New Game+

It wasn't long before the Egyptian base lost contact with headquarters.

While the soldiers and armies remained, the mysterious group that attacked the border and went to the base went for the key structures that disabled it.

The Commander and all officials were killed. The various devices that were used to receive the signal of Locust techs were destroyed. And the many comm channels that were used to ensure uninterrupted uplink and connection to various locations in Egypt had been attacked.

But one of the reasons why the base fell was because of the lack of response.

Deep underground Egypt... was a massive base that could move. Yet while this base moved, the techs it applied didn't cause it to leave holes. It was as if this large fortress could swim underground and somehow would not leave tunnels in it's path but allow the earth to reform back. 

Commanding it was one of the most reclusive Presiders of all. Andronze had long declared her intention to carry out her experiments and warned everyone that she didn't want to be interrupted.

Yet today, the reports she received startled her so much.

There were just so many strange things. The sudden appearance of the five men clearly used unfamiliar techs that manipulated the dimensions beyond the normal.

The main problem was that the electric ball had so much energy that it was hard to see how the dimensions opened. 

And then the details of the battle were just as confusing. The five men had no technology on their own. No metals were detected from them through the techs she showered on Egypt. It was simple technology, but it was hard to bypass.

And yet, these men did impossible things without any traceable metal and their biology as humans.

The only possible way such a thing would happen was the Nefilius suit that Presiders had. It was the physical shell that held all their techs. And while the lower leveled Presiders had to 'wear' the suit, those at the higher levels have learned to put them on.

Top-Tiered Presiders like Crostfree even superimposed the suit on his physical body and the other dimensions to make it harder to damage and is conveniently worn all the time.

Now five men who had the technology to infiltrate and massacre a team had attacked his base and killed the Commanders. The evidence was pointing towards that direction!

Then the words that she heard were startling. Primes were involved!

And while he could not identify the Principals and Primes mentioned, it was implied that time travel was somehow involved!

She listened carefully to the words of that man who went inside and replayed it several times. Her obsession with this allowed the five men to dismantle the many things in the base secretly. Andronze could have made orders to stop it, but the information she just heard was so critical.

And then there was Lanterk. The Presider called Lanterk a Principal. And not just any Principal, but the mysterious Principal that has disappeared and became inactive. All that the others knew was that he was not a Principal to be challenged. Even Straviaa's father feared this Principal!

"Lanterk is a Principal?! It makes so much sense!" Andronze cursed. She had several dealings with Lanterk and had even traded with him. Those small encounters used to be nothing to her. But now, with the revelation, it somehow all added up. The details that used to mean nothing suddenly became essential events.

"That brat! He was a Principal all along! Those deals, those times he interacted with me! He tricked me! Has he been stealing from me?!" Andronze raged. If Lanterk was a Principal, then all the previous interactions meant that Lanterk had the means to see through Andronze techs. As a Principal, he should have better ways to infiltrate another Presider's Nefilius suit without them realizing it!

Several times, Lanterk would create Soul deals offering up a variety of his techs. Most of the Presiders even knew the techs he had! Next to Pridgeon, everyone looked down on the innocent Lanterk.

But he was a Presider! That made all the sense in the world! Now that Andronze began to think critically, how could such a naive Presider survive? Especially since Lanterk was a disciple of another Principal! It just didn't make any sense!

The words of that man also implied that there were a lot of spies among her forces! This caused Andronze to even warier at Lanterk.

"And there is that Planted that became a Primordial..." Andronze was checking all the details of Planteds and their earth-born offspring.

Any other Presider would have laughed at that claim. But Andronze didn't. This was because deep under the great pyramids of Egypt, Andronze discovered a legacy belonging to the Lost Primordial! She found it by chance and has been studying it for years but could not crack through the means to see and understand the object. And so, Andronze was very suspicious and xenophobic to other Presiders ever since. But since she always had been a reclusive person, so it worked for her.

"A Planted becoming a Prime? That sounds impossible! But if it's that object... then it is possible! Could it be? A Planted managed to uncover the secrets and thus, began his ascent?" This thought captivated Andronze as she fell into a trance that made her not care about the battle in Egypt's base. After all, her real base was not on Egypt but under it! It wasn't easy to locate her exact location.

While Andronze was obsessed with it, Arthur and his group communicated with Lennox in Africa one more time before officially going radio silent.

Arthur and the group were now fully clothed and began to walk in the harsh desert. Their attire followed standard Egyptian Camouflage. And while this was generally ineffective, the group could change their body temperature. And since they carried no foreign metal, they were undetected by most of Egypt's scanning technology.

As they moved, they deployed another one of Egypt's amazing creations that could cover up the footprints they made in the wide dunes of sand.

