The mass of darkness twisted into a humanoid shape. It still had no distinct features, but at least it looked like a person now. The other party sighed and spoke in a vague, indistinct voice. "As expected, you guessed it. I knew you were exceptionally clever, but was it really that obvious?"
"Once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Yu Lian shrugged, his gaze distant, looking every bit like a wise man who had seen through all the shadows.
"The marauders' attack on New Jade Gate and the Sand People's rebellion were actually pointless. Even if we'd been delayed by all sorts of accidents and couldn't return in time, even if we'd taken Tulong and the entire planet, even if we'd slaughtered all the millions of Commonwealth citizens currently living here, our returning forces would have trapped us on the planet's surface. In the end, we'd have been wiped out. Or perhaps our forces would have launched a massive reprisal, leaving no marauder prisoners and subjecting the Sand People to a purge bordering on genocide."
Yes, if New Jade Gate hadn't received reinforcements from the galactic core, and if the local garrison hadn't been whipped into shape by Hachiman's training, but had remained as useless as before, all of that could have happened.
"But in that case, what was your goal? I know you're a bunch of hedonists with a worldview unlike normal people's, but you're not an anti-civilization group whose goal is mass slaughter and death."
"Mm. We're quite progressive, actually," the Grand Dramaturge's shadow replied solemnly. Unfortunately, his voice still had that distinctly Lovecraftian quality—muffled and cavernous—so he couldn't possibly sound serious.
"Then could it be that this large-scale rebellion wasn't the goal, but the process? Preparations to make the Enlightener ruins