In the network space blanketed by a sea of white flowers, figures departed the meeting one after another. As the figures around the round table vanished in succession, the space gradually fell quiet as well. In the end, only Gawain and Beltira remained standing amid the flowers, gazing at the virtual sky and distant horizon in the breeze sweeping through the sea of blooms.
Beltira was the first to break the silence. "You seem heavily preoccupied, Brother Gawain."
"I'm still thinking about the Sentinel," Gawain said gravely. "Now that we've confirmed it is hiding a deeper conspiracy, I have to consider what contingencies it may have prepared and what its ultimate means might be. As an ancient enough intelligence, the knowledge and trump cards it possesses are far beyond our understanding."
"...If our conjectures are correct, then using the power of the Azure Network to transform the celestial body beneath our feet into a permanently uninhabitable planet should be its ultimate goal. Everything my 'Wasteland compatriots' have done has merely been part of the process of achieving that goal," Beltira said unhurriedly. "Now that we have successfully halted the Aberrant legions' advance into the Civilized World and learned of their next 'deployment plan,' theoretically, unless every front of the Alliance suddenly collapses, the Sentinel's 'planet-taming' plan can no longer succeed."
"That's exactly what I was considering—if the Sentinel cannot carry out its plan to control the Azure Network, what 'alternative' does it have to achieve its goal of 'permanent extinction'?" Gawain said slowly as he thought. "Its node deployment plan remains incomplete, but a large number of Rune Stones have already been placed within the Azure Network. Observatories and magical monitoring facilities across the continent previously detected widespread magical anomalies, and Tir's side has confirmed that some violent change within