This world was an enormous cage, and humans like them were the birds inside it.
Most humans knew nothing and noticed nothing. Like sparrows scattered across the ground, they could not see the world above the clouds, so all they could do was lower their heads and peck at grain.
Ignorant and oblivious as they were, sparrows still had their own happiness.
But Mages like them were eagles that yearned for freedom. No matter how high they flew or how strong they grew, they could never break through that sturdy cage... the stronger they were, the more painfully they lived.
Those who could no longer hold on would end up like the Defense Tower: once they revealed their hostility, they went straight for mutual destruction.
Those who could hold on might survive, but all they had left was devastation.
The best fate a caged bird could hope for was to spend its entire life as a pet... whatever life its master wanted it to lead was the life it had to lead.
The worst fate, of course, was to become someone else's meal, or mud beneath their feet.
What eagle would not want to break out of its cage and soar freely?
That was why very few Archmages who understood the reality of their situation were genuinely willing to kneel at the feet of the Sia Tower... Rute and the others had never understood why some of their own kind would truly abandon even the essence of being a Mage.
A Mage could commit every imaginable evil and destroy heaven and earth, but that was because he had wanted to do so himself, not because he completely obeyed another person's will and acted according to their wishes... even if he became a lackey, it was for his own benefit, never