The Beginning of Everything / The Great Purge Begins

"..." Dessidobia stopped her little movements, her face turning ashen after being seen through.

The Speaker was pleased with her attitude. "So where should we begin... Let's start with the founding of the Firemoth, which is when those scumbags who love humanity gathered together."

"Wait a minute, what exactly are you trying to do? Why are you revealing your hand now? Even if there's a bomb on the transport plane, you'll be exposed as soon as you get off. And even if we all perish, we won't let you go."

Himiko had no intention of listening to the Speaker recount those old stories. She stared intently at the man whose smile remained unchanged, unable to understand what he was up to.

"Expose? So be it, what does it matter?" The Speaker shrugged indifferently. "As for why I'm revealing my hand now, it's only because I've finished what I needed to do, and I want to show off to others. Have you ever read novels? Don't the villains in them always like to reveal key information when their plans are about to be completed? Just think of this situation as an example."

"The only difference between me and those villains is that I had already achieved my goal before I even revealed my plan."

"If there's a bomb on this transport plane, what about the other transport planes that the High Council are referring to?"

The speaker's casual words caused Himiko's pupils to shrink to a tiny dot, and her terrifying suspicion became a reality with his candid confession.

"That's right, just like you thought. At 9:30, all the transport planes except this one turned into fireworks over the ocean."

"What... joke are you talking about?"

Himiko pointed blankly at the Speaker and Soul: "Almost all the combat personnel at headquarters are on this mission..."

"Yes."

Do you know what you're doing?!

"I know." The Speaker leaned back comfortably in his chair, blowing away the smoke from his cigarette. "Those outstanding warriors you know, Kevin, Hen, Kosma ..."

"They've already become burial offerings."

Chapter Fifty-Five: The Beginning

That relaxed and nonchalant tone was as if it had merely brushed away some dust, causing Himiko to hold her breath for a few seconds.

How evil must one be to casually throw around the word "life"?

"Soul, do you know all this?" Himiko swallowed hard and asked Soul.

Even though the soul's expression said it all, Himiko still held onto a sliver of hope.

She would rather believe that the soul had gone astray than see it become a different person while fully conscious.

A stranger, and a sight that my former soul loathed.

However, wishful thinking often leads to heartbreak and despair.

"I killed all the High Council at headquarters." Soul didn't back down an inch, speaking in a cold and ruthless tone, "From beginning to end, I knew what I was doing, Captain."

"Don't you hate taking lives? Don't you want to protect Lin's wishes? Why are you doing this?"

"A wish? Hehehe... Hahaha..."

Soul laughed.

Without any warning, she covered her face and burst into trembling laughter, a suffocating laugh that came from a mouth that would never have laughed so loudly before.

In front of Himiko and Dessidobia, Soul lowered his hand, his face contorted like a vengeful ghost.

"What did Lin's wish get him? Has humanity become a better place? Do the High Council of the Firemoth care about the lives of their soldiers?"

"Did you know before the Fifth Honkai War that he was already on the verge of death from Honkai Sickness? After the Fifth Honkai War, he couldn't even maintain his sanity. But what did that get him?"

"Can you tell me what you've gained in return? Peace? Happiness? Understanding? You've been at headquarters for so long, have you seen any of this?!"

The words from the soul were like daggers to the heart, leaving even Himiko speechless and unsure how to respond.

Lin's Honkai Sickness was concealed too well. If it weren't for his erosion rate exceeding the threshold on the eve of the Fifth Honkai War, causing the erosion phenomenon to appear, they would still be kept in the dark.

Peace, happiness, understanding? In such a repressive environment, these seem like pipe dreams.

"Of course, so does he." Soul glared fiercely at the Speaker, but the latter made no response.

"Yes, I am also one of those scumbags, so I am also one of those who disrespect soldiers' lives, use Lin as a prop, and make statements against Doctor Mei." However, after thinking about it, the speaker admitted, "This is how the High Council do things. I am not special."

"So that's why you have such extreme disgust for the High Council, including yourself?"

At this moment, a discordant, languid female voice interrupted the standoff, and even the Speaker and Soul showed a hint of doubt on their expressions.

The transport plane is on autopilot, and theoretically there should only be four people on board. So, what is that voice...?

"Laugh."

The fire suppression system inside the transport plane sprayed out a liquid to extinguish the smoke, and then, in an inconspicuous corner, a camera-like device flickered at a special frequency, emitting a ghostly blue light.

In everyone's eyes, a woman with messy hair was projected.

"Doctor Einstein?" The Speaker recognized the PhD in quantum mechanics who had been investigating him at a glance. He narrowed his eyes, pondered for a few seconds, then realized something, snorted, shook his head, and said nothing.

"Long time no see, Speaker... no, I should say, Lin." Einstein's projection greeted the Speaker with his hands in his pockets.

