"Yes," Vania said. "I do. Isn't the presence of thaids evidence enough? Monsters able to wield mana? Seriously? They should be proof enough that what we are doing actually makes sense."
Erik's gaze hardened. "The Silverline Corporation created the thaids, though. Your predecessors engineered these creatures to find a solution to a problem they themselves created. Even if the reasons you are doing this might be true, the amount of atrocities you committed surpassed any good proposition you might have. Don't pretend innocence when your hands shaped the very threats you claim to protect everyone against."
Vania nodded, surprising him. "Yes, we created the first thaids. I won't deny our role in that." Her eyes t his unflinchingly.
"But they were proof of sothing greater, sothing beyond our understanding—mana. A power that doesn't belong in our world, a power that shouldn't exist by any laws of physics we understood."
She stepped forward, leaving her protective circle of guards. "And if the thaids that got created by humans could control mana, if humans themselves could, what made you think there wasn't sothing else in the universe that couldn't? These harbingers of destruction—how can you deny what they represent?"
"And what do they represent?" Erik asked, curious to know where her derangent had reached. He actually knew what her point was… but…
"That sothing or soone with better control of it might exist, sothing not human, not thaid, sothing that could co to Earth. Sothing that makes the thaids look like insects in comparison. Sothing that we think will co here one day and that will enslave us all if we don't act now that we still have ti."
Blood continued to flow around her. "The blackguards weren't ford out of cruelty or ambition, Romano. We were born from necessity—a shield between humanity and powers they couldn't comprehend but that they needed to wield."
In his pursuit of vengeance, Erik painted the blackguards as one-dinsional villains, corrupt power-seekers exploiting others for gain. He wasn't completely wrong, but at this point, it was true they were not just power-hungry monsters.
Though Erik didn't want to believe that, after everything they did to him.
But Vania spoke with conviction, with the certainty of soone who believed in their cause beyond personal benefit. Even the second division commander held the sa conviction, and most likely, the third one did.
It wasn't just that, but Erik saw the video the Silverline corporation kept at the lake's lab. Maybe not even the blackguards knew of the existence of that video and operated based on what their ntors said.
Regardless, he saw that video, which showed soone wielding powers way before brain crystals and thaids appeared, which, based on what humans knew up until Erik unearthed that secret, shouldn't have been able to.
It wasn't just that, but the man claid he could see the future and hinted at a great tragedy befalling humans. It wasn't going to happen soon, but it was bound to be inevitable.
Erik assud the Thaids would have been the most likely candidates for this destruction, at best a cataclysm… but aliens, as the first division commander was hinting?
It wasn't extrely far-fetched, though; what the woman said was still in the realm of possibilities. Humanity knew nothing of what was in space.
But even if sothing existed beyond Earth, so force that wielded mana with greater skill than humans—was that his problem?
They would co after Erik died anyway.
That ant that whoever that brain belonged to, in so twisted way, had lived for centuries.
And according to the system, that sa fate—of turning into a biological supercomputer himself—awaited Erik after death.
His consciousness would be transford, used—maybe without mories. The thought chilled him more than he cared to admit.
In that sense, destroying the blackguards and their research would be plain stupid, but…
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