LEVEL 0 IMMORTAL-Chapter 139: You Glimpse Her Heart

Elias understood that he had barely survived the last Incursion, and although he had gained a socalled Godform, the second Scripture of the Void, he had also gained was not yet accessible to him, not unless he completed the creation of the Lumina Vein for the Scroll of Containment, and for him to do that he would have to digest a lot of prey with his Paradox Vessel ability.

Only then would there be a chance for him to unlock the second scripture, and that would depend on the fact that he was able to get his body to be durable enough to bear another scripture.

Elias had seen the road in front of him, and the thought of getting the chance to gain more Void Scriptures was not as appealing as it once was, because he could imagine that he would never be sure that he would survive it.

Still, no matter what was going to happen to him in the future, it would have a cascading effect on the rest of the world. He had no say in this matter, even if he died at the hands of the second Incursion, the Commander would not care; he was a tool that did not achieve its full potential, and just by doubling the number of holes that were poked into the Heavenly Canopy, he had served his duty.

Elias admitted at this moment that there was a small part of him that thought that everything happening to him was entirely unfair. In some of the stories he had read, the characters, when they were weak, were usually embroiled in chaos, but these were small conflicts involving a foolish neighbour or a rich landowner. Why was it that in his situation, the first major conflict he was involved in was one that would sweep across the entire world?

He knew of trials by fire, but his own was getting too ridiculous, and he wondered how fast and how powerful he would have to get before he was able to take charge of his life and be able to have a say in a conflict that had begun many millennia before he was born.

Although the Commander was speaking of these words with ease, Elias did not lose sight of the fact that she was describing an apocalypse. She was going to end the world as they knew it, and he was just a tool that was used in the realization of this dream.

All of these thoughts flashed through Elias’s mind in a moment as he watched the Commander turn away from the view of the city and look back at him. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then she spoke to him with great conviction, and her words made him shiver.

"When every Restriction in the world collapses, and the Great Houses lose their primary tool of control over this world, the suppressed will rise, and the chained will break free. And in that chaos, we, the ones who have waited all these years, will finally be able to move without the weight that had kept us down for so long."

Elias folded his arms. He saw the ambition beneath the words, or maybe he was wrong, and he asked, "And after?"

"After?" Commander Yseult’s smile was thin and cold. "After, we see whether what is left of the world is worth saving... or whether it should be allowed to burn itself clean. If you think that I do this for power, then you are wrong. I don’t know if I would live long enough to see this dream being realized."

Elias let the words settle in his heart. Maybe if he was more involved with other people and had seen more of this world, the words of the Commander would carry a greater weight, but at this moment, there was not much for him to think about, as the only people he could see in his mind were his teachers, and he wondered if they knew of what was happening or if they would be swept along like everyone else.

Suddenly, he recalled the dream and the vision that the strange boy showed him in a dream, of the entirety of Stormfall destroyed and all of his teachers, including the Commander, dead... her body floating in the air.

After everything he had seen, that vision no longer had the bite that it once carried, but still, the weird way cause and effect seemed to work inside the Fragment was disturbing.

Then he asked the question that had been burning in him since the first Incursion descended.

"And me? What happens to the key that unleashed all this change when the chains are gone, and I am no longer of use?"

Yseult looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since he woke.

"You become what you choose to become," she said quietly. "Free... or feared."

"Or both," Elias finished. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"Or both," she agreed, "Like it or not, what I have made with you is a series of impossibilities in one person. You do not yet fully understand your potential or how far you can go if you survive all of these trials ahead. There are few words to describe what you can become in the future, but yes, you shall be free, and you shall be feared... but first, you will need to survive."

A pregnant silence arose between them, but the silence was not hostile, like it or not, Elias now knew the truth, and he had no reason he should be hostile towards something that he could not change... at least not yet.

Elias exhaled slowly. "Then I suppose I’d better not die before the fourth Incursion."

Commander Yseult’s smile returned, and something inside Elias shifted, and he dimly wondered inside him if her beauty was one of the reasons he had been so easily convinced, and that small part of him nodded yes... but he tried not to hold it against himself, afterall, he was just eighteen years old.

"You’d better not," the Commander said as she turned back to the window.

"Rest tonight, and the day after, see to any of your duties and affairs," she said. "From this moment on, we begin preparing you for the second Incursion, and how you must grow strong enough to win against it."

Elias nodded, but as he turned to leave, he paused. He knew that there was no reason for him to ask this question, but he did not know if there would ever be any occasion like this in the future where the Commander would be willing to be this open with her heart. He instinctively knew that he might never see Commander Yseult like this again, and he should take this advantage when it was available.

"Master."

She did not turn.

"If I survive all four," he said quietly, "and the Canopy falls... what happens to you?"

For the first time, Yseult hesitated, then she spoke, voice so soft it was almost lost in the hum of the wind blowing through the large windows.

"I become unnecessary."

Elias waited.

She finally looked at him over her shoulder.

"And that, disciple... is the only freedom I have ever truly wanted."

He held her gaze a moment longer, and then he walked away.