Chapter 75 - In Search of a Balance
'I am sorry'
And all he managed to glimpse was the tear that rolled off her cheek before the brightness overwhelmed him, and the black spark exploded.
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BOOM
The ground peeled and curled in on itself, disintegrating in mere moments as the tidal wave of pure destruction headed toward them at a disturbing pace.
He felt the shockwave before he heard it, a deep rumble that tore through the air. Dust and debris shot up, blinding him momentarily. His ears rang, the noise echoing in his skull like a siren.
But the end was nigh,
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"AGHHHHHHH!!!!!!" roared Ari with a gut-wrenching scream, but the wave of death approached relentlessly.
He couldn't take this anymore. Only if she knew when to let it go. But she wouldn't. And as much as he loathed this situation, he still felt a little proud of his baby sister.
With every fiber of her being, she screamed, "I WILL NOT BE YOUR PAWN!" Her voice, fuelled by pain and steely determination, pierced the chaos around her. In response to her resolute defiance, the ruinous tempest didn't just slow—it ceased entirely, its searing white heat emitting a smoldering smoke that scorched the air itself!
Lines of brilliant white ran along Ari's arms as this pure light of devastation found purchase within her body. Two whirling tempests formed around her hands, sucking the destructive aura within them, singeing her skin to unrecognition.
"AGHHHH!!" with a fierce cry, she persisted, her voice unwavering even as blood trickled from her mouth. Despite faltering mid-air, her determination remained unbroken, and she continued to hold back the tempest.
He gritted his teeth so hard that another hot surge of pain washed over him. Apparently, his scope of movements was expanding. But what did it matter if he could gnash his teeth or flail around? It was too little, too late.
She shouldn't have to tolerate this agony.
Not for him.
But there was also the fact that she was a better human being than himself. She wouldn't harm a fly if she had a choice, much less six people alongside an unknown number by association. She was probably trying just as hard to spare the others around him.
If he could, he would've advised her to run away from all this and find some way to dump the goddess out of her head while staying safe. Not that she ever listened to him on such matters.
Bit after bit, chunk after chunk, that light of obliteration found itself absorbed into her arms, and the sight horrified him. One part of him badly wanted to close his eyes and just escape to his thoughts. He couldn't bear to see it.
But that realization of what could go wrong if he stopped using his brain was still fresh in his mind. One fumble in a couple minutes was more than enough. So he watched.
And etched it into his memory.
If he survived this, he would have to get someone to account for all the hell that she was going through right now.
EACH AND EVERY IOTA OF IT!
Didn't matter if her body had undergone a change or if she could regenerate herself using that liquid. Someone would have to answer.
Tears streaked down his baby sister's face, and her body trembled as those white lines shone under her charred skin and kept creeping higher.
Yet, despite all that, her lips slowly curled upwards, and she looked him in the eyes, speaking one word after another through all that misery.
"Where…"
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"were…"
Vern knew what she was going to say. She was asking where he had been all this time. So he pushed harder against the bindings of his surroundings, hoping to at least say something in return.
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"y—," but her words were ruthlessly cut short as a golden aura flared behind her, and that fucker lashed, "Traitor to the kin! YOU SHALL BE PUNISHED!" He held her shoulders and injected a pulsing energy into her body. And as if on cue, Ari's hands went limp, and her eyes closed as she started plummeting to the ground.
No. No no no no no no.
How did that weak bastard manage to render her unconscious? Wasn't he worse than even Esther's mother?
Was it the Vision? It had to be. She just used such a potent attack and then tried to retract it. How could there be no cost to such a thing?
"May Mother's light judge your sins. The vessel will be ours, one way or the other," chuckled that piece of garbage, schadenfreude clear in his tone.
However, both of them were soon covered by the wave of deadly light as it surged with a terrifying aura again, its unwieldy momentum and devastating potency eroding whatever it touched to oblivion.
