Honkai Impact 3rd: Starting with Handcrafted Black Tech to Save the Pre-Civilization - Saving the Pre-Civilization

"What about the remaining probability?" Ai Yue put away his phone and signaled Hua to take out the box.

"An 0.8% probability that she is the Eighth Herrscher herself," Prometheus replied. "All right, that was actually a joke. Miss Hua, you don't have to be so nervous."

"You should talk to Vill-V less from now on." Ai Yue glanced at Hua, who had assumed a battle stance, and shook his head helplessly. "All right, prepare for the next step."

"Wait, I still don't understand." Hua spoke up at that moment. "The Original Anchor... what does that mean?"

She vaguely sensed that Ai Yue knew far more than he had told her on the way there.

"Before that, take a look at these brainwave charts." Ai Yue spread open his right hand, palm up. Prometheus transformed into a fingerless glove on his hand, and the lens in its palm projected an image. "These are brainwave patterns from people in different cities and of different ages who fell asleep at the same time. Do you see anything?"

"They're... all the same?" Hua stared at the completely identical waveforms layered over one another, her face filled with astonishment. "Were all these people dreaming? And dreaming the same dream, at that?"

"Or rather, they dreamed of the same dreamscape." Ai Yue dismissed the projection. "A dreamscape constructed by a Herrscher that trapped them inside, making it impossible for them to escape."

"So that's why Prometheus called this girl the Original Anchor." Hua quickly understood. "You mean she was one of the first people affected by the Herrscher, and her dream is part of this dreamscape?"

"Yes. At the very least, she was indeed one of the first people to fall into a coma." Ai Yue took a strange-looking hat from the box and put it on his head. "Moreover, unlike those who later fell unconscious because of the spreading keywords, she may have encountered the Eighth Herrscher in her dream."

"Then what do we do next?" Hua asked. "Do you need me to infiltrate her dream?"

Hua finally understood why Ai Yue had chosen her. Clearly, he needed someone to infiltrate the dream and attempt to make contact with the Herrscher.

Yet Ai Yue's words left her surprised. "No. Your task is to keep watch over her."

After putting on the hat, Ai Yue somehow produced a pale-white syringe and drove it straight into his neck. "As for infiltrating the dream, I'll do that myself."

Hua froze for a moment. Then she sensed a change in Ai Yue's aura. For an instant, she even felt as if someone else were standing before her.

"This seems a little different from what Aponia said." Ai Yue first looked at Hua, then at Rachel lying on the bed, and frowned. "Forget it. Let's get to business first."

He closed his eyes. His entire body instantly went limp, and he fell backward as if he had lost consciousness.

Hua instinctively caught Ai Yue and propped him up in a chair. She then stood to the side, looking back and forth between the two unconscious people, suddenly at a loss.

When she had heard that the mission involved a Herrscher, she had already prepared herself for a grueling battle. But why did she now seem to be the most idle person here?

And what exactly did "keep watch over her" mean? Could there be something wrong with Rachel?

"Miss Hua, you seem confused." Prometheus's voice came from Ai Yue's hand. "Doctor Ai Yue instructed me that if you had any questions about the mission, I should answer them as best I could."

"Just call me Hua." Hua instinctively straightened, then relaxed again. "About the mission... I want to know what will happen to Rachel. Why did Doctor Ai Yue ask you to keep watch over her?"

"According to Doctor Ai Yue's analysis, the dreamscape is not merely a means for the Herrscher to bind human consciousness. It also possesses other functions," Prometheus explained. "If his deduction is correct—that all consciousnesses are trapped within the same dreamscape—then the Eighth Herrscher can locate their physical bodies at any time through the consciousnesses inside the dream."

"In other words, the Eighth Herrscher's consciousness might possess Rachel?" Hua, who had been relatively relaxed, tensed instantly. "Does that mean she could control Rachel's body and launch an attack at any time?"

"Yes. However, bypassing the body's original owner and taking control of it is not easy." Prometheus continued, "The Eighth Herrscher may be able to accomplish it with ease, but the Eighth Herrscher herself should not be especially powerful. Therefore, she can rely on only one method: pulling you into the dream as well."

Hua immediately backed away several steps, as if doing so could take her out of the Herrscher's range.

"Don't be nervous, Hua." Prometheus continued, "Aren't you wearing the forehead guard Doctor Ai Yue gave you?"

