other women as her posture turned defensive.

Even the pretender lady was clearly puzzled by this turn of events. Clearly, not everyone knew of the false propaganda that was being perpetuated against his name.

Vern wanted to sigh. He'd chosen people so methodically, avoiding the ones that would clearly cause too much trouble, but he hadn't expected one of the ten he'd chosen to know only of the false rumors.

Well, it's time to take matters into my own hands, I guess…