"What kind of video?" Alicia asked.

"I want to explain what happened to me. The world must know the Guardian System and the Alliance aren't trustworthy. The system lied to me about Valentina's rank, which goes contrary to what we were taught, and the Alliance let a strong being turn me into a puppet with no consequence whatsoever. Now there's a D-rank rift with thousands of D-ranks ready to invade. Maybe Earth was saved from the Void, but I also start to wonder if that is even true."

"I..." Alicia hesitated. "...suggest you omit that last part. About the Void, I mean. It'll make you sound like a conspiracy theorist. It'll make you lose credibility."

Shen gave it a thought and nodded. "Makes sense. So, can you start recording?"

"Well... I don't know if a video of yours saying all that is actually required. Some Pioneers and I already told everyone what happened..." She lowered her voice. "About why you were killing indiscriminately and all that."

"It looks like I'm missing something," he said. "What happened while I was gone?"

"Marzia arrived, for one. By the way, she wants to talk to you. She came with some Pioneers to the portal, and I told her everything. We all told the world about what had happened already. Some wanted to help you in the rift, but Marzia convinced them to just hunt for other rifts to close instead."

Shen didn't want to talk to Marzia after killing her father, but he supposed he owed her that. He would get to that when he had the time.

"She did well," he said. "I would've killed anyone who approached. Also, if the others are gaining strength elsewhere, they'll be stronger for what's to come. As for you having already told everyone... I need to do it anyway. I believe it'll have a different weight coming from the man with bloodied hands."

"If you say so... How did you get back to normal?"

He smiled sadly and shook his head. "I have no idea. I was about to die, and it happened."

Shen trusted Alicia, but he didn't trust the system or whoever might be listening in to their conversation. He recalled the presence he had felt after developing his aura. He was confident someone had helped him from the shadows, so he would honor their obvious wish for anonymity until he knew more.

"So, ready to record?" he asked.

Marzia was in Espace Léopold, the complex of parliament buildings in Brussels, Belgium. It housed the European Parliament, and she currently sat in the Parliamentary hemicycle, the big meeting room for EU legislators. More specifically, she sat by the head table, protected by four other Pioneers.

It was no surprise that the building had survived. Few European nations had anything to gain by bombing it and a lot to lose. As for the non-European countries, they seemed to just not care about destroying it. Of course, a few attempts had been made, but they lacked heart and had been intercepted.

Thirty-two legislators were currently in attendance at the urgent meeting. They were participating in writing the first worldwide constitution—or as close to that as the Alliance tools allowed.

Currently, the system only tracked some universally forbidden actions—well, multiversally, Marzia supposed. Things such as murder, torture, and blackmail. More complex laws, taxes, and the like were still not in place.

That would change in one Alliance standard day after the Human Maiden had arrived. One Alliance day was around six and a half Earth days, and three remained. After that, Alliance law would come in full swing. Marzia had until then to opt-in or out of some optional sections, or Earth would be considered to have rejected them all.

That might be considered a good idea at first glance as some rules were just stupid. A set of optional laws, for instance, determined that any non-Guardian carrying a weapon in public was to be summarily executed. It had supposedly passed on a time of great upheaval but was later put in the optional category. It hadn't been entirely struck out because some races and worlds had adapted well to it and didn't want to lose the help they got from the system to enforce it.

And system help, Marzia thought, was fantastic.

That was easily seen in laws against rape. Marzia definitely wanted to include those laws, as having them "on" would let the omnipresent system automatically track and mark the offenders for due process. It was just too easy and convenient not to take advantage of.

Anti-rape laws were optional because, in some obscure races' biology, sex was supposed to be forced on unwilling partners. Those beings couldn't reproduce if it wasn't forced. However, Marzia couldn't just blindly accept the entirety of the rules against rape because they went as far as prohibiting a non-agreed-upon stare. That had been put in place due to a race of giant eyes that could get impregnated with a look—though how eyes could get impregnated was beyond Marzia.

The background of all optional laws was written on the system window containing all Alliance laws. They had become available to anyone as soon as she returned to Earth. She had told everyone through official and social media and even received some feedback on some sections, though she kept her right of last say.

She checked the Alliance's optional laws one by one. They were enough to make the process tiresome, but she had plenty of time to go through them. With her F-rank learning ability upgrade, she would be done with it in a couple days at the latest.

That had to be done before the one Alliance day deadline because a race could only change the laws they accepted or refused once every Alliance standard year, around twelve Earth years. Supposedly, the resources required to run the system weren't easily reallocated. Considering the Alliance's size—in a meeting with the Observers, they told her the Alliance had over ten million worlds and over ten thousand races—even changing things once every year was already a massive undertaking.

Of course, any race could add their own local laws, either race- or worldwide, but the system wouldn't help enforce them unless they spent Management Points. MP was too important and precious and shouldn't be wasted unless needed—like she had done to avoid nuclear Armageddon.

As for adding laws to the official Alliance ones, it required Earth to send a representative to the Alliance Council to politically fight for it. But humans wouldn't have the privilege to do so until they had been around for one standard year.

Marzia read over a regulatory rule about screen size. A race's sole B-rank had hated using small screens and managed to get them officially outlawed. It was so stupid she couldn't even...

"I'll opt us out of the screen size section," she said on the mic and moved on.

"Agreed," a few legislators said on their own mics.

Those people were there in case she needed help. They had been valuable a few times. For instance, an old man had stopped her from allowing free alien access to Earth.

