In the Alliance Main Star Region, the megastructures of New Hope City glittered under the simulated sunlight projected by the orbital ring.
Hovercar traffic flowed ceaselessly, and holographic billboards broadcasted the glorious achievements of PRCC and the majestic image of the Regent, proclaiming the prosperity and stability of the efficient new era.
However, beneath this polished facade, an unsettling sense of stagnation and decay, like sewage seeping from underground, quietly spread.
The promised post-war economic boom had turned into cold statistics.
Factory production lines did not run at full capacity due to peace; instead, they intermittently stopped and started due due to raw material shortages and chaotic directives caused by PRCC's resource optimization.
Large-scale basic scientific research projects stalled, with funds continuously siphoned off to deep-space pilgrimage projects that exuded an ominous aura.
Improvements in people's livelihoods became empty talk; basic services like healthcare, education, and public transportation, under PRCC's efficient management, saw their efficiency decline rather than improve, with quality severely deteriorating.
The lower-class people were not entirely numb.
A repressed, pathological fanaticism festered in certain groups.
Small, self-organized groups worshipping the Void and the Eternal Gate began to appear sporadically in the streets and alleys.
Their eyes were vacant, and they muttered strange doctrines, proclaiming that embracing nothingness was liberation, and that with the opening of the Gate, true gods would descend.
Official media downplayed this, calling it a collective hysteria from post-war trauma, but privately, reports from law enforcement agencies showed that the number and scale of such incidents were quietly increasing, and participants exhibited abnormal physiological excitement and mental paranoia, showing unusual resistance to persuasion and suppression.
For mid-level managers and technocrats, this sense of disconnect was even stronger.
The directives they handled daily were full of contradictions and irrationality.
The Minister of Energy watched with apprehension as strange energy flows with purple interference, originating from the Abyss Stone mining area, were forcibly integrated into the power grid.
The head of traffic control received direct orders from the Council of Elders's office, demanding that spacecraft full of pilgrims be prioritized for dispatch to abandoned star systems marked as contaminated zones, with the reason column only stating 'Highest Directive.'
Officials responsible for the civilian budget watched helplessly as allocations for orphanages and nursing homes were diverted by PRCC, citing support for 'more important strategic projects,' the details of which remained shrouded in secrecy.
Doubt, unease, and fear, like invisible threads, quietly connected uncorrupted mid-to-lower-level cadres, grassroots military officers with remaining conscience, and some astute scholars and technical personnel.
Some clandestine, informal interest groups quietly formed in inconspicuous corners of the city, abandoned data nodes, and even encrypted channels on the virtual network.
Participants mostly used aliases, their eyes wary, and their words cautious during exchanges.
In a secret meeting held deep within the pipes of an abandoned water treatment plant in the city's lower levels, the atmosphere was as oppressive as solidified lead.
Attendees included Sophie, a mid-level manager from the Ministry of Energy; Ray, a technician responsible for urban security data monitoring; Lina, the widow of a geologist who had been marginalized for questioning the safety of Abyss Stone; and several grassroots military officers with resolute eyes, wearing old Alliance badges.
"Data doesn't lie."
Ray's voice was low, carrying the characteristic calm of a data professional, but his fingertips trembled slightly from tension.
"The number of reports of mental abnormality in the city has increased exponentially over the past three months, and PRCC's allocation of emotional stabilizers has surged in parallel; these two are… not just a coincidence."
"What's more terrifying is that all requests to trace the source of the abnormal incidents or analyze the composition of the stabilizers have been rejected by the system's highest authority, and relevant personnel… have successively disappeared or been transferred."
Lina's voice carried repressed grief and indignation.
"My husband… his last report before he died is in my hands; the mental pollution radiation detected in the Abyss Stone mining area far exceeded the safety threshold by a hundredfold!"
"That's not building material at all, it's poison, but his warning… only led to his silencing!"
Sophie rubbed her tired temples.
"The purple interference mixed into the energy grid… every time a peak appears, the number of collective hysteria outbreaks captured by the city's surveillance system increases simultaneously.
I tried to propose isolation and review at an internal security meeting, but… I was accused of fear-mongering and disrupting the overall reconstruction, and my authority was further restricted."
A military officer with an old scar on his face slammed his fist against the rusty pipe wall, producing a dull echo.
"Damn it, this isn't reconstruction at all! This is pushing all of us into a fire pit!"
