New Game+

As the tour continued, they were brought into the main command center of the King Naga and were told to wait. General Harker Cipril himself would visit them. It was also then that Tyler explained that their gathering was set at the same time to witness another momentous event. After Harker appears and reveals more shocking secrets, the call to SPU will begin. And Pangea will offer a secret alliance with the SPU.

Even Lara herself was amazed at what Harker could do. At that time, Lara even wanted to make Harker one of his soldiers because of the wit and intelligence that he had.

"No wonder the Lost Primordial wanted Harker. It must be quite a disruption in their plans that this man betrayed them." Lara thought as she looked around her. She kept checking her signal through the implanted chip that allowed her to communicate and access things through her eyes. But sadly, the signal was unable to reach as they were deep underwater. There were also a lot of distorting techs that were employed.

"Is this place to your liking, Miss Diamon?" Tyler smiled as he placed a cup of coffee nearby.

"I still can\'t understand why you would call the SPU and offer an alliance."

"It\'s all part of the plan. The Lost Primordial is quite an elusive group. They are even more elusive than those allies that Harker found. But one thing our spies are certain off, none of the leaders in the SPU are connected to the Lost Primordial." Tyler explained.

"Still, it\'s risky business. You don\'t know that." Lara countered.

"This is something we carefully considered. We will always be on our guard against the SPU. But we\'d rather have a divided enemy than a united one. Our efforts of reaching out to them will help us in gaining more forces. If the SPU is always our enemies, they might as well try and invest a little to make them our allies."

"That does make sense…" Charm nodded.

"Truth be told, Australia has also come into a form of upheaval. A new leader who was secretly manipulating things behind the scene is now the real leader of Australia. After the events three weeks ago, several General were tried and executed for betraying the country. It looked like there were twelve secret factions in Australia led by a mysterious group called the Twelve. The new leader of Australia is asking to ally with us. They have already agreed to help us become a City of Refuge."

Lara was stunned as she heard this.

"What do you mean? I have connections in Australia, and I know that someone is trying to take over it. But why would they contact you?"

"I don\'t think that this \'someone\' your connections told you is the same one trying to win our favor. There are several people fighting to claim Australia. But according to the Progenitor, this man is the best to ally with since he has a deep hatred for the Lost Primordials and is not known. I heard that he was once one of Lost Primordial. Until one day, many betrayed him." Tyler explained.

Charm began to ask questions eagerly, but Lara was silent.

She began to scour her memories in an attempt to solve just who this person could be. She knew that Pridgeon was in Australia until two weeks ago and left several Pioneers in charge of trying to salvage whatever they can in Australia. Wasn\'t Pridgeon tasked to control Australia? Her thoughts went back to the rumors of possible betrayals after the third world war.

"… And that\'s why we are having a hard time looking for these Lost Primordial." Tyler continued to answer Charm\'s never-ending question.

"But what about the Progenitor? How was it able to escape the watchful eyes of the Lost Primordial."

"We don\'t exactly know. But General Harker put it this way… You can hide from something if you know what that something is." Tyler explained.

"That doesn\'t make sense."

"It does." Lara interrupted.

"The Progenitor knew about the Lost Primordial, and because they knew about it, they did their best to hide from it. They knew that a powerful, unseen, and ever-watchful force existed on this planet and made the preparations and necessary precautions to hide away from them. You can\'t hide from something that you don\'t know exist. But if you know what it is, you\'d know how to hide from it."

"That is correct. And frankly, we don\'t know. The deep seas remained unexplored. We haven\'t scoured every inch of it. And even if we did, what if there are even underwater cities that hide beneath the city? What if these powerful organizations exist in the deep underworld area?"

"So it\'s a big world after all…" Charm sighed helplessly.

"So what exactly are we waiting for? And how are you going to have that call with SPU?"

"Any minute now. Just relax."

"And the Phallic techs?" Lara asked.

"You\'ve seen the sample. We believe that those devices interfere with the three dimensions. Have you seen anything special from that tech?"

"No. It looked just like an ordinary- erm… stick until you harnessed energy on it, and it somehow became alive."

"That\'s right! The person who demonstrated it earlier was just a normal human. You\'ve seen his scans. And you\'ve all held that stick for several minutes to confirm how normal it was. Oh. Except for Miss Charm, who didn\'t dare to hold."

"I\'d rather die, thank you."

"And then… the miracle. The dormant stick became alive and began to harness energy all of a sudden when we gave it to the soldier who had the right techs of activating it. You\'ve seen that the stick suddenly awakened as the cells became alive."

"How did that happen? On what framework can a stick suddenly be alive?" Lara asked.

"That\'s the mystery of phallic techs. It just did. We believe that the ancient civilizations of old discovered this by accident. Why was it that several nations were obsessed with erecting stone or wooden pillars in the ancient world? These phallic symbols were known as Asherah poles! Even the Bible urged the Jews of their time not only to stop erecting them but even had many God-fearing men tear it all down! "

"You\'re mixing religious superstitions to high-tech science?"

"We\'ve seen werewolves and vampires in this time. The existence of Voodoo and the shaman magic in Africa have already been documented. We are reaching an age where science, magic, and religious superstition are all mixing. Of course, being a Phil-Pangean native, my Christian roots and upbringing naturally incline me to go back to these roots of mine. Wasn\'t the first tower that the anent world created was a large towering infrastructure? What if the phallic symbol of this tower of Babel is something that naturally breaks the dimensions?" Tyler asked.

Charm maintained her unimpressed and uninterested impression, but Lara was secretly shocked.

"Tower of Babel? Babelians? Could it be?" She wondered.

The doors of the gates suddenly were opened.

