City of Life.
Board of Directors.
After finishing all manner of miscellaneous duties, Count Cenarius and another marquis closed the doors to the conference room.
At a board meeting convened by thirteen princes, only dukes were qualified to sit in as observers.
Even duties like closing doors and standing guard, performed by counts and marquises like them, were positions envied by many.
Inside the enormous conference room.
The thirteen princes of Life Bank each manifested a projection, watching scene after scene unfold in the middle of the conference table.
—Beneath a great banyan tree whose canopy was like the vault of heaven, countless mechanized troops had been reduced to scrap...
—An enormous wooden wall rose to prop up the sky, encircling Night City completely...
—One high-ranking Night City official after another died under strange circumstances...
"Everyone, according to the latest news from Night City... the entire city has submitted to that revived Count of Green Forest!"
The prince of the Messiah Family gave a light cough. "How should we respond? After all... Life Bank still has a branch in Night City, and the branch manager, Evangeline, is already on her way..."
"Why is it only us? What about Cyber Group and Gaia Network?" the prince of the Feili Family questioned.
He looked exceptionally young, without a trace of time's erosion upon him.
"You slept for too long..." The prince of the Matthew Family was an old man whose eyes brimmed with Wisdom. "Cyber Group is being troubled by the intelligent machine crisis... As for Gaia Network, their strongest artificial intelligence—Gaia—seems to have run into some problems. They are currently at their wits' end. It could be said that, right now, only Life Bank is able to act."
"An ancient mystic... Judging by his display, he should possess the Sixth Primordial.