"I can't believe that we pulled that off very easily!" Vender was amazed.

"The fact that we managed to do it proves that the Presider believed our lie. If we met more resistance in that base, then it proved that the Presider Andronze didn't believe our lie and had the rational mind to stop us."

"Right. I was curious why our plan went so easily. Even if we got the Commander, that Presider could have done something and order her soldier directly. Was she so shocked at what she heard?" Gardo laughed.

"Alean's Path told us that Lowengren's lies would be effective. And she was right. The Presider Andronze's lack of reaction proves that he believed Lowengren's lies." Arthur added.

"But how exactly? I mean... Time-traveling cyborgs from the future? That's not exactly a believable lie." Vender asked again.

"I am curious too. I don't underestimate Lowengren's lies because I know how far I can go. But how did you make her believe that? I believe that this lie was something beyond the tolerance of what she would believe or not believe." Harker asked.

"There is a reason to that." Lowengren smiled.

"Oh? Do tell! I'm curious!" Gardo insisted.

"Well, Arthur deduced that the reclusive action of this Presider might have something to do with the Lost Primordial, right? The reason why it worked is very simple. The lie I gave could be outrageous, wild, and crazy... But hasn't history taught us that people would believe just about everything if it can somehow support their crazy, biased, and outrageous opinion?"

"I see... So it's that!" Harker realized what Lowengren was aiming for.

"What's it?"

"Simply put, this Presider believed our lie because she wanted our lie to be true," Lowengren answered.

"She wants... five naked men?" Vender joked.

The rest looked at Vender with a strange look. Gardo had an annoyed look. He wanted to say this joke. Everyone would have laughed if he did it, but because it came from Vender, the joke didn't become funny, but it became annoying.

"She wants to believe that whatever it is that she found down this land is something so powerful that she can soon rise above everyone else," Arthur explained.

"Right. And we just hinted that to her. A Planted becoming a Prime. It's something so inconceivable that her head would be spinning with every possibility."

"Oh. So basically, we created Fake News that she wouldn't bother to check if it's real." Gardo asked.

"That's a very poor... yet accurate analogy..." Harker wanted to argue, but Gardo was right.

"That's actually the gist of it, Gardo." Lowengren smiled.

"That's why Fake News existed. That's why people believed conspiracy theories, and their numbers increased that even the most stupid conspiracy theories have millions of adherents. And that is the beauty of lies. A lie can become truth to people who wants to believe it! To these people, these lies can easily become truth! The lies that feed the egos, confirm morality, or encourage a person's narcissistic view can easily be the truth! You don't have to go so far as to look at people believing conspiracy theories."

"Like people wanting to believe that the prequel series is better than the original trilogy?" Vender asked.

Everyone ignored him but began to grit their teeth.

"Anyway... Just look at single, desperate people yearning to be love. Some fall into a delusion that the person they want is destined to be theirs! Though they themselves don't do anything to woo or get the other person, their insane hope brought out by their ego, and delusional narcissism ends up making them assume that they deserve the other person." Lowengren explained.

Arthur couldn't help but smirk. He knew that Lowengren was referring to himself.

"Then that means our future lies will be to assume that this Planted is something of a genius, right? We will pretend to be ignorant of the legacy buried down this place and focus on an individual just like the concept in the science fiction show we are basing this lie on?" Harker asked.

"That's right! We will be focused on an individual. Andronze will either help us by contacting us to look for this Planted or look for that person as fast as she could."

"She'll try to have that person access the legacy of the Primordial. Regardless, while our lie succeeds, we have to follow up on our outrageous claims. That report that Seeker managed to deliver is quite helpful. Nefilius Suit and Lanterk being an actual Principal should help us in this mission." Arthur explained.

Their last-minute communication to inform Lennox of their success in the mission allowed them to learn of the most recent things discovered in the World Governing Trading Hub. Because of the various complicated protocols that the Unlock now had to follow since two Presiders were in the World Governing Trading hub, the flow of information now had delays. And Lennox was only able to inform the group about Lanterk's possible Principal identity.

"So… was this still related to Alean's Path? I mean, how was it that we randomly tried to make a lie of being related to Principal's and spouting those lies to associate one of the few Presiders we do know to be a Principal?"

"I've seen stranger things when I was with Alean. Too bad she's not here…" Lowengren sighed.

"I'm here. Treat it as almost the same thing. With what we did and the actions Seeker did to deceive Zeraphine and Lanterk. I can already see the future. The Paths that the Presiders will soon take will be to group together by pairs and trios. And then they will establish a city of their own! And if that happens, we now know the specific targets that we have to attack!"

"And so begins the Tale of Two Cities…" Harker smiled.