"Forest?!"

The Speaker chuckled and waved his hand, saying to the even more surprised Dessidobia and Himiko, "My real name is Lin, yes, the same 'Lin' you know."

Einstein said, "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Yes..." the speaker exclaimed, "I thought that not meeting you would reduce the chances of being discovered. You really are something else."

"No, you have succeeded. At least before Doctor Mei reminded me, I would not have thought of who the murderer was, and before you said it yourself, I could not be sure who the murderer was among the High Council."

"So I said it myself... That's pretty much in line with the villain's style."

"So, you might as well continue. You probably want to finish what you have to say."

The Speaker pondered for a moment, glanced at the unmoved Soul, and Himiko and Dessidobia who were completely confused about the situation, and smiled with relief, "Alright, let's continue with the topic we were on... Let's start with a group of scumbags preparing to protect humanity."

"This group of scum is composed of politicians, elites and leaders from around the world. Long before they became High Council members of the Fire Moth, they were already enjoying the 'pinnacle' of waking up every morning in villas thousands of meters high and having hot milk served by maids."

There's an old saying in Shenzhou: "The higher you stand, the farther you can see." This applies to them as well. They are at the pinnacle of human society, so what they can see is the whole picture of humanity and... the harbingers of disaster.

The speaker's tone was full of sarcasm towards the High Council; his words spoke of High Council power, yet contained his unique irony.

Even though he was one of them.

"So they chose to secretly unite to deal with this human crisis. They believed that the people under their feet needed their protection, and that it was their duty and responsibility."

"Isn't that an arrogant idea? How can the mission of protecting humanity fall on ordinary people?" the Speaker sneered disdainfully.

"So an organization was formed, namely the Moth of Fire. Its predecessors were based on historical organizations from multiple countries, but also included many new and radical organizations, eventually becoming the last ark to 'protect humanity'."

"But now that the Ark is built, who is its master? In the myth of Noah's Great Flood, there is only one Noah, but there are more than one of us. So we decided on the organization's power structure, which is to distribute all power equally among the founders, and let us jointly lead the Moths of Fire."

"Before the Honkai, the system was very successful. It effectively prevented organizational corruption and the emergence of a situation where one person monopolizes power, which allowed the initial preparations to proceed smoothly."

"They once thought that as long as they worked together, they could defeat the Honkai."

Only in this place did the Speaker separate himself from the other High Council.

In other words, from that time onward, he had already gone astray from the other High Council.

"My opinion was different, but I couldn't decide the structure of the organization on my own, so I didn't offer any suggestions, and at that time I didn't have the idea of changing the Moth of Fire."

"Until one day, I went on a mission to purge traitors who had committed crimes against humanity."

Chapter Fifty-Six: The Great Purge Begins

"The task of executing traitors was assigned to me. At the time, I formed a special team to clean up the 'dirty stuff,' which later became... well, never mind."

The cigarette on the table had burned down to its end, the butt drifting down in a soft rustling sound. The speaker took out another cigarette and asked the group, "Mind if I light another one?"

"..."

No one answered him.

However, the speaker didn't mind and just took it as a tacit agreement.

The man lit a cigarette and placed it on the table. He coughed twice and continued, "Two traitors from my former organization were witnessed by my men. They violated regulations by forcibly using live humans as experimental subjects, most of whom were pregnant women and infants. They then defected for several years before I personally killed them."

"Violation of... rules?" Einstein muttered the word in confusion, seemingly not quite understanding.

"Heh... Strange, isn't it?" The Speaker said to Einstein with a forced smile, "When you joined the Firemoth, this rule had already been removed. Even if we openly oppose this kind of inhumane behavior, as long as it's for the development of weapons and drugs to combat the Honkai, even if we secretly conduct human experiments, we will turn a blind eye."

"How is that possible?" Dessidobia couldn't help but question. "Human experiments in each laboratory are conducted only after obtaining the consent of the individuals involved."

"With their consent? How many people would that be? Ten or twenty?" The speaker flicked his cigarette butt, took a deep breath, and said, "Do you think the advanced technology of the Fire Moth is simply a result of purely normal development?"

"But the developers of the Flame-Chasing Moth are all..."

The speaker interrupted with a wicked grin, saying, "World's best."

"..."

"That's right, everyone here is an elite and a genius. So please ask this genius in front of us, or ask those two geniuses, May and Mobius, if you want to make the fastest progress, do you need to restrain yourself for the sake of moral principles?"

Himiko and Dessidobia looked at the projection of Einstein. At this moment, she silently looked at the Speaker. Faced with the gaze directed at her, she simply closed her eyes and sighed softly.

The answer is already obvious.

