The Royal Command Center was in a state of high alarm, but the Flow was steady, thanks to the King's new stabilization protocols. However, the mood was shattered by an intensely personal crisis.
"Knight-Captain Rhea is missing, Your Majesty," Chief Evelyn (RC) reported, her voice strained. "She was en route to the newly annexed territories to enforce the Aesthetic Reparations Act—specifically, to oversee the mandatory painting of a Chadgardian fortress. She never arrived."
Felix felt a cold spike of pure, concentrated fury. Rhea was his Chief of Memes and his primary tactical mind. She was his shield against Cringe.
Lord Reginald (GCVTD) brought up the trace data. "Her last known location was a small, desolate valley known as the Void of Lost Focus—a place outside the reach of the Global Flow Net. The signal cut abruptly."
"The Shadow is responsible," Felix stated, his voice dangerously low. "The Shadow is attacking my most trusted, highest-AI asset. They are trying to lure me out of the Flow's reach."
[SYSTEM WARNING: PERSONAL THREAT DETECTED. EMOTIONAL VULNERABILITY: HIGH. RATIONALE: RHEA IS THE KING'S PRIMARY TACTICAL CONDUIT.]
A single, encrypted message bypassed all of Thighland's aesthetic firewalls and projected itself directly onto the King's personal mirror.
The message was not an image; it was a block of simple, text-based code, designed to be maximally un-aesthetic and Flow-draining.
> COME ALONE, KING OF DEGENERACY.
> THE VOID OF LOST FOCUS. BRING THE GILDED MICROPHONE.
> YOUR 'FLOW' IS A PATHETIC INSULT TO PURE FOCUS.
> YOU WILL WITNESS THE TRUE POWER OF ABSOLUTE CONTEMPT.
>
Felix's eyes fixed on the final line: "ABSOLUTE CONTEMPT." It was the same magical residue signature he had seen on the corrupted archives.
"They want the Prism of Unfettered Desire," Felix murmured, touching the base of his gilded microphone. "They know its true nature as a relic of the Ego-Cultivators. They want to remove my ability to amplify the Flow."
Rhea, the CM, had specialized in psychological warfare. The Shadow knew that kidnapping her would force Felix into a high-risk situation where his reliance on a massive national audience (the Rituals of Gooning) would be impossible.
"We cannot initiate a Ritual of Gooning to power up," Felix declared. "That requires an audience, and the Shadow wants me alone. I will go to the Void of Lost Focus."
"Your Majesty, that is suicide!" Reginald protested. "That area is a psychic dead zone! Your FPM will drop to zero!"
"My external FPM will drop, yes," Felix corrected, adjusting his Imperial Flow-Weave Mantle. "But my internal DF reserves are maxed out, thanks to the Meta-Flow we generated during the propaganda war. I have enough stored power for three Ironic Inversions and one Aesthetic Vortex."
He commanded Chief Evelyn: "Evelyn, you will remain here. Maintain the national Flow with a continuous loop of my most Cringe-Based Disbelief content. That will keep the nation stable and generate a slow, steady stream of Meta-Flow for me to siphon, even from a distance. And prepare my outfit for extreme psychic hostility."
Felix knew that if he fought with his usual, theatrical flare, the Shadow would simply target his audience. He had to meet this enemy on their own terms: cold, isolated, and focused combat.
He clipped the gilded microphone—the Prism of Unfettered Desire—to his belt. He was trading the safety of his kingdom's massive Flow for a personal confrontation fueled by pure, strategic focus.