Divine Authority

"Let's head straight to the Imperial Research Institute... By the way, what has everyone else been doing these past few days?"

"Tourism, the kind of tourism where you just go wherever you want. Ms. Su Mei and her group have almost finished touring all of Britain, and Dr. Mobius and his group have also toured most of the country. They seem to be enjoying it quite a bit."

"It seems this vacation was quite meaningful after all." Liu Bai nodded.

"By the way, boss, the Imperial Research Institute seems to have prepared a surprise for you. I saw it in the group chat before."

"A surprise prepared by Einstein and the others? That's definitely something to look forward to."

"... Seeing the two of you so early in the morning is really bad luck."

Vita's eyes twitched as she looked at the three people in front of her.

"May I ask, why is there one more?"

Vita pointed at Kosma.

"My little brother—but now is not the time to talk about that." Kevin said with a hearty smile.

Kosma was captured by Kevin and Sue halfway.

After the two of them shared their plan with Kosma, their good buddy Kosma readily agreed—or so they thought!

Kosma knew that Kevin and Sue's plan was unreliable as soon as he heard it, and promptly rejected it—and this plan was actually Sue's idea?

Kosma immediately asked Kevin, " You're going to follow this plan? Can't you tell that Sue has lost his mind?"

Then Kevin countered with, "Is your brain more important or your brother?"

Okay, normally speaking, the question should have been answered by now.

Do you really think Kevin doesn't know this plan is unreliable?

You have to choose between your brain and your brother.

Brain? When did I, Kevin, ever have a brain? You really don't know me well, do you? Brain to hell, brotherhood is the most important thing.

So be it. I'm not going to be silly this time. I'll just go along with Su's madness. It's rare for Su to lose her mind and have so much fun.

This logic would normally work for Kosma —but unfortunately, this is not the case.

Kosma explained, somewhat embarrassed, that he was out with his girlfriend...

Then Kosma was knocked unconscious and dragged away by those two beasts. As for his girlfriend Desstobia, a casual apology was enough. It was as if they weren't old comrades-in-arms, having gone through thick and thin together for so many years, not outsiders at all—if it weren't for Hen, Desstobia would have been on the list of Flame-Chasers.

On the contrary, Kosma, you little rascal, you've been playing around for four or five days. You used to spend your work time with your girlfriend, but now that we need you to go through thick and thin, you're running away at the last minute?

You need to be taught a lesson, don't you!

The two animals, after a quick discussion, decisively pinned Kosma to the ground and gave him a good beating. In fact, Kosma's face had just recovered from the swelling that day...

"Alright, let me hear your completely unreliable plan."

Vita leaned against the doorframe, yawned lazily, and crossed her arms, gesturing for people to enter.

"Master's wife, please give us some face—Su is our great strategist!"

"Mmm..." Vita continued to nod and yawn with a perfunctory expression. I could tell that she wasn't using her brain right now. "Alright, Your Excellency, tell me the plan."

"According to reliable sources, Master has returned to the Imperial Research Institute. As we all know, Einstein and the others have a deep bond with Master. If nothing unexpected happens, Master will belong to Einstein and the others during the second half of the holiday."

"So?"

"So, Master's wife, you can try to sneak in using this opportunity. Start by rubbing his buttocks to get the teacher used to your presence, and then climb into his bed when he's not paying attention!"

"... So how do you sneak in?"

"... Think about it yourself."

"Are you serious?"

"I'm serious, I believe in your wisdom, Master's wife."

????

Bang--!

"Drag this person away." Vita tried her best to maintain the stiff, fake smile on her face.

"Okay." Kevin and Kosma nodded hastily as they looked at Sue, whose face was swollen.

"Get a car ready for me to go to the Imperial Research Institute. I'm going to the clothing store and will be back in a bit."

"Brother Liu Bai ~!"

When Liu Bai arrived at the research institute, it was already daylight. Because it was the middle of the night, Natasha drove very slowly for the first half of the journey.

