General Tarik's final words hung in the air, a chilling acknowledgment of their new reality. Their most valuable asset was their most dangerous prisoner.
The decision was made not by Kiera or Tarik, but by the cold, brutal logic of the shadow war they were now leading.
They had to talk to Charon. The process of thawing him was a delicate and terrifying procedure.
Joric, guided by the reluctant expertise of The Quartermaster, oversaw the operation.
They couldn't simply let him warm up; the sudden thermal shock would kill him.
Instead, they had to raise his core temperature by a single, precise degree per hour, a process that would take the better part of a day.
During this time, Charon would be at his most vulnerable, but his mind would also be in a state of flux, a twilight between cryogenic suspension and full consciousness.
"This is our only chance to interrogate him," The Quartermaster advised, his voice a low, clinical whisper.
"When he is fully awake, his mental defenses will be impenetrable. But in this state, his subconscious will be exposed. It will be like navigating a labyrinth of nightmares and secrets." Ryu was the only one who could navigate that labyrinth.
Kiera, her power diminished, could not risk a direct mental link with a spymaster of Charon's caliber.
But Ryu, his senses now attuned to the very language of data and consciousness, could try. He sat in a meditative posture beside the cryogenic pod, his hand resting on the frosted glass.
He closed his eyes and reached out, not with force, but with a gentle, probing curiosity.
He did not try to break into Charon's mind.
He listened. At first, there was nothing but a cold, digital silence.
A perfectly ordered void.
But as Charon's core temperature rose, glitches began to appear in the silence.
Fragments of memories, whispers of conversations, flashes of faces and names. It was a torrent of raw, unfiltered data, the secret history of a lifetime spent in the shadows.
Ryu saw the faces of the Onyx Serpent elders who were Charon's secret clients.
He heard the coded conversations where they planned the surgical removal of their rivals. He saw the financial transactions, the flow of power and money that underpinned the entire conspiracy.
But he also saw something more, something deeper and more terrifying. He saw the true purpose of the Vanguard, beyond the inter-clan rivalries.
He saw glimpses of ancient, forgotten histories, of a war fought in the dawn of time against a threat that made their petty squabbles seem like a child's game.
He saw the Vanguard's ultimate fear: that the ChainForce, in its infinite, chaotic power, was not a savior, but a potential destroyer, a force that, if left unchecked, could unmake reality itself.
Their goal was not just to control it, but to contain it, to cage a god before it could awaken and shatter the world.
For the first time, Ryu felt a flicker of understanding for his enemy's motives, a chilling realization that their monstrous acts were born from a place of profound, ancient fear.
He saw Vex, not as a simple villain, but as a zealot, a true believer in their cause. And he saw Charon, not as a mercenary, but as a pragmatist, a guardian who believed that any atrocity was justified to prevent a greater one.
The information flooded into Ryu's mind, a tidal wave of secrets and revelations that threatened to overwhelm him.
He was not just an observer; he was a participant in Charon's memories, feeling the cold certainty of his decisions, the weight of his terrible knowledge.
The link was a two-way street.
And as Ryu delved deeper into the spymaster's mind, Charon, in his frozen twilight, began to sense a new presence in his own.
A ghost. An anomaly.
He began, slowly, to wake up.