In Suroma, inside an interrogation room, two interrogators sat across from a detainee at a table.
One interrogator said, "Considering you're a Senator, we don't want to resort to special measures. But if you keep staying silent and refuse to cooperate, you're putting us in a difficult position."
The other interrogator added, "That's right. Even if you're a Senator, you're still a prisoner under investigation. Half an hour has passed since the interrogation began. If you still refuse to speak, we'll have no choice but to use special measures."
The white-haired Senator sitting across the table let out a cold snort, breaking his silence after more than half an hour to speak for the first time.
"You robotic pieces of trash aren't worthy of interrogating me. Tell Bruce to come personally."
The two interrogators exchanged a glance, and one of them raised his voice with displeasure: "We're not robots. We're interrogators."
"Interrogators—just Bruce's privately bred mutts. I'm telling you, I won't say another word until I see Bruce. If you've got the balls, go ahead and use your measures on me."
The Senator closed his eyes after speaking, remaining silent no matter what the two interrogators said next.
After a few minutes of fruitless attempts, the two left the interrogation room. About an hour later, the door pushed open again, and a voice the detained Senator found familiar rang out.
"Dodge, I heard you wanted to see me."
Dodge snapped his eyes open at the sound, a sharp glint bursting from his clouded pupils.
"Bruce, you finally showed up."
Bruce sat down across from Dodge, this time without his ever-present scepter.
He stared expressionlessly at the former Chief Senator. "What did you want to say to me?"
"...Bruce, I just never expected you to be this ruthless, this selfish by nature." Dodge gritted his teeth.
Only after being imprisoned did he and the other Senators vaguely piece together what Bruce had been doing in secret all along.
The secret redirection of "Iron Will" and the "Eden Project"—the Senate had no idea about any of it.
Even the war weapons had hidden backdoor locks set by Dr. Haisen. When the Senate tried to command them to turn on Bruce's people at a critical moment, they simply couldn't activate them.
That was exactly why, after Bruce returned from Wensilisa Castle, he could mobilize the war weapons and modified Ascendants to strike, arresting several Senators and bloodily purging their trusted subordinates' factions.
Facing Dodge's accusations now, Bruce showed a trace of disappointment. "Dodge, you've been a Senator for nearly thirty years, and this is all you want to say to me?"
Dodge closed his eyes and said with resignation, "At this point, I admit defeat. The fact that you could hide so much from the Senate's moles and do all this on your own is a testament to your skill as king... But in the hundreds of years since Suroma was founded, no matter how high the infighting went, it was always fought without breaking. You should know that very well."
Bruce said nothing.
Dodge continued, "I'll give up my Senator position and let my son take over. From now on, my entire family will fully support you without any disloyalty."
Only after he finished speaking did Dodge notice that the look in Bruce's eyes seemed tinged with mockery.
His heart sank, and a bad premonition surged within him.
"Bruce, what did you do? Did you touch my children, my family?!"
"Dodge... for a man your age, you're still so naive." Bruce let out a cold laugh. "Fight without breaking—how laughable. Do you think this is still the old era, where you can lose a power struggle and go back to being a rich man enjoying retirement?"
"What did you do to your family?!"
The more Dodge heard, the clearer the ominous sign became. He could no longer maintain his usual calm and composure, becoming no different from an ordinary old man.
"You're very scared." Bruce said coldly. "This is an era where anything is possible. If someone in your family gets lucky one day and obtains some item that could threaten me, that would be a problem. I hate trouble."
"You son of a bitch, Bruce, you actually—cough!"
Confirming from Bruce's words the fact that his family had been wiped out, Dodge's anger hit him so hard that he spat out a mouthful of blood, instantly staining the table red.
Bruce stood up, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, tossed it onto the table, and turned to leave.
Just as he was about to step out, Dodge's venomous voice came from behind: "Bruce, you traitor to the nation! This once-powerful country of Suroma will be destroyed by your hands sooner or later... and when that day comes, every Suroman will curse you to hell!"
Bruce paused mid-step and spoke the last words Dodge would ever hear from him.
"After the Fire Thief descended, this world has already become hell. Those of you who fail to grasp that are nothing but stepping stones. And I, along with my son Gaelid, will step over you and enter the gates of heaven."
...
On the fifth day after the "Century Wedding" incident, October 26, the event's protagonist, "Shadow" Guan Tong, officially opened a thread on Ascendant Home.
The thread title was: "On the Truth I Know, and Why We Attacked the Wedding."
It was a very, very long post.
The timeline covered in the post was incredibly expansive, stretching from Year One of the Doomsday Rules all the way to the present.
The Year One section mainly mentioned the "Eden Project" that Suroma had launched early in the Doomsday Rules, including the breeding base of Eden Island, the screening process for "Fathers" and "Mothers," and the lives Adam and others experienced. It was written with remarkable clarity.
The reason Guan Tong had such detailed material was, naturally, because Adam had told him about it while he was still alive.
As for why Adam hadn't written it all out and posted it while he was alive, it was the same old problem—his weakness, his wife and daughter, were in Bruce's hands, leaving him passive and constrained at every turn.
But now that Adam was dead and his daughter's body had been taken over by Bruce's son Gaelid's consciousness, Guan Tong no longer had any reservations. He wanted to expose every ugly truth related to Bruce to the light of day.
In his post, he thoroughly analyzed the project.
