Prologue: Dealings Amongst Devils

In the darkness of a dimly lit silver, circular room, there are 8 chairs. Three on one end of the circle, four on the other end, and one that meets at the middle. In the center is a large circular table. Cold, transparent, and laden with stacks of paper that most would consider unnecessary.

In these seats there sit eight figures, sharply dressed, faces obscured by darkness, their names unknown and unimportant.

“It is 8:30 PM,” one figure on the leftmost end of the circle of seats states, “Let us begin, Overseer Ambassador.”

The middlemost figure nods and clicks a remote. “Alert!: Room recording in progress!” a robotic voice resounds.

“8:30 PM, 14/10/200 AW. This is an annual meeting between corporate ambassadors, known as “Day of Exchange”, wherein we discuss the ordeals and state of affairs in our lone city of Polyphena.” the middlemost figure announces, almost robotically.

“During this time the corporations must adhere to a strict no warfare policy as per agreement.”

“I will be the representative ambassador of Overseer, both the organization and the AI, and from here on my judgment will be on their behalf. My duty is to oversee negotiations and ensure every representative is under strict policy.”

“Now… Let us begin.”

----------------------------------------

“Encryption… check.”

“Backdoor… check.”

“Access code… running.”

“Alright!” A young, messy haired blonde man shouts happily at his achievement, cracking his knuckles and bending his back after several grueling hours on his chair typing away to find a way to infiltrate digital security.

“Now… let’s see what the corporations are up to!”

The young man presses a button on his keyboard lazily, sending his monitor alight with a myriad of colors until finally giving focus to a monotone feed of a security camera.

“Now, our next topic: The Stellar Breaker.” the man in the middle announces.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Hushed murmurs descend onto the round room, until being suddenly silenced at the small tap of a desk from the rightmost figure.

“Why discuss the topic of the Stellar Breaker annually when Overseer will obviously not give up the property permits for it this year either?” the woman in the shadows says sardonically.

“Ambassador of the Plasidax Corporation, we discuss this annually as it is part of the initial End Of War Agreement. You should know this.” the Overseer representative replies.

The man next to the sardonic woman raises a hand and responds, “I must agree with her. There is no use in discussing the Stellar Breaker when it’s obvious that the chance of any of the corporations acquiring it as property is a lie.”

The Overseer representative sneers at the objecting party silently.

In the meanwhile, the blonde young man is taking note of every topic brought up during this important meeting.

“The Stellar Breaker…” he ponders.

He ponders about the device that pierced the heavens, busting through the Stellar Firmament that trapped humanity inside this hellscape of a planet for so long during the War Against the Heavens.

The weapon that killed the last god… an Absolute… it is the war-ending weapon.

The Stellar Breaker.

Snapping out of his little trance, the blonde man continues writing down notes.

It seems that the companies are simply planning to skip the discussion of the Stellar Breaker that they have been fighting over altogether, seemingly knowing that Overseer will not let them have it, with the excuse being that nobody has proven to “deserve” the device just yet. A farce, as everyone present knows, including the blonde.

“I vote to veto the decision to carry on with this discussion, let us move on.” Another representative says to the left.

“Fine,” the Overseer representative relents, “then shall we move onto the discussion regarding recent Absomist concentrations?”

Silently, everyone in the room agrees.

“Then, as everyone knows, when the last Absolute died 200 years ago, it cursed this world of ours, Elysium, with its blood.” the Overseer rep states.

“Using this blood, it had created a dark mist that shrouded a majority of the lands of Elysium, and from this mist it can create and transform creatures into ravenous monsters we know as Remnants.”

“And lately, concentrations of Absomist have been on the rise in the Frontiers of the Outlands.”

From here an ambassador slams his fist in frustration.

“We at the Charmer Foundation had one of our supply bases in the Outlands overwhelmed by the growing mist!” We lost the stuff and the staff within entirely! We must do something about this!”

“Tch… We? That’s your issue, Charmer.” a representative teases.

The Charmer rep growls but before he begins to retaliate–

“Both of you, shut your mouths.” the Overseer rep demands.

“Now… to discuss the hows and whys of this issue…”

The rest of the meeting moves on without a hitch, with the blonde jotting down every detail. As it stands, life moves on in Polyphena.

“Ah… now that that’s over with, I guess it’s time to report back to Navia.” the blonde says with a hum.