Just as the pilot had said, Aponia had changed The Deepest Place. The plane, which had previously only been able to circle in the air, could now land smoothly, depriving Ai Yue of one chance to experience skydiving from high altitude.
As soon as he got off the plane, he saw a familiar figure appear before him not far away.
It was none other than Aponia, whom he had not seen in a long time.
"Long time no see, Aponia." Ai Yue took the initiative to greet her. "Do you feel like you've gotten paler?"
"Perhaps. After all, it's only natural for the skin to turn pale after staying somewhere without sunlight for so long." Aponia smiled gently. The darkness of The Deepest Place seemed to have no effect on her. "It seems you've finally fulfilled the promise you made to him."
"Yeah. It took a little longer than expected. I hope Kalpas won't mind." Ai Yue shrugged. "Have you gotten used to living here?"
"It's not all that different from my life in the past. Praying, making inspections, easing other people's troubles, and guiding them not to give up hope." Aponia walked along as she spoke. Seeing Ai Yue's hesitant expression, she couldn't help laughing. "Don't worry. Just as you said, unless it's necessary, I rarely use 'Discipline.'"
The gates of The Deepest Place were made of a special alloy. Under Vill-V's design, they could not be opened from the inside—but Aponia could use the abilities of a Fused Warrior to open them from the outside. Thus, she was the only person who could freely enter and leave The Deepest Place.
As the gates of The Deepest Place opened, the interior came into view before Ai Yue.
In the dim light, almost no details could be seen. Only a figure stood motionless in the very center of the space, like a statue.
Only after seeing Ai Yue did the other person walk forward, exposing himself to the light.
"You're here?" Kalpas said calmly. He did not seem to have been affected by The Deepest Place either. "I've done everything I promised you. Can I leave now?"
"Of course." Ai Yue smiled and extended a hand. "Come on. I'll take you home to have a look."
Kalpas seemed to freeze for a moment, but he did not take Ai Yue's hand. He merely nodded slightly.
"Yeah."
Chapter Fifty: Ahead Lies Hell
Twilight Street, church.
"Are you sure we didn't take a wrong turn?"
Two men stood outside the sanatorium, staring at each other. Kalpas was the first to lose patience. "What part of this still looks the same as before?"
The sanatorium had undergone a complete transformation. The old, run-down church had been completely renovated, and a three-story building had risen beside it. Everything was entirely different from what Kalpas remembered.
If he hadn't seen several familiar figures playing in the courtyard between the two buildings, he might have turned around and left immediately.
"Looks like the Moth to Fire did a pretty good job. They didn't just go through the motions." Ai Yue nodded. "All right, let's go in."
"Go in for what?" Kalpas said, but his eyes never left the courtyard before him. "One look is enough. Let's get ready to leave..."
Before he could finish, Ai Yue pressed the doorbell beside him. In an instant, the gazes of all the children in the courtyard gathered on the iron gate.
When they saw the familiar mask, the children first fell utterly silent. Then, as if on cue, they burst into delighted cries.
"It's Uncle Porter!"
"Uncle Porter is back!"
"Quick, quick! Go get the teacher to open the gate!"
"Hey, Ai Yue!"
Only then did Kalpas realize what was happening. He turned toward Ai Yue, but the other man had already slipped out of the children's sight. Before disappearing around the corner, he even waved at Kalpas and gave him a look that clearly said, Enjoy yourself.
Damn it, you planned this!
Kalpas's blood pressure shot up. Seeing the little ones rushing toward the iron gate, his first instinct was to run while the gate was still closed.
His mind issued the command, but his body refused to move.
By the time the children surged forward and grabbed Kalpas's clothes and arms through the iron gate, he still hadn't moved an inch.
"All right, stop shouting." Looking at the little brats milling about in front of him, Kalpas called out in a low voice. "I'm not going anywhere. What are you in such a hurry for?"
The man who could break free even after being bound in alloy chains was now effortlessly pinned in place by several children.
All one could say was that he was truly stubborn with his words.
Ai Yue stood on the roof of a nearby building, watching Kalpas enter the courtyard surrounded by a crowd of children. He couldn't help giving his expert opinion.
He had always liked children, hadn't he?
Aponia's gentle voice sounded in his mind.
At that moment, relying on the sculpture Aponia had once given him, the two of them completed a psychic link across thousands of miles. With Aponia's powerful mental strength, they could share their vision and communicate telepathically. However, such a link was difficult to maintain for long. At present, Aponia could sustain it for half an hour at most.
"Speaking of which, this place really isn't bad." Ai Yue looked around. "Just how much funding did Dr. Mei invest here?"
Apparently, the sanatorium had been treated as a pilot project, intended to observe the changes that children wearing Honkai Energy Absorbers underwent as they grew. As a result, it had received considerable funding. Aponia actually knew more about this than Ai Yue did. The project's director had also been personally selected by Dr. Mei, and was trustworthy in every respect.
"I remember you came back to take a look once before. Since you said there was no problem, then there definitely isn't one." Ai Yue nodded in relief. He turned and jumped off the roof, activating the recoil-buffering function in his shoes before landing safely. "Come on. Let's look around the area first, then come back for Kalpas."
