CHAPTER 65
Secret High Order: Things in Motion
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There, an elderly man stood facing a massive wall.
He was completely bald, his skin weathered like old parchment. In one hand, he held a strange wooden stylus. He was etching complex, shifting murals into the sand wall.
In his other hand, he held a White Eyeball.
The eye pulsed with rhythm, its pupil expanding and contracting with a light that felt alive. With every surge of light from the eye, the old man carved a new stroke, as if the eye was dictating the art.
The High Priestess finally came to a stop behind him.
She bowed deeply, her arrogance completely gone.
"Greetings, Sage Vikram."
The legendary High Priest—the man who supposedly vanished over a hundred years ago—stopped carving.
He didn't turn around.
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"You are finally here? So tell me... what do you think about the lass?"
Sage Vikram asked the question without halting his movements, nor did he glance in the High Priestess's direction. The scratching of his wooden stylus against the sand wall continued rhythmically.
"She is extraordinary indeed," the High Priestess replied, a tinge of genuine fear coloring her eyes. "Perhaps too extraordinary."
"Hahahaha! I know. I might be old, but my eyes are still sharper than yours."
He praised himself with a dry chuckle. The pace at which he drew the murals began to slow down.
"Her results were terrifying. Even the Stone-Fate Altar couldn't withstand the pressure. Her potential surpasses even yours from a thousand years ago, I suspect—"
The High Priestess began narrating Lu Xie's results with urgency, but she was cut off by a raised hand.
"I know!" Vikram declared nonchalantly.
He finally stopped carving. He placed the wooden stylus on a stone table to his right, arranging it neatly alongside a set of different sizes.
"Naturally, I sent my Familiars to monitor the situation. I saw everything through their eyes."
He turned around, his ancient eyes twinkling with a strange light.
"In actuality, it is not too terrifying. Have you forgotten that in the Regal Lands, there are geniuses not much worse than her?"
He clasped his hands behind his back and began to lecture.
"A person of sufficient talent must have a recessive weaker Innate Spirit and Mythical Attribute. Even I had one back then. When either the Spirit or Attribute is of a sufficiently high grade, a weaker, recessive one is born from the strong energy reflux. Such is the case for most high-level cultivators, including the six other Yogis."
He paced the room.
"That is why most of the Yogis possess either a Dual Innate Spirit or a Dual Attribute. However..." He paused, raising a finger. "It is unfortunate that their Mythical Attributes compliment their Innate Spirits."
"Unfortunate?" Isha questioned.
"Indeed. Having an independent Mythical Attribute that is sufficiently strong is far too rare here in the Backlands. However, it is the standard for true geniuses in the Regal Lands."
Vikram sighed. "Having a complimentary Mythical Attribute is like a double-edged sword. On one hand, it acts as a aid, helping their Innate Spirit develop faster. On the other hand... it leaves their Mythical Attribute forever in mediocrity. They will never touch upon the Daos. Unless they come across a stroke of Good Fate!"
His eyes gleamed.
"However, that lass is different. Both of her Mythical Attributes are dissociative from her Innate Spirits. And they are all of the Peak Grade. I would bet my life she has a third, and probably a fourth one, hiding deep inside."
"That is exactly what makes this situation problematic!" The High Priestess declared, her voice rising.
"How so?"
Sage Vikram asked with a knowing smile across his face. He walked across the room and took a seat on a throne that looked like a pile of shifting, loose sand. It molded perfectly to his form.
The High Priestess turned to face him, her expression grim.
"A girl of unknown origins with such monstrous gifts... don't you fear that she could be the daughter of some hidden Sage? Or a Fairy Princess of a powerful ancient family from the Regal Lands? If we tamper with her, we might bring a calamity upon our heads that we cannot survive."
"Isha! Do you think I am stupid?" The Sage sounded slightly offended.
But Isha held her ground. "Forgive me for being insolent, Sage. But facts remain as such. We are playing with fire."
"Tsk tsk tsk! You truly are cautious. Fine, I will recount the whole tale."
Vikram leaned back into his throne of sand.
"Before Alia decided to betray the Coven and run away... I knew."
A confused Isha blinked. "You knew? Then why..."
"Listen." Vikram cut her off.
"Before everything was everything, and before nothing was nothing... The Daos existed. They are the construct of reality, existing even within the Void."
His voice took on a chanting quality.
"One day, I received a Divinity from the Dao of Order. It whispered to me and showed me a vision—a vision I have just finished engraving as a mural on these walls."
He gestured to the massive carving behind him.
"It said: 'To attain my desires, I should look for the One who shows when the signs align. These signs will be found if one knows where to look.'"
Vikram recited the prophecy from memory:
"A Charlatan in Blood,
A Blind Man's Miracle,
The Conjugation of Falling Stars,
And finally...
A Child born in Nullity after the Heavens go crazy will complete it all."
Isha stared at him, unimpressed.
"And you expect me to believe that vague riddle justifies replacing a Yogi?"
"Fine! You are really hard to fool," Vikram laughed, conceding. "However, half of what I said is true."
His expression hardened.
"After the real Alia stumbled upon the secrets of the High Order, she decided to escape from the Coven under the guise of visiting her family. I had decided to get rid of this thorny problem. Hence, I set a plan in motion using Bavna to lore her into trouble. The results were exactly as I wished—in fact, better."
He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.
"I had sent my Familiars to monitor the duo—Alia and her maid. But who would have known that they would stumble upon the Lass? A girl hanging by her last thread of life on the riverbank."
Vikram's voice dropped to a whisper.
"When I looked at that dying girl... I could sense the Daos stirring frantically around her. It was as though the laws of this world abhorred her very presence. They were rejecting her existence."
"That was intriguing to me. So, to be careful, I snuck into her mind to spy on her memories while she was unconscious."
He paused for dramatic effect.
"But all that was there... was an overwhelming Chaos and Emptiness."
"Such a mental state is only possible under two specific conditions."