?????°???°?????

  The pre-dawn sky darkened.

  It was not gradual. In a single instant, it was as if a black mantle had covered everything. People raised their faces at the same time, confused.

  Then, the district split apart. Buildings cracked like paper and began to float in distorted shapes. There was no warning, no time to flee.

  At the center of the chaos, something hovered.

  A colossal figure loomed above the constructions, shrouded in a purple mantle that did not react to the wind. The fabric seemed closer to smoke than to cloth, undulating slowly, as if submerged in an invisible ocean.

  Telos no longer possessed a human body. Where a face should have been, there was a mass of darkness with part of a human skull’s jaw. The creature made no sound, yet its presence pressed against the air, crushing breaths and forcing knees to bend without anyone understanding why.

  In his right hand, he held a kind of artifact.

  A translucent glass sphere, large enough to be seen even from a distance. Inside it, a small universe slowly rotated, points of light being born and dying almost instantaneously, nebulae forming and collapsing, stars stretching until they became distorted lines.

  The sphere was bound by golden chains, intertwined around Telos’s skeletal hand.

  With a slight sway of the artifact, an invisible wave spread outward. Houses were torn from the ground, people vanished into the air as if they had never existed. Defensive magics activated, only to be destroyed the moment they came into contact with that absurd pressure.

  “What is this?!” someone managed to murmur, their voice covered in fear and doubt.

  The adventurers present reacted immediately. Skills were activated. Mana blades and spells crossed the sky as containment symbols formed around the creature.

  Nothing reached him. Space bent before impact, deflecting attacks, erasing trajectories, as if the world itself refused to allow any approach.

  Telos raised the artifact only a few centimeters.

  The ground split open.

  An entire avenue was torn from the city, lifted into the sky like a ripped sheet of paper. People, stones, and screams spun together before being compressed inside the glass sphere.

  A star went out within it.

  °??──────??°

  A few minutes before the attack.

  The third district was crowded. Suffocating, even. People packed every space, rooftops, balconies, narrow streets. Voices overlapped in disordered shouts, rallying cries blending with the constant noise of the crowd.

  At the center of it all, a wooden stage.

  Upon it stood a man wearing a white mantle.

  From the back of the crowd, Don’s group observed.

  They had not stayed idle over the past few days. Precisely because they were rarely seen without their armor, the investigation had been conducted entirely in secrecy. They spent days wandering through the districts, day and night, talking to residents, frequenting taverns, infiltrating protests without drawing attention.

  Eventually, Logy began to notice something strange.

  Not because it was new, but because it did not align with what he had already seen.

  He remembered it clearly. On one of the first days inside the protests, he had seen a man in a white mantle who spoke in a restrained manner. He did not gesture, did not mingle with the crowd. He merely observed and spoke little. Too silent for someone who intended to lead a revolt.

  That man… was not there now.

  As the days passed, Logy noticed the pattern. In each district, a “man in white” appeared, always at the head of some group, always giving speeches, always inflaming the people. But none of them moved, spoke, or even occupied space in the same way as that first one.

  An analysis skill did not work on them. Some form of protection prevented any direct reading.

  But Logy did not need it.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  He noticed the differences in the way they walked, in the exaggerated gestures, in the rehearsed tone of voice. They were leaders… but they were not that leader.

  This realization placed the group in an uncomfortable position.

  Viola Pumpkin was the first to show irritation. To her, the solution seemed too simple to ignore: end the protests by force while the man in white was still there, exposed, before it spread any further.

  The idea was never carried out.

  Don and Logy were quick to point out the obvious. Intervening at that moment, with an agitated crowd, would only confirm everything that was being preached. The man in white, real or not, would become a martyr. The revolt would not end, it would only change shape.

  Sentil reinforced the argument. Suppressing the protest without concrete proof would not dissolve the hatred. It would only give it direction.

  Viola yielded, though reluctantly.

  The decision was to observe. To wait. To understand who was truly behind it all.

  That was when the conclusion formed.

  Each district had a representative. A pawn, in truth.

  But the real man in white did not step onto stages.

  He pulled the strings from somewhere else.

  The most obvious deduction was simple.

  This man was one of those who had escaped the labyrinth.

  The crowd reacted like a living organism.

  With every phrase spoken by the man in white, the chorus grew. Raised fists, hoarse voices, rage condensed into words far too simple for a problem far too complex.

  It was at that moment that the air changed.

  Without warning, without announcement, a black presence appeared in front of the stage.

  Viola Pumpkin.

