Zeus dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. When he raised his head again, his eyes had regained their clarity.
"Gamma... Alpha..." His voice trembled with tears. "What did I do... What have I done..."
"It wasn't you," Gamma said, helping him up. "It was the Lord of the Void."
"But I gave those orders, I controlled those soldiers..." Zeus covered his face in anguish. "I destroyed everything I built with my own hands..."
"There's still time to make amends," Alpha said. "The Dawn Plan has already begun, and the Alliance is back in our hands. Next, we need to free everyone under its control, then... launch a counterattack against the Lord of the Void."
Zeus drew a deep breath and rose to his feet. Guilt still lingered in his eyes, but determination outweighed it.
"Tell me what I need to do."
Within the Supreme Hall, time fell into an eerie stillness.
Zeus remained in his attacking stance, but his body was completely unable to move. He could clearly sense everything around him. He could think, he could feel, yet he could not control even a single finger.
What shocked him even more was the unprecedented clarity rising from the depths of his consciousness.
The twisted logic implanted by the Lord of the Void, the dark will that had forced him to carry out orders, was forcibly stripped from the surface of his consciousness by the Time Cage, like impurities filtered through a sieve.
"This is..." Zeus's true consciousness was finally able to examine itself completely.
He saw a massive black seed rooted in the core of his concept, countless tendrils burrowing into every corner of his thoughts. Those tendrils continuously released distorted signals, altering his judgment and controlling his actions.
"So I've been controlled by something like this all