La guerra por la Tierra se estaba volviendo cada vez más una guerra de información y de extrañas sinergias.

Cancún Base, Quintana Roo, Mexico

A day and a half had passed since the departure of the expedition to Hollow Earth. At the Cancún base, a tense and exhausting vigil had taken hold of those left behind. Dracula, in particular, spent the twilight hours in deep, dark meditation, trying to process the avalanche of recent revelations and, more urgently, the fragments of information that were arriving from the depths.

Aria, even from the distance that separated her from the core of the expedition that had descended (for it had been decided that her new and potent magic was most necessary to maintain the "Anchor of Coherence" in Cancún, the closest point to Cthulhu's awakening), sometimes managed to establish a tenuous psychic link. They were "echoes," as Dracula called them: flashes of the battle of the Aluxes, waves of Nyx's despair, the primordial fury of Poimandres. But the connection was unstable, frustrating.

Fragments, Dracula thought, his red eyes fixed on an invisible point on the wall of his makeshift studio. Distorted echoes. Like trying to see the bottom of a murky ocean through cracked, dirty glass. The mage girl, Aria, feels much, perceives with admirable intensity, but the clarity of the transmission... constantly fades, corrupted on the journey through the Grid or by the infernal energies boiling in that abyss.

He noticed a pattern. Sometimes, for brief moments, Aria's connection became startlingly clear. She could almost taste the stale air of Hollow Earth, hear the chants of the moon elves, feel Poimandres's fury as if he were standing beside her. But these moments of lucidity were fleeting, and then the communication reverted to a whirlwind of psychic static and confusing emotions.

There's a... blockage, he deduced with his age-old logic. An interference, either deliberate by some entity in the depths, or a natural consequence of the insane energies that must be boiling in that subterranean hell. It's as if an invisible hand passes an opaque veil over the scrying mirror just as the crucial image is about to be revealed.

At first, he suspected Nyx, or even the machinations of Cthulhu. But the interference didn't feel malicious in that sense, but rather... a distortion, an overwhelming background noise that drowned out the signal.

It was during one of the debriefing sessions, where Aria, pale and exhausted, was trying to relay the last echoes of the Aluxes' fight, that Dracula noticed the anomaly. Kael'Thara, the leader of the surviving Lireans, had approached to offer Aria a glass of water purified with Lirean technology. The instant the Lirean was less than a meter from Aria, the young mage's psychic transmission cleared dramatically. The images of the Hollow Earth in her mind became sharp, the sounds precise, the emotions intense but understandable.

As Kael'Thara withdrew, the interference gradually returned.

Dracula watched this with icy intensity, his ancient neurons connecting dots. He remembered other moments of clarity in Aria's reports. They had always coincided, now that he thought about it, with the proximity of one of the Lireans, whether Kael'Thara or one of the few members of his crew who had survived the impact.

It can't be a coincidence, the vampire thought, a new and dangerous curiosity igniting in his eyes. These beings from the stars... the Lireans... their physical presence, or perhaps the technology they carry, or even the remains of their crashed ship emitting some kind of field... acting as some kind of... amplifier? A stabilizer for the psychic signal through the dimensional layers separating this place from Hollow Earth? Or is it her very biology, her attunement to energies we barely understand?

Over the next few hours, Dracula watched, subtly testing his hypothesis. When Aria tried to connect, he made sure a Lirean was near her, or even near himself as he tried to "listen" to the echoes she transmitted. And each time, the clarity improved dramatically. The interference that seemed to originate from the "underground city"—either Hollow Earth in general, or perhaps even Ki'Gal, Enlil's citadel, if its Anunnaki energies were contributing to the blockage—attenuated noticeably.

Interesting. Very interesting, Dracula concluded, an almost imperceptible smile playing on his lips. These Lireans, survivors of a lost war, cosmic castaways... are more than simple refugees or sources of information. Its proximity is a key. A key that could open doors to understanding what truly happens in the depths... or, if used correctly, perhaps a key to close other doors to our enemies.He wouldn't immediately share this observation with Merlin or the others. First, he needed to better understand the phenomenon. Were the Lireans aware of this effect? ​​Could it be controlled, manipulated? The war for Earth was increasingly becoming a war of information and strange synergies. And Dracula, the eternal shadow strategist, had just found a new and very promising piece for his game.