As could easily be expected, people panicked and immediately started coming up with “explanations” of just what the hell was happening.

Crazy theories were thrown out like they were free, and people were blaming it on the aftereffects of using medical pods, a targeted mass assassination by the empire—which was an especially popular theory, as most of the deaths occurred among non-imperial citizens—a blessing gone rogue, and the side effects of the increase in “strange particle” density causing people to fail to adapt to it. Those were just the most popular among the many, many theories being spread by panicking people or those abusing it to gain fame.

@Blackdawn: [The empire is finally moving on us! Beware of those with overly solicitous behavior, because they all have ulterior motives! #masskilling #thesnap #thevanishing]

@Tervantas: [I don’t think it’s the empire doing this @Blackdawn. It’s more likely to be some blessed losing control over their superpower, or maybe just failure to adapt to the new particle density. #thinkmore #panicless #thesnap #thevanishing]

@Curtis1122: [@Tervantas @Blackdawn @GAIATech @ImperialPressCorps Tagging the empire. Can you please explain this for us? What the hell is going on?? #thesnap #thevanishing]

(Ed note: Yes, I know that Avengers: Infinity War came out in 2018, so it wouldn’t normally be present in universe, but the deaths were so similar to what happened when Thanos snapped his fingers that we couldn’t help but move its release date forward so it existed in universe here.)

Soon after seeing the trends on social media, the imperial press agency released an emergency notification about the situation. They mentioned that it was still under investigation and that a formal response would be forthcoming as soon as the investigation yielded results. Anyone who wanted to follow the investigation was provided with a direct link to the Akashic Record, where they could be updated with the progress in real time if they didn’t want to wait for the official statement.

That calmed the masses a little bit, at least, but speculation continued running rampant and the statement was even used by some as “evidence” of their speculations being true.

The imperial health agency was just as busy as the imperial press agency. Though almost everyone affected by what Aron believed to be Rick’s death had died in an extremely spectacular fashion, some people—mostly imperial citizens who were affected by the phenomenon—had survived on the precipice of death and were hanging by a thread. Those people were placed in newly printed stasis pods until the researchers had time to figure out what was going on and how to prevent it, or stop it in its tracks.

At least stasis seemed to work, as it prevented their creeping decay from worsening. That said, however, they still looked like they had aged by at least fifty years. And it was hard aging at that, the kind that only underprivileged people would experience before the empire was founded and the initial medical pod restoration was carried out.

But for noncitizens, things were quite a bit more dire.

Imperial citizens collapsed like balloons that had a small hole poked in them, allowing the air inside to slowly leak out. But noncitizens collapsed more like balloons that had been violently popped and simply disintegrated in a matter of seconds, or minutes at the longest. Thus far, they had only discovered a handful of noncitizens that had survived over an hour, during which time they were in excruciating agony as their bodies slowly collapsed and turned to dust before vanishing entirely.

It was more “evidence” that people pointed to that “proved” the empire was behind the attack. Nobody had yet linked the deaths to the cult, and if the anti-empire sentiment continued growing, the chances of the truth being believed would be almost nonexistent.

……

Aron was in the emperor’s council chamber, meeting with his inner council. After the greetings were finished, his expression turned grave and he said, “So just what the fuck is going on?”

[It’s become more and more clear that everyone linked to the cult is dead, or dying, as a result of Rick Ashley’s death. We don’t yet understand the mechanics of it, but we’re studying the citizens in stasis and expect to have results soon. We’re at least sure that most of the imperials that were affected are in no way linked to the cult,] Gaia reported.

Aron heaved a sigh of relief. It seemed the empire’s cultist problem had resolved itself with the death of their leader, and he became even more certain of his earlier theory. It seemed that the mana drain effect had been applied to those who believed in the cult’s propaganda enough to be connected to the leader in some way. Through that connection, he had, either consciously or subconsciously, stripped them of all their mana in an attempt to force the body he’d just taken over into awakening.

On the bright side, there would be no survivors to form splinter factions and wreak their own brand of havoc, like similar terrorist organizations had in the past.

“How did you link them? And why are some imperial citizens affected?” he asked.

[Operation Hunting Dog had a lot of them already linked to the cult, either through financial contributions or material aid. There were also those linked to cells that we’ve already rolled up. There’s hard evidence and paper trails of people contributing, the others are simply statistically likely to have been involved in cult activities through their social connections to confirmed cultists. It’s circumstantial at best, but it holds water,] Nyx said.

Aron contemplated for a while, then nodded. “I’m no idealist, so circumstantial evidence is enough for me, as long as there’s enough of it. Did our operatives get any useful intel out of the cultists from Hartstene Pointe before they, I presume, vanished as well?”

“Yes,” Youssef replied. “They managed a full brain data download before the phenomenon began. We had a lucky break there, as one of the cultists captured was a member of Mr. Ashley’s inner circle who was privy to almost all of their planning. Combined with the evidence from the reconstructed Fisk building in the simulation, we also have a full picture of the entire cult.”

He smiled wryly, then continued, “Our luck was their misfortune—their reliance on analog methods and hardcopies of information would have made it impossible to destroy everything even if we’d used a more... traditional method of storming the building.”