"As a wise man once said," the Grand Senator said as he entered his sworn brother's dwelling. "It's easier to break the atom than keep a dragon from a dark cave."

There was only darkness in the Acting General's bedroom. Yet, the General himself, an abyssal dragon, was paradoxically visible because the abyss of his existence was darker than black in the unlit room. The average onlooker wouldn't know why they could see a dark silhouette in a place that was already completely devoid of light, yet they would see him.

It felt as if invisible thunder replied, "Is your misquote your way of admitting you were also checking on Earth's scientific progress behind my back, old friend?" The room shook under the weight of his voice, but the Emperor noticed the deep sadness and tiredness under all the rage.

The Grand Senator twitched at the mention of betrayal and the downgrade of their relationship. "Brother, I swear to the Heavens, to my Realization, to anything you ask, that it was just a misunderstanding. When I realized what was happening, I had already sold him to SpecOps."

The dragon pointed out, "And yet, you didn't let go of the payment you received, did you? You're allowing him to die. After everything the dragons did for you. After everything I did for you."

Hearing that deeply hurt the Grand Senator, but he had to admit he had acted too sneakily this time. There was no alternative. If anything went wrong before the deal was set and he was back in the Alliance, his brother would be implicated and die with him. He would rather be resented for eternity than allow that to happen.

In fact, even now, he still had to lie and misdirect, or the plan would never work. And the best lies were mixed with truths.

"Look at my soul, brother," the Immortal Emperor said. "What do you see?"

"A traitor. Leave. I don't want to fight you now, but I will if you insist."

"A hurt traitor—if you really must call me that. The payment could be used to heal my soul, but I didn't use it, did I? I also owe the boy. Taking advantage of him to heal myself he indirectly led me to notice I was being fooled would be the death of me. My Karma would be too heavy for my Realization to sustain. The misunderstanding ended with me selling the boy, but instead of returning the payment and letting our enemies suspect anything, I used it to repay my debt to him and you."

Giant eyeballs, even darker than the silhouette, appeared as the abyssal dragon opened his eyes. "Stop. Talking. And. Leave."

The Emperor insisted, "Your plans had too many holes and variables, brother. He must leave the United Supremacy. I found a way to make it happen."

The eye closed again. "No one can leave it. Not after we're marked. But you should leave this place."

"I convinced the Drow Potentate to help."

"Lies and empty words; you're full of them. Leave."

"Think, brother. My injured soul, the lack of drow in Samir despite them being officially here, and the sudden appearance of the Drow Maiden disguised as a poloise—whom you were forced to pick because your other picks were unavailable. The Potentate started acting as soon as we started negotiating. She has someone in SpecOps. She agreed to send him on a suicide mission that will give him a chance—"

"How dare you!" The thunderous voice raged. "To say to my face you'll kill him! After placing him in a position to be sent to death with no choice! Leave, betrayer! Leave, or I swear to the Heavens, I will kill you where you stand!"

With a hurt heart, the Grand Senator nodded once and left the cave.

Finding the Potentate hadn't been easy, but its figure was so elusive, and obtaining its assistance was so absurdly hard that no one would believe the Emperor's plan contained an even deeper layer. Not even he did, sometimes. Using the Potentate would be much safer and would have a higher chance of working—as long as no one knew about it. But he had to bet that someone would find out. Especially after he discovered that the Guardian System was lying to the boy.

Well, not technically lying. The system wasn't required to inform Shen that his monitoring priority had increased. The increase hadn't been done for the same reason he had been under B-rank Monitoring, after all. But it was still a technicality that made him believe something that wasn't true—that his monitoring was only B-rank.

Shen was under an A-rank Monitoring Priority. Someone was waiting for him to mess up when he thought no one was looking. And he would believe he only had to hide from a B-rank.

To be fair, that was the boy's own fault. One didn't recreate an ancient skill used exclusively by the only mythical race known to be able to produce a Triple-Layered Nexus Aura and live to tell the tale. Merely having the aura would've gotten him killed if he weren't a first-class talent.

The Emperor's sworn brother was a fool not to see that the only hope for Shen was beyond the Alliance—and back, if done correctly.

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The Grand Senator almost chuckled while teleporting back to the Calamity as he thought of what the boy named the technique. Aural Realm? Really?

To think anyone would dare to call the infernals' Absolute Horizon something so mundane.

At least the stupid name had ensured no one linked it to the technique used by the infernals. It was also fortunate that he couldn't push it to the next tier before he mastered Laws, so only very powerful and knowledgeable people would notice the vague resemblance. If not for those things, he would've gotten executed already, no matter the consequences. As things were, the upstruck infernals were only watching and seeking an excuse to get rid of him.

Well, the Emperor had done everything he could. He had repaid his debt. Whether Shen would live to reap the benefits was up to him.

But Heavens, the Grand Senator hoped he did—and returned successfully.

The other dragons kept his sworn brother in the dark about the project's importance. He had gotten too attached to the boy he had given his genes to. But if Shen succeeded...

