Chapter 232: Above Asdana, a Specter Named Order Wanders...
[Path: Erudition → Order]
"Boss... sorry for making you worry."
The Sleepy Banana Monkey blinked, the hazy ignorance in its eyes suddenly snapping into sharp, lucid focus. It was undeniably the Narrator speaking—even if the voice was currently filtering through the vocal cords of a fuzzy, yellow-peeled primate.
Boothill flashed a razor-sharp grin, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. "If you ask me, Boss—that kid is a fudging genius!"
Undying Path exhaled a long, ragged breath and turned around, his trench coat swishing around his ankles. "How long does this medicine last? Is it free? It won't cost us an arm and a leg, will it?"
"Should be permanent," Boothill replied, tipping his hat. "He's a Trailblazer. Didn't take a single credit from us. Heck, he even said he plans to sponsor the agency—oh, and he mentioned shipping us some top-tier gear." Boothill paused, recalling the chaotic youth's exact words. "Anyway, he said the Rangers who get their marbles back shouldn't go picking a fight with Dr. Primitive right out the gate. We gotta wait until he finishes brewing the final batch that turns monkeys back into humans."
...A Trailblazer.
Undying Path froze. A phantom ache gripped his chest as a deeply familiar sensation washed over him.
Tiernan. Breaklink Tiernan.
The image of that fiercely confident young man flashed behind his eyes, vivid and unbroken by the passage of time.
Right. So the kid was a Trailblazer. That explained everything.
"What's his name?" Undying Path asked, his voice rough.
"Rekka," Boothill answered smoothly. "Guy's as chaotic as a runaway train, but he's a genuine treasure."
Undying Path sank into his battered office chair, the springs groaning under his weight. He stared at the peeling wallpaper, lost in a heavy silence. Selfishly, he couldn't stomach the thought of watching his comrades march down this one-way road to hell all over again. But even more than that, he couldn't bear to let the Rangers who had been twisted into primates live out their remaining days in mindless ignorance.
He carried the crushing weight of the devolved, living Rangers, and the silent ghosts of the dead.
The only thing that could ever bring peace to the fallen...
Was [Justice].
Every month, he wired his meager earnings to the families of the lost Rangers, leaving his own pockets completely empty. He survived on cheap bananas and tap water.
"I'll go track down the other brothers. We'll at least let them turn from mindless monkeys into monkeys that can talk." Undying Path forced a strained smile, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. "Do you have Rekka's contact info?"
"Uh..."
Boothill and Rappa froze in unison. The cowboy's metallic jaw dropped slightly. In their mad dash to get back, they had completely forgotten the most crucial detail.
"You don't...?" Undying Path's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Don't sweat it, Boss!" Boothill quickly recovered, waving a metallic hand. "We'll just hitch a ride on one of those fancy IPC ships and get you an answer before you can say 'fudge'."
"...Fine. Take my business cards." Undying Path pulled a stack of slightly crumpled cards from his breast pocket and shoved them across the desk. "Take a few extra. Don't lose them. And make sure you actually hand them to him."
The two Galaxy Rangers didn't waste another second, bolting out the agency door in a blur of motion.
The Narrator squatted on the edge of a chair, covering his ears with two furry paws as the door slammed shut. He lowered his paws and tilted his little monkey head.
"Boss... so, does my salary still count while I'm like this?"
"...It counts. Of course it counts." Undying Path reached out, gently ruffling the tuft of fur on the Narrator's head.
"Good. But I'll continue to call you Mr. Detective—after all, maintaining professional ethics is my duty as a Narrator."
A spark of amusement danced in the monkey's newly lucid eyes. Undying Path let out a low chuckle, but the sound was hollow, carrying a heavy undercurrent of heartache.
"Old Bai, I'm going to grab some shut-eye. When I wake up, I'll take you to find the rest of the boys..."
He yawned loudly, walked over to the large, unplugged refrigerator in the corner of the room, climbed inside, and pulled the heavy door shut.
The Narrator sat in quiet vigil, watching the coffin-like appliance. Before long, the faint, muffled sound of rustling sobs echoed from within the insulated walls.