Don't you want to go inside and take a look? The children miss you too.
"I'll pass. Maybe next time." Ai Yue walked farther and farther away with his back to the sanatorium. "After all, the medical tech tree is genuinely difficult to climb."
Embracing Honkai and rejecting Honkai were simply two extremes on the same line. Although Ai Yue had essentially mastered the perfect version of the Fused Warrior Formula, he still hadn't even touched the threshold of treating Honkai Sickness. Naturally, he found it difficult to face those children who had placed their hopes in him.
In that case, go see the kind person who used to donate supplies to the church.
Aponia did not press him. She understood Ai Yue very well. On the surface, he seemed easygoing and sometimes even a little frivolous, but inside, he carried an immense burden. Even when he had revealed only the tip of that burden before her, it had nearly pushed her mind to the point of collapse.
Thus, Aponia had long since stopped hoping that she could change the fate of the world. Even so, she still hoped to ease the pressure in Ai Yue's heart as much as possible by any means available.
Therefore, unless circumstances were unusual, she generally respected Ai Yue's choices.
By the time Ai Yue returned to the sanatorium, it was already night. In the quiet darkness, the children had all returned to their dormitories. Only Kalpas remained in the courtyard, sweeping the grounds just as he had before leaving this place.
"How does it feel?"
Ai Yue easily vaulted over the wall and landed on the ground, greeting Kalpas. "The children still like you as much as ever."
"Hmph. They're noisy as hell. That dungeon was quieter." Kalpas said it with his mouth, but his hands never stopped moving. "Leaving? Give me a moment. I'm almost done sweeping."
"No rush," Ai Yue said with a smile. "Besides, I actually brought you back this time to give you a choice."
"What do you mean?"
"You don't have to come back to the Moth to Fire with me." Ai Yue looked at Kalpas. "You could stay at the sanatorium and go back to being 'Uncle Porter.' Wouldn't that be nice?"
"Interesting." Kalpas stopped sweeping, his tone revealing little emotion. "Will the Moth to Fire agree so easily?"
"As long as you make your choice, I'll handle things on that side." Ai Yue replied, "This may sound hypocritical, but I sincerely hope all of you can live peaceful lives."
As for whom the "all of you" in those words referred to—Kalpas and the children of the sanatorium, or someone else—perhaps only Ai Yue himself knew.
"This place has become very good." Kalpas fell silent for a moment before looking up at the three-story building. "So good that it no longer needs me."
Faint light occasionally drifted through the building. It came from the lanterns carried by the teachers patrolling at night.
"I don't think you can put it that way..."
Ai Yue instinctively tried to amend his words, but Kalpas interrupted him.
"All this time, I was the one who needed this place more." A special emotion entered Kalpas's voice. "So this is enough."
Before Ai Yue could react, he continued, "Don't forget. You also promised to give me a war without end."
"That was just an excuse I used to convince you to come with me." Ai Yue scratched his head. "You don't actually like war, do you?"
"I don't like it, but I need it." Kalpas revealed a savage smile. "I need to use war to settle an account with those things—an account that can never truly be settled."
"So stop wasting words and hurry up." He leaned the broom against the wall and walked toward the gate on his own. "Whether you want to use me as a weapon or something else is up to you."
Chapter Fifty-One: I Didn't Do Anything. She Blew Herself Up (Four-Thousand-Word Chapter)
Although the contents of the meeting about releasing Kalpas had not been made public, parts of it still spread by word of mouth and soon circulated throughout the Moth to Fire.
When everyone heard that Ai Yue had traded a valuable patent for a prisoner's release, they were all stunned. They began asking everywhere on the Moth to Fire's intranet: "Who is Ai Yue?"
Soon, a helpful netizen pointed out that Ai Yue was a genius scientist recently recommended to the Moth to Fire by Dr. Mei herself. He had achieved an extremely high level in many fields, and the Honkai Energy Absorber he had invented was the strongest all-around product among all similar products currently available. That was precisely why interested parties had targeted the patent and schemed to create this incident.
However, the discussion was quickly locked down by the intranet administrators. All related posts were deleted, and the subject soon lost its momentum. Yet the administrators' actions instead further confirmed the helpful netizen's words, causing Ai Yue's reputation within the Moth to Fire to gradually rise.
"What a clever scheme, Doctor Ai Yue."
At the First Research Institute, Mobius drank milk tea while teasing Ai Yue. "You pressured the higher-ups through public opinion while raising your own reputation. You killed two birds with one stone."
"What scheme?" Ai Yue looked baffled. He put down the book in his hands. "I'm done with this batch. Remember to get me another one."
"Can't you borrow them yourself?" Mobius said irritably. "Do you think I'm running a library?"
Despite saying that, she still took the books Ai Yue had finished and put them into a bag nearby, preparing to order those two good-for-nothings to run the errand.
"Who can blame me? You have high clearance and can get things ordinary people can't access." Ai Yue picked up the next book, using this method to make up for his lack of tech points. "Come to think of it, aren't you pretty free today? Aren't you running experiments?"
"Our institute is on holiday today." Mobius stretched, displaying her figure. "I even kicked Klein out to have fun, let alone those two lazybones who were already slacking off."
