Coop jumped to a dozen different conclusions when presented with the panopticon configuration of the Ark. With Presence of Mind, he was detecting repressed auras from every single exposed compartment, whether they were dark red or golden yellow. Was the Ark actually a prison? Some kind of people-sized insectarium? Cold storage?

He needed the full story, but he was in the wrong place to actually receive it. Instead, he only managed to glean that it was absolutely not the sanctuary that they had hoped for.

What was inside the countless cells? That was the initial question leaving him feeling a deep sense of dread. Admittedly, he panicked a bit, thinking that maybe the ship was meant to capture humans even though it didn’t make sense for that to be the case.

Mana and the system were two distinct entities. The forces of mana would not be filling a system-aligned ship unless Lyriel was very wrong about some fundamental truths within the galactic community. But Coop thought her being mistaken had always been a possibility.

His mind raced as he subconsciously tried to confirm his fears, stuck on what might have been the worst case scenario where all those cells were being filled by abducted humans. If people were already being caught by the forces of mana and trapped in the compartments, he had to free them. His fingers itched as he barely held back from summoning his spear and taking more direct action. Only the doubt harbored by the tiny logical portion of his mind held him back.

There were way too many cells just for humanity. Even if every person had survived the assimilation, they would barely occupy a fraction of the available compartments. Every human that ever existed, throughout all of history, still wouldn’t make a dent in the overall capacity. Any number he tried assigning to the compartments filling the interior space of the ship felt like an underestimation. The absolute numbers were completely ludicrous.

Even just the yellow cells in the section nearest to him and Lyriel would already represent almost every surviving human, and they were a small fraction of the smallest inner ring. The thought didn’t help to calm him down, instead giving him the impression that the Eradication Protocol might have been too efficient and the fighting on the surface was already concluding. Still, he couldn’t envision a situation where so many people were somehow caught. The people he knew would have fought to the end, especially after struggling through the start of the assimilation.

Then again, how much did he really know about the forces of mana? Maybe he had been underestimating their capability, like how they had judged the Icons of Mana on a mere fraction of their power. With the Eradication Protocol enacted, perhaps they had different plans than what the name implied. As illogical as it seemed, such a scenario didn’t seem impossible when presented with such a display.

It didn’t make sense for the ship to have been designed with humanity in mind in the first place. It was ancient, probably launched long before more primitive life emerged from within the primordial seas of a much younger Earth.

But it could still be capturing people even if it wasn’t designed for them. Maybe there were species that actually required that many cells, and maybe it would simply add humanity to its collection. He bit his lip as he thought it might make sense and actually aligned more with the observations he and his advisors had made regarding the limits imposed on them through the assimilation.

Where unevolved species were raised up by the addition of the system, humanity had been crippled. It was like an EMP had been used to disable any potential threats while they were judged for integration. What exactly happened to the ones who failed? Lyriel said extinction, but what was this?

He could feel his hackles raising as his heartbeat spiked. He really wasn’t sure what to believe. In the end he would fight the system, the forces of mana, the Ark, and whoever else threatened Ghost Reef.

Coop was grinding his teeth, getting the sense that he might have to start breaking things, just to be sure his Ghost Reef companions weren’t trapped in the liquified mana before he could move on. But he held back, recognizing that he really wasn’t thinking straight. He reminded himself to breathe.

Coop shook his head, trying to break out of the thought spiral of his own making. They could be logical about this, and a more reasonable explanation would probably be the truth. He glanced at Lyriel to talk it out, but hesitated when the expression on her face was equally distressed.

“Lyriel.” He interrupted what he imagined was a similarly dreadful mental exercise. “There aren’t humans in those things, are there?”

She shook her head, unable to break her blindfolded gaze from the honey-filled compartments. “No, of course not.”

“Are you sure?” He continued, voice completely neutral despite his agitation. He was certain that the nearest compartments within the inner ring held beings that produced powerful auras.

“Yes, I am sure!” Lyriel responded, failing to keep herself as calm. “How could they be in here?”

“Then, what is it?” Coop wondered, words remaining steady despite his own internal anxiety. If the beings inside the cells weren’t human, then that opened up a whole universe of possibilities, in a literal sense.

Lyriel seemed to calm down a little before she answered. “It’s…” She started to respond before cutting herself off. “No, it can’t be.” She muttered before finally tearing her attention away from the cells and facing him. “I can’t be sure unless we get closer.” She stated, encouraging him to make a bridge, finally feeling the eagerness that had been lacking ever since she made it inside the Ark.

Coop nodded. He also wanted to get closer, but while he interfaced with the ship menus, seeking clarification, he got another glimpse at the bigger picture. The Ark recognized the contents of the compartments more like beasts of burden than captive prisoners. Like the ox used to plow a field and prepare for future planting.

Coop furrowed his brows in further thought, struggling with all sorts of implications while the platforms rotated. No matter how he looked at it, he didn’t like the way his understanding of the Ark kept evolving.

If the contents of the cells were just tools, the Underlayer was already like an empty field lying fallow. Perhaps he had been premature in the sentiment that the relationship between the Ark and the occupants of the cells was a warden with its prisoners. Instead, with another look at the situation, maybe he could see it more as a shepherd and its flock.