"You mean this?" Hua instinctively touched the cold metal on her forehead. "Can it resist the Eighth Herrscher's authority?"

Ai Yue had given it to her when they got off the plane, saying that it was a type of protective equipment. Hua had not paid much attention to it then, but thinking back, Ai Yue had probably arranged everything at that time.

"It's called the Soul Guardian. It has never been used in actual combat, but it worked in simulated experiments," Prometheus said. "At the very least, it is enough to deal with a strand of consciousness sent across a great distance by the Eighth Herrscher."

"So even if the Herrscher takes control of Rachel's body, it isn't much of a threat. Doctor Ai Yue asked you to watch her because he was worried that the Eighth Herrscher would kill Rachel and sever Doctor Ai Yue's connection to the dream, avoiding needless sacrifice." Prometheus continued, "Based on the methods the Eighth Herrscher has displayed so far, she is most dangerous inside the dream."

"Then will Doctor Ai Yue be all right?" After hearing the analysis, Hua once again focused her gaze on Ai Yue.

"According to my projections, Doctor Ai Yue has only a 40% chance of surviving an encounter with the Eighth Herrscher," Prometheus said. "However, Doctor Ai Yue said, 'Don't assume your model can simulate my strength,' and rejected all my suggestions, insisting on carrying out his own plan. What a troublesome adult."

Perhaps it was only her imagination, but Hua heard an emotion called helplessness in those words.

Ai Yue naturally had no idea that Prometheus was badmouthing him behind his back. At that moment, he was experiencing the sensation of weightlessness from falling through the sky.

There was usually only one way to enter the dream: reading the keywords set by the Eighth Herrscher. When readers encountered the content designed by the other party, they would be dragged into that enormous dreamscape. There, they would immerse themselves in a perfect life reflecting their inner desires, created by the Eighth Herrscher through "keyword hypnosis," until they could no longer escape.

In the original storyline, Moth to Fire would not invent the Observation Hub until several months later. The device could read the dreams of coma patients while establishing a channel for active intervention, allowing someone to enter the dreams consciously.

Ai Yue had adopted a similar method, but instead of making a specialized device for dreams, he had chosen to strengthen himself. The drug he had just injected was called "Aponia's Embrace."

The principle behind this drug was similar to Kevin's "Salvation Fire." Both were drugs that temporarily bestowed Hypervariable Factors upon the user, allowing them to wield special abilities for a limited time. However, its raw material did not come from Honkai Beasts, but from Fused Warriors, further lowering the threshold and danger of using the drug. It was even usable by an ordinary person like Ai Yue.

Incidentally, Ai Yue had not named this drug. After learning that Ai Yue intended to use her genes to make it, Aponia had taken the initiative to suggest the name.

After using the drug, Ai Yue had effectively become an inferior version of Aponia for a short time. Only by using Aponia's abilities as a foundation could he open an entrance into Rachel's dream on his own and enter it.

The hat he had put on also possessed the Soul Guardian's ability to protect the mind. At the same time, it amplified the user's mental strength and helped them manipulate it more effectively. It could even monitor the user's physical condition and forcibly pull him out of the dream when the effects of "Aponia's Embrace" began to fade.

With the assistance of these two items, along with a system hidden inside Ai Yue's mind, he dared to risk himself and charge directly into the Eighth Herrscher's territory.

After experiencing the sensation of weightlessness for an unknown length of time, Ai Yue finally regained his sense of reality and formally entered the dreamscape.

The moment he recovered his senses, Ai Yue tried calling out to the system. Only when the familiar pale-blue interface appeared before him did he finally let go of his last concern.

Even the Eighth Herrscher's dreamscape could not isolate the system from his consciousness. What did he have left to fear?

It was time to let this bumpkin from the moon see just how powerful a cheater could be.

Chapter Fifty-Six: About Time

After confirming that his trump cards could function normally even inside the dream, Ai Yue could not help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Then he began another experiment. According to the setting, time flowed twenty times faster in the dream than in reality. Could this flow rate be used to speed up the progress of scientific projects?

The result was disappointing. Scientific projects in the dream advanced extremely slowly on their own. Apparently, they were not affected by the flow of time as perceived by Ai Yue's subjective will.

However, Ai Yue was only disappointed for a moment before thinking of something else. The system's own progress was unaffected, but he could speed it up manually.

