(Asking for monthly votes! That's right! Ask for monthly votes promptly at the end of every month! I won't forget to ask for votes! Let's work hard and break a thousand monthly votes, okay?)
We discussed the various pieces of information Abyss Shilin had revealed during this appearance until evening. Everyone agreed that we should take the most cautious approach: remain skeptical of every word Abyss Shilin said, leave our policies toward the Fallen Apostles unchanged, strengthen patrols along the Empire's borders, and set up twice as many surveillance posts along the Abyss Empire's border. Sandora had suggested the last point. She believed that Abyss Shilin's high-profile appearance might foreshadow major movements from the Fallen Apostles. Whatever they were planning, sending out sentries first was always a universally effective response.
Tawell was tasked with conducting further analysis of the Rift. What Abyss Shilin had said about its origins might hold some reference value, and Tawell still had plenty of idle research capacity. We had her dedicate a processing thread specifically to following up on this matter, to see whether understanding the Rift's cause might help us find a way to control it. We did not expect to close the passage, but perhaps we could stop it from constantly shifting locations. A tangible threat that was fixed in place and could be scanned was naturally far less dangerous than the elusive Rift that only Shilin could locate. Our next step was to set up network defenses around the Rift: Firewalls, information monitoring points, sentry programs, more robust underlying protocols—every measure had to be used. Shilin Apostles were not powerful only on real-world battlefields. As a race born with a Spiritual Network, their networking technology was not to be underestimated either. These defenses might not guarantee that the Rift could be rendered