Chapter 44: Secrets in the capital.

The hall went dead silent. Everyone expected the Mayor to sweat, to drop to his knees, or at least to stammer out an excuse. Some of them waited for him to make a fool of himself, with amused smiles. This was an opportunity to kick him out and squeeze their own candidates into the Mayoral position.

Earth had changed, but politics had not.

The Mayor threw his head back and laughed, reacting in a way nobody expected. It was a cold, mocking laugh. The kind of laugh that makes your skin crawl because it means someone knows something you don’t. The great leaders of the world sat there, completely speechless, wondering if the man still remembered in whose presence he was.

"Audacious!" Iron Regent Gregory Goch, the hot-tempered ruler of the Aurora Dominion, stood up so fast his chair practically flew backward. He pointed a shaking finger towards the Mayor’s nose. "You idiot! You have clearly forgotten who put you in that comfortable mayoral seat! We gave your authority, and we can take it away! The elections are just around the corner. If we withdraw our support, you will be kicked out of the capital and back to begging. You won’t even have a pot to piss in!"

The Mayor stopped laughing. His face twisted into a dark, venomous sneer. He looked at Gregory as if looking at a dead man walking. "An election?" He whispered, leaning over the table. "That would only happen if you all were alive to see it. Right now, none of you people have the certainty of living a long life...even I don’t. You might not even see next week’s sunrise."

It was like a lightning bolt hit the room. The rulers all exchanged frantic, bewildered glances. Their hearts skipped a beat. What did he mean? Was this a death threat?

"What nonsense are you spouting? Speak clearly!" Someone demanded.

"Oh, it must be so nice!" the Mayor suddenly roared, his eyes turning bloodshot. The elegant mask of a politician completely shattered, revealing a deeply cunning human being. "It must be so easy sitting on your high, golden thrones, drinking your calming tea, and knowing absolutely nothing!

Meanwhile, I am down in the mud doing all the dirty work to keep this world from collapsing! You think I want to be a villain? I am trying to end this war forever, to bring back a glorious earth. I am not like some of you who have grown so comfortable that you have forgotten some sick aliens are still casually roaming around in our world."

"Enough!"

The word wasn’t loud, but it carried the weight of a mountain.

Everyone’s mouth instantly snapped shut. All eyes turned toward the raised position in one corner of the room, near a glass window.

There, in a large wicker chair, sat a radiant middle-aged woman. She wore a spotless, flowing white dress that seemed to reject the very dust of the dusty world. Her skin was as white as freshly fallen snow, and her lips were as red as cherries. Her golden blonde hair fell around her small face like sunlight spilling through lace curtains, delicate and warm. She sat there with absolute grace and poise, like an immortal goddess watching children squabble.

The Mayor’s furious aura vanished instantly. Like a scolded puppy, he quickly lowered his head, bowed from the waist, and trembling, said, "My apologies, Divine maiden... I lost my composure."

He turned back to her, his eyes filling with tears of pure exhaustion. "Divine Soul Maiden... please. I beg you, let me tell them. Tell everyone what kind of terrifying time bomb all our nations are currently sitting on! I am just one ordinary man. I am so tired of carrying this burden all by myself."

The Divine Soul Maiden, Trinity Johnson, looked at him. She let out a soft, beautiful sigh that seemed to echo with a thousand years of sorrow. A small, bittersweet smile touched her red lips as she looked at each of the rulers. They were all staring at her like chicks waiting to be fed, their previous arrogance completely gone.

"Divine maiden, what burden is he talking about? What the hell is going on?" Gregory asked, his voice soft unlike before.

Trinity closed her eyes for a brief moment, then opened them, her gaze piercing through the heavy silence of the hall.

"He speaks the truth," Trinity said softly, her voice shaking the soul of every leader in the room. "It is time that you all finally got to know the horrifying reality, the protective veil is failing. The Soul maidens being born now don’t have souls that are as pure as the first Soul maidens. They can’t purify the resonance stones that power the veil efficiently. If it is torn, the apocalypse will start from where it stopped because the Somnivores will have complete access to the whole world again."

For a three-second window, it was so quiet that one could have heard a pin drop. Then, absolute chaos. All the people here had once lived in the apocalypse once before, no one wanted to back to that era again.

"We’re all going to die!" someone whispered.

"This cannot be happening...again!" yelled another. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

Gasps, shrieks, and furious arguments erupted across the hall. In the back row, Volkregin...a man known mostly for being fearless suddenly lost his strength. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed straight out of his chair, hitting the carpet with a heavy thud.

"I will check his pulse!" Trinity walked to his side.

"Forget his pulse, fix the veil!" Gregory said desperately.

The Mayor slammed his hand so hard the wooden table. "Silence! Order! Shut up, all of you!" He wiped a bead of sweat from his bald head and glared at the panicked leaders. "This is exactly why we kept this a secret. Look at you! You’re supposed to be leaders, and you’re turning into a flock of startled chickens. Imagine what would happen if the public found out. It would be riots all over again, only worse because we have beasts now!"

Slowly, the commotion died down, replaced by a tense, heavy breathing. Volksregin was dragged to a chair and handed a glass of water.

Once the room was quiet enough to speak without a megaphone, Trinity stepped forward. She looked exhausted, her usual regal posture weighed down by years of carrying the nations on her shoulders.

"The lack of Soul maidens that are strong is not the only problem we have. Years ago," Trinity continued, her voice steady now, "we made a terrible discovery. You all think the resonance stones that anchor the veils are like magical, eternal batteries. But they aren’t. They are like expensive top of the line car batteries. Their energy gets depleted after long term use, so they have to be replaced.

And since those stones are the very things holding down the veil... well, less power means the veil weakens. I think everyone gets the picture I am trying to draw. Or should I actually draw a real one with paper and pen?"