Acting, Nothing but Acting

As everyone was urgently evacuating the waterborne portion of Atlantis, Varuna continued to ram against the bottom of Atlantis. At the same time, affected by the Honkai of the seabed, some of the ornamental marine fish in the outer city also turned into Mutant Honkai Beast and began to crash into the inner city walls.

For aesthetic purposes, the inner city walls are mostly made of high-strength glass. While they can withstand large external impacts under normal circumstances, they are now facing continuous attacks from a large number of Honkai Beast. At the very bottom is a Varuna, which is underwater. Even a small breach in it would be fatal.

"Has everyone been evacuated?" Amidst the earth-shaking tremors, the deputy mayor asked the Atlantis security forces, "Get everyone who's evacuated on the cruise ships first, and make sure to maintain order!"

There was nothing that could be done; Mayor Kandela was knocked unconscious, and even if he were awake now, it would be better for him to remain unconscious.

Upon receiving the order, the deputy mayor immediately arranged for the residents of the Atlantis waterfront area to evacuate by cruise ship.

The higher-ups on the Mu Continent aren't all fools. Mayor Kandela of Atlantis, being an artist, might not be criticized for his eccentric personality under normal circumstances, but when it comes to foreign negotiations and emergency handling, Kandela absolutely makes a mess of things. Yet, he does manage Atlantis very well; Atlantis is one of the world's most famous resort destinations...

Therefore, the role of the deputy mayor is to do what Kandela cannot do, and to play a balancing role.

After arranging the work of the security forces, the deputy mayor looked at his secretary and asked, "How many tourists are still not evacuated from the underwater city?"

"The lowest level has been sealed off by the emergency response plan, and the fourth and third levels are now also sealed off... It is estimated that... only those currently in the first and third levels will be able to get out." The secretary said, looking at the computer in his hand. "Even considering only this group, Atlantis's emergency evacuation capacity is still insufficient to cope with the current situation. Moreover, those in the third and fourth levels are still..."

"Is that Claude in the control room right now?" The deputy mayor steadied himself against the tremors of the building. "That guy... he couldn't possibly do something like this..."

"Should we send someone to check on the situation?" the secretary asked.

"No need." The deputy mayor shifted his gaze to the crowd that was evacuating in a panic. "Whether it's him or not, we don't need him."

Control room.

"Oh, Feng, I was quite surprised to see you here." Lilith smiled as she looked at Zhu Yufeng. "I thought you were evacuating people with Elysia or something. After all, even Kosma, who isn't good with words, went to evacuate people for Disaster."

Zhu Yufeng looked at the three levels on the screen that had already been locked, and then said, "If I don't come over, are you planning to lock the third level as well?"

"Reduce the number of people," Lilith said, shrugging. "Anyway, the maximum number of people that can be evacuated right now is still less than the number of people that need to be evacuated. Look, the computers here have already calculated that Atlantis will sink in 15 minutes. The impact of Emperor-class Honkai Beast can easily destroy a building, let alone Varuna as large as the inner city of Atlantis. Since we can't save it anyway, we might as well reduce the trouble."

Zhu Yufeng glanced at Lilith and then said, "That's enough. Right now, Kevin, Sakura, and Hua are responsible for protecting the Herrscher Core, and everyone else is assisting with the evacuation. Only your location is still unclear, and it will be troublesome to explain later."

"It's alright, it's alright, I'm Lilith." Lilith shrugged. "Besides, didn't I already come up with a reason for you coming here? What you really need is a reason for who activated the emergency response plan, right?"

"Even from God's perspective, what you did might be right, but no one can know that it was you who did it," Zhu Yufeng said. "What about the people who were originally here?"

"After the Varuna started to rise, the deputy mayor arranged for its evacuation. Only one person remained in the control room, an essential emergency facility." Lilith pointed to an object lying in a dark corner.

