Free Web NovelChapter 248: Chapter 248 - Guess whose back
Eden looked between Lumi and Merath, waiting. The question itself was simple enough. The answer, he suspected, was anything but.
Most of the world had long since settled on a comfortable position regarding the Dark One. The believed the seal was unbreakable. The six heroes had ensured it with everything they had, with the full backing of every nation and people that existed, and the result had held for over seven centuries without a single problem.
Sure, this new organization, the Wings of Darkness, was a problem. Not to mention the commanders, many of which were still out there, were an obvious problem. They were dangerous, persistent, and cruel, and the world had lost good people fighting them over the decades.
Yet, they were merely extremely powerful. Just that. They were a manageable problem. Armies could engage commanders. Nations could push back against the Wings of Darkness. Intelligence networks could track their movements and disrupt their operations.
Nobody was seriously preparing for the Dark One himself. Because not many people genuinely believed they would ever have to.
Lumi knew exactly how catastrophically wrong that was.
"Yes," he said. "He will escape."
Eden looked at him. He took a shivering breath, and exhaled. "I see." He couldn’t hold eye contact, as he looked over to the side, contemplatively. "How do you know?"
Lumi was quiet for a moment. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
There were a dozen answers he could give, all of them true, and yet not many of them speakable. He knew because he had lived it. The day the seal broke. He had watched everything fall apart in the aftermath, piece by piece, until there was nothing left to fall.
None of that was something he could say.
So he reached for the only tool remaining to him.
"Trust me."
Eden stared at him. "Trust..." He thought about everything thus far. Could this be an elaborate scam? He didn’t think so. Not at all. He was growing stronger, he was killing demons, and he was learning ancient history. He glanced over to Lena.
She was already nodding beside him, completely at ease with this, having long since reached the point where Lumi could say literally anything, even violate basic math, and she’d vehemently nod that he was right.
Eden, however, was not like that. He sat with it, visibly weighing how much that actually meant, measuring it against everything he had observed of Lumi since the day they had met. He finally sighed. Because he knew deep in his heart that sentence from Lumi carried more weight than it should have, given the complete absence of evidence behind it.
"That said." Lumi continued, putting a finger up to emphazize as he made his point. "There is a logic to it beyond just my word. Consider the commanders."
He leaned forward slightly. "These are not desperate men and women clinging to a hopeless cause out of misplaced devotion. They are some of the most powerful individuals alive. They operate at a level where they could, if they chose, topple kingdoms. Reshape the political landscape of entire continents. The things they could accomplish if they redirected their attention are not small."
He paused, letting him take in the information. "And yet, we know that centuries later, many of them have continued working toward unsealing the Dark One. Ask yourself why."
Eden’s brow furrowed slowly. People do not spend centuries on a project that is entirely impossible. Perhaps a few years out of sentimentality or delusion, but centuries?
Most people didn’t live centuries.
It was even more absurd to do so when the alternatives available to them were so vast. The fact that they were still working meant that they believe it could be done. And people like that do not believe things without reason.
Lena rested her chin in her hand, and spoke to give the idea a further push. "It also means they might be closer than anyone thinks, if they’ve had so long to work on it."
"That too." Lumi agreed.
Across from them, Merath had still not spoken. He was not ignoring the conversation, but he was indeed considering the further implications of the words.
He understood the seal.
He had personally contributed, even if it was the smallest bit. He has personally seen the seal with his own eyes. The sealing was an act of extraordinary complexity, built from contributions that had pushed the world to the absolute edge of what it was capable of. Undoing it was not a matter of raw strength.
He could, if pressed, construct a very reasonable argument for why the commanders might persist in their efforts despite no realistic path to success. There could were still benefits to doing so. There was the fact that ideological devotion did not require achievable goals. Fanatics had wasted their lives on impossible objectives throughout all of recorded history. It would not be remarkable for the commanders to be doing the same.
There was also the simple fact that their cooperation was likely based on the mutual agreement of unsealing him, and thus it could very realistically not be their goal, but rather a front for each other.
But he did not make that argument.
Because beneath all of it, there was something else. Something that had nothing to do with probability assessments or the mechanics of ancient seals, and everything to do with a failure that had been sitting quietly at the back of his mind for far too long.
The commanders had been operating in the world ever since the Dark One was sealed. More recently, the Wings of Darkness alongside them, conducting operations, causing harm, disrupting the stability of nations, eliminating people who posed a threat to their objectives
And Merath, with all his capability and all his knowledge, had not been responding appropriately. He hadn’t marched with an army to kill them. Why?
He had told himself there were reasons. Leaving Elenora would cause a disaster, after all. And after so much knowledge was wiped out, the world needed him to teach the new generations. That his value was in knowledge and preparation rather than direct engagement. That the right moment had not yet arrived.
The right moment had not arrived because he had not gone out and made it arrive.
And now here was this boy, Eden, a descendent of one of the six heroes, sitting in his library with a phoenix on his arm and asking whether the Dark One could escape. And Merath was sitting here calculating the odds and considering whether to soften the answer.
He looked at Eden. The boy was watching him, steady, waiting for him, the strongest, wisest, and oldest man to speak.
If there was ever a time to stop being comfortable, it was probably now.
Merath nodded, slowly and deliberately. "I believe he can escape, yes." ƒreewebɳovel.com
There was silence for a moment, and then, "Understood." Eden absorbed the answer. Even if the rest of the world acted as if the Dark One can’t escape, he would act as if he would. For he had been given two affirmative answers from the only ones that can guide him in the new life he had to live.
One answered with conviction that defied explanation and the other with the weight of centuries worth of knowledge behind it. He looked down at Sol, who sat warm and still against his arm. He took a deep breath, forcing a smile, and leaned his face in.
Purr~
The two nuzzled. Then he looked back up.
"Alright." he said quietly. He had come into this conversation wanting to understand the true shape of what he was facing. He understood it now. "Then I suppose I’d better be ready."
"You will be." Lumi said. He had to be, after all.
Sol chirped in agreement, and Eden laughed once, short and quiet, before composing himself.
Lena let the moment breathe for exactly as long as it needed to, which was approximately four seconds, before...
Clap!
She clapped both hands together, causing all eyes to shift to her. "Right! So what now?" She looked back at everyone with complete sincerity, as if she didn’t just abruptly change the topic.
Lumi, who had already moved on internally, answered immediately. "Lily Windmere is now."
A small silence passed.
Lena tilted her head. "...Who?"
Neither of them got an answer, because at that precise moment there was a knock at the library door. It was easy to forget she existed, given how freely the group had been utilizing the Great Library as if it were their second home. But in reality, it was guarded, everyone needing a legitimate reason to enter.
Unless you were Lena, in which case you crashed in through Merath’s window.
"Apologies for the interruption," she said. "There is a noble visitor from Herene. Young Lord Lily Windmere requests entry."
Lena turned slowly back to Lumi. "Ooh~! My hubby wubby is making moves in the background!"
Merath mentally ignored whatever hubby wubby was supposed to mean, and instead focused on what he had been told. "Let them inside."