  The black armor seemed to contain no soul; only the orange of her hair spilled behind the helm to give it color. No part of her body was visible, no face, no eyes.

  The murmur gradually ceased, as if someone had muffled the sound of the world.

  Viola did not speak immediately.

  She analyzed.

  The stage, the improvised structure, the escape routes. The man before her. The reaction of the people. The amount of mana dispersed in the environment. How easily all of this could be ended, yet she merely stood close to the man in white.

  She could end it right there.

  A single command. A single advance. Enough force to tear the man from the stage and crush any resistance that followed.

  That was how she thought, and how she wished to act. But she could not do it now. Not yet.

  Before Viola took even a single step, another voice rose, not from the stage, but from within the crowd.

  “Listen.”

  It was not a shout. It was not an order.

  Still, the voice cut through the chaos.

  Logy stepped forward. In his hands, fragments of recording crystals, maps, and documents marked with guild symbols.

  “You speak of justice,” he continued, “but you ignore what is happening beyond the walls. You ignore who is really dying.”

  Some jeered. Others hesitated.

  Logy raised one of the crystals, activating it.

  Images flickered in the air.

  Captured monster bodies. Then narrow corridors, broken cages, blood on the walls, the labyrinth.

  “Coordinated monster attacks began before the protests,” he said. “And it was no coincidence. These creatures were being bred in captivity by a group of criminals. Used to disrupt trade routes. To suffocate the kingdom little by little.”

  The man in white on the stage tried to speak, but Viola took a single step forward.

  Enough to silence him.

  “These criminals knew exactly what they were doing,” Logy continued. “Two were captured. The rest… fled.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “And now, conveniently, we have revolts, chaos, distraction… while something much greater moves behind all of this. Can you really not see what is happening?”

  The silence was no longer imposed by force.

  It was doubt.

  Don, with his imposing figure, shifted to the side of the stage, a silent precaution, in case the man was lucky enough to try to escape Viola.

  Logy turned his gaze back to the man in white.

  “You are not the leader,” he said, without raising his voice. “You are just a representative. A disposable face for a specific district. The real one is somewhere else… and I am almost certain he is one of the criminals who tried to destroy this kingdom.”

  Murmurs spread through the crowd.

  Even if everything fit together, Logy was not absolutely certain. But that did not matter now.

  What mattered was that everyone there had suffered from the monster attacks. And this was the only way to direct that rage—not against the princess, but against those who had truly caused it.

  “Can you understand what is happening?” Logy said. “All of this was a setup from the beginning. You were manipulated. Your pain, your efforts, your lives… everything was used to turn the people against the royal family. Open your eyes!”

  “And how can we be sure you’re not lying?!” someone shouted, igniting the spark of distrust.

  “So you don’t believe me, even after the evidence I’ve shown,” Logy replied calmly. “That’s fine. Let’s clear this up.”

  He turned his gaze to the man on the stage.

  “So… what do you have to say?”

  The man hesitated.

  Then he began to applaud.

  “Congratulations,” he said. “You really came far. I didn’t expect that… well, maybe just a little.”

  The shock was immediate. There was no longer any way to pretend.

  Even so, Logy felt uneasy. That reaction did not match someone he believed to be merely a pawn.

  “I see you won’t even try to defend yourself.”

  “I have no reason to,” the man replied, smiling beneath the mantle. “You’re smarter than I thought. Even the lazy ones can surprise you, hm?”

  Logy narrowed his eyes behind the armor.

  “You said I am somewhere else. And I am. But you are wrong to think I am not here as well. Not all the time, it’s true… but I am the representatives. Just as you called them.”

  “Mind control,” Logy murmured.

  “Is it?”

  The man let out a light laugh.

  “In any case, the play is reaching its end. The initial plan was to maintain the monster attacks. It took years to set all that up… I admit it was frustrating when you discovered the labyrinth.”

  He tilted his head.

  “Then came plan B. Use the consequences of plan A to create a rebellion against the royal family. The princess, due to her condition, was the perfect target. Her fall would lead to the fall of everything. With the people already weakened, it would be quite easy, and in fact, it was.”

  The crowd listened in absolute silence.

  “I wanted to kill this kingdom from the inside. Slowly. But I failed. What a shame.”

  Guards began to emerge among the people, surrounding the man in white. He raised his hands.

  “Easy, easy. I’m not finished yet.”

  His tone changed.

  “Now that plan B has failed… plan C takes the stage. Can you handle that too?”

  With those words, the man fell unconscious to the ground.

  Then, without any warning…

  The sky darkened.

  ?????°???°?????