As soon as I got off the bus, I heard a lively voice.

"Ring?"! (This appears to be a series of unrelated phrases and keywords, possibly generated by a machine translation error. A direct translation isn't meaningful without further context.)

Liu Bai caught the girl who jumped into his arms and was clearly stunned for a moment.

"You guessed right!" Ling nodded with a smile, then leaned close to Liu Bai's ear and whispered, "Brother, isn't my sister super useless? How come I haven't seen any nephews or nieces yet? But I think Yae-nee's butt is quite big, and she has more potential for development than my sister."

*&^? Skirt~<*Child~Stop<>Lu↗Old()5-%Nine?>!~San(0$#^Wife$#^

"..."

"You brat!" Sakura, unable to bear it any longer, dragged Bell away.

"What's wrong! It's because you're still a nobody! I almost woke up in anger when I heard this news! And now that there are older and younger Yae sisters as substitutes—you've already reverted to a previous version!"

Chapter 598 The Power of God

"So, were you the ones who woke her up these past few days?"

Liu Bai ignored Ling's nonsense and watched as her sister dragged away the muttering Ling. He then turned to look at the others.

"Yes, while someone was partying every night, we weren't idle at all," Edison, arms crossed, looking resentful.

"It's day and night," Rita corrected with a charming smile.

"...You don't need to correct this kind of thing." Edison was even more annoyed. "As for the process summary, I won't hand it in later."

"It's nothing serious... I thought I'd need to help out with this."

"You? You'd better not. I'm afraid you'll have to stay inside for another ten days or half a month."

Mei rarely said anything sarcastic to Liu Bai.

It's best to avoid letting Liu Bai go into the consciousness space if possible, otherwise he might run into a philanderer. People still remember what happened with Elysia back then.

"Ahem... never mind, but there is indeed something that requires your help, teacher."

Perhaps because she had also eaten meat, Mei changed the subject after only saying one sentence.

"Otto is a fraud, isn't he?"

Liu Bai glanced at the people present and suddenly understood.

"You're in such a rush to start your holiday..."

"Time waits for no one. After all, the corruption has already appeared, and the last Herrscher outside of the Finality is only the Restraint. Time is of the essence for this plan."

Of course, the entire civilization still has plenty of time. In fact, even if it were restricted now, the current civilization's combat power could easily crush it.

"What do I need to do?" Liu Bai thought about it and realized that this made sense.

"You only need to take precautions against accidents. The whole process is very thorough. The only concern is that unexpected situations may occur."

Mei remained calm. As a plan devised by two great sages of the previous civilization, it was theoretically guaranteed to succeed. Even if Liu Bai were to take over, it wouldn't improve the success rate much.

Using Liu Bai to monitor the overall situation is far more effective than directly participating in it.

For example, what if everyone stole the power and ran away? Would their Honkai instincts go berserk?

"Okay, when do we start the plan?"

"In a little while, the Herrscher of Domination will help Otto get into a better state, and then we can begin."

"Ah... I've stumbled upon a very interesting plan."

The plan had barely begun when Vita arrived... but why was she dressed as a maid?

"Vita?" Liu Bai glanced at the newcomer.

"Is it communicating with the Honkai inside?" Vita tilted her head, sensing the somewhat familiar massive amount of Honkai Energy within. "But I remember, the Honkai can't communicate, right?"

"The backup plan left over from before was probably to implant an artificial brain into the Honkai."

"Oh my... there's even such a method?" Vita smiled with slight surprise. "This is truly a plan that's playing with fire."

"Playing with fire? No, an artificial brain has underlying programs designed by humans."

Liu Bai naturally knew what Vita was talking about. It was simply that the Honkai had Honkai a brain, and if anything happened to them, their descendants would have to deal with a Honkai Consciousness that had a brain.

"Moreover, sometimes, once things become communicable, they are not so scary."