Zhu Yufeng looked over and then noticed that there was another person over there. It seemed that this was the scapegoat chosen by Lilith.

"Oh dear, I've already come up with a reason for him. After Atlantis was hit, he keenly sensed the gravity of the situation. To minimize casualties, he had to make a trolley problem-like choice. Sitting in the control room, watching the despairing expressions of the people trapped in various levels, feeling deeply ashamed of his unforgivable sin, he chose suicide to atone for his crime." Lilith chuckled. "That way, as long as he sinks with Atlantis, everything will be fine~ Maybe some people will even praise him as Heroes, since he's dead and there's no point in holding him accountable, right?"

"If everything is alright, then let's proceed." Zhu Yufeng said, "Atlantis's current evacuation capacity is indeed insufficient. Fortunately, the private cruise ship from Nahamah still has some capacity, and the remaining people... can barely be evacuated."

Lilith then looked at the first floor, where the personnel had almost all been evacuated, and said with a hint of disappointment, "Okay, I'll listen to you."

On the way out of the control room, Lilith asked again with some curiosity, "Did Elysia send you to find me?"

Zhu Yufeng remained silent.

"It seems to be her." Lilith looked at the exit ahead. "I don't care what you did to me. You told me before that I should be careful about how I handled things afterward. If she hadn't spoken up, I wouldn't have thought you had any reason to stop me."

Zhu Yufeng paused for a moment before saying, "It wasn't her."

Although Elysia did ask him where Lilith was immediately after the collision, he said he didn't know, which is why he contacted Lilith. He guessed that Lilith was responsible when he saw the emergency response plan was activated, and he contacted Lilith just to confirm her location.

He initially didn't want to get involved, but after seeing the third and fourth tiers being sealed off one after another, he roughly guessed that Lilith was planning to seal off the third tier as well. It was understandable that the third and fourth tiers couldn't escape, but it was really hard to explain why the third tier could retreat given time and was still locked off.

Given Lilith's personality, she is absolutely capable of doing such a thing.

Lilith was somewhat surprised, then said, "It seems that Elysia has had quite a significant influence on you. At least the old you that I knew certainly wouldn't care about you."

"... Maybe."

After evacuating outside, the two happened to see Elysia and the others waiting outside.

"... Have all the people inside been evacuated?" Kosma asked first.

"The evacuation is complete." Zhu Yufeng nodded.

"Then let's get out of here quickly, I feel like this place is about to sink," Pardo said.

Disaster looked behind the two of them, somewhat puzzled, but she also knew that time was running out and they should try to evacuate as soon as possible.

Elysia looked at Lilith with a questioning gaze, while Lilith nodded with a smile. Elysia lowered her eyes but didn't say anything more, and together with everyone else, they evacuated to the cargo ship that contained the Herrscher Core.

Before boarding the cargo ship, Lilith suddenly noticed a gaze with a strong sense of inquiry looking at her. She turned around and saw a silver-haired boy looking at her from a distance.

Lilith glanced at it once and then looked away.

Noticing that Lilith had stopped, Zhu Yufeng asked, "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, I just saw someone I don't know very well," Lilith said, reaching out to take Zhu Yufeng's arm. "Sigh, it's really heartbreaking, you're the only person I can rely on now, so you have to treat me well~"

Zhu Yufeng: "..."

The second half of the sentence is definitely imitating Elysia.

Elysia, on the other side, twitched her eye. Why did she feel like this was supposed to be her line? And the tone was so much like her own! And... didn't Lilith have a younger sister on the Fire Moth? Oh right, Lilith never really cared about her sister...

Then she thought of the three locked-down classes, those abandoned people. She knew very well that Lilith was most likely behind it. She thought she understood Lilith's nature well enough, but Lilith's coldness still exceeded her expectations. She absolutely could not let Lilith act alone again next time...

But it seems that only Maple can stop Lilith. Should we get them to act together?

No, I have to follow suit myself.

