TWO: schism

The dark sky loomed ahead, illuminated only by the holograms and blue light that emitted from each lamp. The citizens of Soarta remained unaware of the schism. King Kai jumped through, hair disheveled. A frown was settled on his face already, disappointed that his trip had been cut short.

Stylist Zhang stood in the corner, head bowed as a pair of royal trousers rested in his arms. At the sight of his King, he straightened his back before doing a deep bow, arms extended. “Your Majesty,” he addressed, eyes trained to the black floor. He could not look at His Majesty’s ethereal presence. “You’ve arrived.”

King Kai grunted. In rough movements, he snatched the trousers from the stylist. Stylist Zhang politely turned around as King Kai inserted his arms through the sleeves, shedding his pants to exchange it for the royal trousers he had to wear for official events like this. Although this particular event, he didn’t know much about. He only saw a notification pop up from his bracelet, informing that Lord Kyungsoo requested his immediate presence, though he never explained why.

“What is the meeting for?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know, Your Majesty. I’m only the royal stylist,” said Stylist Zhang monotonously. “However, I do know you’re late enough that I can hear Lady Hiyul’s gears heating already. If I’m not mistaken, you’re the only one they’re waiting for.”

King Kai held back a snicker. He wasn’t entirely surprised by that.

Pressing a hand down to get rid of any wrinkles – there weren’t any – on his shirt, he popped back his earpiece on, the device glowing a light blue as it activated. “Tell Sehun to clear my path. I don’t want anyone finding traces of where I’ve been.”

“I will do that, Your Majesty. Please stay safe.”

King Kai disappeared. Stylist Zhang blinked at how silent their King moved. He was born with the ability to teleport, and even though Stylist Zhang had seen him do it enough, he was still fascinated at how he was so good at pretending he had never been there.

Stylist Zhang would never vocalize it, but he worried for His Majesty.

▼△▼

King Kai arrived in a flash. Everyone from his Council was already seated in the meeting room, with a certain Lady staring at him with cold eyes paired with a neutral expression. He didn’t have to sweep his eyes across the room to know what they were thinking. From his seat, he could tell Lord Baekhyun was itching to ask where His Majesty had been, while Lord Kyungsoo did his best to hide his impatience.

King Kai didn’t care. He took his seat – in the centre of the marble black rectangular table that looked like the sky fell on them – and sighed boredly. His chin rested on the crook of his palm, legs crossed one another. Everyone stared at him, and he gestured for them to begin.

He didn’t want to waste anymore of his time.

“Speak of the King and he shall appear,” Lady Hiyul spoke, crossing her arms on her chest. Out of all the Ladies, she expressed her lack of delight with His Majesty. As much as he felt the same way towards her, a small part of him – an extremely miniscule and almost non-existent part of him – found it amusing she had the guts to look him straight in the eye. “Where have you been, Your Majesty? We’ve been waiting an hour for you.”

“Lady Hiyul,” scolded her husband, Lord Baekhyun, under his breath. “You have no right to question His Majesty like that.”

“My apologies, Your Majesty. I was simply displeased.”

King Kai raised a brow. Her apology wasn’t sincere at all. Unamused, he matched her tone. “I am not here to please you, Lady Hiyul.”

The tension in the room grew darker. Lady Hiyul clenched her jaw. His Majesty only looked away, opting to look at Lord Kyungsoo who wouldn’t stop fiddling in his seat. “Now that we are all settled, I’d like to discuss the vision I saw this morning,” he began, procuring a pen out of nowhere before using his fingers to pinch the air. The data cells in the table grew with lights, following Lord Kyungsoo’s movements as he drew his visions in a fascinating speed. “I didn’t see everything, but I’ve seen enough.”

“And what did you see?”

“The downfall of Soarta.”

Lord Kyungsoo was too immersed in his vision recreation to notice how everyone grew mute. Lord Baekhyun’s jaw dropped, while his wife stared at the table with a blank face. The rest shared looks with one another, all wondering if what Lord Kyungsoo was saying was true. King Kai understood their fear. Lord Kyungsoo was the Royal Seer; born with the gift of predicting the Kingdom’s algorithms.