Time flowed twenty times faster in the dream. That meant Ai Yue's own thinking speed was twenty times faster as well. Since the system could also start up inside the dream, that meant that if he conducted research in the dream, his efficiency would be far higher than in reality!

Unfortunately, this was not the time for research.

Ai Yue sighed regretfully and temporarily shifted his attention away from the system, beginning to observe his surroundings.

He was standing in a bedroom. However, unlike Rachel's bedroom in reality, this place was not only spacious and bright, but its furniture also looked much more luxurious.

After observing for a while, Ai Yue discovered that the owner of this bedroom still seemed to be Rachel.

That was not difficult to understand. The dreamscape the Eighth Herrscher wove for people represented the beautiful lives they longed for. Some people yearned for a happy family, while others wished to remain with their lovers forever. For Rachel, who lived in a cramped room, wishing for a large bedroom seemed perfectly reasonable.

At that moment, someone opened the bedroom door from outside. A girl rushed in. She looked healthy and full of vitality, her face shining with a blissful smile. If not for the fact that she looked almost exactly like Rachel in reality, Ai Yue might not have recognized her at first glance.

So what did her ideal life look like?

Curious, Ai Yue stood to the side and watched the girl lie on the bed and play with her phone.

As someone with powerful mental strength, Ai Yue was naturally of a higher level inside the dream than the ordinary people hypnotized by the Eighth Herrscher. By manipulating his mental power, he could easily hide himself from the eyes of others, effectively becoming invisible. Thus, when Rachel entered the bedroom, she did not notice that there was another person inside.

Of course, this trick worked only on creatures that also possessed mental strength. It could not evade the surveillance of machines, nor could it affect people who were observing him through monitoring equipment from outside his field of vision.

But that was already powerful enough. It was precisely because he had used "Aponia's Embrace" that Ai Yue finally understood how terrifying Aponia was to ordinary people.

Even this inferior version of the ability he currently possessed could easily distort a person's mind and turn them into someone else. How powerful, then, was the complete version wielded by Aponia?

Once ordinary people gained such power, they would probably become so inflated that it was impossible to imagine. Yet Aponia could calmly remain in The Deepest Place, soothing the minds of those people. Truly, she was worthy of being a compassionate nun.

Completely leaving himself out of the equation, Ai Yue thought this as he walked out of the room, intending to see what kind of dream Rachel was immersed in.

Generally speaking, if a child in a blended family was unhappy, they would want to return to their original family...

Ai Yue was pondering this when he looked up and saw the man he had encountered in reality sitting on the sofa and watching television.

Ai Yue: ...

Why are you still here?

However, his immediate priority was not helping the little girl resolve her emotional knot and face reality. Thus, Ai Yue did not linger. He quickly left the house.

His abilities might be able to hide him from these ordinary people, but they definitely could not hide him from the owner of the dream. It probably would not be long before the Eighth Herrscher appeared before him.

Unfortunately, Ai Yue had not sensed any unusual mental fluctuations from Rachel. It seemed she had never truly come into contact with the Eighth Herrscher.

Outside Rachel's house was still the same city as before. However, Ai Yue could clearly feel that the environment here was extremely "rough." Evidently, the world reconstructed from Rachel's memories was not as clear as reality. The city actually consisted only of a small area centered on Rachel's house; beyond that, there was nothing but blankness.

However, Ai Yue soon discovered that more buildings were gradually forming in the blank space outside the city. Although none of them were very large, they were slowly spreading outward, and some had already joined together into continuous stretches.

Clearly, the number of victims in the city was still increasing. As the victims' memories of the city continued to grow, the city would eventually be fully recreated inside the dream. What would happen then was something even Ai Yue could not say.

But he had come here precisely to prevent that from happening.

Ai Yue repeatedly worked through his plan in his mind, then suddenly turned sharply to look behind him.

A figure surrounded by black miasma was floating behind him, apparently observing him.

It was a frail, shriveled-looking girl. The black aura obscured the details of her body, making it impossible for Ai Yue to see her appearance clearly. Still, the distinctive form was more than enough to identify her.

"The Eighth Herrscher?" Ai Yue nodded in greeting. "What should I call you?"

It was his first face-to-face encounter with a Herrscher, yet he felt nothing particularly special... Oh, right. He had almost forgotten. This was not actually his first time.

"Interesting. You're the first human capable of entering the dream on your own." The Herrscher ignored his question and continued speaking to herself. "You must be one of those humans who oppose the Honkai, then?"

