The Eleventh Great Honkai
For everyone, it should have been a peaceful morning, just like any other.
However, when the morning sunlight streamed into the room, the person lying in bed was as if trapped in a dream, unable to open their eyes any longer.
At this moment, the city was devoid of its usual hustle and bustle; even the occasional clear bird calls had vanished. The entire city was quiet, as if asleep. The traffic lights on the streets had long since disappeared, and in the cars parked on the roadside, the drivers leaned back in their seats, their eyes closed like everyone else's.
The city is now silent, as if everything has returned to the stillness before creation.
Headquarters of the Fire Moth.
"Hmm... Today is the day we're scheduled to extract the Herrscher Core from Michael's body." Mobius flipped through his schedule. Admil had already returned to Europe to continue the construction plan for the Heavenly Thunder. The basic design and key process development for the Heavenly Thunder were complete, and the next step was to finish its construction.
Because Admil had returned to Europe, the surgery on Michael was actually performed by Mobius, with Rovoc and Klein as his assistants.
Although Klein has no memories of her previous life, it doesn't matter if she knows some things; Mobius still trusts Klein quite a bit... Even though she was betrayed by Klein in her previous life, that was a matter involving the Thousandth Herrscher, how could it be related to Klein?
"Doctor, Doctor, there's an emergency!" Danzhu rushed into the lab and said, "Dr. Mei asked me to inform you of an emergency meeting. All councilors currently within the Fire Moth must attend, and Feng and the others must go too!"
"An emergency meeting?" Mobius frowned. An emergency meeting at this time?
She suddenly had a bad feeling, but wasn't Michael part of the Fire Moth? His body's various data had been under her close monitoring until now, so how could he possibly cause trouble? And if the Divine Blessing Barrier were to activate at this moment, wouldn't the entire Fire Moth be doomed?
"Klein, how is Michael's health now?" Mobius immediately contacted Klein, who was in charge of monitoring Michael's health.
Klein responded quickly, "So far, her physical condition is normal, Doctor. Hmm... there are no signs of activation in the Herrscher Core either; it remains in a dormant state, just like before."
Michael is alright? Was that an emergency?
Mobius was completely baffled, but since it was Mebius who convened the emergency meeting, and Mebius wouldn't be joking, it meant that something extremely urgent had indeed happened.
Filled with doubts, Mobius didn't waste any time and arrived at the conference room as quickly as possible.
When she arrived at the conference room, she found that almost everyone else was already there. The representatives of the Fusion Warrior attending the meeting were Zhu Yufeng, Kevin, Elysia, and Hen. Although Vill-V and Beifengge were also Fusion Warrior, they were considered civilian employees, so they did not attend as representatives of the Fusion Warrior, but rather as the head of the engineering department and a councilor, respectively.
At this moment, they were all looking at the map on the screen in the center of the conference room with solemn expressions.
Mobius sat down in her seat, looked at the map, and then her expression froze.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't entirely a map, but rather an image obtained by satellite detecting the distribution of Honkai Energy on the ground, and the situation shown in that image...
"How is this possible..." Mobius doubted her own eyes. She looked at Vill-V sitting next to her, and then at Zhu Yufeng and the others not far away. Judging from their expressions, they were more or less thinking the same thing as her, finding it hard to believe that the image in front of them was real.
No, although Yu Feng's expression was serious, he didn't seem overly surprised?
Mobius withdrew his gaze. Zhu Yufeng and Michael had not yet revealed the specifics of their conversation, but Mobius believed that Zhu Yufeng was not someone who acted recklessly. Therefore, the situation was probably as Zhu Yufeng had described, mainly concerning himself.
The only thing we know is that Zhu Yufeng told Elysia that it was Honkai from the Honkai to him.
Mobius turned his gaze back to the screen in the conference center. On the map on the screen, there was a region that appeared noticeably blank compared to the rest of the area, which meant that the Honkai Energy concentration in that region had dropped to almost nothing.
In Mobius's memory, there had only been one instance of such a large-scale disappearance of Honkai Energy: the Eleventh Great Honkai led by the Eleventh Herrscher Michael.