The Eradication Protocol was purported by Lyriel to be a terraforming event itself, using the Icons of Mana to cull adversaries and preserve the rest. Were there two different efforts to claim the world being taken at once? And by opposing forces? He hummed under his breath, unsure if he was on the right track. Maybe they were all working together, like different stages of a singular plan.

A physical connection was being formed between the balcony directly in front of them and a landing within the inner ring that continued to more distant sections. Rather than the controlled chaos of previous restructuring of the interior, the current apparatus maintained its composure, rotating like a giant singular machine rather than an infinite number of individual building blocks.

As the hexagonal blocks rotated around the central spiral, finally connecting to the nearest balcony so that a bridge formed with the inner ring, he found himself feeling nervous. It felt like he was piecing together information that was too far beyond his pay grade. Was he staring into the sun because he didn’t know any better?

He followed Lyriel as she carried Palisteon across the bridge, not particularly hurried, with her focus locked on the absolute monument of exposed cells while Coop turned his thoughts over and over. Halfway across the bridge, she stopped, breath becoming audibly ragged.

“No!” She gasped, the stress in her voice causing Coop to wince. “Why are they here!?” She demanded, raw confusion peeling away her last semblance of self-assurance.

“What is it?” Coop questioned, infected by the fear that left Lyriel so shaken.

“It’s the forces of mana!” She cried.

“What?” Coop choked out, first looking around for other intruders before comprehending what she was referring to. The forces of mana were specifically the opposite of what they expected to find within the system’s Ark.

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“The ones that burned my world are there!” She wailed, sounding like she was on the verge of physical pain, pointing at the nearest compartments.

Coop focused on the auras contained within the liquified mana, but other than concluding they were dense, he lacked the nuanced expertise to actually interpret the information. Without the system translating things for him, he was a bit inept in certain aspects. To him, the auras didn’t seem like anything particularly unique, the closest equivalency he could recall was with the more powerful, elder alien residents.

Lyriel couldn’t explain any more, her entire existence being called into question. She was practically vibrating with some concoction of fury and distress. He could tell she wanted to abandon her mission and run, but she also wanted to exact vengeance with such absolute fervor that she was willing to die to grasp it.

There was nothing he could reasonably say that would alleviate her inner turmoil. He thought he had been going through something, worried about his island and his friends, but she had it much worse. She was discovering that the Ark, her ultimate vestige of hope, was filled with the exact opposite, and had nowhere else to feasibly turn. The tree of knowledge bore fruit, and it revealed that the whole thing was rotten.

She inched forward, as if drawn to confront the contents of the compartments, no matter the consequences, but Coop put his hand on her arm and stopped her just after she crossed the halfway point.

“Hold on.” He advised, worried about what she might do.

She just faced him with a blank look, eyes hidden behind her blindfold, and her lips slightly apart as if she didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. It was like the Avatar of the System had come undone from the spectacle of her former reality and now Lyriel was an empty shell adrift in the wind. At least she stopped for the moment with Coop holding her back, stuck in some kind of fugue state.

“I’m sorry, Lyriel.” He knew words wouldn’t amount to any consolation. “But maybe we can still piece things together.” He still suggested.

She didn’t respond. She also didn’t try to move, like she had been completely unmoored.

“What about you?” Coop directed at the smaller alien. “How are you holding up?”

Palisteon made a sound that was not particularly enthusiastic, but somehow conveyed that there were always many possibilities.

Coop nodded as if he understood, though he might as well have been talking to Jett with how little he actually comprehended. Then, after a moment of silence, he tried to reframe their thinking a bit and provide some stability for them to regain their footing.

“Alright.” He started before taking a deep breath and getting into it. “The way I see it, finding the forces of mana in here doesn’t actually change our objective…” He cut himself off as the mere mention of the enemies caused Lyriel to smolder. Both her bloodthirst and discomfort were palpable.

“They haven’t merely infiltrated the Ark.” She whispered fervently. “They have been allotted space.” She pointed at the repeated walls of compartments that wrapped around the interior of the Ark in grand layers, hundreds of billions of cells glowing with honeyed mana. “Those pods are meant for projecting manifestations.”

“Oh?” Coop squinted at them, suddenly thinking that maybe they were like military grade versions of the mana bubbles that had secured humans all across Earth and projected them into their tutorials. He remembered they were practically indestructible, but that was before he had any idea about mana.

“What happens if we destroy the creatures inside those pods?” Coop asked, eyebrows shooting up as he got an idea.

“It dies.” Lyriel readily answered in a low voice.

“No more manifestation?” Coop clarified with a greedy smile forming on his face. If he was right, humanity was currently being challenged by these exact creatures. Maybe he could put his foot on the scale in a big way and Lyriel could get some revenge at the same time.