The detective always projected the image of a hard-boiled, unflappable tough guy, but in truth, he was hopelessly clumsy with his own emotions. Ever since he had been tricked by a certain Masked Fool streamer into participating in the 'Dual-Phase Paradise Super Debate King Grand Prix', he had developed a habit of hiding in the fridge to secretly cry out his frustrations.
The Narrator didn't dare disturb him. Sometimes, an old man just needed a dark, enclosed space to hold onto his remaining dignity.
Meanwhile, the Four Great Families were scrambling to stabilize the chaotic aftermath across Penacony. The Interstellar Peace Corporation had seized the opportunity with ruthless efficiency, swallowing up nearly forty percent of the planet of festivities' capital. Himeko and the rest of the Astral Express crew had been formally invited aboard the Radiant Feldspar to handle the political fallout.
Rekka, however, was holed up inside the Principal's Office, completely oblivious to the shifting galactic politics. He was entirely consumed by his makeshift chemistry set, tweaking the memetic virus antidote.
"Done."
Rekka swirled the glowing liquid inside the glass vial, holding it up to the light.
Night had already fallen over Asdana. Time always slipped away when he was deep in the zone.
Unfortunately, the vial in his hand was still just a prototype. It could successfully revert the devolved primates back into their human forms, but the side effects were a complete mess—severe memory fragmentation, debilitating physical weakness, total lack of motor coordination, and massive endocrine system crashes.
It wasn't a flaw in his brewing technique; it was the sheer malice of the memetic virus itself. Dr. Primitive was a Genius Society member, after all. Even channeling the raw processing power of an Emanator of Erudition, Rekka couldn't completely unravel a biological nightmare of that caliber in a single afternoon.
He stretched his arms above his head, joints popping loudly.
Goodnight. Time to crash.
At midnight, exactly thirty minutes after Rekka closed his eyes, the Interstellar Peace Broadcast violently hijacked every frequency across the cosmos with an emergency alert.
"We interrupt our scheduled programming for a Class-Red emergency report. Approximately thirty minutes ago, the divine body of [Order] materialized in the Asdana system—"
Across the galaxy, the IPC ground to a screeching halt. From the lowest-tier temporary contractors to the elite Ten Stonehearts, jaws dropped in collective horror.
Hadn't the Trailblazers already delivered the killing blow to Ena's resurrection?
Why the hell was there a Phase Two to the boss fight?!
Aboard her private vessel, Jade, who had only just departed the Asdana system, stared out the viewport. Her elegant composure shattered as she gazed upon the colossal, reality-warping divine form of Order looming over the starscape.
When Rekka opened his eyes, he didn't see the ceiling of the Principal's Office.
He saw the entirety of the Asdana system.
The blinding light of distant stars slipped through the impossible gaps between his fingers. The swirling dust of ancient nebulae flowed in and out of his lungs with every breath. Penacony hung in the dead center of his vision, looking like nothing more than a fragile, exquisite glass marble. His body—or rather, the unfathomable aggregate of Imaginary Energy he currently inhabited—straddled the gravitational equilibrium point of the entire star system, existing on a scale that shattered the very concept of physics.
Feeling the terrifying, absolute authority surging through this new form, Rekka instantly realized this wasn't a dream.
His daily Path switch had triggered. He had shifted from Erudition straight into Order.
With a mere flicker of intent, he reached across the cosmos and yanked Sunday's consciousness directly out of the Astral Express, right as the fallen Halovian was peacefully listening to Robin's new album.
"...Look, I'm really sorry to interrupt your sister's new MV," Rekka's voice echoed with the weight of a thousand collapsing stars, though his tone was casually apologetic. "But things are getting a bit serious on my end. This is my first time being the Aeon of Order, and I really don't have much experience."
Rekka quickly gave a rundown of his absurd situation.
Sunday floated in the endless void, staring at the cosmic entity before him, completely and utterly speechless.
How could anyone utter something so deeply outrageous with such a straight face?
What did he mean, 'first time being the Aeon of Order'?!
Rekka was currently hovering in the exact same absolute state Sunday had achieved during their apocalyptic final clash—standing merely one half-step away from fully ascending the Divine Throne.
Above the Asdana system, a specter named Order truly wandered...
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