Well, that's undeniable.

Vita had long ago discovered that her former clone had been deceiving her, and what was most fatal was that she hadn't noticed it at all.

In Honkai 3rd, you could just mash up a bunch of civilizations with your bare hands. Trying to use your brain for strategy and tactics is putting the cart before the horse.

The previous simulation battles showed that if the human side didn't have Elysia as a powerful weapon, Liu Bai could have crushed civilization by producing Herrscher with normal intelligence at a normal pace.

"So the nearly fifty-year gap between the First Honkai Eruption and second Honkai is also due to this reason?"

Vita for a moment.

"On another note, what are they discussing inside right now?"

"Stealing a power, one person pretends to be Herrscher without power, while their own computer still pretends to be the Honkai Consciousness."

Mei has already opened up her backup plan; the moment the Honkai Consciousness appears, she will awaken to her past Prometheus No. 17.

Then everyone just puts on an act, singing in unison to deceive the instinct to Honkai.

"Steal power? Which power?" Vita seemed intrigued.

"Constraint."

"Restraints? Why would I steal constraints?" Vita raised an eyebrow. "Lord Liu Bai, would you be willing to trust me this once? I have a better suggestion."

"... Tell me about it?"

It's hard to say about Vita herself before, but now as a "Special Envoy of the Awakened One," she's considered to have impeccable credentials. If the suggestion is sound, Liu Bai is naturally willing to adopt it.

"My suggestion is to skip the Binding Authority and go straight for the Imaginary Authority." Vita looked at Liu Bai very seriously. "In the past... my hometown called the Imaginary Authority the power of 'god'. The scope of this power was outrageous. I looked at the data on constraint, and the manifestation of Binding Authority is one of the abilities that the Imaginary Authority possessed back then."

"Imaginary number...?"

"I even suspect that the Herrscher of Origin and Finality are just a joke to the Honkai. Their powers seem strong, but whether they are alive or dead has no impact on the entire Honkai system. If we use an exam as an analogy, Origin is like the easy question at the beginning of the test, Finality is the final difficult question, and Imaginary Number... is the question bank."

Vita's smile was somewhat distorted.

"The duality of the world's operation is nothing more than imaginary numbers and quantum mechanics. The Honkai can't escape this circle either. Please trust me this once. Just ask for the Imaginary Authority. I don't know if the Honkai has quantum mechanics, but it definitely has imaginary numbers. As long as we can get the complete Imaginary Authority, the Finality nothing to fear."

Finality Mechanism strong?

Not strong. This thing is just a numerical monster. Mechanic monsters are designed to kill this thing. If you can't kill it, it means you don't have enough mechanics. And the complete Imaginary Authority has no shortage of mechanics.

Imaginary Herrscher? No, no, no, that thing transcends the concept of Herrscher. It is a god in the true sense. Even if the total amount of Honkai Energy is less, it is definitely more terrifying than the Finality.

Vita didn't know exactly how many powers the Imaginary Authority Theory had. Vita seriously suspected Finality the core time power of the End Times might also exist, but at most it would lack Honkai Energy and have a longer pre-cast animation, making it unable to achieve the scale of restarting the world like the Finality.

"Okay, I'll inform Otto right away... By the way, what does 'as long as we can obtain the complete Imaginary Authority's mean?"

"Because this power is a collection of many powers—this Herrscher is also Herrscher of Development, who will obtain powers one by one from the Honkai. This is humanity's only chance to defeat it. Ah... the Honkai's mercy..."

Vita seemed to have thought of something, and a self-deprecating smile appeared on her face.

"By the way, the so-called 'god' is actually just a misnomer. If someone can barely put up a fight, then they are a false god. When their power becomes so great that they can't even be understood, let alone fought, then they are the true god..."

Beyond the gate of imaginary numbers.

"Imaginary Authority? Miss 17, does this power exist within the Honkai? The Lord God hope I can obtain this power."