Support for the Amendment began to fall, dropping from forty percent to thirty-five, then to thirty.
The Order Alliance could no longer sit still.
"Damn it!" the ruler of the Eternal Empire said furiously. "How do they always manage to escape disaster?"
"Every time we think victory is certain, they turn things around!"
The chair of the Rule Guardians Alliance was equally frustrated. "And their methods are all legitimate."
"We want to smear them, but we can't find anything to use against them."
"They really are doing good deeds, which makes them hard to criticize."
"This can't go on." A cold, sinister voice rang out. It belonged to an envoy sent by the Order Alliance's backer.
"The master says it's time to use special measures."
"What measures?" the empire's ruler asked warily.
"Create a crisis." The envoy sneered.
"Make it look as though the Superconsciousness Network caused it."
"Once they're branded guilty, all the good deeds in the world won't help them."
It was a sinister plan.
But to the Order Alliance, already backed into a corner, it seemed to be the only choice.
"What kind of crisis?" the alliance chair asked.
"A dimensional collapse," the envoy said. "Collapse an insignificant dimension, then pin it on the Superconsciousness Network."
"Collapse a dimension..." The empire's ruler hesitated. "The beings inside it..."
"They'll all perish," the envoy said calmly. "For the greater good, this is a necessary sacrifice."
"Besides, it's only a lower dimension. The beings inside it don't matter."
Silence fell over the meeting.
The price of this plan was too steep, so steep that even some of the delegates felt uneasy.
But in the end, no one objected.
They feared the Superconsciousness Network's continued growth even more.
By comparison, sacrificing an "unimportant" dimension seemed acceptable.
"Then it's settled," the envoy