Yet, this was when Vern felt a surge of fresh breath enter his body—even if it was hotter than steam itself. It was back. He was back in control. The state of preservation forced upon everyone was dispelled alongside Ari's fall. That motherfucker dared hit Ari. He would bury that cunt so deep underground—
CRRRRRANKK
A rapid noise resounded from Vern's side and out came the rose-haired puppeteer and Esther, a sharp look in the former's eyes. In a tone that brook no discussion, she declared, "Use everything you have! We can defend against this! This isn't the full might of the Eternal Annihilation. Don't let that girl's efforts go to waste!"
"Fen, make the first layer of defense. Esa and I will power you. Swordsman, you take the second and don't hold back. You two, do whatever you can. Also, keep that girl behind you alive."
Flashes of blue, red, and gray erupted around Vern, but he stood there, unmoving. Yet, before anyone had to remind him of the gravity of the situation, he bit his tongue even harder and moved.
He wasn't about to throw all of Ari's efforts into the garbage by blindly rushing into that wall of radiating light. A balanced and well-thought-out reaction was the right way to go about it. Balance demanded that of him.
The fucking Balance demanded that he be rational!
The device called Fen assumed the shape of a dome while the swordsman knelt in its center, his sword stabbed into the ground. Ambrose launched into a whirlwind of dance steps, tapping his cane in a specific rhythm.
Esther held her mother's hands, puppet strings steaming out of the gauntlets worn on them, spreading through the dome like a network of veins. No one talked as they finished the preparation in mere moments.
Vern rushed back into the dome, carrying Cera in his arms, and it closed shut the moment he entered. Now, the insides were lit only by the fires that burnt in the eyes of everyone.
Laying Cera on the ground in a hurry, he sat beside the swordsman himself and shouted, "Please don't resist my Vision. I can reinforce the dome."
There was no time for niceties.
Esther's mother gave him a suspicious look, but the winged angel tugged at the puppeteer's arm and nodded gently.
Sensing the dome appearing in his perception, he focused on the world of grays. In the darkness cut only by blue, red, and gray cinders, a pair of pure white ones joined the fray as he muttered,
Stability Inducement
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ZHISHHH
The scorching wave of radiance came like a tide of pure energy, bombarding the dome with its boundless heat and potency that would melt away even a block of Cranksteel.
He felt each and every inch of this disastrous annihilation in his perception as it uniformly decayed, withered, and dissolved whatever it touched. He would enforce the dome to be a bright white in his perception, only for it to be eroded back to pure black almost instantly.
But like a thin rope along the edge of a cliff, it held on. This was surely the doing of the mother-daughter pair. They were somehow supplying energy to this device. He didn't understand it, and for once, he didn't feel like bothering.
It took all his mental faculties to not scream and destroy everything here out of the pure rage that bubbled within him. But these few seconds of forced calm gave him reason to not do just that.
No one had realized he and Ari were siblings because of the specific circumstances of the situation, and Vern hoped to keep it that way. Because if he didn't, his existence would boil down to being a tool used by those fanatics to blackmail Ari.
As unreal as it sounded, that's what would happen if he dared to mess with the Eternal Directorate in his current state—a low-shade Observer who would die from a single flick of their leaders. Who knew what she would agree to for them just to keep him alive?
Yeah, he would rather kill himself than let things come to that. He wasn't about to make Ari's life harder than it needed to be.
So he kept it down nice and quiet while the apocalypse outside continued to take its toll on their sole bastion. Cracks appeared in abundance, but just as many sword arcs erupted from the kneeling swordsman, creating another invisible dome around them. It blocked whatever managed to pass through the primary one.
Stability Inducement
Stability Inducement
Stability Inducement
Stability Inducement
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One after another, and another, and another, he executed the Vision he had forged, becoming familiar with it to a new degree. After the first couple of times, it became a mindless task, giving him a chance to collect his thoughts and sort out his emotions.
This world was a little too fucked for him to not have a goal. To not yearn for and seize every ounce of power that was available around him. He was by no means slacking around, but he had certainly lacked the ambition other than wanting to know the secrets of the world.
