"We changed our priorities."
She answered without hesitation.
"Before that day, our rescue missions focused almost entirely on freeing captured resistance members."
She shook her head.
"After meeting your ancestor, every Eternal prison suddenly became a source of information."
I listened quietly.
"We began attacking facilities throughout the Prime Territory looking for newly captured members of the original bloodlines. Every rescue brought new names, new family trees and occasionally another forgotten branch that had survived somewhere in a distant corner of the Prime Universe."
Her eyes drifted toward me.
"Some had spent centuries believing they were the last of their bloodline. Eventually we realized rescue missions alone weren’t enough. So we changed our strategy again."
She leaned forward slightly.
"We planted spies. Some worked as servants. Others as laborers. Some infiltrated transport divisions while others remained hidden within cities for centuries."
"Their task was simple. The moment a member of one of the original bloodlines entered the Null Realm..."
She paused.
"...they informed us."
"And you came before the Eternals."
"Or at least we tried."
Her expression softened once more.
"We couldn’t save everyone."
A hint of sadness returned to her eyes.
"But we saved enough. And that’s why you’re sitting here today instead of inside one of their prisons."
I nodded. If I was in their position I would have done the same too. I looked back at her.
"My parents..."
The words escaped almost unconsciously. Evelyn looked at me with a knowing smile.
"You’ve been wanting to ask that for quite some time."
"I have."
She reached for the teapot and calmly refilled both of our cups before answering.
"They’re alive and healthy."
"So where are they?"
"They aren’t in the settlement right now."
Her answer disappointed me slightly, though she noticed it immediately.
"They’re out on a mission."
"A mission?"
She nodded.
"The resistance never truly sleeps, Billion. Every settlement contributes in one way or another. Some gather intelligence, some maintain the teleportation network, some escort newly arrived souls, while others carry out raids against Eternal facilities. Your parents belong to one of those strike teams."
"Don’t worry. They’ll be back in a few days. The raid they’re participating in was planned months in advance and from everything we’ve heard, it is going rather smoothly."
A breath I hadn’t realized I was holding escaped my lungs.
"So I won’t be meeting them today."
"No."
She smiled warmly.
"But your grandfather is here."
The thought of meeting my grandfather, whom I had never even seen while I was alive, filled me with a strange feeling.
"There is one more thing."
Evelyn looked toward me.
"I was told that one fragment of the Contract is with the Ironharts."
The warmth in her expression slowly disappeared.
"So Gerald told you that much."
"He did."
She leaned back quietly, as though deciding how much she wished to reveal.
"Yes."
Eventually she nodded.
"We possess one fragment."
"How?"
The old woman smiled.
"By being completely insane. Mostly because only a complete fool would have attempted it."
She remained silent for several moments before continuing.
"This happened several hundred years after we formed the resistance. By then we had already accepted that defeating the Eternals through brute force wasn’t possible, so we began gathering information instead. Every raid wasn’t simply meant to destroy supplies or rescue prisoners. We wanted answers."
Her eyes drifted toward the window.
"Where were the Contract fragments? How many existed? What purpose did they serve? Could they be destroyed? Could they be stolen? Nobody knew."
She smiled faintly.
"Until one Ironhart decided waiting for answers was taking too long. His name was Aldric Ironhart."
"He was the strongest member of our family at that time, a Late Saint who stood only a step away from becoming a Demi-God."
She paused briefly.
"Strength alone, however, wasn’t what made him terrifying."
Her gaze returned to me.
"Aldric possessed a Soul Law unlike anything we had ever seen."
"What kind?"
"He could influence thought."
I frowned.
"Mind control?"
She immediately shook her head.
"No."
The distinction was important.
"He couldn’t simply command people to obey him. Souls aren’t that simple."
She folded her hands together.
"What he could do was far more subtle. He could read surface thoughts, plant ideas so naturally that people believed those ideas were their own, strengthen existing emotions or weaken them and, if given enough time, gradually redirect a person’s entire chain of reasoning."
A strange feeling settled over me.
"That sounds terrifying."
"It was."
She didn’t deny it.
"The strongest minds could resist him. Those with powerful souls often sensed that something wasn’t quite right. But ordinary soldiers, administrators and even many Saints never realized they were being manipulated."
I was already beginning to understand where this was going.
"He infiltrated the Eternals."
Evelyn smiled.
"Not personally."
She shook her head.
"That would have been far too obvious."
Instead she leaned forward slightly.
"Aldric spent almost 300 years manipulating an entire chain of command."
I stared at her.
"300 years?"
She nodded.
"He never rushed."
"He would influence one officer into recommending another. That officer would unknowingly promote someone else. A transport schedule would change. A security inspection would be delayed. A commander would suddenly decide to rotate personnel for reasons he believed entirely his own."
She slowly drew invisible lines across the table with one finger.
"One tiny thought at a time."
The picture gradually formed inside my head.
"He wasn’t controlling individuals."
"No."
She smiled.
"He was controlling probability."
That description somehow made the ability feel even more frightening.
"For three centuries he quietly reshaped an entire Eternal region until every piece finally rested exactly where he wanted it."
She paused before continuing.
"It took us almost two centuries before we even discovered that one of the Contract fragments was being carried within that region."
Evelyn slowly rotated the teacup between her fingers as a faint smile appeared on her face.
"By then Aldric had already spent decades studying the Eternals. He wasn’t searching for their weaknesses because, frankly speaking, they didn’t have many. He was searching for their habits."
"Even the strongest beings eventually develop routines. Which Eternal preferred hunting personally. Which one constantly remained inside his fortress. Which one answered distress signals immediately. Which one trusted his own judgment more than others. Which one believed himself invincible. Aldric observed all of it."
"For nearly forty years he manipulated events without anyone realizing it. A small Eternal outpost would suddenly disappear. Somewhere else an important prisoner would mysteriously escape. Resistance attacks became slightly bolder in one region and strangely absent in another. Entire campaigns slowly shifted direction without anyone understanding why."