Elder Valerius's political maneuvering was a masterstroke of Vanguard deception.
He was using Kiera's own actions against her, painting her as a traitor to her clan and using the chaos they had created as a justification for the very inter-clan war the Vanguard had always wanted.
"He's boxing us in," Kiera said, pacing the operations room.
Her face was grim.
"He's leveraging the clan's honor, its pride. Any attempt I make to defend myself will be seen as the desperate lies of a traitor. And if Tarik's support for us is exposed, it will ignite the war immediately." They were caught in a web of their own making.
Their victory at the Correction Center had given Vex's faction a bloody nose, but it had handed his rival, Elder Valerius, the perfect political weapon.
They were now fighting a war on three fronts: against Vex's covert army, against Valerius's political machinations within the Azure Dragons, and against the crushing suspicion of their reluctant ally, General Tarik, who saw any instability as a threat to his own plans.
"We cannot react," Joric stated, his voice firm.
"Every move we make in response to Valerius's accusations will only serve to legitimize them. We must change the game. We must move our own pieces." It was The Quartermaster, their prisoner-turned-teacher, who provided the strategy.
"An accusation of treason is a weapon that cuts both ways," the spymaster said, a cold, analytical light in his eyes.
"Elder Valerius has a secret. A vulnerability. Every powerful man does. You simply have to find the right pressure point." Guided by The Quartermaster's insights into Vanguard protocol and Jin's deep-access research, they began to build a portfolio.
Not of Valerius's treason—that was a truth too dangerous to reveal—but of his personal corruptions.
The off-the-books shell corporations, the secret payoffs to political rivals, the quiet acquisition of properties in the Outer Sector for 'redevelopment.' These were the common, garden-variety sins of the powerful, the kind of dirty laundry the clans preferred to keep hidden.
It was not enough to prove he was a Vanguard agent, but it was enough to prove he was a hypocrite, a man who preached honor while lining his own pockets.
Their plan was to leak this information, not to a rival clan, but to the one place Valerius couldn't control: the fiercely independent, anti-authoritarian news networks of the Outer Sector.
These were the rogue journalists and data-scavengers who distrusted all clans equally.
They would not dismiss the information as propaganda; they would see it as a delicious scandal, a chance to expose the hypocrisy of the Core Sector's elite.
Ryu's new abilities were central to this plan.
With Jin's guidance, Ryu learned to 'ghost' the data into the networks.
He didn't hack them.
He used his unique connection to the ChainForce to subtly manipulate the data streams, inserting the files so seamlessly that they would appear to have been there all along.
There would be no trace of a leak, no origin point. It would simply...
appear. A story about a corrupt elder, backed by undeniable financial records, materializing out of the digital ether.
It was a move straight from Charon's playbook, a demonstration of their growing sophistication.
They were no longer just reacting. They were setting the board for a new game, one where information was the ultimate weapon, and the battlefield was the court of public opinion.