Now, however, he had one.
He realized it wasn't just about maintaining or finding a balance, for things weren't that simple. How could he strike a balance if the scale didn't even have a counterbalance? How was he to define an equilibrium if the spectrum only had one end?
Events and phenomena, when broken down into their fundamental components, revealed multiple balances—Control versus Freedom, Logic against Emotion, Knowledge opposing Ignorance, Selfishness contrasted with Altruism, Tradition against Innovation, Experience versus Intuition, Ethics versus Expediency, Chaos versus Order, and many, many more. A truly balanced world would minimize situations that force one to the extremes of these spectrums.
In such a world, Ari wouldn't have been forced to murder her own brother without having any say in the matter. A bookworm like himself wouldn't be thinking so hard about life and death. Cera, that timid girl, wouldn't have to thrust herself into danger just to eke out a meaningful life. Children wouldn't have to sleep on the graves of their parents.
Billions wouldn't have to die simply because of the whim of some outsider.
He understood that such an uncaring world was the reality—has almost always been, but he didn't like it, and never did. Even before Duskfall, one was forced to make extreme decisions out of necessity almost every day.
So he would have to create it. Create it with his own two eyes. A system that would achieve a world that's far more balanced than whatever it is right now. At least around himself. If his conjectures about Observation in the long term were right, this wasn't just some delusional fantasy but an achievable goal.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
He wasn't some knight of Justice, nor did he plan on becoming one. He wasn't talking about forcing his idea of Balance on the rest of humanity, but around them. He firmly believed that a Balanced world would allow sentient beings to have the highest freedom of expression without being inherently ruinous to those around them.
Like how Black and White were only two colors, but there were infinite shades in between. Why stick to the extremes? The smaller the number of people that chose extremes, the better the world became for others.
Actions would have more consistent repercussions, be they good or bad. In one sense, it was like the idea of Karma but far more comprehensive and not something regulated by supernatural forces. Instead, things would fall into place as a result of a culmination of hundreds of other minor systems being Balanced properly.
It would be an inherent property of reality. And for that, he would have to work towards a level of power that would allow him to Observe a wider world and more nuanced balances.
But that's when his deep introspection came to an abrupt end, "That girl was extraordinary," started the puppeteer with a low whisper, the tempest of eradication outside already at its tail end. "Livia couldn't do it and lost herself to the power, " she added, a clear hint of melancholy coloring her tone.
It was that name again. Livia.
Brushing her daughter's cheeks with a light touch, she continued, "I am glad you're safe, Esa. If something happened to you as well…"
"I…"
Esther looked away from all of them, replying with a shaky voice, "Mom, don't call me by that name in front of everyone."
But then Ambrose chimed in, "Anyone that rebels against the religion already has my respect. But she went ahead and fought the very goddess herself. I would propose to her if I could."
Vern, who had been smiling at their words, suddenly found himself coughing. Ari and Ambrose…? That was never going to happen. She would sooner die than let a nobleman court her.
Though he wondered how her current state would change her and how bad her situation could become. So Vern asked away from those who had second-hand experience, "What exactly is the status-quo of Elden Descent? Does the host slowly lose themselves over time to the Elden will?"
The rose-haired woman turned to him and looked at him intently for a couple seconds before responding, "Not exactly. There's a reason the higher beings chose to descend into an Observer and not just create a body out of thin air." Brushing Esther's hair gently, she continued, "They wish to make use of the specific Viewpoint of their vessels. As the scholars of the Institute stated in the First Axiom of Observation—Viewpoints are unique and cannot be replicated."
That was…relieving to hear. And from her words, it seemed that this Institute had multiple axioms. He would look into that at some point in time. Inferring from his previous knowledge, he guessed, "Is that to say the host doesn't lose their personality even after cohabiting with those beings?"
"In theory, yes. It's in the parasite's best interest to ensure the host doesn't deviate too far from their initial perspective. However, most lose themselves in a couple years."
