Alpha II was still sitting there looking weak when the giant finally turned back at her.
The room remained silent for a few seconds longer. The giant had not sounded dramatic while explaining the problem, which somehow made everything sound worse. He spoke like someone describing a simple equation rather than a race slowly collapsing from the inside. That kind of calm frightened people more than shouting ever could.
He waved for Alpha II to come closer.
She looked up at him, confused, and slowly stood from her seat, still playing the part of a tired child even though her motion sickness had already started to fade. She walked toward him with uncertain steps while the elders watched in silence. Nobody interrupted. Nobody asked her to stop. Even the people who were still suspicious of him seemed too stunned to object.
The giant glanced down at her and placed his hand over her head. Alpha II froze.
A warm surge of energy passed through her body almost instantly, washing away the nausea that had been lingering since the flight. The dizziness disappeared first. Then the twisting discomfort in her stomach vanished completely. Her breathing became easier, her vision steadied and the slight trembling in her legs stopped. It felt so immediate and complete that she stared up at him in disbelief.
All the motion sickness was gone. Everything painful about the flight had simply vanished. Alpha II took a careful breath and stared at him with wide eyes.
"You could do that the entire time?"
The giant looked down at her calmly.
"Yes."
She blinked again, then looked deeply offended.
"Then why did you not heal me earlier?"
"You wouldn't have believed me if I had done it before now."
"That is not a good reason."
She frowned at him but before she could keep arguing, he lifted his gaze back at the council.
"Now that the sickness is gone, I can explain the real part of my solution."
Everyone in the room focused on him again. The giant folded his arms and spoke with the same calm certainty he had been using since entering the hall.
"Divine Energy is made through faith, trust and belief in someone or something. It grows stronger when people place confidence in an authority, a protector, or an ideal that can hold their spiritual weight."
Several elders frowned. One of them leaned forward cautiously.
"What exactly are you suggesting?"
The giant did not hesitate.
"I am suggesting that your race needs something to believe in."
The room remained silent.
"Your children are failing because their bodies are starved of Divine Energy. Your adults are carrying old instability and your population is reaching a point where the energy demand is larger than what your current system can provide. That means the solution is simple. You need a source that can stabilize and replenish that energy at the racial level."
A healer looked confused.
"And you are that source?"
The giant nodded once.
"Yes."
His answer was simple enough that several people looked annoyed by it. One elder stood slowly.
"That is absurd."
"Is it?"
"You are asking us to believe in you."
"Yes."
"You are asking an entire race to place trust in a stranger who refuses to give his name."
The giant gave a small shrug.
"That is correct."
One of the explorers leaned forward sharply.
"And why would that help?"
The giant answered immediately.
"Because Divine Energy responds to belief. The more a people trust a source, the more Divine Energy can flow through that source into them, provided the source can sustain it. I can sustain it. Your people cannot yet. So if you believe in me, I can give you the foundation you need until your race stabilizes enough to survive on its own."
The room grew even quieter. A woman from the String Regio narrowed her eyes.
"And why would you help us?"
The giant looked at her for a long moment before answering.
"Because I can. Also, I made a deal with someone to help you."
That answer annoyed some of them but it also sounded genuine.
"And because children should not die from something this preventable."
Nobody said anything after that.
Alpha II looked between him and the council, unsure of what she was seeing. She knew enough to understand that the giant was serious, but she still could not tell whether he was being arrogant or kind. Maybe it was both. Maybe it was neither. He spoke with the confidence of someone who had already decided the outcome and simply needed everyone else to catch up.
Then he snapped his fingers. The reaction across the room was immediate and violent.
A dense wave of Divine Energy slammed into the entire island at once. It spread through Strings Palace and beyond. It was so powerful that the council seats trembled slightly beneath the elders. Several people gasped. Others instinctively gripped their chairs. The explorers felt it too, though they looked more shocked than afraid.
The children began to stabilize.
Far beyond the palace, through the district and across the island, every infected child suddenly felt the disease losing its grip. Their bodies, which had been failing under the strain of unstable Divine Energy, began to adapt. Their bodies started absorbing the energy now pouring into the island. Their breathing improved. Their fevers eased. Their unstable pulses corrected themselves. Even the children who had been near death moments before suddenly found their bodies responding as though something had finally given them a chance to survive.
The council felt it too.
The elders looked around in stunned silence as their own bodies instinctively responded to the Divine Energy moving through the island.
The leader of the String Regio rose from his seat slowly, staring at the giant with open suspicion and growing uncertainty.
"Who are you?"
The giant looked at him calmly.
"I am someone who came here to help."
That answer immediately caused several people to react with frustration, but he continued before anyone could interrupt.
"If you believe me, I will solve your issue. If you don't believe me, then I will wait in Modernia for one week. Decide what matters more to you by then. Pride, or survival."
The leader of the String Regio looked horrified.
"You expect us to make that decision in a week?"
"I expect you to understand what your children need."
The hall became quiet again. Then the giant reached down, grabbed Alpha II by the shoulder and lifted her as though she weighed nothing at all. She immediately panicked.
"Wait, what are you doing?"
He was already moving toward the window. Alpha II's eyes widened in horror.
"Not again—"
Before she could finish, he leapt out of the hall and shot into the night sky, flying across Concerto with her clinging to him while she screamed from the sudden acceleration. The island vanished beneath them again as rain and moonlight blurred together into streaks of silver and black. Her voice echoed across the air while the giant remained infuriatingly calm as he carried her away.
"Slow down!"
"This is slow."
"You're lying!"
"I'm being very considerate here you know."
Alpha II buried her face against him and groaned in pure suffering while the giant kept flying through the night, carrying her away from Strings Palace and back to Modernia.