The second day of the General Assembly in Ramsas was no longer the silent stage William had witnessed the night before.

  This morning, the colossal chamber had metamorphosed into the caldera of an active volcano.

  The air inside the General Assembly Hall was dense, sweltering, and suffocating. Thousands of delegates crammed into every inch of the tiered seating. Spotlights, now blazing at full intensity, roasted the hall, drawing beads of sweat beneath expensive silken shirts and grandiose robes of state.

  The drone of humanity filled the gargantuan dome like a violently agitated hive.

  William sat perfectly still at his desk, a solitary island of unnatural calm amidst the sea of chaos. His eyes swept the perimeter, snaring the clandestine murmurs slithering through every corner.

  The world’s leaders did not sit in peace. They waged guerrilla warfare.

  On the left flank, the hulking, thick-furred delegates of the Larrus Federation traded gruff whispers with Draka representatives, their eyes darting suspiciously toward the vacant desk of the Northeim delegation. William knew they were dissecting troop movements on the northern border.

  In the rear echelons, the priests of the Latham Theocracy, swathed in white-and-gold vestments, were besieged by diplomats from lesser nations begging for famine relief. Yet the holy men merely offered razor-thin smiles—bartering prayers for the price of lucrative mining concessions.

  In the right corner, the pale-faced bankers and lobbyists of the Nigras Empire furiously tapped on transparent data-slates. Their eyes gleamed with avarice, calculating the volatile spikes in House Ghandarvya's sugar stocks, driven sky-high by the drumbeats of war.

  A meat market, William hissed softly. They aren't negotiating; they're haggling over the price tags on their own citizens' lives.

  The diplomatic masks were cracking. The foul stench of greed and terror wafted sharper than the heavy oud and exorbitant colognes they wore to mask their rot.

  Suddenly, a concussive thud shattered the din.

  CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

  A broad-shouldered assembly clerk drove a wooden gavel into the podium with the blunt authority of a military executioner.

  The colossal screen behind the stage flared to life, projecting the emblem of the Golden Gear—the sigil of the host nation.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, order!" his voice boomed through the surround-sound casters, instantaneously slaughtering the drone of conversation.

  "The primary agenda for this morning's session will now commence. Please direct your attention to the opening address from our esteemed host..."

  The clerk drew a breath, executing a perfectly rehearsed, dramatic pause.

  "The President of the Republic of Salomos... Ramos Boa!"

  Majestic, fiercely patriotic orchestral music erupted from concealed acoustic arrays.

  From the right wing of the stage, the figure emerged.

  Ramos Boa.

  He strode toward the podium with a measured, supremely confident gait. The man was the walking embodiment of mass-produced modern charisma. His hair was slicked back, pomade gleaming sharply under the harsh spotlights. He wore a bespoke metallic-gray suit, tailored to absolute perfection to accentuate a physique sculpted in private presidential gymnasiums.

  His face was handsome, boasting an impeccably maintained, exotic bronze tan, topped with a brilliant white smile that seemed laboratory-engineered by a public relations firm. He waved to the assembly with a casual yet highly calculated flair, as if greeting old friends at a summer feast.

  And instantaneously, the hall detonated.

  CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

  Uproarious applause thundered, vibrating the very glass marrow of the UN building. Nearly the entire delegation rose—a standing ovation—paying homage to the sovereign of the western economy. The clapping was so deafening it rattled the eardrums, a harmonious, sickening choir of sycophants.

  William remained seated.

  He did not move a single inch. His back rested indolently against his chair, both arms folded tightly across his chest.

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  His cold gaze bored into Ramos Boa, who now stood at the podium, arms spread wide to embrace the adulation like a false prophet drinking in the worship of his cult.

  Bile crept up the back of William's throat.

  Repulsive, he thought.

  He did not see Ramos as a leader, but rather as the world's most successful peddler of cheap wares. The smile was synthetic. The wave was calculated. Every twitch of his musculature was a political algorithm designed to artificially inflate public approval ratings.

  Ramos Boa was the antithesis of everything William had been taught regarding true leadership. There was no honor, no crushing weight of history, no blood staked upon the altar of duty. Only optics, coin, and the insidious manipulation of the masses.

  Look at him, William judged, his eyes narrowing into venomous slits. A bloated python gorged on its prey, masquerading as a dove of peace.

  Amidst the roaring ovation worshipping the president, William felt like the sole sane inmate trapped inside a wildly opulent asylum.

  Ramos Boa gripped the edges of the podium with his manicured hands, leaning his weight forward as if to physically embrace the entire chamber. His visage glowed beneath the arc-lamps, flashing a "victorious" grin polished by thousands of hours of mirror practice.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, look around you!" his voice boomed, thrumming with an intoxicating, charismatic vibration.