The power of the Eleventh Herrscher, the Herrscher of Binding, is specifically manifested in the suppression and sealing of energy. She can suppress and seal all forms of energy within a large area by deploying Divine Blessing Barrier, with Honkai Energy being the most powerful. Since bioelectricity in the human body is also a form of energy, it will also be suppressed by the Divine Blessing Barrier. Ordinary people will die within a second inside the Divine Blessing Barrier, and even Fusion Warrior will find it difficult to fight for long. The direct result of deploying the Divine Blessing Barrier... is that an entire city will be completely destroyed in an instant.
In their previous life, the Fire Moth paid a terrible price to defeat the Herrscher of Binding. The newly established Fusion Demonstration Force was almost completely wiped out. To this day, that tragedy remains etched in the hearts of everyone who experienced that battle, and for some, it is an inescapable nightmare.
But why? Michael is still Fire Moth and his situation is stable...
Mobius suddenly remembered that Michael's Herrscher Core was incomplete, meaning that their initial conjecture—that a second Herrscher of Binding existed—was correct?
Without a doubt, the circular distribution of the areas on the map showing the removal of Honkai Energy confirms that it is the Divine Blessing Barrier.
Another Herrscher of Binding has appeared.
Mobius had certainly considered whether the last remaining Thousandth Herrscher had taken away some of the authority of the Herrscher of Binding, but after seeing the Divine Blessing Barrier, Mobius denied this possibility.
This time, the range of the Divine Blessing Barrier even exceeded that of the previous life. It's impossible for the Tenth Herrscher to accomplish such a thing. He's not worthy of it, really.
In terms of individual strength, the Tenth Herrscher is not even worthy of carrying the shoes of the other Herrscher. Their strength lies in their ability to act collectively and become difficult to find when they lie in wait. In terms of individual combat strength, they are really not that great.
But how could this be? The fluctuations of Michael's Herrscher Core are clearly consistent with Herrscher of the Herrscher of Binding. Since Michael's Herrscher Core is incomplete, the Herrscher Core of Herrscher of Binding should also be incomplete. How could it release a barrier with a larger range than the Divine Blessing Barrier created by Michael in the previous life?
It can't be said that Michael went easy on her in her past life... If we consider that staying in the same spot without moving and waiting for the Fusion Warrior to subdue her counts as going easy on her, then maybe she did go easy on them a little...
"Dr. Mei, could you explain to us what exactly is going on?" Lionel asked. "Is the sudden disappearance of Honkai Energy related to the emergence of a new Herrscher?"
These words immediately sparked whispers among the attendees. The Tenth Herrscher Incident had barely ended, and now the Eleventh Herrscher had arrived? Would the pace of Herrscher appearances quicken? Was the arrival of the final Herrscher, the Herrscher of Finality, already imminent?
"Based on the information we have so far, we cannot be certain yet," May said, looking at Dr. Einstein. "Dr. Einstein was the first to discover this anomaly, so let her provide an explanation."
Dr. Einstein stated solemnly, "According to observations from the Fire Moth's Honkai Energy Observation Station, this anomaly occurred last night at midnight (based on our location). Over the past seven hours, the concentration of Honkai Energy area has gradually expanded, eventually reaching its current state. Furthermore, it appears to be continuing to expand outwards, as evidenced by the decreasing Honkai Energy concentration in nearby areas compared to other regions."
Is the Honkai Energy concentration gradually decreasing?
Mobius pondered, this was different from the Divine Blessing Barrier she knew, because the Divine Blessing Barrier would instantly suppress enemies upon deployment, while the effect was gradually decreasing... So, was the other Herrscher of Binding who appeared truly an incomplete Herrscher?
And it's expanding?
No, Michael didn't expand the barrier's range back then because the Divine Blessing Barrier had a limit to its capacity. It needed to continuously develop before it could expand. This was a result of later research. If Michael had expanded the range of the Divine Blessing Barrier that time, she would have had to reduce its suppressive effect in order to maintain its existence.
No matter how you look at it, blindly expanding the range of the Divine Blessing Barrier is a rather unwise choice.
Hmm... Michael probably didn't expand the Divine Blessing Barrier because he thought it would be pointless anyway. At that time, humanity only had four cities left as its last bulwark. Michael destroyed one of the cities, but the other three were still far away, so expanding them would be meaningless.
"Could this be considered a good thing? A decrease in Honkai Energy means a decrease in the probability of Honkai occurring, right?" one councilor said. "Isn't the ultimate goal of the Fire Moth to completely expel Honkai from human civilization?"
