While the US Government were still cracking their head trying to figure out Virtue, another piece of bad news comes to their desk, Chairwoman of Virtue Operation Catherine Kent were seen meeting with dozen of countries world leader, outside of the world summit meeting. From the informations that were collected, apparently Catherine Kent were one of the attendee, but as soon as the meetings ended about 10 world leaders come forwards to meet her in the public, which then followed by another 9, leaving only the US president and representative left out.
Ank-Hum felt his throat tighten. “I… I am free? Truly free?”“Truly,” Lois said. He placed a steadying hand on Ank-Hum’s shoulder. “You will eat. Your children will go to school. You will work if you choose, and you will be paid fair. No more chains. That’s the law of Aeternum.”Ank-Hum fell silent. His wife’s tears streamed freely now, his children staring wide-eyed. For them, this was a miracle.That night, Ank-Hum sat in a warm tent with his family, a bowl of stew in his hands. He had never tasted meat that wasn’t scraps. His children laughed, eating until their bellies were full. Around him, other Demi-Humans sat in disbelief, murmuring thanks between bites, some weeping into their food.Ank-Hum couldn’t stop glancing back to where Sergeant Lois stood, his uniform crisp under the lamplight, tail swaying as he spoke with human officers who treated him as an equal. For the first time, Ank-Hum allowed himself to hope.**************************Morning broke over Star City differentl
“Good.” My fingers traced the edge of the seized royal seal on the desk. “Begin tonight. No mistakes. We make law, and we do not provide martyrs. Make the process silent for the many, public and instructive for the few.”One of the clerks cleared his throat. “Sir, what of those who are wealthy but not publicly active? Those who financed but did not write the orders?”“We take it all,” I said. “Assets are neutral until proven innocent of aiding the crime. Their wealth goes to a trust—no loopholes. We will fund the rebuild with what they stole.” The decision felt clean, brutal, and necessary.They moved like a hive then—orders dispatched, lists printed, night teams briefed. The comms room below me hummed with the sound of a well-oiled mechanism. There was no romance in it, no drama beyond the steady march of duty. This is what statecraft looks like sometimes: a ledger, a warrant, a night convoy.I sat back in Halric’s old chair and let the enormity of the moment press down. History woul
They listened in that hush that only happens when a room remembers the gravity of a verdict before it is spoken. I had just finished telling them something that should have been obvious—of course the people of Lone Star were afraid. Of course they had good reason to fear. Decades of tyranny do not evaporate with a single convoy of bread. The faces in the room—ministers, judges, ACIA chiefs—shifted and accepted it. They agreed without argument.The door opened then, and Lieutenant Colonel Jack of Special Forces stepped in. He was still in kit—tactical vest dusted with the chalk of the field, rifle slung, plates visible under the jacket. He knocked once, politely, like a man stepping from chaos into ceremony. His boots were wet with the roads outside. He carried a slim file under one arm and the kind of expression that said whatever news he bore would not be light.“Come,” I called. We paused the meeting. Protocols could wait; the body of the city could not.Jack approached, saluted, an
When a government has been sapped for generations by a rotten elite, the surgery must sometimes be radical. I hold the line that law must follow action. We would not massacre at random; we would purge the networks that fed cruelty.At the window, beyond the flag that now flew where the Lone Star took pride, people clustered at the square and watched the lighted windows of the palace. Word would spread: certain faces would no longer be seen. Some of them would vanish quietly. A few would fall publicly, and everyone would finally understand the price of organized cruelty.I did not take pleasure in it. I took responsibility. The ledger of history would judge me not for the courage of my orders but for their fruit: whether we ended a cycle of cruelty or merely replaced one set of tyrants with another. That risk sat heavy in my chest as the room below hummed and the purge began in earnest.***************I sat in the chair that had once belonged to Halric the Third, the so-called King of
On the desk lay the ledger of all the transactions I had already set into motion: food shipments, provisional courts, registries under Aeternum seals. I slid my fingers along the edge of the papers. Governance would be the hand that followed the blade. Justice could not be a rumor. It had to be codified.“Begin,” I said softly. To myself as much as to them. “Begin the purge. But make it legal, and make it final.”In the silence that followed I felt the weight of what we would be accused of: barbarity, supremacist analogies, the blood of kings. Let them say what they must. In the end, history measures outcomes more than intentions. If I could replace lawlessness and systemic cruelty with a functioning, just system, if half a million children would sleep with full bellies instead of empty throats — then the cost would be justified in the ledger of time.Outside the palace windows, the city breathed under our watch. Markets reopened, guards patrolled with new uniforms, and a woman across
I leaned back in the king’s chair. Order. That is the word that must echo through this city now. Not conquest, not occupation. Order.I already know how this story will be told by my enemies. They will call me a warmonger, a tyrant, a usurper. They will say I destroyed a kingdom. But no. The truth — the truth is that the kingdom destroyed itself long ago. I am merely cleaning up the corpse.Bina is in the west. Alessia in the east. Each of them stabilizing their conquered regions, cutting away the last remnants of Lone Star’s power. Here, in the capital, I take command directly. Not because I do not trust them — I trust them more than anyone — but because the fall of Star City must be under my eyes, my hands. The people must see my will imprinted here.I walk to the desk. On its surface, the royal seal sits beside a half-finished bottle of wine. I take the seal, turning it in my hand.“This once belonged to you, Halric,” I whispered to the empty room. “Now it belongs to me. And with i