Marzia had been for it because she didn't want to stop or slow down innovation and progress when humanity needed it the most. However, the legislator had argued that powerful aliens, many of which they knew nothing about, coming and going at will would be very dangerous. By requiring a visa, whoever didn't have it couldn't even teleport to Earth through the system; to illegally enter the planet, they would have to use other means. The man had argued, and Marzia agreed, that survival was more important than progress. Earth could always go to other planets searching for technology or deal with organizations they trusted to enter their world. And if they felt safe at any point, they could just give visas to anyone who asked.

That showed how Marzia was way over her head, but she had still denied their suggestions a few times. A legislator had been suspiciously pro-slavery. She had claimed that they never knew if there was a race that liked to be slaves out there. Moreover, enslaving some evil aliens might even be for the best.

'Asshole,' Marzia thought while remembering the woman Marzia had expelled from the room.

New Earth was not a democracy. Marzia was the system-appointed ruler until a B-rank appeared, and she wasn't about to listen to any bullshit she didn't need to. She knew she might make wrong decisions, but they were hers to make, and she could always change her mind in the twelve years until they could update the rules.

She knew very well that slavery had been alive and lucrative in modern days—her father, the Devil have him, had dabbled. Anyone pro-slavery had to have a vested interest in "local commerce," and Alliance law didn't have an option of letting only aliens get enslaved. Not that Marzia would have taken it even if offered, but it showed the woman's true colors.

Marzia was going through another section when one of the soldiers protecting the perimeter entered and came to her.

"Ma'am, you should see this," he said, offering her a phone. Marzia picked it up and pressed play.

Feng Shen was standing before the enormous blackened rift. The image started taking the complete picture and then zoomed in until it showed only his body against the black background.

Marzia wasn't surprised to see him back in control of his mental faculties; Alicia had sent a message. However, it was startling to see him with a shaved head and nondescript grey robe, a far cry from the image of a mighty warrior he had passed at the end of the Pioneer Tutorial.

"Hello, fellow humans," he said somberly. "My name is Feng Shen, I'm the Human Rising Star, and before anything else, I apologize."

He bent his body low and kept in silence for a while. Then he stood up, and the camera slowly approached until it showed only his upper body.

"The reason for my apologies, in case you're unaware, is that I was forced to kill countless innocent people. They had no chance against me. It was ugly and vile, and I feel terrible for becoming the tool used to commit such atrocities.

"Yet I insist on calling your attention to just that: I was made a tool. I met a powerful alien passing up as a young human woman, and she turned me into a mindless beast that knew only to kill. I had no free will and couldn't fight her power.

"I want you all to understand that well. I'm the only D-rank on Earth. As far as I know, I'm the strongest human alive. Yet I was powerless before that alien. She made me a puppet, and there was nothing I could do to resist it. She forced me to go against everything I believed in, and there was no alternative to submitting. I couldn't even kill myself when I tried to do so to stop the madness. That's the kind of horrors awaiting humanity if we don't get stronger fast." He made a heavy pause.

None of that was a novelty to Marzia or anyone in the world. However, hearing directly from Shen was different. He put things in an even more terrible perspective.

If even their strongest was at the mercy of a random alien, what hope did the rest of them have?

"This brings me to my next topic: the system lied to me. It said the alien was E-rank, yet she obviously wasn't. That means the Alliance lied to us all. It said the system couldn't lie except in some specific situations, none of which has to do with talking to a person in broad daylight. Don't trust the Alliance, and don't put your life in the system's hands if you don't need to."

Marzia could almost feel the world's hope dying. What was Shen's purpose in doing that? Did he just want to bring despair to everyone?

"Don't get me wrong. I'll use the system to grow stronger, and I'll accept most of what it says as truth. I have no choice; humankind has no choice. The Alliance rules over us by right of strength, and the system is a reality we must abide by. But if it ever tells you something you believe must be wrong, verify it instead of blindly trusting it. And don't take everything the Alliance tells you at face value. That's my suggestion to you."

Marzia felt the shift in the narrative. The bleak tone was now skeptical, bordering on neutral.

"I'll keep growing strong so that I never have to go through the same thing ever again. I'll keep improving to seek revenge for what was done to us. I'll redeem myself for being used as a tool of death by directing my abilities towards our enemies and protecting us all. One day, you won't have to worry about external threats. That I promise you."

Hope; that's what Shen was selling now. Marzia quite liked it. It was a bit raw on the edges and too on the face, but it sounded sincere enough, and that mattered more.

"But that day is unfortunately not today," he continued. "I entered a D Rift, where I fought over a million E-ranks, all well-equipped warriors fighting together as a unit. I killed a bit less than half with sheer luck, but the other half is still there, and they'll be able to leave the rift in eight days. And that isn't all. There are at least a thousand D-ranks there. I can probably kill them, but not fast enough if they all decide to escape and cause havoc on Earth.

"I need your help. I'm in Armenia. I'll send you the coordinates.

"If you have a gun, come shoot. Enough bullets might go through their defenses. If you're a Guardian and can get strong in a few days, do so, then come fight. If you cannot grow stronger quickly, come now, and I'll train you. We need numbers to protect our world. Whoever can come, anyone, everyone, please come.

"Come help me protect us all.

"We have eight days."

Marzia shivered at the thought of that many troops, but she just thanked the soldier who showed her the video and got back to work. She had to finish the job here. She was the Human Maiden, and her battlefield was a different one.

She could, however, help a little even now. So she took her phone and shot a quick video in support before getting back to business.