With the notification came a system window.
「Secret Containment Protocol
Multiple individuals in the Samir Node have been exposed to too many high-level secrets of the Alliance. It has been determined that asking for their secrecy won't suffice to keep the secrets contained.
Samir is now on S-tier lockdown.
- Messages and teleportation won't work to or from external places;
- Internal messages are no longer private and will be investigated;
- Deployment-related teleportation between the Node and its Subnodes will still work;
- A memory-locking team will arrive within 3 Standard days.
The team will lock all your memories of the recently disclosed information if you were exposed to it. Your memories won't be read.
Everyone is obligated to accept the memory-locking procedures.
The team is expected to conclude their business in 3 to 6 months.
The team has an S-rank authority, regardless of each individual's rank or personal authority. Resistance will be met with deadly force.」
Shen expected Darla to keep talking, but she still seemed to be suffocating. Blood kept pouring from her eyes, and she was pale. The system was not happy with her antics.
He was highly impressed with her teaching methods. She had said you could do anything if you could pay the price and were willing to do so, and she was living proof of it. He had no doubt he would be hunted down and killed like a dog if he revealed as many secrets as she had, but she was still alive. Being punished, yes, but alive.
Her revelations were interesting but didn't sound as bad as she tried to make it. The Alliance's procedures were cold and brutal, but there was no denying that resources were limited. Even their Sector was suffering from a lack of mana that caused political struggle and the Calamity, and it was the youngest. Moreover, the Alliance was in a permanent state of war. If you had to choose who to save, it was sensible to pick those who could help more.
Shen had no doubt he would be angered to death if he ever was among the ones left behind, but things were what they were.
The last bit of information, which touched on talents, interested Shen the most. So, he had been marked by the powers-that-be somehow? Why? What was their goal? What did they want from him?
Shen frowned. He did not like that. At all.
Likewise, he hated the idea of people coming to lock his memories. That they could do it without reading his other memories was a little better—if true. The lockdown on messages was almost as bad. He wanted to discuss some matters with Liya, but the possibility was now taken from him.
Shen looked at Darla. Although he could see her "only" suffocating and crying blood... Although her soul and Path seemed unshaken... The rawness that made her beauty so unique was part of her entirely. It affected everything she did. There had been genuine distaste for the way the Alliance did things when she spoke. There was genuine suffering in her eyes as she suffered.
Her suffering was... untainted, in a way. Seeing it seemed to clench and twist Shen's heart, and he was already protecting himself from any Realization Conformation, just in case she had one. But he wasn't under the natural effects of any Conformation. His reaction was solely his.
It was his Path that recognized her torture for injustice and sympathized with Darla. It was his True Self that empathized with her and suffered with her. It was he who grew so absurdly angry that he couldn't describe it.
It was an all-consuming but deep anger. It was...
Primal. Pure. Raw.
It was the simplest of reactions in front of witnessing injustice. It was one of the things that toppled kingdoms.
Something stirred deep within Shen, and he didn't understand it.
Her punishment was so... basic. How many had he seen suffer injustice in his life? How much had he discussed how bad the Alliance was? He had been there when a C-rank was almost killed because she was upset that her brother was executed. He had felt pity for her, not this.
His reaction made no sense, yet he soon realized he wasn't the only one upset by the display.
Almost everyone was adverting their gaze from her. Rayna's body shook in rage, and she was biting her knuckle, drawing blood, to control herself. Shen understood her. He also wanted to do something to stop that. But even if he was willing to pay the price, what could he do? The weak could only quietly withstand it.
A few D-ranks, who were on their knees like Shen and all others, tried to "step" forward to do whatever they would do, but they never moved an inch. Shen wouldn't allow it. He released his aura and forced them to remain in place. If Darla hadn't lied, she was doing this to advance Long Hei's plans for the Brigade. To do anything now that might look bad on the Brigade while she sacrificed herself would bring her an enormous dishonor.
"What is this?" Luthdel whispered, looking sideways while crying.
Shen hadn't known a moment before, but now he did. As he spread his aura and felt everyone within, he better noticed what was going on within them. Within himself.
"It's her Path," he explained.
"A Realization, Commander?" the high elf asked.
Shen shook his head but couldn't say more.
Path Walkers usually took specific steps at certain levels, making it seem like the rank was directly connected to the step. For instance, B-ranks were expected to develop domains. C-ranks rarely did it, and Shen hadn't heard about D-ranks with such ability even in elite combat training—yet he had done it. Similarly, what Shen could do with his Aural Realm was more than what an aura should be capable of doing, closer to a domain, without being a domain.
Darla's Path's "special ability," if it could even be called that, was a mix of both examples.
It was related to a process called Realization Purification.
