"Then she gets to live." Stephanie uttered the bloodiest words with a calm expression. "Knowledge must be controlled. We can't allow people without the capacity to know more, or it will become a danger to us."
She glanced at her still-immature secretary, and her gaze was so terrifying that the blonde girl beside her couldn't help but tremble. Diana Lister, granddaughter of Dr. Lister, had always thought Eternal City was merely a superior version of Hydra—a deep-state organization manipulating finance and governments for profit, much like Hydra itself, or the Morgans, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and the Wallenberg family. For someone born into Hydra, the job seemed promising: a stable position within what she believed to be the family business, deeply entwined with major financial powers.
Yet, due to Stephanie's strict secrecy, Diana had maintained that understanding even after seeing Katherine and the chainsaw sword in the White House. It wasn't until she stepped into the interrogation room that she realized just how completely wrong she'd been. Wars fought beneath pitch-black curtains were raging outside her view. Eternal City was battling multiple terrifying enemies with everything it had, drawing blood with daggers and waiting for the moment to deliver a fatal blow.
Compared to the financial families, Eternal City was more ruthless—almost suicidally so. Nearly all profits were poured back into an endless war, with a singular goal: kill the enemy, with no regard for anything else. The master of these wars nodded in agreement with Stephanie's words. "You're right, but don't scare Diana any further. She's frightened enough as it is."
"Unless you're planning to toss her into your own bed, it's best to maintain an impersonal style of rule," Stephanie replied, her tone increasingly caustic, especially when addressing her young secretary. She seemed eager for the ditzy girl to finish her task and leave. "Don't blush, girl, that's absolutely not going to happen. Now get to work—unless you'd prefer I put you in adult diapers and feed you a bottle of warm milk!"
The blonde secretary, Diana—a proper science student—blushed furiously and fled, not forgetting to take her folder with her.
Once the office door closed, Stephanie approached the desk. She planted her hands firmly on the tabletop, leaning toward the magus seated behind it. "So now you're pretending to be an alchemical golem? I didn't know you cared that much about exams!"
"It's better than telling the truth. The Battle of Fimbulvent left a lot of people psychologically scarred," the magus replied, raising an eyebrow. He wasn't clueless—he knew that many ordinary people had developed "superhuman phobia" after the war. Though he had ordered them to stand back up, their internal fear couldn't be so easily erased. Even in front of the Royal Guard, they remained nervous.
But he didn't care much about it. Eternal City didn't need to publicize a healthy corporate culture; he only needed to ensure that fear wouldn't affect operational efficiency. Most survivors of the Fimbulvent battle had been gagged to prevent information leaks about extradimensional beings, but those orders did nothing to erase the trauma.
Eternal City desperately needed psychologists—but no one was applying.
"And every time I make a joke, you all act like you've seen a ghost. Is my sense of humor really that bad? I hate overly grim workplaces—it's torture. By the way, that bottle of brandy really was gifted. I've been skipping so many classes that only a gift of that caliber could convince Sir Arnold to help. That sly old dog—no idea how he's still alive. Oh! I almost forgot—check the action report from New York. See if our special ops team took down that red-and-blue pajama-wearing weirdo who calls himself Spider-Boy. This is important. I'm worried our troops might've killed the poor kid, and that would be a disaster. I had a gentler approach in mind, like sterilization..."
Stephanie silenced the rambling Sovereign with a sharp look.
"Forced sterilization is by no means 'gentle,' my lord," she corrected him with a blank expression. "He's just a freak. I don't know why you've spent so long pondering it. If you want him dead, we'll kill him. If you want him on Maya Hansen's lab table, he'll be there by tonight. You should be focusing on more important matters—like South America."
"Laura Croft?"
"Camila has already engaged Trinity's mercenaries. With help from our spies, Trinity couldn't stop Laura from boarding a flight to Peru," Stephanie reported. "We can handle the rest through administrative channels. If we leverage the U.S. government's name, we can deploy the Peruvian military to act on our behalf. I've already reprimanded Camila—she's promised not to engage the government forces."
"I swear, really!" Camila promised Laura Croft by the campfire, her black eyes reflecting the flickering flames. "If you want to escape Trinity's pursuit, you'll have to listen to us. Don't complain about how we're destroying historical sites, girl. Eternal City's orders are for you to survive. If you really want to die, then wait until after the mission in Peru. I promise, no one will stop you then."
"But you blew up the Sunstone!" Laura grumbled, poking a can of food with a stick beside the fire.
"Not again!" Camila rolled her eyes. Even Jonah beside the fire covered his face with a long sigh. "Trinity deployed armed helicopters, girl!" Camila repeated, exasperated. "If we hadn't struck first, you wouldn't have even had a chance to study it."
"I know, I just... okay, no more complaints!" Laura turned to look behind her. "We need to figure out how to get out of here."
Beyond the campfire's glow, a crashed plane lay in the dense underbrush. The smell of leaked fuel was so strong that Laura could smell it from the fire. Trinity's pursuit had come faster than anyone had expected. To make up for their aircraft's lack of firepower, Camila had opened the plane's hatch mid-flight and used her RPG-7 to hold them off. Trinity had seemingly been granted entry into Peruvian airspace. A battle this intense on the border should've drawn immediate response from the government, yet no Peruvian forces had shown up.
Fortunately, this wasn't Solomon's Gulfstream jet but a battered old propeller plane. Still, its wings had been shredded by the helicopter's machine guns, and Laura, Jonah, Camila, and her five operatives had been forced to make an emergency landing in the jungle. Now, they would continue on foot toward their target.
At dawn, they would set out with fuel, food, and weapons, hiding their trail as they trekked 200 kilometers toward a possible extraction point. All they needed was one assault transport to resolve everything.
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