For example, how Bruce and the Suroma higher-ups used and controlled the children born from the "Eden Project," in turn coercing their Ascendant fathers and mothers.
And how the project was later secretly altered by Bruce—from cultivating "saviors" for the nation to selecting "host bodies" with outstanding abilities and potential for his son Gaelid—Guan Tong wrote it all in detail.
Beyond that, he also wrote about how Bruce had repeatedly tried to capture rather than eliminate the leader of the Fire Thief Worship Cult to achieve his goals.
And how Bruce used the intermediary Han Qiu to strike a deal with the Cult leader, using their abilities to brainwash the Ascendants involved in the "Array Project."
Guan Tong included all of this.
He also specifically mentioned that the answer to people's question about "why Bruce agreed to marry his daughter Yishan to Han Qiu" was likely that Han Qiu had made a deal with Bruce.
Han Qiu brought the Cult leader to Bruce in exchange for marrying Yishan.
Guan Tong wrote in the post that the wedding itself was a trap, designed to lure Adam and him into attacking so they could be eliminated.
Adam had no choice but to go for the chance to save his wife and daughter, while Guan Tong went partly to help Adam and partly to settle personal scores with Bruce and Han Qiu.
That's right—Guan Tong didn't gloss over his own desire for revenge.
He wrote that he participated in the attack not only to assist Adam but more so to get back at Bruce for the "Array Action" and to avenge Han Qiu's murder of people close to him.
Then, he specifically pointed out the existence of "modification bodies," exposing Bruce's secret modification of Suroma's Ascendants.
Based on the fight at the wedding, he speculated that the modification process likely erased or suppressed the Ascendants' subjective consciousness, turning them into half-human, half-machine monsters that only obeyed orders.
At the very end of the post, Guan Tong wrote some of his personal thoughts.
"...A being like Bruce is literally the 'cancer of humanity.' Every day he continues to hold power over Suroma, he will harm more people, especially Suromans.
Everyone has seen the great purge happening in Suroma over the past two days. Bruce, who already holds absolute power, is still crazily centralizing it. It's easy to imagine he wants to turn Suroma into a country that blindly obeys him.
So after he finishes the purge and completely controls the country, what will he do next? I'm very pessimistic. I believe he might modify every Ascendant—and even every ordinary person—in Suroma, which will lead to a massive tragedy.
Therefore, after this post is published, I hope everyone who sees it will do their part within their power to contribute to eliminating this 'cancer of humanity.'
Especially the people of Suroma: Do you want to become those modified monsters? Do you want to become sacrifices for Bruce's endlessly swelling ambition? If not, please unite and fight against him.
And to the other nations of the Human Consortium: You should all still remember the original purpose of this organization. That 'Humanity's Joint Declaration' is still on the front page of the official website.
If countries don't act according to the Declaration, then what meaning does this Joint Declaration even have?
Finally, allow me to quote the last paragraph of the Declaration as the ending of this post:
'All of humanity will stand together through thick and thin, sharing life and death.
For those still alive today, for the descendants yet to be born, we will fight until the very last moment.'"
After finishing editing the post, Guan Tong pressed publish.
One second, two seconds, three seconds...
In less than five seconds, his account notifications began to surge at a speed faster than he could imagine.
This caught him a bit off guard, because he had written such a long post that reading it carefully would take at least twenty minutes. Yet just after posting, there were already this many interactions.
It seemed everyone was liking before reading...
Over the next hour, Guan Tong's account was practically exploding with constant notifications. Clearly, as more people finished reading the post, the interactions became even more intense.
Guan Tong hadn't yet looked at the comments. Writing this post had taken a huge toll on him, and he needed a break. Just as he was about to check them, he received a private message from Silver Fox.
Silver Fox: "Guan Tong, is everything in your post true? That's insane. The Countermeasures Research Office has been 'exploded' by your post."
Guan Tong: "What do you mean?"
Silver Fox: "Literally. I just saw Head Gao calling the intelligence department for a meeting. I bet they're in for a hell of a scolding. Hah, with so many people in that department, they still gathered less intel than you, a lone operator. If you ask me, they deserve it!"
Guan Tong: "..."
He actually thought this was normal. As someone who had experienced the events firsthand, his information was absolutely firsthand—either his own or Adam's. As many people as the intelligence department had, how could they compare to him?
Silver Fox: "Dr. Zhang, Section Chief Li, and of course Head Gao—they probably all want to meet and chat with you. What do you say? Will you grace them with your presence?"
Guan Tong: "Silver Fox, everything I had to say is already in the post. Meeting face to face won't add anything new, so there's no need, right?"
Silver Fox: "Alright, I won't force it. But as a friend, I fully support your operation. I wish I could have joined you for a big fight. How about next time, you include me?"
Guan Tong: "That's probably not possible, Principal Silver Fox."
Silver Fox: "Fine. No need to add 'Principal' on purpose. I know I'm an official Ascendant—my superiors would never let me join your kind of operation. But who knows what the future holds? Especially after what you just pulled. You even brought out the 'Joint Declaration'—basically forced the Human Consortium to take a stand."
Guan Tong: "Shouldn't the Human Consortium be taking a stand on this matter?"
Silver Fox: "You're right. It's just... ah, it's hard for me to say. Anyway, let's stay in touch. Oh, and Little Na has been really worried about you ever since she heard about the attack a few days ago. She wants to contact you and ask how you're doing, but she's afraid of bothering you... She's young and tends to overthink things. If you have time, maybe chat with her."