"If that were all there was to it, it would indeed be a good thing," Dr. Einstein said in a somewhat somber tone. "However, besides the Honkai Energy cleared, our local facility has completely lost contact with us, and I also had troops in nearby cities investigate. The result is... even biosignals have disappeared in that area, and we've lost dozens of soldiers as a result."
"In other words, this strange phenomenon cleared out not only Honkai Energy, but also bio-energy... or more precisely, all forms of energy, right?" Mobius said. Now that it was confirmed to be Divine Blessing Barrier, and that this barrier was expanding, they had to hurry and kill the second Herrscher of Binding as quickly as possible.
Dr. Einstein nodded and said, "Yes, I think the situation is as you described, Dr. Mobius."
"As far as humanity is concerned, only Herrscher can indeed cause such a bizarre phenomenon," Hen said, resting his chin on his hand. "But even Honkai Energy is suppressed, and satellites can't detect the Herrscher's Honkai Energy signal... This..."
"Herrscher always appear in unexpected ways," Zhu Yufeng said, lowering his eyes. "Before the Tenth Herrscher appeared, none of us imagined that Herrscher could appear in this form. Now, after the Tenth Herrscher Incident, the Tenth Divine Key, created from the Herrscher Core of the Tenth Herrscher, can be used to screen eligible candidates for the Fusion Warrior surgery. Fusion Warrior can now appear in organized units, so it's not impossible for an Anti -Herrscher to emerge with the goal of becoming Fusion Warrior."
"Feng is right," Lionel agreed. "We still haven't been able to decipher the essence of Honkai, what Honkai is, and what its relationship is with Honkai Energy. We can only rely on past experience and experiments to make judgments. That's why we couldn't anticipate the appearance of the Tenth Herrscher. After all, the Honkai Energy of an individual Tenth Herrscher might not even be as high as that of a Honkai Beast, which clearly contradicts our previous understanding of Herrscher. If we think about it this way, it's not impossible that the Eleventh Herrscher is an Anti- Herrscher capable of suppressing all forms of energy."
"But if that's the case, how are we going to deal with her?" Hen frowned. "Even if we suppress all forms of energy, assuming the Fusion Warrior can last longer than an ordinary person, we still don't have a way to find this Herrscher, and even if we do find her, will we still have the strength to kill her... These are all problems..."
"It seems we can only locate this anti- Herrscher using the most basic method," Mei said. "Until we get more detailed data, this is the only way..."
"How is this any different from sending our soldiers to their deaths?" Hen's brows furrowed even more.
"But this is indeed the only way at the moment." Lionel sighed softly. "Fusion Warrior are stronger than ordinary humans, and they have a high chance of holding out against this anti -Herrscher's suppressive power for longer... However, things happened suddenly, and we still lack sufficient understanding of this Herrscher. We cannot easily sacrifice the Fusion Warrior force because of this... I think we should conduct more detailed research and formulate a more comprehensive strategy."
"Are we just going to watch the nearby residents die because of this?!" one councilor exclaimed.
"Now that things have come to this, why can't you still abandon those thoughts?" Lionel calmly looked at the councilor and said, "Faced with Honkai, no price is too high to be unacceptable, and no sacrifice is too small to be negligible. Fusion Warrior... are humanity's last line of defense. Through the selection process using the Herrscher Core of the Tenth Herrscher, we have transformed almost all the warriors within the Fire Moth with the corresponding qualifications into Fusion Warrior. This also means that for every Fusion Warrior sacrificed, there is one less."
The congressman remained silent.
"But don't we have all of humanity behind us...?"
"Is it the same for an ordinary person to become Fusion Warrior and for a warrior to become Fusion Warrior?" Lionel said. "Moreover, the selection process for warriors by the Fire Moth is based on the best of the best. How many ordinary people can meet the requirements for Fusion Warrior surgery? In addition, we have to consider the time cost of training a qualified warrior. None of us know whether the Herrscher of Finality will give us that time."
Zhu Yufeng stared silently at the map of the conference center. Suddenly, he felt his hand being tightly gripped. He looked at Elysia, but Elysia didn't look at him. She was staring at the blank area on the map where Honkai Energy appeared, her expression complicated.
He knew what Elysia was thinking at that moment. The shadow of the Tragedy of Binding seemed to be right in front of them, gradually becoming clearer. He also took Elysia's hand without saying a word.
At this moment, no words will have any effect.
This is a shared nightmare for both of them, a reality they must face.
"Will what has already happened, always happen again...?"