Shen had learned only four things beyond the process's name. First, the more pure the Realization, the better in sync with Reality it became. Second, it was only for A-ranks to do. Third, it shouldn't be impossible to do it without a Realization unless countless factors come into play, and they were supposedly even more impossible to happen simultaneously. Fourth, there was a limit to how pure one should make their Realization; if it became too pure, you almost blended with Reality and lost part of your individuality. If you kept going, you ceased to be you.
Shen wasn't looking at a woman; he was looking literally at a walking force of nature.
Darla's Path was so in sync with Reality that it affected Reality similarly to a Realization Conformation. Reality confounded itself with her Path. Every move of hers, her very presence, changed the physical space she occupied until she left. That's why she felt so genuine. She was herself and nothing else, almost a Law without being a Law. After a certain Path purity, she had even less of a chance of going against her Path than an A-rank had of going against their Realization and surviving.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The side-effect everyone was experiencing only happened because her torment was so enormous that her mind was being affected, and even her instincts could tell where she started and ended. Her existence was blending with Reality, naturally spreading, when her sense of self decreased. Her Path wasn't corrupting the onlookers. Instead, they were seeing and feeling her without any filters.
Her Path should be related to sympathy, justice, or something like that. When she was placed under injustice...
No.
Shen recognized it as soon as she turned her agonizing eyes to him as if staring into his soul.
Darla walked a Path of Honesty—or something very close to that.
Everyone wasn't feeling some ethereal sense of injustice and reacting to it. They were simply being forced to face their own genuine feelings about the scene before them. The emotions they kept locked deep down to function in an unjust society. The ones they learned to ignore or discard.
That's why almost everyone had been affected by it, but not everyone. Some people didn't care about what they were seeing. In fact, a few D-ranks felt positively bored. That's how they truly felt about her punishment.
The certainty of how much she was suffering despite little external signs also came from her. Her Path honestly shared the truth of her torture with everyone on a subconscious level. Everyone just knew that Darla was being tormented beyond reason for her blunder.
Unlike a Realization Conformation, there was no "defending" from a Path's high purity. There was nothing to defend against. It was as if Shen was looking at a mirror that reflected the truth of his feelings, his honest self, back to him. So, he just needed to look away.
The ones who had done so didn't look much better afterward, but only because they kept thinking about it. It had shaken them.
Shen didn't look away. Darla was doing it for them all. He would do as he felt she wanted: he would remember this, even if the memory-locking team took the truths of the Alliance away from him.
"Look," she seemed to be saying as her eyes shone with defiance even through her pain and terror. "Stare in the face of the indescribable agony reserved for the ones who go against the Alliance, no matter how noble their goals. Burn this image in your souls and remember. Maybe there's a good reason behind all this. Perhaps things must be this way to ensure the Alliance keeps going. Or maybe it's all wrong.
"The reasons don't truly matter. What matters is that the rules are absolute. You must obey or pay the price. There is no alternative. No questioning. No giving feedback.
"Only the powerful had the right to both keep existing when a Sector died and impose their will upon the world."
Shen knew that. It was far from a novelty. But it was the first time he witnessed that truth in such a raw state.
In the depths of his soul, the flames of his anger raged. On his face, he showed no emotion. Anything else would be a dishonor to Darla. She was drow and was doing it also for Shen. Shen was drow and would react as a drow should to such sacrifice.
"Rayna, stop humiliating the Acting Colonel," Shen whispered.
In the silent room, his voice might as well have been a shout. Rayna's eyes widened as if she had been slapped out of her daze. She swore and did her best to compose herself. She failed; her entire soul kept shaking. But it was better.
Shen kept staring into Darla's eyes long after she moved her sight from him.
He only stopped seven Standard hours later when the pressure vanished, and she fell unconscious to the ground.
"Some prices are too high to be paid," the General said, his thunderous voice shaking the room. "It's up to you to decide." Darla was teleported away. "Acting Colonel Darla has acted against my wishes. Nevertheless, the consequences of her actions do benefit me and work for my original plans. I shall use what I have.
"Exemplary Brigade, your first assignment is to investigate, find, and judge every single fugitive in Samir with the full force of the law. Be merciless to any who harbors them. Any who resists shall be given no quarters.
"Except for B-ranks. If any B-rank hinders you, just move away, no matter how sure you are that they are harboring a fugitive. Only tell them that I said I'll investigate it later, then report to me.
"To accomplish this mission, you can teleport to and from whichever Subnode you want whenever you want. Spare no costs. Samir's regular troops have also started hunting the fugitives down seven hours ago. Humiliate them with your effectiveness.
"You have ten Standard days. Failure will be met with severe punishment."
Without further word, the abyssal dragon and the cthulhu faded out of sight.
His orders explained why he wanted Samir on lockdown. Back in La'sing, Shen had been placed in a Brigade with a very efficient Commander who looked almost omniscient. Even Uya hadn't been much worse—partly because she allowed Zyn to advise her.
