Ellen used the broadcast function of the Earth's diffuse sensory network to speak across the entire world at once.
His voice flowed from conductive cables buried deep underground, forming a transmission that blanketed the whole continent. Everyone walking, waiting, or staring at that fissure heard it at the same time.
The bonfires on the ground were still burning, but no new fires were being lit.
The people who had been surging toward the fissure, crowding toward the raised platforms, and tearing down fences gradually came to a halt after Ellen's voice faded.
Standing at the center of that thin ice, Ellen drew upon the diffuse network and used every ounce of power at his disposal to deliver a clear, steady voice filled with emotional rises and falls.
"I watched for a long time—from before the first group was formed to the moment you tore down the lottery platforms. I know you have waited too long, so long that you no longer believe any promise. I once waited too. I waited for hundreds of years. The only difference between me and you is that I realized sooner: waiting itself will never bring results."
The voice paused for a moment, as though waiting for the word "waiting" to settle.
"Rioting will not end your suffering any faster. It will only take you further away from death."
"The wooden tags you have trampled to pieces and the registration books you have burned will not make any demon's mouth open wider, nor will they widen any fissure. You have already seen what rioting brings—more people trampled and injured, more bodies torn apart, more fragments of consciousness scattered farther away. Those fragments will not vanish. They will continue to hurt, continue to wait, only becoming harder to find than before."
"Now, I have found a