Chapter 4015  The Truth Revealed

BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT

He glanced at his buzzing commpad, which broke him from his reverie. As much as he would have loved to drown himself in the relationship between reality and the universe within the fields of metaphysics and ontology, he needed to come back to grounded reality.

[Sir, the Gaia Summit is ready. Everybody is waiting for you.]

"Oh, that much time passed in the blink of an eye?" He turned back to the skies of the Kandrian Empire around him. "You lose track of time when inspecting the nature of reality."

However, he didn't need to go anywhere.

He closed his eyes, diving deep into the information dimension as his uniform phenomenology flowed through all the information, careful not to change it by mistake, lest he disappear by mistake.

He spotted the radio signals flowing across the entire world that comprised the virtual meeting, opening his eyes and directly hijacking the virtual summit where he was.

BZZZT

He found himself standing at a virtual podium in a well-lit summit conference room. The leaders of the world had gathered across a large number of seats arranged circularly, facing him. His sudden arrival drew their nervous and tense attention as the wave of murmurs that spread across the virtual summit completely froze. The atmosphere in the summit tingled at the nerves as they felt a great amount of pressure from everything that had unfolded and everything that awaited them. At the same time, there was a sense of weariness at the sheer shock of everything that had happened.

Words could not overstate how bonkers the past twelve hours had been. It had completely shattered their understanding of the universe and their perception of themselves and the cosmos.

No longer were the stars 'new lands' filled with boundless resources waiting for them.

Now, they were unknown.

They were filled with potential enemies that awaited in the darkness for an ambush. And they couldn't even blame them for thinking that, considering that two alien invasions to destroy Gaia, essentially, had unfolded before their very eyes. They gazed at him with yearning desperation.

They sought clarity.

Understanding.

Rui could sense their brainwaves even though he wasn't there in front of them, for his understanding of the flow of information itself had improved a hundredfold. "There are many agendas to this meeting," he began with a powerful voice. "However, the most important agenda item and one that all of you deserve the most is an explanation of everything that has happened. And so, I shall share with you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

And so he did.

The reality was that he had actually lied to them before when he said that the location of the alien virus was in the Great Void Ocean. This time, he freely told them the truth of where it was and what it was.

He described his experiences at the point of maximum fear, as they called it. He described the particle accelerator that created the negatron matter that inflated Gaia and the negatron core. He described Earth, Gaia, in the past, and how things had changed since then.

Not a single person could maintain their composure as the full weight of the truth bore down on them. Their jaws dropped as their eyes widened, their expressions crumpled with horror as Rui described what had happened to Earth and how things had evolved to become the way they were. He told them about the alien virus that had come from the explosion of an alien world, inserted itself into what would go on to become the Panama Continent. It brought with it exotic matter that was the esoteric matter of Panama, and used the power of that esoteric matter to inflate Gaia like a bubble.

He told them about the alien virus mind, born in the interactions between esoteric matter and the deep biosphere, and he told them about the various battles that he had fought. The Evolutionary Army Deputy Commander darkened at the mention of the return of Anthea, and Lord Vakratunda's eyes grew hazy at the mention of the return of the Dragon Emperor. Argenton shivered at the mention of the return of NOVA, his trauma climbing up and overwhelming him.

Secretary Claris shed a tear at the mention of the virus weaponizing his father against him, as well as the happiness that he had managed to find some closure. Prime Minister Edward grew solemn at that recounting, wondering what his old friend would say to him if they could speak again.

"It was only after I defeated the alien virus that it sent an SOS across… 'reality itself,' let's stay," Rui continued. "And that SOS was detected by the alien civilization whose home world had exploded to seed alien seeds in other worlds, including ours. And that was the alien civilization we first faced. They sought to destroy our infected world because it was a threat to the galaxy. And the space monsters that came after were…"

His eyes sharpened. "Reinforcements for the alien virus. They would have reseeded our planet had we failed to defend ourselves from them."

It was a chilling realization. They had thought the uncertainty of not knowing what was happening was the scariest part of all of this, but no.

The truth was much, much more terrifying than they had imagined.

A virus infecting the entire universe?

What could they possibly do against such a horrifying entity? In fact, if not for Rui's breakthrough to the Transcendent Realm, something that those outside Panama still didn't understand, they would have undoubtedly been bested.

They gazed at him with hope.