Chapter 137: You See The Weight of Conviction

Elias was about to leave, but then he paused; the questions in his heart were still many, and although he knew that he was making a mistake here by speaking, he felt it was worse to remain silent.

He had distracted himself from this issue when he spoke about the truth of the past that the Commander had promised to tell him, but he could not deny that he was still troubled by this plan to destroy the Heavenly Canopy.

Perhaps he was weak when placed against a power like the Commander and the Greater Houses, all of them holding Ascendants, but if his hands was going to be involved in the affair that could reshape the entire world, he could not just hide his head in the sands and lie to himself that the reason he had allowed himself to be used was just because he was weak.

It would have been better if he had not known the truth, but now that he did, there was no way he could walk out of this place without clearing up certain issues in his chest.

The Commander must have been expecting this because when he turned around she was looking at him with a weird light in her eyes, and Elias was reminded once more that he did not really know this woman, or the experiences that she undergone to lead her to this path, and before he followed her along due to the promise of power, he needed to know where she was taking him.

With the state of the world, there was a great chance that even if he disagreed with her, he would still follow her, but at least that decision would be made when he was satisfied with the answers he had gotten.

He looked at the woman he had taken as his master, and wondered if he had made the right choice in the heat of the moment. Elias was aware of her manipulations, but as she said, she could not tell him the truth about the situation, and he could not help but wonder how much of what was said to him was the truth and how much was lies.

The Commander had proved on numerous occasions that she was willing to bend the truth to serve her needs, and perhaps only his discernment could be counted here.

For all he knew, this may be just another messed-up form of training, and he was being primed to know how to tackle all of these ancient monsters that he would inevitably be facing in the future.

Commander Yseult had not moved since he turned around, and her silver eyes were still locked on him, unblinking, as though measuring the exact distance between disciple and potential threat.

Elias spoke with a low and steady voice because, unlike before, there was no countdown in his head, and he could now think without the pressure of the butcher’s knife hanging over his head.

“You said the Heavenly Canopy powers every Restriction in the world.”

Yseult inclined her head a fraction, and agreement and also permission for him to continue speaking.

“If we tear it,” Elias said, “the Restrictions fall… all of them. I have seen a small part of the world, but I can also imagine the sheer disaster that this would cause when there is no longer anything binding the hands of the strong. Still, your words make sense. I do not know enough of the world to decide what is good for it, but what I know is that once you called this Heavenly Restriction freedom and a good thing, and now you want to tear it down. Is there no middle line?”

The silence stretched as the Commander seemed to be seriously considering his words.

“You think in straight lines, Elias,” she said finally. “That is both your strength and your limitation. Still, I know this is because you lack the essential information about the Heavenly Canopy.”

She walked towards him until she was close to him, and she whispered,

“The Canopy does not merely power the Restrictions. It defines them. Every ward, every suppression glyph, every soul-binding contract written in the last six hundred thousand years draws its authority from that canopy. The definition of what the Heavenly Restriction does is under the control of the Great Houses, and if they follow the proper use of it, then the chaos you are expecting would not come to pass.”

She touched the air in front of them, and she flicked it, and Elias could sense the Heavenly Restriction that was like a constant weight around his shoulder, shaking.

“When the Heavenly Canopy fails, the Restrictions do not simply vanish; they would fracture, some would twist, and others would turn inward and begin to devour the very people they were meant to control.”

She raised one hand. Frost spiraled upward from her palm, forming a fragile, translucent model of Stormfall’s dome.

“Imagine this dome,” she said, “not as a shield, but as a lens. The Canopy is the light passing through it. Remove the lens suddenly, and the light burns everything it once protected.”

The model cracked along the edge, spreading veins of darkness through it. “This is what you think would happen, but that is not the case; everything would fall on the Greater Houses, and if they decide to do the right thing or hold on to power until it becomes too late.”

“Some cities will lose their Restrictions and descend into anarchy overnight. Others will see their wards invert, turning protective barriers into prisons, healing runes into wasting curses, and binding oaths into chains that strangle the soul rather than guide it. The Great Houses have layered their power so deeply into the Canopy that when it fails, their own sorcery will become their executioner. Yet all of this chaos is only happening because the Heavenly Restriction had been twisted into something that it is not, and for the few Houses that preserve what is right, they shall not face the backlash that would descend around the world.”

Elias watched the model in the Commander’s hand fracture further, with violet cracks spreading like veins.

“And you want this?” he asked quietly, “If most of the Greater Houses do not follow the proper path, then much of the world would suffer the consequences of all our actions.”

“I want the possibility of something better,” Yseult said. “The world has been chained for too long. If the price of breaking those chains is a century or a millennium of fire, then it shall be paid; better this than the inevitable fall to anarchy.”

Elias looked from the model to her face.

“You’re willing to burn the world to save it.”

“I am willing to let it burn itself free,” she corrected. “There is a difference.”

The frost model shattered completely. Violet-black shards hung in the air for a moment, then dissolved into mist.

“And since we are in the spirit of revelation, then I should tell you about your next Incursions.”

Elias’s ears perked up, and his eyes flashed with a bit of horror,

“Incursions?”

The Commander shrugged, “The price of exceptionalism is quite brutal, Elias. Because you were able to open one hundred pools inside a Greater Fragment with four Divinity Pieces inside of them, you do not just enjoy the privilege of having a single Incursion, but four of them. For most, this would be a death sentence, but for you… Imagine what you can gain from this.”

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