Clearly, she had no intention of communicating properly.

"So there's no point talking?" Ai Yue realized the problem with her attitude and sighed. "What a pity. I wanted to learn more about creatures like you."

"Foolish human, who do you think you're speaking so arrogantly to?" The Herrscher was clearly enraged by Ai Yue's attitude. "A creature like you doesn't even deserve to have a beautiful dream!"

She raised her right hand toward the sky. The clear sky instantly turned dark with clouds, and within them, a massive, terrifying bolt of lightning shot straight down at Ai Yue.

Everything happened in an instant. The Eighth Herrscher's actions perfectly embodied the phrase "changing one's attitude as quickly as flipping a page." Yet the attack was completely ineffective.

The lightning did not even touch Ai Yue. It vanished less than five meters away from him. Ai Yue smiled as if he had done nothing. "An imposing attack, but its power isn't nearly as strong as it appears. Is that because you still can't fully use your strength? Or is it because you can't fight me with your full power right now?"

Ai Yue extended his hand and made a grasping motion toward the Eighth Herrscher. "Whatever you intend to do, you'd better hurry. Otherwise, by the time I catch you, it'll be too late."

Chapter Fifty-Seven: That Works Too?

Hearing the implication in Ai Yue's words, the Eighth Herrscher's expression changed slightly.

She did not continue entangling herself with Ai Yue. Instead, she sent out a mass of black aura that wrapped around him before vanishing without a trace in an instant. Clearly, she had already left.

After breaking free of the black aura, Ai Yue could not help but breathe a sigh of relief. If he really had to fight the Eighth Herrscher one-on-one, the outcome was obvious.

Trying to defeat the master of a dream inside that dream was hopeless. Even if he brought in both Aponia and Desdrobia—the only two Mental Perception Fused Warriors currently available—there would still be no chance of victory.

Against an opponent like this, the most efficient choice was naturally to crack open her box and settle the fight offline.

That lightning bolt had appeared to be blocked effortlessly by Ai Yue, but he could tell that the other party had not used her full strength. It was even as he had said: the Eighth Herrscher's focus was not on him. Otherwise, he would have suffered at least some injuries from that lightning strike, rather than having the system fail to react at all.

Still, although the two of them had been in contact for only a short time, it had not been entirely fruitless.

Ai Yue spread open his right hand. A blurry light pulsed in the center of his palm.

"Mental Power Sample · Eighth Herrscher (Rare): Usability 100%."

"Using this material can directly unlock scientific projects related to the Eighth Herrscher."

Seeing the information provided by the system, Ai Yue raised his eyebrows.

He had always thought the system could not collect invisible and intangible things as materials. The facts proved that he had underestimated it.

The reason he had obtained his first mental-type material only now was probably because he had never possessed a suitable method of capturing it.

With the dream as a unique medium, he could finally cut off a portion of someone else's mental power, allowing the system to officially record it.

With this item, his complicated plan was no longer necessary.

Ai Yue directly opened the scientific projects related to the Eighth Herrscher and found what he wanted—

"Simulated Herrscher Authority · Mental Power Perception and Positioning Technology."

All that remained was to wait.

Seeing the notice that the project had started, Ai Yue nodded. He then closed his eyes and began trying to leave the dream.

He still could not use his own knowledge to help accelerate science projects related to Herrschers. If that was the case, he might as well return to reality and do something else.

However, Ai Yue quickly opened his eyes again, because he discovered that something was blocking his connection with his physical body.

Was it that black aura?

Ai Yue focused his attention on his surroundings. Only then did he realize that the environment had somehow changed completely.

A massive forest spread outward from the place where he stood. Even when Ai Yue used his mental power to sense far into the distance with all his strength, he could not find the edge of the forest.

Clearly, the Eighth Herrscher was not stupid. She had realized that she could not resolve Ai Yue in a short time, while continuing the stalemate would risk exposing herself. Yet she could not simply let him leave. Thus, she had chosen this rather clumsy method.

She had created a massive mental maze and trapped Ai Yue inside the dream. Unless he found his way out of the maze, he could not return to reality.

It was a very clumsy method, because the Eighth Herrscher had used dreamscape resources that were trapping other humans to construct this enormous maze. As a result, some people with slightly stronger wills could now break free of the dream through their own determination and awaken.