The Aesthetic Imperium was barely a week old, and King Felix II was holding court in a newly renovated receiving hall—one painted in Flow-compliant Hyper-Shimmer White. He was now wearing the Imperial Flow-Weave Mantle, a high-AI garment made of pure Meta-Flow thread.
The reason for the reception was the arrival of the first envoy from the mysterious Holy Kingdom of Lunio.
The envoy, a woman named Arch-Scribe Selene, entered. She was impeccably dressed in thick, flowing robes of pure, undyed cotton. Her aesthetic was one of severe, chaste beauty—the opposite of Thighland's aesthetic chaos.
"King Felix II of the... Aesthetic Imperium," Selene stated, her voice crystalline but devoid of warmth. "The Holy Kingdom of Lunio acknowledges your sudden expansion. We seek an understanding of this 'Flow' magic."
"The Flow is the future, Arch-Scribe," Felix replied, his charisma amplified by his mantle. "It is the power of focus, channeled through the Rituals of Gooning. It is the greatest defensive weapon known to the political sphere."
Selene's expression remained perfectly neutral. "We, the servants of the Light, prefer the pure magic of the soul, King. Your 'focus' sounds... volatile."
As the King prepared a grand, impromptu display of his Digital Dawn ensemble (now repurposed as a diplomatic statement), the first incident struck.
Lord Reginald (GCVTD), managing the projection systems, suddenly let out a yelp.
"Your Majesty! The network! We have a severe AI Degrade in the primary archive!"
Felix's internal system flared red.
[SYSTEM WARNING: ARCHIVE CORRUPTION DETECTED. AESTHETIC INTEGRITY OF CORE HISTORICAL DATA DROPPING. FLOW INFLUX UNSTABLE.]
"What kind of corruption?" Felix demanded, his regal calm cracking.
"It's... it's a systemic texture downgrade, Sire!" Reginald cried, scrambling with the console. "Every single high-AI image file of your original Softcore Slayer armor is being replaced by an incredibly low-res JPEG artifact! The resolution is dropping to 144p! They're becoming Flow-draining artifacts!"
The King felt a sharp drop in his DF reserves. His historical content—the crucial reference points for his people's Rituals of Gooning—were being visually sabotaged. It was a targeted, aesthetically precise attack.
"This is not a digital virus," Rhea whispered, already analyzing the intrusion. "A virus is chaotic. This is targeted aesthetic destruction. Someone knows exactly which files maintain the highest Flow consistency."
Selene, the envoy from Lunio, maintained her neutral expression, but Felix saw a faint, almost imperceptible tremor in the corner of her mouth—a flicker of something that was not neutrality.
Felix restored the archives instantly, pouring enough refined Meta-Flow energy into the system to purge the low-res artifacts.
"An unfortunate technical glitch, Arch-Scribe," Felix said, regaining his composure. "Our security is still adapting to the scale of the Imperium."
Selene inclined her head. "Indeed, complexity often breeds unforeseen weakness."
After the envoy was dismissed, Felix turned to his team.
"That was not Chadgard. That was too surgical, too aware of our specific aesthetic dependencies," Felix stated. "Whoever did this knows the structure of the Flow better than we do. They knew the historical content, which generates the purest Flow, would cause the most immediate drop."
He accessed his system, pulling up the trace data. The corruption wasn't digital; it was a strange, energetic residue—a magical signature of pure, focused Contempt.
[SYSTEM ANALYSIS: MAGICAL SIGNATURE DETECTED. EMOTIONAL PROFILE: EXTREME, FOCUSED HATRED. SOURCE: UNKNOWN. POWER LEVEL: HIGH.]
"This is not a geopolitical attack," Felix realized, his eyes burning with strategic calculation. "This is personal. Someone hates me, specifically, and they have the power to turn that hatred into a focused, aesthetic weapon. We are dealing with a Shadow."
He looked at the trace data, which pointed to a vague, unknown location somewhere near the edge of the newly acquired territory.
"Rhea, begin an intense, covert scan of all new Imperium territories for anyone exhibiting extreme, focused isolation or any sign of a power signature opposite to our Flow," Felix commanded. "Reginald, I need every scrap of history on that Holy Kingdom of Lunio. We need to know who we're dealing with, and why they seem so unnervingly neutral to an attack on their host."