The woman glared at them and spoke, but her voice was rough. "The Archon has been looking into the corruption for years."
"The Archon...?" Rick looked confused.
"It's their leader..." Fredrich answered his confusion.
"We have been taking samples, searching for patterns, and writing down how the barrier is getting weaker."
"Nobody else on the continent knows more about what's going on than the organization."
Rick said, "And you're not telling the authorities about that," as he began to understand. "You are using it."
The prisoner smiled in a cold way. "The fall is going to happen."
"The Archon wants to make sure that when the old world ends, we are the ones who can decide what happens next."
Rick felt sick hearing that. "You're killing people! Villages are being torn down, and thousands of people—"
"Are irrelevant," the prisoner said with a shrug. "The weak always die when the balance of power changes! That's just how change is...!"