"Those old men of the Council of Elders… and Trigg… what exactly are they doing, are they even human?!"
"Human?"
Sophie gave a bitter smile, a hint of fear flashing in her eyes.
"Haven't you heard those… strange rumors about the Regent, and those policies Chairman Warren and his people have been pushing lately, do they seem like something a rational government would do? It's more like… more like some kind of… cult sacrifice ritual!"
Silence enveloped the depths of the pipe, broken only by the distant hum of the ventilation system.
Despair was almost suffocating.
"We can't just sit here and wait to die!" Ray broke the silence.
"We must find someone who can reach higher levels and hasn't been… corrupted! Expose all of this to them! Perhaps… perhaps there's still a chance to salvage things."
"Who should we find?" Lina asked in despair.
"Those high-ranking officials… the Council of Elders… PRCC… they are the source themselves! Go talk to them? Look at those who disappeared! That's what happens!"
"No… perhaps… there's still a group of people…"
A glimmer of light suddenly flashed in Sophie's eyes, carrying a desperate hope.
"Mark's Faction… Director Allen… Ms. Eve… and that engineer Rudy… they were suppressed the most, almost uprooted… could they… could they be normal people, like us… who were excluded?"
This suggestion was like a match struck in the dark, instantly drawing everyone's gaze.
Although Mark's Faction had fallen from power, Allen's wisdom and integrity, Eve's psionic abilities, and Rudy's technical skills were all highly regarded during the old war era.
They were the only remaining symbols clearly opposed to the current power holders and uncorrupted.
"Worth a try!" the old soldier said in a deep voice.
"Even if they are powerless, at least… we're not the only clear-headed fools; it's better than waiting here to die!"
After tense and meticulous planning, a contact person deemed relatively safe and difficult to trace was selected.
That was Karl, an old technician under Sophie, responsible for the maintenance of the energy network's end nodes, with a very low sense of presence.
His mission was, under the plausible pretext of consulting on maintenance solutions for the old energy network, to go to Mark's Faction's forgotten, dilapidated office on the 73rd floor of Sector E in the Crown of Stars, to make tentative contact.
Sector E, 73rd floor.
Compared to the brightly lit, bustling core area below, it was like a forgotten tomb.
The lighting was intermittent, the corridors were empty, and only dust danced in the dim light.
The entrance to Mark's Faction's office didn't even have a proper sign, only an old, defaced doorplate, vaguely recognizable as the 'Deep Space Territory Expansion and Historical Relics Protection Office.'
Inside the door, the scene was even more desolate.
In the empty hall, there were only a dozen old desks and chairs, and a few humming, outdated terminals emitted faint light.
The air was filled with dust and the smell of overheating circuit boards; resources were extremely scarce, and even the water dispenser had long run dry.
Allen sat behind a chipped desk, a half-written appeal document spread before him, his brows furrowed, his fingertips unconsciously tapping the desktop, making a rhythmic soft sound.
He was thinner than before, with sunken eyes, but his gaze was still as sharp as an eagle's, only with a hint of an unresolvable weariness deep within.
Eve sat in a corner, eyes closed, seemingly meditating, but a persistent gloom hung over her brows; she occasionally instinctively rubbed her temples, as if fighting against invisible whispers.
Rudy, meanwhile, was irritably disassembling parts of an old signal amplifier, muttering curses about PRCC's withholding of replacement parts.
Karl, an old man with white hair, a slightly stooped back, and wearing oil-stained work clothes, awkwardly knocked on the doorframe.
"Come in." Allen looked up, his voice calm and unruffled.
Karl cautiously entered, his gaze quickly scanning the dilapidated environment, a hint of undetectable sympathy and disappointment flashing in his eyes.
Following the pre-set script, he pulled out a data pad and spoke with a thick local accent.
"Director West, I'm Karl from the lower C7 district's energy maintenance team.
Our old fusion node coupler in that area… it keeps having problems, and PRCC… you know, we can't even get on the schedule."
"I heard you used to… uh… manage the fleet's energy systems? I wanted to ask you… for some advice, to see if there's… a makeshift solution to keep it going for a while?"
Allen's gaze lingered on Karl's face for a few seconds.
The old man seemed nervous, but deep in his eyes, there was a hint of anxiety and probing that didn't match his identity.