Embracing Esther into her bosom, she combed her hair and added, "No one knows what the Elden ones are, but we do know that a human's mind is too fragile to accommodate their very notion."
She didn't say a word beyond that, and Vern didn't ask either, for silent sobs filled the room. The puppeteer simply held the distressed angel, stroking her hair with utmost care.
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The Swordsman, or actually Captain Shinsei as reminded by the man himself, fell to one side, heaving roughly as blood ran down his eyes. The man had overused his eyes. Three Observers held the physical dome together while he alone had taken care of every gap.
And it was finally over. Now, it took over a minute before the stability of the dome turned dark enough to warrant his attention. According to Mrs. Lightvein, the puppeteer, this place was polluted, and it would be a long while before it would be safe for regular humans.
Observers polluted reality by simply existing, it seemed.
Others, Vern included, weren't faring much better either. It had been a battle of attrition, but they had won. Everyone was exhausted—physically and mentally. That bombardment of disrupting light had gone on for almost half an hour.
Esther sulked in the corner, still mad at everyone for watching her become the crybaby as a grown woman, her eyes swollen beyond measure. On the other hand, Mrs. Lightvein was fiddling around with her gauntlets while Vern looked on with annoyance and jealousy.
She told him it was a masterpiece created by the fusion of mechanical arts of Fundamentalism and Perceptual artifact forgery of Observers. And that it was off limits for him to look at its interiors even after the sacrifices he had made to save her Esa.
Ambrose was standing there, looking suave, leaning on his cane, proclaiming he was hearing the rhythm better than ever and that no one should disturb him.
"My friend Vern, care to answer a query of mine?"
Not minding the interruption of his aimless thoughts, Vern turned towards the captain and gave him a tired nod.
"Where did you disappear to during the fight? It was like you were completely gone. I couldn't feel your otherwise wild aura at all, " the Swordsman asked with a nonchalant bearing.
But Vern's mind jolted awake at the seemingly harmless inquiry. This was a loaded question that could very well spell his doom if handled without care. He wasn't going to share details about Third Rune unless forced. It was too much of an unknown quantity and a risk.
Nodding, he made the show of settling into a better position while his mind whirled to come up with excuses. He hadn't had a chance to conjure something solid, so he would have to make do with half-baked ideas. He had no clue how well they would fare under close scrutiny.
"Right, so it was this—"
"Ahh, lemme explain that to you!" Interrupted Esther with too much vigor. Vern didn't know what she had in mind. Hopefully, she wasn't rude enough to divulge his secret. Using this time to solidify his own idea, he listened in on what she had to say.
"I entrusted him my cracked ring of evanescence. It can hide one's perception in the Everflux for a while."
Vern had no clue what she was talking about. Mrs. Lightvein looked back with a dubious look while Shinsei appeared awed, and she only seemed proud to have got all of them thinking like that.
But it seemed Captain was a curious one, for he asked a follow-up, "Why not use it on yourself?"
She shook her head, seeming disappointed by the captain's question, "I am not shortsighted like that. Sure, I could have used it myself, but for how long? Ten seconds? Twenty? It barely managed to keep Vern, a 'newbie,' hidden for ten minutes. There's no way it could've proved useful to me at all. My perception would be too heavy for it to hide," she sighed a little melodramatically, "Well, someone has to think long-term, right?"
Wow, that was…well thought out. He didn't expect that. Did she make up these excuses pre-emptively to ensure his secret didn't get out? How did that align with her interests?
Wiping away the blood from his eyes, the captain continued, "You're indeed correct, my friend. But I wonder if giving him a trip to who knows where for a few minutes was worth wasting such a precious artifact."
"Nah, nah nah, that's where you're wrong, sword-master. This man right here was already on the verge of shading his perception, and those ten minutes of peace and quiet were all he needed to become a real Observer. And you know how that went. We managed to contact Mom because of that—"
"Esa. That reminds me," Mrs. Lightvein interrupted her daughter. Reaching into the sack on her belt, she pulled out a decrepit-looking notebook. Lightly smacking Esther on the head with it, she said with a smile, "For you."
