"What… what is happening?" Shireen muttered absentmindedly as she looked around the world in a daze. Even on the battlefield, facing impossible odds, she had never kneeled. And yet, here she was, rendered feeble and helpless before a human at the utterance of a single word.

Lex, meanwhile, was pondering about the newfound power in his Supremacy. He had just discovered that the hint of the Primordial aura that he had gained gave his Supremacy a tremendous boost. There was something about the Primordial that was inherently superior to everything that Lex found bewildering and confusing.

If the Primordials were truly, genuinely superior, then they would not be so few in number. Even if one argued that Primordials had all killed one another, just the mere ants born in the Primordial Garden should be enough to dominate entire Major realms. Yet that was not the case. Heck, even Lex himself had managed to subdue Primordials.

So it definitely wasn't that they were more powerful, but there was something about them… Lex just couldn't figure out what. Now wasn't the time for that, though, as he turned his gaze from Shireen to her sisters, who all seemed to be kneeling as well, despite not being targeted by Lex. This little experiment had shown him all he needed to see.

Lex loosened the hold of his word as he held out a hand for Shireen to take as he helped her stand once more.

"Shireen, the Seraphim Resort is owned and operated by the Seraphim who have many Dao Lords. Did it not seem strange to you that they never attempted to stop you from planning your escape? Or that you escaped the Resort so easily without them trying to prevent you from breaking the key? Even if they couldn't stop the keys from teleporting you, couldn't any casual Dao Lord have stopped you from using it?

"In fact, they could have simply taken the keys from you all before you even got an opportunity to use it. They could have foreseen your departure and done any number of things to prevent it, yet they never did. Simultaneously, if the Angels could see that war was coming, they could have done any number of things to assist you in your escape, but at least as far as I know, they never did. Haven't you wondered why?"

Even as Lex asked Shireen that question, he could tell that she hadn't. How could she, when there was so little left of herself at all? The very fact that she could still speak, and maintained some semblance of a self and ego were a testament to how tremendously strong she must have been once upon a time.

Shireen was stunned, and Lex's questions did not really help her improve her state of mind. It was for that reason she did not even notice when her eleven sisters only stood up when she did, and that their state was just as bad as hers.

Her state did not last long, though, as she refocused on Lex, her gaze filled with all the same power and confidence she always showed.

"You have made your demonstration. Now explain," she demanded. "What just happened? What does this have to do with our escape, and our treatment at the Resort?"

"Well, I cannot claim to know the exact details," said Lex as he extended a tendril of his spirit sense to Shireen and her sisters, showing them all exactly what he saw when he looked at their karma. "But it is clear to see, especially now that there is no interference from the Resort itself.

"You were political prisoners, yes. But your imprisonment was not nearly as harmless as they made it seem. Over the years, you have been drained - drained of everything. Your powers, your drive, your egos, your convictions, your talents, your luck, your everything. Yet they didn't do it all at once.

"Instead, they did it gradually, and they did it in the most ingenious way ever. They imprisoned you within the Edgar Temple, but they did not free you of the requirement to pay rent for your stay. Instead, the payment was automatically harvested by the temple.

"For every day that you stayed, every service that you used, every hint of expenditure that you incurred, you and your sisters paid with your very selves. This continued for so long that you have been left as barely shells of what you once were.

"The changes were so gradual that you yourselves did not notice, until it came to the point where you all were unable to notice. Eventually there came a time where you all simply became symbolic prisoners at best. The Angels did not find you worth redeeming, and the Seraphim did not find your imprisonment worth fighting for.

"After all, you all are now a mere imitation of the warriors you once were. In all the time I have known you, your eleven sisters have not even spoken once, leaving you to answer for them. Is that because you are their leader, or because they no longer have voices to even use?"

That last question clapped in Shireen's ears like thunder as she quickly turned to look at her eleven sisters. Her glorious sisters, her warriors, her… her fellow prisoners… her fellow sacrifices.

What injustice they had suffered for their valor, she could not even fathom. Or perhaps, once, when she accepted this imprisonment she already knew to expect this. It was just that she could no longer recall it.

Suddenly all the gaps in her memories made sense. She always thought that the angels had wiped her memories so that they could not be extracted by the Seraphim. But now… she thought otherwise.

Though she had lost many memories, a few remained with her. Her glory, her prowess, as she stood at the precipice of attempting the Dao tribulation. How strong she was back then was exactly how feeble she felt now.

Her reality was crashing down all around her as she realized everything was not as she had thought it was.

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