It would change everything.

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The Acting General breathed a sigh of relief when his brother left, and a female figure left the abyss of his body.

"Did he suspect anything?" the Drow Potentate asked, her brisk voice filling the room in a way even the dragon's thunderous voice couldn't.

"No," the dragon replied with a tight heart. "I never lied to him before. He trusts me."

"Good. His plan of using me as misdirection isn't bad, but if I saw through it, they will, too. I'll ensure our plan's success no matter what."

The dragon wanted to ask something but hesitated. Not all A-ranks were created equally, and the Drow Potentate could scheme in ways that defied reason. She was also considerably stronger than him.

"Speak your mind, boy. We're partners. I told you so before."

Boy. For a being as old as him to be called a boy. But he had learned the truth of the drow by coincidence and knew she would be correct to even call him a baby or an egg.

"Why?" he asked. "Why risk your life for him?"

She laughed pleasantly. "Ah. No one ever understands. He is drow; that's enough."

"That isn't enough for you to save every drow dying out there," he replied before realizing what he was saying.

A glint of anger flashed through her eyes, but it was quick. Then, she nodded, acknowledging he had a point. "Tell me, partner. How many first-class talents have the drow allowed to die?"

"The drow never had a first-class..." he started replying and trailed off.

The drow had to have had a first-class talent before. Despite what most of them believed, their race was too ancient for such a talent never to have appeared in it. How come there were no records of that?

The Potentate smiled. "I can't be everywhere, and I can't do everything. Even if I could, I wouldn't. What manner of weak race would it produce? That it already produced in the past? Their recent bloody history is my fault, for I cuddled them too much, then left and trusted the wrong people to watch over them. They couldn't defend themselves from those accountants' pathetic ploy. Yet, there are things that only I can do for my people. One of them is that only I can save drow first-class talents. It's my duty and no one else's. And so, I do it. It's as simple as that."

The dragon wasn't convinced. "So, he was lucky that someone sold him to the right race? That's all there is to it? Someone like him, on whom I deposited all my hopes? And I know I am beloved by my race, even if they ultimately discontinued my project."

She chuckled again. "Your friendship with Karma Boy skewed your perception too much, kid. Not everything is a ploy. There aren't always puppet masters in the dark. Sometimes, things just happen."

He said nothing.

She must have noticed he wasn't convinced, so she rolled her eyes and continued, "The Alliance is ancient, and given enough time, it'll see everything that might happen, happen. It'll see existence itself cease one day if it stays around long enough. Or maybe Reality will morph into something we can't even imagine.

"How many weirder coincidences have happened throughout history? You only think Shen's circumstances cannot be pure chance because you're living through this specific set of coincidences. Believe me, I saw shit. I was involved in countless absurd shit, too.

"The worst was the Asura Incident. I investigated it myself, extensively so. With the blessings and borrowed authority of an S-rank and the help of two others, no less. Precisely thirty million points of divergence would have seen the Asura not do what he did by mistake, but they all happened. While there were instigators behind about one-tenth of them, those people's interests often opposed each other, and the other points were pure coincidence.

"When I was E-rank, I used to think A-ranks were almost perfect, their wisdom all-encompassing. Now that I'm A-rank, I can't do a tenth of what I thought A-ranks could. My mind isn't that good. Neither is yours, is it? We're limited, and so are S-ranks. I assure you no S-rank planted Shen among the drow. I won't go into details, but I investigated that, too. I always do. People died. I almost died. He's clean."

The dragon just sighed and closed his eyes again.

Listening to this wouldn't do him any good. She was that much better than him at scheming.

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Darla wasn't lying to the oversized lizard, but he had suffered too much recently and was having trust issues. So be it. She knew better than to waste time on a lost cause.

Also, she couldn't share the crux of her belief with him. It touched on secrets too big for that weak A-rank. Really, that was the most weak-willed abyssal dragon she had ever seen. Without the Karma Boy's leadership, he would've gotten nowhere.

At least he was bold enough to risk the Primordials' ire when he protected the boy in the gnoll rift.

The crux was the detail everyone seemed to gloss over: Shen had developed a Triple-Layered Nexus Aura. That was impossible for either humans or dragons. Shen was both; he could not, under any circumstances, have developed it. Not even embracing the Void explained it. Yet, there he was.

Darla could only think of one way to explain how that had come to be. A name so old only she and a few others should remember. The kind of person that caused the first Purge, long before the Primordials claimed they only Purged the Alliance when the Alliance was misbehaving.

Chaosbringer.

What were pesky rules and limits of cause and effect for the one who would wield Change against all order?

If her guesses were correct, Reality itself was stirring against the Usurpers, and the United Supremacy had no idea how they were shooting their own foot by using the natural first-class talent to solve some relatively smaller issue. Or perhaps she was wrong; they knew and would kill her for taking him away.

Well, it didn't matter much.

He was drow.

If she had to die to save him, so be it.