“No new ones.” Lyriel clarified, not nearly as enthusiastic as Coop. “As they are, when the projected entities are defeated they need only collect enough mana to respawn. That appears to be what is happening when the color shifts to yellow. A manifestation has been projected from those compartments.” She explained, sounding tired. “Without the base currently sealed within those pods, there will be no respawn, but the projection will become the new base.” She made a sour face. “That is, if it operates with the same principles as the galactic community. But who knows anymore? All truths have been tainted.”

“Hm.” Coop grunted, actually feeling like his trip through the Underlayer was finally being rewarded. “There sure are a lot.” He observed, scanning the distance.

Ring after ring appeared along the bridge, each rising so far above and expanding so far below that neither end was visible. If only the yellow compartments were active on the planet, that meant there was an absolutely monumental army preparing to coalesce. They were barely scratching the surface.

“Think we could kill ‘em all?” He was thinking that if they could defeat them here, there was no need to continue on their quest exploring the Ark for a more administrative solution to the local Eradication Protocol. They could cut it all off right there, though billions of enemies was a tall order, even for him. Hundreds of millions were already spawned, but the total amount was beyond numbers a reasonable human could understand. A trillion seconds was more than 30,000 years. Just how long would it take to clear each cell? There might actually be a trillion enemies.

Lyriel made a face like she tasted something extremely bitter as she caught his drift. “These aren’t some weak minions starving to refine a bit of mana like you have abused in your assimilation. They are the fully formed creatures that have gone undefeated for untold ages. They are the elder beings that strike fear in even the most advanced warriors, and those are only the exceptions powerful enough to survive at all. They are beyond levels, existing at the theoretical maximum when it comes to mana. I doubt our combined ability to defeat even one.” She concluded, upset to even have to recognize their existence, let alone admit that it greatly exceeded her own.

Coop grunted. “Well, if you put it like that, I guess we better not.” Coop muttered, disappointed.

Of course, even if they could defeat them quickly, the sheer numbers meant that they were looking at potentially tens of thousands of years worth of grinding, at best. Even he thought that was too much, at least for one session. Besides, he doubted eliminating the army would actually stop the mana corruption, which was at least equally threatening to the long term survival of Ghost Reef.

“We should look for that core before more of them manifest.” He suggested, accepting Lyriel’s sentiment that the raw forces of mana were too much to handle.

Rather than an easy solution, it seemed like the massive rings of compartments were a lit fuse meant to bring down the foundations that he had built. Coop thought they were genuinely in trouble in the long term, just based on the quantity of respawning enemies they would have to face.

But Lyriel shook her head like the original plan was no good anymore. “Their presence being tied to the Arks explains both their ubiquity and their limitations.” She balled her fingers into a fist. “It also completely alters the bearing of this and all other Arks. I fear that the solution I dreamed of no longer makes sense.”

Coop frowned at her conclusion. “I dunno.” He disputed. “The Ark doesn’t recognize them with the same significance as this.” He pointed at the invisible ring on his finger. “They seem to be trapped in those pods, being used as tools for whoever built this thing.”

“As the molds for soldiers.” She clarified.

“Maybe.” He admitted. “But the fact that you were able to create a key means that someone somewhere had some inside information that was passed down to you, right?”

She frowned before she responded. “I suppose, but it still implies an uncomfortable association with the very force that annihilated my people and countless others, one that chases us to the ends of the universe, and dictates who gets to live and who must die. Don’t you see how this calls so much into question?”

Coop felt like he had a good idea actually, since her position had been questionable ever since the day they first met. That’s why he had tried to knock her out way back then. From his perspective, the revelation that the forces of mana were inside the Ark actually made more things fall into place than not.

Mana was activated when the Ark arrived on the planet. The Eradication Protocol was enacted during the only time that the Ark was ever online. There were Arks on every planet within the galactic community. The Arks lay dormant unless a designated threat to the galactic community was present. In his mind, there were too many correlations to ignore. It was all one simple conspiracy.

If the Arks really were sent by the system, he felt like they were the natural exigency plan for the whole assimilation process. It was the loaded gun used if the investigation revealed a threat that had to be dealt with finality. It resolved so many conflicting motivations between the system and the forces of mana, that he felt like he could finally direct his belligerence appropriately.

The system was his enemy. Mana was neutral, nothing more than a valuable resource, but not a conscious party. The system naming its clean-up crew the Icons of Mana seemed like an inadvertent misdirection due to its apparent desire to monopolize mana itself.

His only real question remaining was who were the Exiles and what was their relationship with the system and mana itself. They obviously had some real connection to what was going on, based on just how much information they had right.

Was Lyriel an unsuspecting pawn the whole time, like how he believed the members of the galactic community were oblivious to the trap they had been captured in? Or had the original Exiles been misunderstood and were truly working to undermine the spread of the system while being credited with its creation? He wasn’t sure it mattered to him as long as the information was good.

“If you can’t think of the Ark as the source of safety anymore, maybe the mission started by the Exiles was always one of sabotage.” Coop suggested, riffing a bit to try and re-engage Lyriel. “We still need to find the core and fiddle with some settings.”

Lyriel seemed to think about it for a while before reestablishing some of her vigor. “Maybe there is still a chance of success.” She whispered, drawing a dubious look from Palisteon.