The scene before his eyes was too different from when he had left. Emiya instinctively thought he had experienced the legendary Peach Blossom Spring event, only to return after many years had already passed.
"The Landau family and the Builders colluded with the Interstellar Peace Corporation to attack us. Not only did 98 residents die, even Nalan was beheaded and thrown into the sewers."
Zoe's voice carried an unusual, intense killing intent. Nalan had been one of her very few friends she could actually talk to, and Nalan had been her family's only surviving child.
Just yesterday, Nalan had happily told Zoe that once the new city was built, she was planning to find a good husband and settle down.
Zoe had solemnly promised Nalan that all the hard days were already over, and from now on, every single one of her days would be filled with happiness and joy.
"How did they have the ability to contact the Interstellar Peace Corporation? Could it be that the Preservation Aeon deliberately showed a sign and passed the message to them?"
The moment they arrived at Jarilo, Emiya had Zoe repeatedly investigate the situation there. Only after being absolutely sure that Belobog's condition could not be known to the Corporation did he make a series of plans.
If they were discovered by the Corporation at such a halfway stage, it would be the worst outcome he could have predicted.
And to make it worse, the ones contacting the Corporation were the Landau family and the Builders, two groups with extremely sensitive positions.
At that point, the Corporation would only need to wave the banner of "helping the Builders clear out traitors" and they could march openly into planet Jarilo.
Then, using the astronomical sum of debt interest that had already compounded to impossible numbers, they would forcibly pressure Belobog, forcing them to sell out both Belobog itself and all its people to the Corporation.
Even if the Emiya family tried to withdraw from Jarilo now, it was already too late.
In name, the Interstellar Peace Corporation was a "peace" corporation. In reality, many times they were even more terrifying than colonizers.
To better control the planet, the Corporation would absolutely spare no effort to help the Landau family and the Builders, clearing away every single person and thing that stood in their way.
Cocolia, Bronya, Gepard, and others close to Emiya would all be branded traitors and purged. It was even highly likely that the entire Underworld would suffer a devastating catastrophe.
"This matter is complicated. You'd better watch the projection!"
As Zoe finished speaking, a robot carried up a projector from underground. Behind it, another robot pushed a culture tank.
Through the tank's transparent glass, they could see a man inside who had been turned into a human stick. His face was twisted in extreme distortion, as though he was enduring unbearable pain.
"Dozens of specimens captured alive by Lady Vera were all killed by those hot-headed ones. Only half of one was barely preserved."
Zoe glanced helplessly at Gepard, Bronya, and Cocolia, whose eyes were still blood-red.
She had never imagined that these three, who normally seemed so honest and mild, would be so terrifying once they got angry. By the time she realized it, the specimens had almost all been blasted into bloody chunks.
"Fortunately, the only one still alive was the advance squad's supreme commander. The memories in his head are already enough."
To help Emiya understand the specimen's memories more directly, and also to prevent the endless scenes of indulgence from once again polluting everyone's eyes,
Zoe backed up the original file, then deleted, altered, and re-edited the memories, turning them into something like a documentary.
The supreme commander of the advance squad was named Costa. He belonged to a secret unit under Oswaldo Schneider of the Corporation's Market Development Department.
Costa's main mission was, whenever the Development Department set its eyes on a promising planet, but the planet's leader refused to bow,
they would infiltrate it, spark conflict from within, plunge the people into misery, then let the Corporation step in as a mediator. With the right price, the planet would be absorbed into the Corporation's domain.
In Costa's memory, there was one particular matter especially worth attention, that of the planet Sigonia.
Sigonia lay in the unclaimed zone at the junction of the Dnies, Pruthian, and Dorneau star systems. Because of multiple stellar winds and drifting celestial bodies, Sigonia's surface climate was so bad it was nearly uninhabitable.
The harsher the environment, the fiercer the struggle over resources. The major clans of Sigonia had long oppressed and fought each other, nearly all clans harboring deep blood feuds.
Later, Oswaldo Schneider, the head of the Development Department, seized control of Sigonia through forceful means. He unified the clans into a more advanced, more efficient governing body, the United Emirates.
The very first thing Oswaldo did after establishing the Emirates was to stir public opinion against the clever Avgin people and the disobedient Katica people.
It didn't take much effort before those two races were smoothly exiled to the wastelands, starting yet another deadly struggle over resources.
The advance squad descended at the right time, killing all the rational leaders of the Katica people, pushing them to unleash a Night of Annihilation against the Avgin people.
Afterward, under the banner of "suppressing rebellion," the Corporation gave the Katica people no chance to appeal, exterminating them all.
Through these two bloody massacres, the Corporation openly and shamelessly displayed their policy to the rest of Sigonia, follow us and prosper, resist and perish!
The ending of this incident had an even more interesting twist.
The Avgin people were not completely annihilated. One survivor remained, a man named Kakavasha. He was sold into the Pan-Galactic slave markets as a slave.
Aventurine
By chance, Costa was friends with the man who bought Kakavasha. The two of them often "enjoyed their slaves" together. But not long after Kakavasha was bought, that friend was killed.
Kakavasha suddenly transformed into a senior executive of the Strategic Investment Department, one of the Stone-Hearted Ten, with his keystone being the Cunning Aventurine.
Costa feared Aventurine would recognize him and take revenge later. Ever since, he had lived in constant terror.
The reason he had been so extreme in recent missions, so desperate to show results and get promoted quickly, was also because of Aventurine.
After watching Costa's complete memory projection, everyone present fell silent.
Although aside from Emiya, the others had already seen it once in the basement, at that time Costa's memories had been jumbled and full of violence and vulgarity. Other than stirring anger, it evoked no other feelings.
Now, thanks to Zoe's master-level editing, Costa's memories were recreated.
Everyone could see more vividly the horror of the Corporation and the pitiful tragedies of the ravaged planets. Especially since they themselves were facing the same fate, it struck even deeper.
"Those bastards, I'll tear them into pieces!" The more she watched, the angrier Zoe became. With a wave of her little hand, she was about to lead the robot army to slaughter all the traitors for revenge.
Yet Gepard knelt down right in her path.
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