The steam from the boiler explosion provided the perfect shroud. Felix, Rhea, Theron, and Lord Reginald emerged from a rusted ventilation grate into The Low-Sump, the deepest slum of the capital. Here, the "Flow" didn't shimmer; it flickered like a dying lightbulb.
This was where the "Aesthetic Failures" lived—people whose focus was too fractured or whose lives were too "cringe" for Evelyn's high-society standards.
"We are safe here for now," Reginald panted, adjusting his soot-stained robes. "The Sentinels won't come down here unless they are looking for a fight. The energy density is too chaotic for their sensors."
Felix looked around at the huddled masses. These were the people he had ignored when he was playing the role of the "Glistening King."
"We don't need an army of knights," Felix said, his voice carrying through the damp alley. "We need an army of people who have nothing left to lose. People who Evelyn has already deleted from her 'Grand Design'."
He stood atop a pile of industrial crates and removed his Mourning Veil.
"Citizens of the Sump!" Felix called out. "I am Felix II. The palace calls me a prisoner, and the Chief calls you failures. But I have seen the truth. The war above is a lie designed to burn us all. I am not here to give you 'Flow.' I am here to ask for your Disorder."
A woman with a mechanical prosthetic arm—unpolished and jagged—stepped forward. She was a former Flow-Engineer who had been "Purged" for prioritizing safety over aesthetics.
"Why should we follow a King who fell?" she asked, her voice raspy.
"Because I didn't just fall," Felix replied, holding up the Original Confession. "I was pushed by the same woman who threw you down here. I have the proof that the 'Great Focus' is a cage. Join me, and we will turn the 'Cringe' of this city into a weapon she cannot calculate."
General Theron stepped forward, his military mind already churning. "If we can't use the Flow-Net, we use the Physical Infrastructure. We sabotage the primary distribution nodes from the bottom up. We turn the capital's 'Aesthetic' into a flickering mess. It will blind her."
"And I," Reginald added, "can use my knowledge of the tax-havens and hidden ledgers to fund this. Even in a crisis, the black market runs on cold, hard credits, not just Flow."
Felix nodded. The counter-war had begun. It wasn't a war of light and beauty, but a war of shadows, grease, and the uncomfortable truth.