  "This world marches forward propelled by one singular force: Freedom!"

  He thrust a single finger into the air. "Within the Republic of Salomos, within the modern democratic nations seated in this very hall, the voice of a steel-mill laborer carries the exact same gravity as the voice of a President! We elevate our leaders based upon absolute competence, not by the sheer accident of which womb birthed them!"

  CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

  Applause erupted anew. Ramos nodded continuously, inhaling the validation as if it were a potent narcotic.

  "We construct the future with transparency! With accountability! With the bleeding-edge innovation born only of unshackled minds!"

  But then, the cadence of his speech shifted. The imaginary ambient score within the hall seemed to warp from an optimistic major key into a deeply cynical minor chord.

  Ramos slowly swiveled his head. His piercing gaze drilled straight into the front row on the right flank.

  Directly at the desolate desk of the Carta delegation.

  Straight into William’s eyes.

  "However..." Ramos hissed with theatrical sorrow. "It is a profound tragedy. In an era where we are drafting blueprints for lunar colonies, there remains a nation that consciously chooses to dwell within the caves of history."

  He gestured toward William’s desk with an open palm—a movement akin to a curator exhibiting a crude relic in a museum of antiquity.

  "Behold our eastern neighbor. The Kingdom of Carta."

  Ramos’s smile contorted into a mocking sneer.

  "A primitive, absolute monarchy. A decaying, obsolete system where the destinies of millions hinge utterly upon the shifting moods of a single family sitting on Ironseat."

  Smug chuckles began to ripple from the delegations in the rear rows.

  Ramos fed off the energy. He knew he completely owned the stage.

  "They call it 'Tradition'. I call it Regression!" he declared vehemently.

  "While we debate the merits of free markets and universal human rights, they are still preoccupied with polishing archaic swords and bowing their heads to an iron throne. Carta is no longer a sovereign nation, ladies and gentlemen..."

  Ramos let the silence hang for one perfectly timed second to maximize the impact.

  "...Carta is a Historical Fossil that the world forgot to bury! A lumbering dinosaur blissfully unaware that the meteor of civilization has already struck and the epochs have changed!"

  ROOOAAAR!

  The assembly hall exploded.

  Not merely applause this time. It was accompanied by raucous laughter, shrill whistles, and jeering cheers. The diplomats from the republics and federations howled, elbowing one another, aiming mocking fingers directly at William as he sat alone at his desk.

  They did not look upon William as a revered Crown Prince, but as a circus clown wearing a paper crown crashing an adults' gala.

  Ramos Boa stood tall at his podium, arms spread wide, siphoning the collective energy of mass humiliation as premium fuel for his ego. He had just hawked spit upon thousands of years of Carta's heritage in a five-minute diatribe, and the world was applauding him for it.

  William did not flinch. Not a millimeter.

  His expression remained absolutely flat, as glacial as an alabaster death-mask untouched by the venomous spit just hurled at his kingdom's face. He offered no defense. He did not stand to object. He did not even deign to furrow his brow.

  Only his eyes narrowed imperceptibly, locking onto Ramos Boa as the man bathed in the glare of the spotlights and the tempest of thunderous applause.

  Amidst the roaring laughter mocking the 'historical fossil,' William’s inner voice whispered in a tone infinitely darker and far more harrowing.

  Speak all you wish, Clown...

  William settled deeper into the leather of his chair, allowing the tidal wave of mockery to wash harmlessly over him.

  They didn't know.

  These presidents, prime ministers, and diplomats who believed themselves the most enlightened minds on the planet... they were wholly oblivious that they were currently dancing on the precipice of an erupting supervolcano.

  The world is ending, William thought with frigid clarity. You are all so desperately busy arguing over stock portfolios and polling numbers, while the hourglass beneath your feet has already bled dry of sand.

  In his mind's eye, he did not see the dashing Ramos Boa. He saw the shadow of the Dark Gate tearing open. He envisioned the harrowing monstrosities that cared nothing for the laws of a free market or the sanctity of human rights.

  William stared at the row of blinding white teeth displayed by the laughing Ramos on the stage.

  Laugh while you still have breath. Glut your frail egos today.

  A razor-thin, profoundly terrifying smile slowly etched itself onto the corner of William’s lips. It was not a smile of grace, but the smile of an apocalyptic prophet who knows his catastrophic visions are already inevitable.

  I look forward to it... his mind hissed. I genuinely look forward to hearing the pitch of your laughter when the sky turns pitch black.

  When your vaunted technology dies... when your hollow coin holds no currency against the scythe of death... when your fragile democracy collapses into primal, blood-soaked panic...

  William swept his lethal gaze across the cacophonous chamber.

  I want to see if it is this 'historical fossil' you will be laughing at... or if it is the boots of this 'fossil' you will be desperately kissing as you beg for salvation.