However, while not typical, it was also not too rare for people to disappear during deployments in Subnodes. A Commander couldn't be everywhere, and when things got hectic, they couldn't pay attention to every runner. Such escapees were those who messed up badly on the deployment itself or were one step away from being given a harsh punishment for their accumulated military offenses.
Officially, they were called fugitives instead of deserters because deserters had been witnessed doing something that marked them so. Fugitives just disappeared after hiding their sins well enough. Sometimes, even MIAs were marked as fugitives, though MIAs were classified as such following different rules.
Tracking fugitives down was considered almost a waste of time and effort because the Void would deal with them eventually, anyway. Not to mention, the majority of fugitives had a strong enough backing that it would be a headache if they were really to be found guilty. It was better to just leave them to their miserable, cowardly fate.
If sighted, the military was supposed to take fugitives back for investigation, and a direct superior would decide their fate. However, there were times when things became so corrupt and muddled by so many opposing interests that a General used a few special rules to bypass the Investigation Department and most people in the fugitive's chain of command.
One of the requirements for that to be done was for the Node to be on an S-tier lockdown. It was known and even expected that the fugitives' families, clans, friends, and associates would interfere when a General decided to hunt them all down despite the interference being illegal. Considering the "purge" was only triggered when the local military already couldn't be trusted, external interference only created chaos and made it impossible to discern right from wrong.
Shen frowned at his orders. Killing traitors with strong backing could bring a lot of trouble to everyone involved. Yet, not only was he ordered to do so, but also to kill anyone who tried to stop him. Long Hei didn't just want to find the fugitives but also identify and remove anyone who was helping them.
The Queen had clearly not been given the complete picture of what was happening in Samir. She thought Long Hei had cleared all corruption after allowing matters to escalate, but if he wanted to do something like this, he had found signs of things being rotten before he came. He wished to use the Exemplary Brigade, the rivalry it would create, and the ensuing to identify the source of the rot.
In fact, perhaps the lockdown was to prevent the Queen herself from helping her people here.
Shen glanced at his Brigade. Sooner or later, they would be forced to fight another Brigade commanded by a corrupt First Lieutenant. He wondered how he would ensure every one of them survived against a foe with a hundred times their numbers. It was even worse because he also had to avoid killing too many foes; people might be ignorant, innocent, and following orders.
He also wondered if Marzia would be in one such corrupt Brigade.
Shen turned to his Battalion Commanders and said, "I'll personally judge everyone unless you have to kill them to protect your lives. I'll kill whoever uses the exception as an excuse to kill anyone.
"Blue Sky, get me a list of fugitives. Hukzun, set up a base of operations outside this mobile fortress. Vinamour, lock this mobile fortress down; any unauthorized entry or exit is to be captured.
"Luthdel, find out why and how your brother died. Rayna, find out if Marzia Martino, from Earth, is here and protect her against any threat. Also, ask her to come meet me. If she isn't here, ask all drow in Samir to meet me on the temporary base of operations outside."
Shen was wholly understaffed to enact his orders. He didn't care. He could only do his best and hope it was better than every other regular Brigade together.
He didn't know Rayna but trusted in drow training more than he did Luthdel's information-gathering abilities. She would figure out if Marzia was around sooner than Luthdel would learn her name from someone. And that only if he recovered from the state of shock he entered when he heard the news.
As for Shen himself, it was time for him to pay the price, too. A price both light and heavy. The price of dabbling in politics.
"Major Anhril Farÿn, is any fugitive in this mobile fortress?" he asked.
Though people disappeared in Subnodes, a minority was known to be later found in mobile fortresses. Shen wasn't sure how that was possible because he had been told the mobile fortresses were very good at identifying everyone all the time, but where there's a will, there's a way.
By asking the Major about it, he was partly accusing the man and, more importantly, partly offering him the chance to get rid of any fugitive he disliked and knew about but couldn't deal with for political reasons. The Major would be implicated for not having reported it previously, of course, but Shen would take the brunt of the anger from the opposing party.
Now, it was for the Major to decide if he wanted to pay the price of punishment he would receive for withholding information until now just to get rid of someone he really wanted gone.
Shen's guess about how the General had found too much rot in Samir was all but confirmed when the Major smiled wickedly and revealed nothing less than twenty names, mostly C-ranks. He even told him where they were: the quarters of the 822th Mana Brigade, which had received special dispensation from the Deployment Supervision Department not to become a part of the General's command to seek fugitives.
"Thank you, Major," Shen said, turned to the exit, and rushed full-speed toward his target.
Bringing his Brigade with him would be safer. Going alone was stupid. Yet, the anger was still burning inside himself, and he needed an outlet.
He hoped the Brigade would get in his way and give him a reason to go all-out for the first time in a very long while.