The majestic, glorious, unparalleled, undisputed, illustrious, eye-popping, eyebrow-raising, breath-taking, heart-stopping, spine-chilling, most amazing figure of the General of the Heroes Army was seen by all.

There was something that made everyone simply stop and glanced as Harker Cipril walked into the room.

"The Light of Pangea himself…" One of the Pangean elites nearly fell off his chair as the imposing figure of Harker waltz right in and took his seat.

"Citizens, friends, and protectors… That is right. Protectors. Each and everyone one of you here is investing your resources to support my army. And even when I was defeated in the South Pacific sea, you still remained and trusted me. You are protectors of Pangea. The Lost Primordial has such a grand scheme. They sought to destroy the army of Pangea. And when they succeeded, it was you who stepped up and offered techs and resources to help bridge the gap. But among these statements of mine… one of them is incorrect. The Lost Primordial did not succeed."

Suddenly, images of the strange moon that appeared during the battle were shown once more.

"Regardless of how the battle and ambush happened, we still managed to destroy one of their fortresses. I have found that the fortress was something that breached the dimensions! And we destroyed it! Whatever it was that attacked us, the Progenitor had found out how it got there! It was the Atlantis!"

"The Atlantis?!" The crowd began to talk and whispered among themselves.

"That\'s correct. The Emperors were on our side during that battle. The Kraken was not. That battle was used to lure in the Lost Primordial. We, in partnership with the many secret groups, raided the Kraken. And while the Kraken was not on our side, the Emperors were. They did not know who in the Kraken would betray us. But sadly…" Harker sighed.

Everyone was stunned silent.

"The last of the three Emperor served the Lost Primordial." Tyler continued.

"Using the Atlantis, he created a means to harness strange Lightning Energy through Phallic techs and attacked our army. But this was done at the expense of the Atlantis. It\'s gone. We tried to search for it underwater… and all we found were wreckage and destroyed pieces. We believed that the Lost Primordial used the energy of the Atlantis to create the lightning attacks that massacred our army." Tyler stated and various pictures were shown on screen as Tyler, Scribs and Earl moved towards the platform in front.

"It looked like a massacre. But it wasn\'t! It was a ploy!" Harker continued.

"The General is right. We believe that the Lost Primordial used that attack in desperation. But what we gained was more. The Lost Primordial\'s intent was to show the world how strong he was. But he failed. We managed to destroy that moon." Tyler explained.

"Are there any questions?" Scribs asked.

Suddenly, several raised hands could be seen.

But as the question and answer began, Lara was lost in her own thoughts.

"No! These guys are wrong! The Lost Primordial only appeared at the last moment! They forced Harker and the Progenitor to fight Crostfree and only appeared at the last second! Then the Lost Primordial is someone who knows the existence of the Progenitor and the Presiders!" Lara concluded.

Thinking back, it made sense. With her discussion with Tyler, the Lost Primordial was using his advantage of knowing who the Presider was and that a mighty army on Earth that can challenge a Presider existed!

While the discussion continued, Seeker, Lynd, and Cliff were looking at the monitors on the next room.

"Looks like it\'s working…" Cliff noted.

"That\'s her expression earlier."

"Right. She feels as if she realized something. It\'s shocking her." Lynd added.

"Of course she is. We controlled the flow of the conversation, and then, with a little help of me leaking out the emotions I had when I discovered that the world had been fighting an alien threat, it\'s only quite expected that she would come to this conclusion all the more." Seeker smiled. There were several devices and wires connected on the different parts of his body.

Seeker had been releasing his emotions which were being sent towards the seat where Lara was seated.

"It\'s amazing how you used Harker... You made him talk only whenever he would say something true. Tyler and the rest would step in to speak the lies." Cliff observed. He had been able to copy how Harker would make an honest claim and was taught how to use it.

"Maybe like this, I can switch from Harker to Lowengren. Truth and lies as a weapon..." Cliff thought to himself.

"It\'s effective. I feel that Lara believed everything..." Lynd added. 

"We\'ll have one more Presider believing this lie that one among the Presiders has betrayed them." Seeker smiled.

"Satan casts out Satan." Cliff recalled.

"So this is what you mean, Zeek." Cliff realized.

"Yeah. Jesus said that His Kingdom, His real one with the real followers, is a united one. And He tells us that if Satan fights among his devils and begins to cast each other out, Satan\'s kingdom will not stand. And that\'s our plan. Divide the Presiders. We give them a seed of doubt. Lowengren has managed to do that. He made that Presider believe that there is a traitor among them. And we know that Arthur had predicted that this Pridgeon would. So we increase the crimes of Pridgeon, and they will all be fighting among themselves."

"How many Presiders are we aiming to kill with this plot?"

"We\'ll see. They\'ve taken the bait already. Some strange guy had appeared to Amanda, and with her connections, we must have lured out one or two Presiders. We\'ll observe just how strong they are. If possible, we kill one and make it look like another Presider did it." Seeker smiled.

"You can\'t mean… you want to make it look like Zeraphine killed them?" Lynd finally understood what Seeker was trying to do.

"Yes." Seeker smiled.

"That\'s cruel, Zeek. I mean, that person is still a friend of Charm…" Cliff added,

Seeker kept silent and observed Zeraphine\'s expression.

"Zeek… Tell me the truth. Are you doing this to torture her for what she did in your future? Or are you trying to isolate her among Presiders so that you can finally have her?" Lynd asked.

"I\'m trying to save the world." Seeker stood up and removed the devices.

"I\'m going ahead. It\'s my time to move." Seeker walked out of the room immediately.

Lynd shook his head and sighed.

Lara was deep in her thoughts when she heard the door open.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, here is a living descendant of the Progenitor. Seeker Carlean." General Harker introduced.

"Seeker?!" Lara and Charm exclaimed.