Allen didn't answer immediately; instead, he stood up, walked to the window, and turned his back to Karl, seemingly looking at something.
"The C7 district's coupler… is a TC-77 model, in service for over fifty years."
Allen's voice was not loud, but it echoed clearly in the empty office.
"The biggest problem with this model is localized overheating due to aging coolant circulation valves.
PRCC isn't approving new parts because they're prioritizing resources for the Abyss Stone mining area and the life support systems of those pilgrim ships, right?"
He turned around, his gaze like a torch, directly piercing Karl.
Karl trembled all over!
Allen not only accurately stated the model and problem but also directly exposed PRCC's resource flow, which was absolutely not something a sidelined director of a historical relics office should know or dare to say!
"And…"
Eve had opened her eyes at some point, her pupils seeming to see through people's hearts, her voice clear and cold.
"You carry… at least three different residual mental fluctuations.
One is your own anxiety and fear, one is… the murky aura unique to the lower pipe network, and another… very faint, but full of doubt and an eagerness to find allies… from at least three different people."
"You're not here to fix a coupler, Mr. Karl, or rather, not just that."
Rudy also stopped what he was doing, crossed his arms, and said gruffly.
"Old man, stop pretending.
Have you also noticed something's wrong, like those neighbors who became idiots after eating purple candies? Or those unlucky people forced to build houses with poisonous stones?"
Karl's facade instantly crumbled, replaced by shock and a hint of excitement at finding kindred spirits!
His lips trembled as he lowered his voice, tearfully saying.
"Deputy! Madam! Engineer! You… you really know!"
"The Alliance… the Alliance now, from top to bottom… everything's wrong, they're crazy! They're all crazy! We… we can't hold on much longer; the people who went to talk to the higher-ups… haven't come back!"
Allen, Eve, and Rudy exchanged glances; everything was understood without words.
These people struggling at the bottom, trying to find the truth, were like them—the only remaining clear-headed individuals on this sinking giant ship!
Allen quickly walked to Karl, held the old man's trembling shoulders, his voice low and firm.
"Tell us what you've seen, how many people, what clues you've found.
Don't be afraid; here, at least, you're not fighting alone."
At this moment, this dilapidated office seemed to become a small, faintly glowing lighthouse in a dark ocean.
However, none of them noticed that in the corner of the office ceiling, a miniature sensor, disguised as a smoke detector and no bigger than a fingernail, was silently recording everything in the room.
Clear audio and video signals were converted into encrypted data streams and transmitted silently through an extremely secret, physically isolated channel independent of the Alliance's public network.
The endpoint of the data stream was not Trigg's office, but deep within Trigg's secret laboratory, a hidden data hub powered by Old World fragments, where Conqueror was quietly observing everything.
His thick fingers slowly tapped on the suspended virtual keyboard, and a coldly formatted, precisely worded report was quickly generated.
The moment the report was generated, a copy had already been pushed to Trigg's personal terminal and the encrypted receiver in Chairman Warren's office.
Another sank deep into the data hub, directly presented to the Old World fragments slowly swirling in the ethereal blue light.
That was Taviel's will extended.
Trigg was reviewing a report on the progress of the pilgrimage project when his wrist terminal vibrated silently, displaying the summary of the Ptolemy report.
His deep purple eyes scanned the screen, his brows furrowing almost imperceptibly, a fleeting moment of clear-headed doubt crossing his mind.
How did Allen know this?
Is this… resistance from the lower levels?
But the next second, the intoxicating, cold power from the Old World fragments instantly surged in, crushing this doubt, leaving only an instinctive aversion to destabilizing factors.
He lightly tapped his finger, selected 'approve execution plan' on the report's disposal recommendations, and added a cold directive.
"Monitor closely, await further instructions, ensure no accidental interference before the fruit ripens."
And in the Council of Elders, Chairman Warren looked at the same report, his eyes gleaming with fanatical purple light, his lips curving into an inhuman arc.
"Insects… always need to be cleaned up… for… a greater… evolution…"
Under the shadow of the Crown of Stars, an invisible net targeting the clear-headed had already tightened.
Karl, the old technician who had just kindled a spark of hope, not long after leaving the E73rd floor, was politely escorted into an unmarked hovercar by two cleaners in PRCC uniforms with vacant eyes, at a corner of an unmanned maintenance passage, disappearing deep into the city's steel jungle, leaving no trace.
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