On another yacht, Davien stared intently at the silver-haired girl. He gripped the railing with both hands, wanting to rush off the yacht to confirm the situation with the girl. He was quite certain that it was his "dead" sister, Lilith, but she was different from the sister he remembered. And who was the man next to her?

But he also knew that even if he could get off, he wouldn't be able to board that military cargo ship, thinking back to the hurricane in South America and the news of the blockade...

"Lord Davien, what's wrong?" one of his trusted confidants asked him.

"It's nothing... I just saw someone I might know." Davien released his grip and looked inside the yacht.

He went alone to a secluded spot, took out his phone, looked at the family photos on it, and whispered, "Mother... so my sister is still alive..."

That's the best news. At least she won't have to do those things she doesn't like anymore, and that guy... if he's another scumbag who deceived her sister's feelings...

Since we've met here once, there will probably be other opportunities to meet in the future.

"I will prove to you that I can become someone powerful enough to protect you," he thought to himself. "And those who have betrayed you, I will make them all pay the price!"

Zhu Yufeng sneezed.

How should I respond? I feel like I've been unfairly blamed again.

At that moment, Lilith leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Let me tell you, I have a silly little brother who's a real tsundere who cares about me a lot~"

Zhu Yufeng: "..."

So, the person Lilith stopped to look at was her brother?

The next second, Elysia pulled Lilith away from Zhu Yufeng, and squinted at Lilith, saying, "Lilith, don't you have anything to explain?"

Lilith tilted her head and said, "Do I have anything to explain?"

Just as Elysia was about to say something, Disaster asked with some confusion, "When Amo and I were evacuating the crowd earlier, we heard someone say that the lower levels were sealed off, and you were in the control room..."

To be honest, she had some suspicions that Zhu Yufeng and Lilith were behind it, because one of them was too rational, and the other gave her a very cold feeling. The act of blocking the escape route for the people below, although it seemed to be the right thing to do in terms of results, she still couldn't accept that the death toll was definitely not a small number, and could very well have reached tens of thousands...

"Ah, this." Lilith looked regretful and repeated what she had said to Zhu Yufeng earlier.

"By the time Feng and I arrived, it was too late. He originally wanted to lock down the third level as well, but after Feng's righteous persuasion, he gave up the idea. In the end, without us even noticing, he committed suicide," Lilith said with extreme regret. "He was a responsible person, although most people probably couldn't understand him..."

Zhu Yufeng glanced at Lilith, his tone of regret perhaps genuine, but it was definitely regret that he hadn't locked down the people of the first tier... and yet he acted so righteous... He wasn't exactly a champion of justice.

"Is that so?" Disaster looked at Zhu Yufeng, Zhu Yufeng chose to look away without answering.

Disaster didn't think much of it. She could hear the genuine regret in Lilith's tone, so she chose to believe Lilith. She interpreted Zhu Yufeng's behavior as Zhu Yufeng also regretting that he hadn't saved that person.

Pardo subtly moved a little closer to Zhu Yufeng. She wasn't fooled by Sister Daisy, and Lilith had shown malice right in front of her. Besides, she knew how dangerous Lilith, so...

It must have been Lilith who did it.

Elysia looked at Lilith in silence. When had Maple ever spoken so righteously? If he really wanted to stop someone, he wouldn't bother with a single warning. But judging from Maple's attitude, he must have actually tried to stop her. In other words, Maple was trying to stop Lilith, who wanted to lock down the entire first tier.

Both Zhu Yufeng and Lilith herself had previously stated that Lilith's nature Evil...

Elysia suddenly felt a bit complicated. Lilith was probably the most evil being she had ever encountered. She had no goodwill towards humans and sought bloodshed and conflict. Even with Mobius, whose actions were not recognized by most people and who was extreme, or Xila and Sakura, who were both assassins, Elysia could get along with them. But Lilith... she had more subjective malice towards humans and purely took pleasure in doing evil.