(Real World, Planet Tithia, Evil Cult Headquarters, The First Elder's Office)
"Haha—"
The First Elder let out a dry, humorless chuckle as his eyes skimmed over the fresh report laid out before him.
He almost didn't want to believe it at first.
Because believing it would mean accepting that everything he had built, everything he had bled for, had amounted to nothing in the end.
It would mean admitting that seventy-five years of service, sixty years of planning, and an entire generation of effort had unraveled faster than he could contain it.
But denial wasn't going to change the ink etched into the page.
Just like how closing his eyes wasn't going to make the truth fade away.
Seventy-five years.
That was how long he had served the cult, sixty of which had been spent wearing the robe of an elder, a title not gifted by seniority or birthright but earned through blood, through patience and through a meticulous devotion to building something greater than himself.