"I admit that what you said is correct, but there are also people who retain their morals. They are the majority of the moths that chase the flame, and the majority of humanity. So even if there is darkness that cannot be seen in the light, not everyone accepts that it is a matter of course." Einstein opened his eyes, propped himself up on his elbow with one hand, and said to the Speaker, "You are changing your mind."

"Hmph." The speaker did not deny it. "Let's continue talking about the past."

"After I executed those two traitors, I found the results of their experiment: a child who was modified from the moment of fertilization... no, from the moment he was still an egg and a sperm cell, born through a test tube, and whose brain consciousness was modified."

"A cyborg who surpasses humanity in every way, while unconditionally loving humanity."

The speaker did not reveal the person's name, but said casually, "After the initial diagnosis of the child, the first thing we did was to remove the rule prohibiting human experimentation."

"You wouldn't..." Einstein's face was extremely pale. This almost explicit hint had already told her what the Moth of Fire had done to the child.

Even Himiko and Dessidobia were aware of what had happened.

"We conducted every imaginable extreme test on that child, including testing some highly toxic drugs. The properties of some of the drugs in the Fire Moth were determined during that testing."

"Of course, there are also bone self-healing tests, brain memory tests, insomnia tests, oxygen and water deprivation tests..." He sneered as he rattled off one horrifying experiment after another. "There are also some experiments whose names I can't remember, but in terms of cruelty, they are no less brutal than these."

This made Hun Du frown involuntarily, but she quickly relaxed her brows and continued to maintain her expressionless demeanor.

"In the end, the child survived all the experiments, partly because others intentionally kept him alive. In any case, after eighteen experiments, they stopped torturing him and began to discuss... what became of the child."

The speaker's sinister smile looked particularly eerie through the swirling smoke. He rubbed his fingers together and said, "An outstanding talent in every way, with exceptional adaptability, able to endure human experimentation, and most importantly, he won't resist even if humans want to kill him. He's a useful tool that can be easily controlled."

"You're all a bunch of scum," Himiko.

"You're right," the Speaker said. "And so a particularly interesting situation arose: we disagreed on the decision regarding that child."

Disagreement?

"Heh... That's right. We had a disagreement back then, and it was about how to use a child. It was then that I realized the hidden dangers of the Moth of Fire."

The speaker glossed over the child, emphasizing instead his understanding of the organization's internal structure.

"We can transform into the most terrifying demons, using any means necessary to ensure humanity's survival, even if only 'Noah' remains in the end, abandoning humanity's bottom line and dignity is no problem at all." The Speaker's eyes were sharp, and his words were piercing. "We can also be the gentlest angels, uniting humanity to overcome difficulties, and believing in human emotions like innocent children can create miracles."

"But we cannot allow demons and angels to coexist. A hesitant and indecisive organization cannot fight against the Honkai, nor can it allow humanity to survive."

"Humanity is already gambling, betting everything, so it doesn't matter who leads the way. Whether the final destination is heaven or hell is our own choice. But it absolutely cannot be like this, letting a group of so-called elites with conflicting values and diverging goals gamble with all of humanity!"

As the speaker finished speaking, his gaze swept across the room, and his imposing presence shone through.

After hearing this, Einstein understood why the Speaker had assassinated the other High Council.

The power of the High Council was equal. They wanted to achieve a balance in this way from the very beginning of establishing Moth of Fire. Therefore, no one except Mobius could voluntarily give up their power to achieve absolute unity in decision-making.

"So, you are the 'demon'?"

"If humanity needs me, I can be anyone. In the end, it doesn't matter who becomes the leader."

"No, you're lying," Einstein suddenly said. "Not everyone. You opposed May's Flame-Chaser project to prevent her from taking over after your cleanup plan was complete, because you've already seen the monster created by humanity itself—that child."

"... So what? This is my last wish as a human being, consider it my selfish desire. But now... it doesn't matter anymore." The Speaker chuckled self-deprecatingly.

"But your plan has failed, Lin." Einstein snapped his fingers, and a small figure emerged from the corner. "Let me introduce you to the latest achievement combining Artificial Intelligence, bionic robots, and Titan technology: the Armed Puppet."

The red-haired doll holding a toy-like assault rifle walked up to them.

"They have special signal blockers in their bodies. I had them block the detonation signal after analyzing the bomb's signal."

"After Doctor Mei's reminder, I realized that simply guessing the method wouldn't catch you. After all, this is a moth drawn to a flame, a culmination of human wisdom. Excellent techniques are constantly emerging, and even I can't possibly know them all."

"So I changed my way of thinking. If I were the murderer, and my plan wasn't to seize power, but to eliminate everyone at the High Council, including myself, then what would I do?"

"Using any means necessary, even if it harms the innocent."

The speaker glanced curiously at the Armed Puppet: "So you guessed there would be a bomb on the transport plane, and sent these little puppets to interfere with the signal?"