In the Secret Bunker Beneath the Swiss Alps -
Lord Ashworth's admission of the "young" faction's initial success in breaking the chains of financial control had left Tanaka and Herrera with a mixture of belated validation and bitter regret for their subsequent disastrous escalations. But Ashworth wasn't finished. His pale gaze grew colder, more penetrating, as if he were about to uncover an even deeper and more closely guarded secret.
"When I speak of the 'Eye of Chaos' that you have disturbed in your currencies and in the global financial psyche," Ashworth said, his voice dropping to an almost reverential tone, though tinged with palpable unease, "I fear my metaphor, or the superficial interpretation we have all used, fell woefully short, gentlemen. I was not speaking simply of the fluctuating value of money, nor of ephemeral wealth, nor even of the complex web of economic dependency we have woven for centuries."
He paused, and the silence in the bunker grew so thick it was almost cut. Even the most stoic Elders seemed to hold their breath.
"He was speaking," Ashworth continued, "of something far more... fundamental. Of an Entity. A presence hidden beneath the deepest shadows of human power since our most distant ancestors first decided that one man should rule over another, that one group should dictate the fate of many." His gaze slowly swept over each member of the council. "I am referring, of course, to the true All-Seeing Eye. The Immutable Entity that has whispered—and sometimes roared—the laws and principles of Order that humanity was meant to follow, consciously or not, in every different era of your civilization."
A chill ran through the room, despite the air-conditioned atmosphere. This was not an abstract concept; Ashworth was speaking of a real being, a directing power.
"From the earliest law tablets in ancient Sumeria, through the imperial edicts of Rome, the ecclesiastical canons of the Middle Ages, the 'enlightened' constitutions of revolutions, to the complex algorithms that today dictate the flow of information and capital in your digital world," Ashworth explained, "that Entity has been the silent architect, the constant influence. A particular Order, yes, often harsh, often incomprehensible in its long-term designs to mortal minds, but an Order that, in its own way, guaranteed a certain... predictable stability within the chaos inherent to your species. An Order that allowed us, and our families through the generations, to navigate the currents of history, guide humanity, and prosper, always under His invisible but omnipresent gaze."
"What your vaunted 'shift in human consciousness' actually achieved," Ashworth said, looking directly at Tanaka and Herrera with icy intensity, "what so alarmed us and led us, the Old Guard, to contemplate extreme measures, was not simply financial disruption or ideological rebellion. It was something far deeper, far more dangerous. You were, without fully understanding the magnitude of your transgression, disconnecting humanity from the psychic influence of that Primordial Eye. You were, with your philosophies of 'individual sovereignty' and 'awakening of consciousness,' breaking the subtle chains of mental obedience, the imposed thought patterns that had kept humanity... in line... for millennia under Its direction."
"The Eye began to flicker, to close for many," Ashworth continued. "Or rather, humanity, intoxicated by your new freedoms of thought, began to grow blind and deaf to its subtle but persistent influence. And that, for us, who had learned not only to live under that Greater Order, but to interpret it and even subtly influence its earthly manifestations for our mutual benefit and that of the global stability it guaranteed... that was a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. A cosmic power vacuum."
Baron Von Hess, until then silent, nodded with sepulchral gravity. "If the Order of the Eye faded," his voice was a harsh whisper, "if humanity broke free from that ancient directive only to descend into the anarchic chaos of 'unrestricted free speech' and 'absolute individual sovereignty' that you idealists preached, the resulting power vacuum would be... unsustainable. Civilization itself would crumble into a war of all against all. We needed a crisis. A threat so vast, so primordial, that humanity, terrified, would once again cry out for order, for guidance, for a familiar yoke, even if it were that of a mad god we could, we naively believed, attempt to steer."
And so," Ashworth confessed, his face a mask of impassivity that barely concealed the enormity of his admission, "We resorted to the darkest and most forbidden rites, to the Red Magic our most depraved and ambitious ancestors spoke of in whispers and chained grimoires. In places forgotten by time, under blood moons and unholy star alignments, with the knowledge our families have accumulated and jealously guarded for centuries, we offered the purest and most potent essence this planet can provide when taken in terror and innocence: the blood of virgin women, their vitality and immaculate spirit united in an olfactory and psychic beacon for the entities sleeping in the abyss."
The rawness of the confession chilled the blood of the younger members. Even some of the Elders shifted uncomfortably.
"It was through the scent of that blood, consecrated and sacrificed in rituals that would make your darkest inquisitors turn pale," Ashworth concluded, without a hint of remorse in his voice, "that the Deep Sleeper, Cthulhu, finally stirred his unfathomable nightmares and opened a slumbering eye upon your world."
The bunker fell into a silence even denser and more terrifying than before. The Thirteen Families, in their desperate attempt to replace a lost cosmic Order with one they believed they could control, had invited annihilation. They had opened the gates of hell, not by accident, but with cold, calculated, and terrifyingly human intent.