The next morning, sunlight streamed through the reception room windows, casting patches of light across the wooden floor.
Dust floated in the air, along with the scent of wood wax.
Caroline sat upright in the seat of honor. She had changed into a practical riding dress, its dark blue fabric hugging her curves, with finely crafted black boots on her feet.
She looked at no one, merely tapping her fingertips lightly against the tabletop in a monotonous rhythm.
She was waiting for that Pioneer Knight to present his so-called new invention.
Then she would dismiss it as utterly worthless.
The door opened.
Veylin walked in.
Behind him came Xiao Lan, carrying an object covered with linen.
"Vice President Channing, good morning. Sorry for the wait."
Veylin's voice was calm and even.
He gestured for Xiao Lan to set the object on the table, then lifted away the linen.
It was a strange instrument made of brass and crystal.
Caroline's gaze lingered on it for a moment.
"This is your 'new invention'?" Her tone held undisguised disappointment.
"Some sort of alchemist's toy?"
Veylin ignored the mockery.
He placed a jar of Sick Fish on the table, then took another jar from a wooden box. This one contained healthy fish.
The moment Caroline saw the Sick Fish, she turned to look for Korn.
Korn's scalp prickled, but he did not dare raise his head to meet his superior's gaze.
Veylin continued speaking.
"Allow me to correct a fundamental misconception."
As he spoke, Veylin used tweezers to pick up a small piece of ulcerated skin from a Sick Fish.
"Disease is one life-form parasitizing or attacking another. But your sea bass did not die because of any living organism. An invisible force 'erased' them at the most fundamental level."
A cold smile curled Caroline's lips.
"Sir Klein, I must admit that you are very good at inventing impressive-sounding terms. But empty words like those will not earn you so much as a single Copper Leaf in the Golden Sail Merchant Guild's ledgers."
"Words certainly won't." Veylin raised his head, meeting Caroline's gaze with his burgundy eyes. "But facts will."
He took half a step back and gestured toward the instrument.
"Come and see. See for yourself exactly how your losses of five thousand Gold Suns came about."
Caroline rose and slowly approached the instrument, her gaze scrutinizing and critical.
With some reluctance, she bent down toward the smallest crystal eyepiece.
"Your posture is wrong," Veylin said beside her ear. "The angle and distance must be precise, or you won't see anything."
Before Caroline could respond, a hand rested lightly on the back of her head, guiding her into position.
The hand was warm and strong. Through her silver hair, his fingertips touched her scalp, bringing an unfamiliar sensation.
"How dare you!"
Caroline jerked upward, fury flaring in her eyes as she tried to pull free.
But Veylin abruptly increased the pressure of his palm.
He bent closer, his warm breath brushing her ear.
"Vice President Channing," he said calmly, "for every second you waste, another thousand Gold Suns evaporate from Stonebridge City's fisheries."
"Now, shut up and look."
Caroline's chest heaved a few times, her clenched fists turning white at the knuckles. But the words "a thousand Gold Suns" brought her back to her senses.
She swore that if this did nothing to help the fisheries, she would make Veylin pay dearly.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to bend down again.
This time, after a brief blur, her field of vision suddenly cleared.
It was a hellscape she had never imagined.
There were no scales, no flesh or blood, only a scene of utter collapse.
Countless structures that should have been arranged in orderly patterns lay shattered, like a village ravaged by a hurricane. The central portions of many structures had shriveled into black masses of dead matter, while still more had lost their boundaries entirely, dissolving into an indistinguishable sludge.
"Now, look at this."
Veylin's voice pulled her out of her shock.
He replaced the sample with healthy fish tissue.
This time, Caroline adjusted her viewing angle without needing another reminder from Veylin.
The world beneath the lens was entirely different. Countless tiny, plump units lay arranged together like neatly stacked loaves of bread.
Compared side by side, that devastating "collapse" was horrifying.
Caroline slowly straightened, her face filled with shock and confusion.
"What... is this?" She heard the dryness in her own voice.
"Cells." Veylin calmly uttered a word she had never heard before, watching her bewildered face. "The most fundamental building blocks of all life. On the left are the ruins after destruction. On the right is what they should look like."
In that same steady tone, he dropped an even bigger bombshell.
"This is not a plague, nor is it any toxin known to alchemists. Your enemy is a form of high-energy 'contamination.' My hypothesis is that someone placed a metal capable of continuously releasing this energy in Stonebridge City's fisheries."
Caroline's mind raced, trying to make sense of this astounding claim using everything she had learned over more than twenty years.
"Contamination? Metal?"
"Imagine it this way," Veylin said by way of analogy. "An endless rain of arrows is passing through the water, shooting the fish indiscriminately. Each arrow is too small to see, but there are infinitely many of them. They keep radiating outward until the entire structure of life breaks down."
The room fell deathly silent.
Korn and Barris listened in stunned disbelief. This theory lay entirely beyond their understanding.
"Evidence." Caroline finally spoke, her voice tight. "I need concrete evidence, not a hypothesis that cannot be verified, Sir Klein."
"The evidence is in your fisheries." Veylin seemed to have anticipated her question.
"To ensure the desired effect, whoever placed it there would have taken the fish's habits and swimming depths into account. So they must have planted more than one or two pieces of metal. Most likely, they anchored them to keep them suspended at specific depths in the sea."
He looked at Caroline, his gaze sharp as a blade.
"You can send people to the fisheries right now to conduct a thorough search at depths of fifteen to twenty meters. I guarantee they will find something."
Veylin paused, then added something in a tone more serious than ever before.
"And everyone you send must wear full-body protective suits lined with pure silver, covering them from head to toe. Otherwise, they will end up exactly like those fish."
Finally, looking into Caroline's green eyes, still filled with shock, he said slowly:
"Silver is one of the few metals that can effectively deflect these arrows of death."
Caroline stared at Veylin. There was not the slightest wavering in his eyes, only absolute confidence.
It was the same confidence she carried as she dominated the business world.
Her mind told her this was absurd, but her instincts, honed through fierce battles in business, were frantically warning her-
He was telling the truth.