We made it a sitting huddle, the better to catch our breath while we did this. "The first point of the situation," said Jue Zhu, making a "ticking off point #1" gesture, "we've been assuming Lu Bao caused the massive surge in Sentinel generation. Why?"
"Because nothing like this has happened in the history of the Mortal Realm since the discovery of the Feline Lands," I said, "not even in surviving records predating the games, or if they were it would have been a noted danger of them.
Even if the Earth Ascension Palace tried to cover it up, would Heaven's Imperial Authority, or the original explorers?"
"That still leaves another possibility," said Jue Zhu, "what if the surge wasn't triggered by Lu Bao willfully, but as an automatic consequence of a Champion of Cat being crowned?"
"If that were the case, what difference would it make?" said Jong.
"Out of all of us, I have the deepest impression of Lu Bao," said Jue Zhu, "after all, I fought them."
