Chapter 420: Archmage (6)
"...So how did Lord Drugar escape the Covenant?" I finally asked. Then another thought occurred to me.
"Actually, a better question would be...why did he rebel against the Order in the first place?"
That was the part I couldn’t understand.
From everything she’d described, the Assembly sounded less like a tyrannical empire and more like a group trying to stop another catastrophe.
Mordra was silent for several seconds.
When she finally spoke, there was a trace of sadness in her voice.
"Drugar was not originally the man...or whatever he is at the moment."
"He was compassionate. Idealistic. Among the Seven, he was perhaps the one who desired peace the most."
She looked away, as though recalling someone she had once respected.
"The Order traveled from world to world, observing civilizations as they developed. Most never realized we had been there."
"Our duty was to watch, to study, and, when necessary, to intervene."
She paused.
"But only when the misuse of magic threatened that world, neighboring worlds, or reality itself."
"If the suffering had nothing to do with magic..." she said quietly, "...we were forbidden to interfere."
I frowned.
"So if an empire was slaughtering innocent people...we watched."
"If a plague wiped out half a civilization...we watched."
"If kingdoms spent centuries at war...we watched."
Each answer landed heavier than the last.
"The Covenant demanded impartiality," Mordra continued. "The Assembly believed that civilizations had to shape their own destinies. We could prevent magical disasters capable of unraveling reality itself, but we were never permitted to solve the ordinary tragedies of mortal life."
Her eyes lowered.
"Drugar could never accept that."
Mordra’s expression grew distant once more.
"Even if wars erupted. Even if billions perished. Even if entire civilizations collapsed beneath the weight of their own greed and hatred, the Order was forbidden from intervening. Because the natural course of a civilization must never be disturbed."
She looked directly at me.
"That was the Order’s greatest law."
"Observe. Never rule. Intervene only when reality itself is threatened."
The room fell silent.
"Drugar came to despise those rules."
There wasn’t a trace of accusation in her voice.
"He hated standing by while fate took its course. He hated watching civilizations destroy themselves when he possessed the power to stop them. He hated watching billions die. Again...And again...And again."
"Eventually, he presented his beliefs before the Eternal Assembly."
"He argued that if we possessed the power to prevent such suffering, then refusing to act made us complicit in it."
I found myself listening even more intently.
"The Assembly disagreed."
"They reminded him that countless civilizations had already risen and fallen before the Order ever existed. To interfere with every tragedy would be to decide which histories deserved to continue and which did not."
"They warned him that if he continued advocating the misuse of the Order’s authority, he would be judged as having violated the spirit of the Covenant."
"They even threatened to strip him of his title."
Mordra lowered her eyes.
"So...he stopped arguing."
She let out a quiet breath.
"He carried out every assignment without complaint. Century after century, he fulfilled his duties exactly as expected. Gradually, his silence convinced us that he had accepted the Assembly’s judgment."
A bitter smile crossed her lips.
"We were wrong."
"While the rest of us believed the matter settled, Drugar had begun searching for something else."
"A loophole."
"A way to free himself from the Covenant without triggering its punishment."
My brows slowly furrowed.
"He spent centuries preparing."
"Studying."
"Experimenting."
"Waiting."
Then her voice became almost a whisper.
"And when he was finally ready..."
"He broke every law of the Order at once."
For the first time since the conversation began, I heard genuine disbelief in Mordra’s voice, as though even now she struggled to accept what had happened.
"The Covenant could no longer restrain him."
"To this day, none of us fully understand how he accomplished it. The very thing designed to bind an Archmage simply...failed to hold him."
She fell silent for a moment.
"Naturally, the Order was dispatched to apprehend him."
Her gaze lowered.
"But Drugar was brilliant."
"He understood the Covenant just as well as the Assembly that had created it, and he used our own laws against us."
I frowned. "How?"
"He hid."
She answered so simply that it caught me off guard.
"Not behind fortresses or powerful barriers, but among the people."
"He established himself within civilizations spread across multiple worlds, surrounding himself with countless innocent lives. Every confrontation became a calculation."
"If we attacked carelessly, entire cities would be caught in the crossfire. If we pursued him without restraint, billions of civilians across those worlds would be placed in danger."
She looked me in the eye.
"And the Covenant forbade us from sacrificing innocent lives simply to achieve our objective."
I slowly began to understand.
"So the more people he surrounded himself with, the harder it became to stop him," Mordra finished.
"We were bound by principles."
"He was no longer bound by anything."
She closed her eyes briefly.
"Again and again, he slipped through our grasp. Every time we cornered him, he ensured the cost of capturing him would be greater than the Assembly was willing to pay."
"And with every passing century, his influence continued to grow."
Her expression darkened.
"At first, he ruled under the belief that he was creating a better world."
"There were those who genuinely welcomed him. Wars ended. Kingdoms prospered. Diseases vanished. Famines were erased."
She let out a quiet sigh.
"But absolute authority has a way of changing even the noblest intentions."
"Whether it was the corruption inherent to great magic, the intoxicating nature of unchecked power, or simply the slow erosion of his own convictions...none of us can say."
"But the Drugar who once wished to save civilizations gradually disappeared."
"He no longer saw the people he ruled as lives to protect."
"He saw them as pieces on a board."
"Subjects became resources. Resources became soldiers. Entire populations were molded into weapons he could wield against the Order."
She fell silent.
Then she looked directly at me.
"You...and every other Chosen...are such weapons."