Esther's eyes brightened when she looked at the item, and she grabbed it with great zeal, "It's the real thing!? Just for me?"
Mrs. Lightvein nodded, "Just for you."
Vern didn't understand what all the fuss was about. He also had a notepad. Pulling his treasured record out, he parsed through it out of usual habit. It obviously didn't have his records from Land of Dark Sun, so he would have to make sure he didn't forget any important details.
Yet, when he passed through his recollection of events at the library that he had written down like a report of some Mundane experiment, his eyes fell on a word, and his pupils dilated.
'Mistress Livia'
It was dated for the night of Duskfall itself, and it all came back to him. Every time that name was mentioned, it sounded so familiar, and now he understood why. This was the mistress that Hensen Vehen was rambling about!
She was connected to Hensen! And Lightveins! Mrs. Lightvein's other daughter, who had an Elden one descend into her, was called Livia, too.
Could it be a coincidence? Only the first names match. I don't even know the last names.
Still, this was big.
He might finally have a lead linking back to Hensen. If he could gather intel on the man, he might be able to prepare for his threat beforehand. This was great!
He could—
"…give Vern." The mention of his name interrupted his Eureka moment, and he strained to patch together what was being talked about.
"But Esa, I acquired it for you, and I don't know how long it'll be before I can get my hands on another one! I can't have you getting stranded like this again. Ever. This decision is not up for debate," declared Mrs. Lightvein with a menacing look.
"Mum, I am not saying I don't want it. Heck, I want to talk to my academy friends every day, too, but he deserves it more. We owe him this much, Mom. He's done far too much for me and received nothing but suffering in return. If we go back without a way to contact him, how will he tell us what he wants?”
A conflicted look appeared on Mrs. Lightvein's mature face as she looked back and forth between Vern and Esther.
Maybe to push Mrs. Lightvein a little further, she added, “Also, I want to stay in touch with him," a red blush creeping up on her cheeks.
Vern stared at her, a little dumbfounded by that sweet smile and pure look. Yet, his paranoid mind found a plausible excuse, Is she doing this so she can talk to me regarding Third Rune later? He couldn't tell. She was too good at acting.
Finally, after staring daggers at him for a while, Mrs. Lightvein sighed, "Okay, but you must always carry the Family's Convergence Note on your person. Also, you will devote three hours every day in the accounting hall to facilitate the messages that still need to be sent."
"Mommmm! Three hours is tooo longgg."
"Four until I find another one."
"Uh, no, three. I will take three."
Still unsure what was going on, Vern stared at both of them in puzzlement. Esther made her way towards him and presented him with that decrepit-looking notebook, complimenting it with that sweet smile, "A gift. You can now say thank you."
"…"
Not sure what to make of this, he accepted the notebook and replied hesitatingly, "Thank…you? Can you tell me exactly what this is?"
With a smug grin, she began, "This right here is a Convergence Note. Had I had one before all this started, things would have never come to this. It allows one to write to anyone as long as they also have a Convergence note of their own."
He was starting to get an idea of what she meant, but he had to be sure, so he asked, "From anywhere?"
She nodded, her bangs waving energetically.
"To anyone?"
She shook her head, her locks falling to and fro around her shoulders.
Vern tilted his head in confusion, and she smirked, "Really a newbie with no common sense." Opening the notebook to some pages filled to the brim with weird symbols and glyphs, she continued, "Just think about the person you want to send a message to, the uniqueness of their viewpoint, and start writing."
Interesting.
That made sense. Especially considering he had just learned that Viewpoints were unique. Even if someone followed the same Observation Record, a mental image of the exact recipient and viewpoint should be enough to identify anyone on the planet.
But was she teasing him? "What do you mean blank page?" he asked.
