(Meanwhile Leo)

Leo's private communicator lit up the moment Charles's speech ended, streams of calls and messages flooding through in an endless barrage. Yet he dismissed them all without a second thought, for in this moment of crisis there were only two voices he wished to hear, and those belonged to Veyr and Chaosbringer.

"I'm sorry, Lord Boss, but it simply isn't possible to save everyone.

With the infrastructure we've already built, we can house at most two billion people in proper units, giving them apartments that are livable, with farms to feed them and meaningful work to keep them occupied.

However, let's assume, instead of giving them all private units to live in, we make every quarter communal, and turn the whole landmass into a concentrated refugee camp, we can still at most house 20 billion, in difficult conditions.

And that too would be the best we can manage right now.

In total, as per the last population census survey carried out two years ago, the Cult Of Ascension has 499.6 Billion members, which means saving just 20 billion is not even going to make a dent….."

Chaosbringer began, as Leo absorbed his words from the other end of the call with a heavy chest.

"So let's be even more optimistic. Let's say, we believe in the power of survival, and only provide the remaining Cult members with the one essential thing they need to survive in those brutal conditions, which is the cleansing mana heart.

Even then, we still can't save more than 200 billion.

For even if we put every man, woman, and child into producing the mana cleansing units for the next few days, even by the most optimistic calculations, we can only produce enough units to sustain 200 billion lives for a short timespan of three years, after which we will have to tackle the same problem all over again.

Even here, we assume that they will find food, shelter and protection for themselves in the hostile environment that is the Time-Stilled World, for we shall be providing them with only the one component that prevents them from turning into mindless beasts and nothing else.

So I'm sorry, Lord Boss, but this is the reality.

We cannot save everyone.

So you must decide who we carry with us, and who we leave behind."

Chaosbringer's voice came through the communicator steady yet grim, his hands shuffling through piles of calculations he already knew would give the same answer every time.

"If we make a priority list, then the speciality sector workers, like Blacksmiths, Runesmiths, Engineers and others take the top priority for evacuation.

Followed next by capable warriors who can provide protection to the masses in those tough conditions.

Then come the women, elderly and children, who are the most vulnerable.

While the common man, who is a merchant, logistics worker, or service industry worker, takes the lowest priority."

Chaosbringer's words struck deep, and for a moment Leo felt as though he had been thrown back to a dying Earth, but this time he was not a desperate citizen waiting for a ticket out, but rather the one holding the pen, forced to decide who lived and who would be abandoned.

It was not a choice any man should ever have to make, yet the fate of hundreds of billions now pressed against his shoulders.

The weight was suffocating, but hesitation was only ever going to make it worse.

Every heartbeat that he now spent in indecision was another heartbeat where the enemy drew closer to their gates, and another heartbeat in which a life that could have been saved was instead lost forever, and hence, even though he hated the idea of abandoning hundreds of billions, it was a choice he had to make soon.

—-----------

"I understand, Cuz, if we go by your plan, we cannot save everyone, however, that's precisely why you must allow me to lead the rest of our men to neutral planets across the universe.

I am the Cult's Dragon! I cannot abandon hundreds of billions in their hour of need, so if you can only save 200 billion, then I must do my best to protect the rest."

Veyr argued, as once Leo informed him about the reality of their situation, he immediately proposed the idea of staying back and protecting the rest.

"Don't be an idiot, Veyr, the Righteous Faction will never let you stay alive on a neutral planet.

You're the entire universe's most wanted criminal after Soron.

You're the Dragon of the Cult Of Ascension.

They'll stop at nothing to get to you.

So if you stay back, it's a death sentence."

Leo reasoned, as the gloomy image of Veyr's grave popped up in his mind. His worst fears from when he first drank the paranoia potion evolving into a real possibility now.

"It's precisely because I'm the Dragon that I cannot abandon the masses. You must understand, cousin, that they do not merely follow me for my strength,"

Veyr said, his voice low but steady, as if he were speaking to a congregation rather than a single man over a crystal. "They worship what I represent. They hang my image in their homes. Children learn my name before they learn their letters."

"If I run now, if I flee because the danger grows teeth, what am I returning to? A laurel wreath or a planet of graves?"

He asked, his words sharpening into a blade. "Running now would be to spit on the faith that has been poured into the Dragon title for centuries. It would be to tell every mother who stitched my sigil into her son's tunic that her trust in the prophecy was a lie."

"They place their hope in the Dragon,"

he continued, the certainty in his voice refusing to wobble, "and at this precise hour, they need a Dragon who stays.

For these are the days when legends become flesh and when a hero either rises to meet the story destiny has written for him or melts away beneath it."

"You ask me to abandon them so I might hide and survive. No. I will not trade their lives for my own.

Instead, If I must bleed to buy time for others to live, then I will do so, for what is a Dragon who values his hide over the lives of those who sing his name?"

Veyr argued, as despite Leo's desperate pleading, his decision seemed to have already rooted itself.

He would not shirk the role the Cult had carved for him, and that truth, when spoken plainly, left no room for argument.

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