Chapter 327 Penumbra (1/2)
CHAPTER 327
PENUMBRA
Thick, nearly touchable darkness wrapped itself around a wide, tiled compound, casting a massive overhead net, blocking everything and everyone from sight. The compound itself had but a single mat laid out in the center and a small, child-sized altar cast in white bones in front of the former. On top of the mat, sitting in a meditating position, was a man seemingly in his late thirties, his hair short and black, his equally black beard covering half his face.
He appeared neither handsome nor ugly at the first glance, merely ordinary by all accounts; neither fit nor fat, neither tall nor short, neither smart-looking nor otherwise, he appeared extremely average throughout. Even his clothes could hardly tell one much of his status or wealth; furred coat laid on top of a loose, black vest and leather pants below, belted with a buckle in the image of a skull.
Darkness cleared behind him momentarily as an old, worn-out looking man walked through, holding a crane and limping over. The old man first kowtowed toward the alter three times before getting up, groaning lowly in the process, and patting the man on the shoulder. The latter's eyes slowly opened, reminiscent of the Eternal Night, as his gaze shifted over from the altar onto the man.
”... Aspect has been defeated?” the man asked indifferently.
”He has.” the old man nodded, not daring to look the other one in the eye.
”... my conjunction appears to have been correct,” he said. ”The Empyrean's Will dwarfs the rest of us. Have you decoded which Laws he uses?”
”... w-we have only managed to infer Death and Time, I'm afraid. We are certain, however, there are more.”
”... what a vain struggle,” the man sighed faintly, standing up. ”Eos just had to go and poke at the beast...”
”Perhaps the Late Lady was unaware...”
”Of course she was unaware,” the man scoffed coldly as the two of them slowly left the realm of the darkness, finding themselves at the entrance of a mountain-side cave. ”She fancied herself clever her whole life, yet crossing generations you could not find a more ignorant soul. I couldn't care less she threw her own life away, but she had implicated all the rest of us.”
”... b-but... wouldn't... wouldn't Your Lordship have fought the Empyrean regardless?” the old man asked weakly as they slowly began descending.
”I am neither blinded by ego nor honor, Maester,” the man replied. ”A Void Titular Empyrean, with mastery of Time and Death at the very least, and an unmatched Will? Even if our Grand Ancestors rose from their graves and united, we would be unable to kill him. Defeat him? Certainly -- rather easily, really. But kill him? Unlikely...”
”L-lord?!!”
”What are you so terrified for, Maester? I know for a fact you understand it as such as well,” the man said, glancing coldly at the old one. ”It is because of the fear in the first place that we've arrived at this point. Every time a new Empyrean rose, one of two things happened: either we hunted him or her down before they had a chance to grow, or we pissed them off after they were already too strong and we suffered the consequences in return.”
”... t-then... what is Your Lordship suggesting? We abandon the war?”
”What war? It will merely be the game of the hunter chasing after its pry henceforth,” the middle-aged man said. ”If anything, I even find myself in envy of the Elysian's decision.”
”M-my Lord!! Speak not of such words!!” the old man quickly warned, glancing around with terror in his eyes; they were almost at the foot of the mountain, nearing the back entrance of the Sect's Grounds.
”Huh? Why not? It's the truth,” the middle-aged man shrugged. ”While I hardly believe the Empyrean will in the end change anything, chances are we'll have another Continental Terror on our hands. As it stands, Gaia will use the Holy Grounds as her shield while we wither and wane slowly under the restless torrent of Chaos, while the Empyrean will slowly but surely inch toward self-destructive madness. In the end, we will win because of the same reason we've always won -- we broke them. However, is it worth it, Maester? To watch all of this,” he pointed in front of them at the ever-rising vista of spires and towers jetted in black, enshrouded in thick darkness and aura of corpses. ”Burn away into nothingness. You have read far more than me, and you know of the true past far more than me. Was that not always the case?”
”...”
”The Nightmare Eve is perhaps the best example,” the man said, sighing bitterly. ”While the story of the Descent capturing and enslaving her to death is the touted one, you and I both know she had lost the battle already. She was entirely broken down to her core, and given a year or two, she would have ended her life irregardless. If anything, Descent's capture of her probably provided her with the last few years of clarity.”