Aron extended his hand and a single rune appeared in front of him. Anyone who had seen him using his runes in the past would know what the rune was: the humble, yet mighty, shield rune. It glowed its usual golden color and was its usual small size.
But that didn’t last long, as Aron continued pumping mana into it with the intent of expanding it. The thing he was planning on shielding was enormous, so the rune had to be equally as large to perform its task.
A minute passed and it continued growing... five minutes passed... ten minutes.... Aron continued pushing intent-laden mana into the rune for a full hour before the flood of mana died down to a much more sustainable amount and the rune stopped growing. Now, he was only directing enough mana into it to prevent it from disappearing and forcing him to start the process over again.
But despite that, it still remained inactive, silently hovering in the vast blackness of space outside Earth’s atmosphere. It had reached a gargantuan size of more than a thousand kilometers in diameter, and at that size, Aron could be sure of at least one thing: with the amount of mana he had pumped into the rune, it would surely be enough to cause chaos on the planet’s surface.
......
“This year’s budget is fifty trillion END? And for just one year? Where the fuck are they getting all that money!? I’m pretty sure they aren’t getting it from the taxes they haven’t collected yet...” said a young man in his twenties with deep blue eyes and a handsome face. He couldn’t even imagine that amount of money, not with his current income at least.
“That isn’t the important part. The government can issue bonds or something, but the real question is how the royal family has fourteen trillion END to fork out for their share of the defense spending,” another young man replied. He had read the press release, as well as the relevant information in the Akashic Record, and though it had technically answered his questions, something still seemed off to the young men.
“I mean... to be fair, the emperor owns the high-end technology, manufacturing, and food markets. Plus, they’re the sole providers of the military’s gear. So they’ve probably got the money in spades and won’t feel the pinch. After all, he’s just feeding money from one hand to the other, spending the money he earns from his companies to buy gear from another one of his companies. It’s just one big....”
Amidst the conversation, both young men grew distracted as, out of the corner of their eyes, they saw the sky flash with a slight hint of gold. They raised their heads to see what the color was coming from, considering how it had lit up the streets despite it being noon on a sunny day with clear skies.
As they raised their heads and looked for the light source, they saw a massive inscribed circle reflecting, or perhaps generating, light from its golden inscriptions. Though they didn’t understand the language it was written in, it was obvious that it was writing, and the light coming from it was enough to dye the sky all the way out to the horizon. They looked at each other, then at the people around them, only to discover that they were the only ones who were looking up at the sky.
Moments after realizing the difference between their reaction and others’, they both connected the dogs and realized that, whatever that hovering inscribed circle was, it had to be the doing of someone with a blessing.
“Is... is that what I think it is?” they both said in unison, then looked at each other in surprise and low-key panic.
As the runic circle continued growing, it became visible to more and more awakeners around the world. They immediately spread the news in various online social media groups for the blessed, then both awakened and non-awakened people alike began discussing the phenomenon. Some of the awakeners were more artistic than most, and even provided an illustration for those who were unable to see it for themselves.
The imperial blessings agency, having been informed of what was going to happen beforehand by Nova, immediately sent out a press release for immediate distribution while the rune was still in its expansion phase. The explanation was simple: it was a perfectly safe experiment being done outside the atmosphere above the Karman line. And even if it failed, nothing would happen to the planet as the experiment itself was completely harmless.
The explanation was enough to calm some people, but did nothing for others. The runic circle had been continuously expanding over the past 45 minutes and showed no sign of stopping.
Non-awakeners were even more scared than awakeners, as they couldn’t see anything and had fallen victim to a rather epic round of the old children’s game, “telephone”. And had it not been for the empire’s announcement, they would have thought they were being pranked by their blessed friends.
(Ed note: The game “telephone” is played by a group of people who stand in a straight line and face straight ahead. The last person in line taps the person in front of them on the shoulder and whispers a brief statement into their ear. The process repeats itself until the last person is tapped, then the first speaker and the last listener compare the message that was sent with the message that was ultimately received. Generally, the two are vastly different.)
The situation gave rise to a few widely watched livestreams, where awakeners were providing a play by play on the current goings-on in low earth orbit. Some of the livestreams even invited experts to discuss what the experiment could possibly be, and what the experimenter hoped his ultimate results would be.
……
Aron, taking a momentary pause to catch his breath after spending an hour enlarging the runic circle, turned to Nova and asked, “How’s the chaos coming? Is it spreading, or did we manage to stop the spread somewhat?”
[It’s manageable, sir,] Nova replied.
“Well then... let’s not waste more time, eh?”
