At sunset, the Isa River is like a golden streamer, tying a beautiful knot on Lake Elli, which divides into three streams and flows north. Pen Fun Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The river, which once carried most of the city's goods, is as pure a landscape as Lake Elli, once known as a reservoir and home to the Empire's largest freshwater dock.

Built around the lake, Elli City was originally just a small town. Patheously short one-way rails, muddy roads, low-slung buildings, and a crowd of people dressed in drab overalls with hope on their faces...... Not many people remember the original sight of this place anymore.

Wesley Berg stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor of the 900-meter-high North Group headquarters building, watching large and small aircraft shuttle along the crowded waterway floor, and watched the city lights gradually turn on under the clear blue sky, spreading to the end of the horizon.

After 600 and 40 years of uninterrupted construction, it has become the largest city in the empire covering an area of more than 23,000 square kilometers and inhabited by 1.2 billion people, and it is also the headquarters of the Northern Group, which is famous throughout the rand.

"Lord Earl......"

The voice of a young woman pulls Wesley back from his memories to reality.

He turned his head to glance at his assistant, Sinny Barnault Vain, and then glanced at the sixty or so group executives on either side of the long table.

Like all descendants who are able to climb some blood relationship with Richard, Cinnie has naturally adopted her mother's surname Vane since birth, and has abandoned her paternal surname, Barnot, an ancient royal family name in eastern Middle-earth.

This move was greatly facilitated by her bid to become secretary to the chairman of the Northern Group after graduating from the City of Truth - not because Wesley preferred to have a Vane family member stay with him to help, but because Mrs. Berg (the former Queen of Thorns) knew he would not do anything to a girl with the surname Vane.

Wesley waved his hand at Sinny, motioning for her to go out first, and waited until she had gently closed the side door of the synagogue before waving his right arm and shouting, "The Supreme Council! The people who founded this group put power in their hands more than six hundred years ago! Now, in turn, they want to hang the shackles around our necks and lock our hands and feet!"

The retro-decorated synagogue is silent. Even the dozen or so group executives in the back row of the long table who were attending the meeting with holographic projections because they were not in the rand felt the anger from Count Berg.

The Count's words were, of course, only a metaphor, for no one in this synagogue would have been chained or thrown into prison, and no one would dare to do so.

However, the Supreme Council, which represents the will of the people, is restraining the northern bloc by raising the tax burden of big corporations, diverting licenses, shortening the validity period of patents, and restricting the development of superpowered weapons.

More than 20 years ago, the Academy of Sciences released a report on the environmental monitoring of outer space, citing a series of observations of the reduced brightness of star systems, predicting that the light star system (the solar system where the rand is located) has been surrounded by danger.

To this end, the Northern Group and the Chega Group have teamed up with the Femon military to propose a basket of plans for extragalactic exploration and the construction of space stations.

However, there have been various conspiracy theories about the Lonely Age among the people of the Empire, with some believing that the entire empire had been "kidnapped" by the big conglomerates with the interstellar threat theory during those two hundred years - in fact, it was indeed the fastest stage of the Northern Bloc's development - and some even claimed that the images of the annihilating alien creatures that were sent back to Rand were all faked.

There were also people who smelled a strange smell in the Northern Bloc's blockade of the ruins of Falling Rock City, and finally a small newspaper unearthed the big news that there might be alien ruins in the local area, or the origin of the rand - this secret was held by the Academy of Sciences, the royal family, and a very small number of people in the two major groups of the North and the Chiga, and in the end it was not completely leaked, but the negative reaction caused was very large.

As a framework originally set by St. Vinne to ensure that the Supreme Council (especially the House of Commons) would always represent the voices of the people at the bottom, the new Star Exploration Plan was shelved indefinitely, almost certainly, against the backdrop of public opinion that was generally antipathetic to big business.

Since then, the Northern Bloc, the Khyga Group, and the Femon military have also had a gap in their support for this plan, and finally evolved to the point where the Khyga Group as a whole withdrew from the Femon Empire a few days ago and expanded the interstellar colonization alone.

The Chiga group's backlash did not cause reflection in the Supreme Council, but was instead seen as a sign of a phased victory, and in the past few days, a series of restrictions on the northern bloc were drafted at the joint session of the House of Commons.

That's what makes Wesley so atmospheric.

Over the centuries, the letter that Donner left behind, along with a series of manuscripts of scientific prophecies, gave impetus to the rapid development of the Northern Bloc and scientific organizations, including the Academy of Sciences. The near-inexhaustible Magic Net of Clean Energy and the guidance of the Apocalypse have created a dazzling feat that Wesley still finds inconceivable.

However, he couldn't understand why Donner wanted to promote all of this while creating the Supreme Council, an unspeakable organization that was contradictory at every turn.

"Lord Earl...... Perhaps we should also be like Ms. Lisa, and withdraw from the Faimon Empire, at least move our headquarters outside the territory of the Empire to minimize the possible impact in the future. When the person who made this suggestion finished speaking, he lowered his head, and seemed reluctant to accept such an outcome.

Wesley walked over to the conference table and sat down slowly, a feeling of powerlessness rising in his heart. One of his beliefs, or rather some extravagance and fluke, had been extinguished in the Academy of Sciences a few days earlier.

Sitting on the most powerful industrial and commercial empire in the entire Radiant Star Clan, he suddenly felt a sense of isolation, and for the first time in centuries, Wesley truly felt helpless.

The contents of the letter could only help him get here, and even the seemingly omnipotent Donner could not have predicted the situation Wesley was facing.

The giant ship he was at the helm was being commanded by the Supreme Council with the navigation lights to enter the harbor, waiting to be inspected and dismantled. He could rush over without hesitation, ignoring the restraining and censorship orders, and with the support of the Faimon royal family and the military, he was more than capable of doing so.

However, he was reluctant to do so, because like the ship of the Northern Bloc, the Supreme Council, and the Magna Carta, to which they obeyed, were also created by Donner.

Looking at the group leaders who were astonished by the entire Rand civilization in their field, but now they seemed to have made mistakes and were waiting to be punished, one by one with their heads bowed, Wesley let out a long sigh.

"Let me think again......" he seemed to say to himself, "think again." ”

Just then, the side door of the synagogue was pushed open, and Sinny rushed in, blushing in panic and shouting, "Lord Count...... His Royal Highness Richard is asking for a call on Channel 001!"

The sixty or so people in the hall, both present and absent, all looked up in vain and looked at Wesley.

Channel 001 does not refer to one of a series of channels, but a special codename, a simulated channel encrypted by the Supreme Secret Order, which is only used for secure communication between the military, the royal family, the Academy of Sciences, the Northern Founding Group and other organizations in the most critical situations. From the day it was created, it has never been activated.