She looked at him like he was some stupid simpleton. She gripped his shoulder, almost as if encouraging a child, "It will be alright, Vern. Someone can tell you what blank pages are if you go back to preparatory school. Let me know if you can't get in and need a recommendation, okay?"
Her sweet smile became a grin by the end as she continued, "There's hundred something empty pages. If you use it judicially, it should last you a couple years."
Vern questioned his sanity as he held the book by the edge and leafed through the whole thing, glancing at all the pages briefly. Not one page was empty. Not a single one.
This was either a joke. Or…
Or he was seeing things that others couldn't, like that gash in the sky.
Myriads of glyphs presented themselves, and Vern's mind began to churn as he tried to figure out what this could mean.
"Are you…not happy?" asked Esther, her voice starting to sound a little disappointed.
"Hey, no. Thank you very much. I just don't know what to feel about this. I clearly don’t understand the value of this gift, but I am sure I’ll come to appreciate it in time. Thank you, Esther. Thank you, Mrs. Lightvein."
However, before Esther could reply,
KNOCK KNOCK
Someone knocked on the shell of the dome, and in came the voice, "Master Shinsei, Master Akira has asked me to tell you to stop being a turtle."
Ambrose, who had been acting like he was having some out-of-world experience, suddenly jerked and shouted, "Butler De Flanc! Does Captain have some order for me?"
"Yes, young master. He asked me to relay these words, 'Don’t follow women into dark alleys next time.'"
Ambrose halted in his tracks, dumbfounded, when Shinsei got up and said, "Please come, my friends. My colleagues can set you both ladies up with a Traveler that can send you back to Senn Empire."
The dome soon retracted itself, growing smaller and smaller, as the mass just disappeared into thin air, and the starry night revealed itself, hiding horrors unknown.
Vern looked all around him, trying to catch a glimpse of Ari. And obviously, she wasn't here. That bastard had run away and taken her along with him. He was sure that the disgusting filth probably waited to see if they would fail in their defense so he could scoop Esther away.
But the end result was still the same. Ari was gone. Again.
SIGH
After taking a deep breath in the clear sky, Mrs. Lightvein held her daughter's hand and addressed everyone. Then, in a wide gesture that combined their beauty with their exotic charm, they curtsied, "Thank you very much, gentlemen."
Just as thankful, if not more, Vern bowed back, and so did everyone else in one manner or other, and she continued, "You men have done Lightveins a favor of life, and we owe you a debt of gratitude. I hope the choices I made during our time of distress didn't offend anyone. I would like to compensate you all for your efforts, so please don't hesitate to ask whatever comes to your mind. Lightveins will do their best to fulfill any sensible requests you might have."
Captain pondered his response as everyone began to move out. Ambrose leaned in and whispered in Vern's ears, "Heh, you thought you were the only one that got to shill these rich women? Captain knew what their family's reputation was like and hence waited for them to offer it themselves."
Vern didn't reply and simply shook his head.
Fen carried Cera as they walked down the not-so-gentle slope of the ruin. A vast donut-shaped crater had carved itself around them, going down almost halfway down this hill. It was a sickening aftermath. Not just the station but most of the hillside neighborhood was evaporated into nothingness.
Everyone looked around with a poignant look in their eyes, but no one spoke on the matter. So Vern also let it be and marched on.
"Glad to hear that, my friends. Vigil will really suffer a loss since we've made enemies with a prominent religion in the city, so your help would be very welcome. Anyway, I am not the one to talk business on behalf of the Vigil. A colleague of mine will do that if that's okay with you?"
"Sure."
Ambrose whispered again, "Hahhah, they're gone, newbie, they're gone. He just offloaded negotiations to Captain Akira. And when that man is called, it's never pretty for the other side."
This Akira person really seemed like someone important from all the tidbits he'd heard. Hopefully, he will get a chance to meet him sometime soon.
On that note…
"Captain Shinsei."
"Yes, my friend?"
It was time to seize all the power and knowledge he could get his hands on and search for the balance. A better Balance.
"Is the offer to join the Vigil of Duskfall still available?"