Ai Yue glanced at her, an inexplicable trace of regret flashing through his heart.
Objectively speaking, Mobius could be considered one of the most beautiful women in the Moth to Fire. Whenever he imagined someone like her gradually turning into a cold, sharp-tongued, flat-chested brat in the future, Ai Yue couldn't help feeling heartbroken.
"What are you thinking about? There's something off about that look in your eyes." Mobius also noticed the change in Ai Yue's expression and frowned. "You wouldn't be harboring ill intentions toward me, would you?"
Ever since she had started slacking off, Mobius had become increasingly casual around Ai Yue.
"Lady, you're a Fused Warrior. What kind of ill intentions could I possibly harbor toward you?" Ai Yue rolled his eyes. "Rather, you're willing to give those three people a holiday but not yourself, and you even waited for me to come over. Is there something shady you need my help with?"
Ever since Prometheus lifted its internet restrictions, the constant roar of various machines running had filled Ai Yue's laboratory. To make matters worse, the AI girl had claimed that "monitoring the entire internet requires a massive amount of computing power," leaving Ai Yue unable to say anything to her. He could only come out and occupy Mobius's laboratory.
After all, her equipment was complete and she had more space, making it more comfortable than his own laboratory.
"Oh my, you caught me. I was still wondering how to bring it up." Mobius took a syringe from her pocket. A strange-looking pale violet liquid flowed inside it. "There's been progress on the report you gave me."
"You already made the finished product?" Ai Yue raised his eyebrows. "Shouldn't you have shown me the theoretical model first?"
"That would be too much trouble. It's better to let the experimental data speak for itself." Mobius smiled. "Come with me. Let's find somewhere that doesn't mind getting dirty."
"You're going straight in with failure as the premise?" Ai Yue shook his head. "I can only say that immortality is seriously amazing."
As a Fused Warrior, Mobius naturally possessed a special ability like Kevin's control over ice and snow. Her ability was immortality. After suffering fatal injuries, she would enter a state of suspended death, then absorb a massive amount of energy to revive.
Of course, this immortality also had a drawback. Every time Mobius revived, her body would undergo reverse growth. As she used her immortality more and more, she would gradually become younger, eventually regressing into an infant.
For ordinary people, even if they were delighted by such a powerful ability, they would still take its side effects into consideration and try to reduce the number of times it was triggered.
Mobius, however, was different. Possessing such an ability meant that even experiments with a one-hundred-percent fatality rate could be performed on herself.
Clearly, today was one such experiment.
Ai Yue followed Mobius to the most special operating room, Operating Room One. It had obviously been prepared by Mobius for herself. Although there was no unusual odor inside, coagulated blood that had not been completely cleaned could be seen lingering in various corners.
There were also scorch marks and wounds caused by sharp objects that could not be cleaned away on the floor, ceiling, and walls.
It wasn't difficult to imagine what this place had experienced.
"All right. Go wait in the observation room next door." Mobius pointed at another door, hung her lab coat on a rack, and entered the operating room.
Ai Yue also entered the observation room and looked at Mobius through the transparent, heavy glass wall. The various instruments in the observation room turned toward Mobius as well, ensuring that they would not miss a single detail of the operation.
Mobius sat on the operating table, facing Ai Yue, and injected the dose into her own body.
About ten seconds later, an expression of pain appeared on her face. Pale violet patterns began spreading out from beneath the clothes that covered her completely, gradually extending to her head and limbs.
At the same time, the Honkai Energy concentration inside the operating room began to rise. Fortunately, the room had undergone special protective treatment, so no leakage would occur.
About thirty seconds later, Mobius's expression gradually returned to normal. This meant she had endured the extreme initial phase of the drug's effects. Then Ai Yue saw her snake-like pupils suddenly become suffused with gold, transforming into even more imposing golden vertical pupils.
"Mobius?" Ai Yue called instinctively. "Are you still conscious? Wave your hand if you are!"
As the operating room's speakers transmitted Ai Yue's words, Mobius reacted. She focused her gaze on the speakers, then waved her hand.
But it was not the ordinary wave Ai Yue had imagined—it was a gesture capable of activating a special ability.
The next second, a strange spatial rift suddenly split open where the speakers were, swallowing them directly!
There was no doubt about it. This was the Second Herrscher's ability to control space.
Yet there was no joy on Ai Yue's face. From Mobius's reaction, it was obvious that the drug had already affected her mind. Under those circumstances, her gaining control of such a dangerous ability was clearly not a good thing.
Thus, he immediately pulled out Pikachu, intending to give Mobius a shot at maximum output. But as he pulled the trigger, he hesitated.
If Mobius were blasted into pieces, could she still revive?
That moment of hesitation meant Ai Yue no longer had to worry about killing Mobius completely.
Because Mobius had blown herself up.
Almost at the exact moment Ai Yue drew his gun, the violet cracks on Mobius's body suddenly brightened, as though an intense energy reaction had occurred inside her. Soon, the cracks became fissures, releasing copious amounts of blood and steam from Mobius's body—enough to show just how scorching hot it was inside her.
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