Final Act

__________ POV Narration__________

And just like that, two months passed.

They were quite eventful for everyone involved, as the human cities were all searched thoroughly for any infected people.

The wider public was obviously not informed of Shakti and its dangers. They were simply told that it was a strange sickness that spread rapidly.

And so, a fourth smaller city was born. The quarantine zone where all of the infected were sent.

Many were against this strange segregation, and some families were forcefully split to send the infected members to these quarantine zones.

It was a grim time for the regular people. And a difficult time for the leaders of the expedition.

The quarantine even leads to some protests, thankfully, those remained peaceful, as the authority didn't respond violently.

But the populace also started refusing to show up to mandatory health check-ups.

That made the identification and suppression of the 'Shakti' epidemic quite difficult to achieve.

Although, by Ashton's estimations, all of the Shakti users should've been caught in the first wave of inspections. The rest were more of a formality than anything.

The princes also were forced to reside on the continent. They all made their homes within the first city, close to one another.

And Camilla, in the end, received a pardon for her crimes. It was mainly because none of the deaths could really be pinned on her.

Although some of her rights were still taken away, she was also constantly under surveillance. Which she accepted, as she didn't wish to be held in captivity any longer.

Zhang Lei was the one most responsible for those...

And, about Zhang Lei, Ashton did end up interrogating him in front of the princes. Only to end up realising that the murderous prince was nothing more than a puppet.

It was a disappointing realisation for Ashton, the old scientist had hoped that he would get more answers out of the murderous prince.

Zhang Lei didn't even seem to realize that his 'Guardian Spirit Beast' was nothing more than an intruder.

The Spirit Beast also never appeared again. Not even when Zhang Lei was righteously executed.

Till the end, the mad prince was clinging onto the hope that his spirit beast would save him. He seemed to have no doubts about it.

All until the last second, where he could feel the blade of the guillotine on the back of his neck. Only then did Ashton see fear in the eyes of the prince.

It was a disappointing conclusion.

But that wasn't to say that only bad things were happening. Ashton, alongside Cheadle and Leorio, has been working on a way to expel the Shakti out of the people that were infected.

In the end, the three of them together could only reach one conclusion. 'An Exorcist might be needed for this endeavor.' Shakti could be considered a curse, and Ashton had tried a plethora of different ways to expel it out of the victim's body.

It was all unsuccessful, so, they were left with this as the only possible solution. The problem? They didn't have many exorcists still alive on the expedition.

There was one, a servant of the princes in fact. But she had been infected with Shakti on the ship, and subsequently died in the sinking ship.

Besides her, the association only had one Nen Exorcist. And she was currently helping with the tests. She was somewhat struggling to exorcise Shakti, but she was still making progress.

It was only a matter of time before she actually became capable of helping the patients.

Cheadle, although stressed by the lack of immediate results, was still comforted by the feeling of progress that Ashton's discoveries had given her.

Ashton himself had very little free time during this period. He was keeping himself occupied by both trying to find anything he could about Shakti and trying to spot infected people in the streets.

Of course, he didn't really let that affect his interactions with Momoze. He still spoke to her on an almost daily basis.

Although, Ashton hadn't really interacted much with Kurapika, as both of them were beyond busy. Kurapika was quickly given the task to help with scouting new regions.

Why? Well, now that the princes were inside city limits, they were being protected by both the city guard, and Botobai, who was there to check on corruption.

There was another problem that arose with the 'sudden disappearance' of the Black Whale. Ashton was obviously not publically blamed for that event.

But Cheadle still got mad at him. Very mad.

Ashton could only pacify her by promising to secure a mode of transportation for humanity, just in case something wrong happened.

Even then, she didn't quite believe him until he showed her 'Noah's Arc'. The appearance of that ship helped a lot in getting some stress off of her shoulders.

So, for now, things were stagnating quite a lot...

At least on the New continent... The original continents, the one straight in the middle of Lake Mobius, were having quite a strange time.

Their communications with the New Continent had all been cut off randomly. It was odd and unexplainable.

The V5 was trying to get in contact with Cheadle and ask for a report the entire time. But slowly, they all seemed to forget about the expedition.

And their interests all shifted towards creating gatherings of people in major cities. Their focus on festivals and protests was unusual and unexplainable.

Cheadle had no idea of any of that happening though, she was still trying her best to contain the pandemic within the New Continent.

She didn't think much of the lack of communication with the outside world. She did send a message to them about the new calamity.

But she didn't realise that the message was not received.

She had no way of knowing that it was already too late, Shakti had spread into the human world already.

And so, humanity was facing a crisis that none of them could really understand. Only one person had a few answers, and that was Ashton...

And Ashton was also the only factor that the 'Gods' hated dearly. He was also one they feared.

This was either bound to be the final act of humanity or the final act of the gods. And, currently, the gods had the upper hand.

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