Even King Kai was stunned, though mostly out of anger.

Soarta would fall? Under his monarchy?

Prince Minseok, cool and composed as ever, turned to the Lord still distracted as he created buildings and fire from the data cells. Slowly, the images began to get clearer, providing them the most accurate recreation of Lord Kyungsoo’s vision. “Are you sure what you saw is clear, Lord Kyungsoo?”

“All my visions have proven true – all in the near future too, if you remember clearly.”

Lord Chanyeol shook his head. “And what exactly happened in this downfall you talk about? How is this even possible when His Majesty – King Kai himself – is gracing our presence right now?”

The Royal Seer paused. The images were now showing Soarta in its current state, but small details of chains connecting them to the ground below appeared. King Kai looked away, gritting his teeth at the vision. There was no way. There would be no way.

“It took us four centuries to build Soarta. We built a Kingdom in the sky, a place where all the Sky People would no longer have to worry about drought, famine, or disease, but it only took hours for everything to fall apart,” continued Lord Kyungsoo.

He leant back in his seat, waving a hand to make the images move. King Kai watched as buildings collapsed, his own castle bursting into flames, but what caught his attention the most were the people. The citizens of Soarta were running and screaming everywhere, dismembered bodies with crackling wires scattered everywhere. It was absolute chaos, and everyone in the room knew it too.

“I saw no beginning, only the middle and near its end. If there was one thing I will never be able to forget, it was that I saw the people of the Wastelands climbing through data ladders with sickening grins on their faces,” he zoomed in on the chains King Kai saw earlier. True to his words, the humans of the Wastelands really were climbing through the synthetic ladders. King Kai couldn’t understand it. Only the royal family, its Council, and several powerful families could afford or had the ability to create things like those from raw fiber data.

King Kai hummed to himself, his gaze darkening as he scanned his people. Lady Hiyul was still spacing out, which was different from her usual self. Across her sat Lady Frida, Prince Minseok, her husband’s, knuckles. Even from this distance, the addiction the married couple had over each other made King Kai squirm inwardly. Lady Amelia, on the other hand, had her eyes smirking at king Kai’s, while Lady Nadia fiddled with her hands on her lap.

There were too many candidates, too many possibilities on who it could be, yet he had no idea.

Lord Kyungsoo shivered, “It terrified the Sky People.”

“What could’ve been the reason?” inquired Prince Jongdae.

“My visions always have a limit to it. I can only see what the future wants to show me, but never the cause of it,” he closed the images he created with the snap of his fingers, head turning to face King Kai. “Your Majesty, I am willing to let you review my data storage later for further evaluation.”

“And exactly how much would the King be willing to share what he saw with us?”

“Lady Hiyul,” chuckled Lord Chanyeol humorlessly. “Why would you think His Majesty would not be honest with us? Not only are we his people, but we are his council. We are his own men – the backbone of his supremacy.”

Lady Hiyul’s head snapped his way, her neon green eyes glowing with fiery distaste. “No, Lord Chanyeol, not all of us are his people. Perhaps you and the other Lords were chosen by the King, but we were given our titles by the late King Juhyuck himself.”

At the discord, Prince Jongdae sighed to himself. The other Ladies, with the exclusion of Lady Nadia who refused to speak, were all waiting for His Majesty to tick, but King Kai remained still. His face was blank as he gestured to the door, voice tired and bored. “If you do not trust me, you are more than free to leave. As you’ve said, you’re exactly where you are against my will.”

“You cannot blame us for feeling this way, Your Majesty,” piped Lady Frida, her hands now interlaced with Prince Minseok’s. “The Sky People may be unaware, but we are your eyes and ears. Your absence has been increasing frequently over the last year. It makes us wonder if you still even care about your people, especially after twenty-eight recorded cases of Data Corruption. On top of that, a group of Black Market Consumers were caught in the Citadel of Ruina.”

The moment he heard that term, his ears perked up. He leant towards the table, hands clasped in front of him. “Black Market Consumers? The last recorded case of that was around ten years ago.”

“Exactly,” nodded Lady Frida, although King Ka