The True Beginning / Riddles ...

After holding out for a minute and a half, the shelter's defenses were breached by sharp roots that burrowed into the crowd of civilians who were completely unaware of what was happening, amidst terrified screams from inside.

Then... he pierced one of them hard, pinning him to the wall of the shelter. His flesh and blood visibly disappeared under his skin, leaving only a dried-out skin.

A flower bud, blooming alluringly, exudes an intoxicating fragrance...

Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Real Beginning

"What kind of equipment is this...?"

The Sixth Herrscher frowned as she dodged Kevin's attack, examining the device on Kevin's body that allowed him to fly in the air like herself, and pondered to herself.

It looks like an anti-gravity flight device, but in Soul's memory, only Lin has ever used such a miniaturized flight device. Others, whether in terms of physical fitness or reaction speed, do not meet the requirements for wearing it, not to mention the Neural Connection that would damage the nerves if used.

Kevin's speed increased, and with the Sixth Herrscher carrying Lin while dealing with him, most of his abilities were unusable.

"Snort..."

The Sixth Herrscher snorted coldly, and without even considering it, threw away Lin in her hand. Since she had failed in both of her purposes in keeping Lin, she might as well let him fall to the ground and smash to pieces.

"Buzz!"

But to her surprise, half a second after she threw Lin down, Kevin's attack faltered, causing her to stop her original plan to engulf him in the Black Mist.

A beam of light ripped across the sky, and a Titan flew at a speed far exceeding that of other Titans, rushing to her location and opening its cockpit to catch Lin.

Lin, who had been unconscious, coldly opened his eyes, pulled the scythe from his abdomen with his only remaining right hand, and only a small, inconspicuous glint of emerald green remained in his pupils.

"Humans..." The Sixth Herrscher murmured with a cold laugh after a moment of stunned silence.

Lin fell into the cockpit and sat on Prometheus's body. The robot girl put the helmet that had been prepared beforehand on his head. This time, not only Prometheus Unit 1, but also Prometheus Unit 3 joined the Neural Connection, and the power achieved increased exponentially, instantly bringing his consciousness back to its peak state.

The first one's eyes flashed with an astonishing green light, and she poured all her computing power into assisting Lin's mental work. "Verification successful, skip the detection phase, the system will remain in its previous state."

"Enter combat readiness and deploy fully armed."

Lin currently only has one hand, but the First One can take his left hand and control the other side for him. They don't need to communicate; a connection from the depths of their consciousness allows them to work together seamlessly to get the Titan running.

Lin's Titan-like Floating Cannon, along with Kevin's two barely controllable Floating Cannon, fired together at the Sixth Herrscher.

Because Kevin cannot make Neural Connection, his spatial calculation and control over the Floating Cannon are much lower than Lin's. However, he does not rely on the Floating Cannon for attacks; they are merely used as a means of cover.

"Boom!"

The cannons fired in unison around the Sixth Herrscher. At the moment of the attack, Lin used the system of the first Titan to intervene in the system of the second Titan. He did not allow the other Titans to attack immediately, but instead issued attack orders in another direction intermittently two seconds after this round of attacks.

The Sixth Herrscher had just returned to reality after using the Phase Transfer Device to jump to another location, was met with an attack right in front of her in her shrunken pupils.

"Bang!"

The attack was successful.

The Sixth Herrscher appeared amidst the smoke of the explosion, her gaze cold and menacing. Herrscher shield protected her, but this time the attack struck her squarely.

Have I been seen through?

The timing of each entry and exit of the Phase Transfer Device is different and is influenced by the user's willpower, but the Sixth Herrscher has no such worries. Lin has been calculating the intervals between each use of the Sixth Herrscher and the direction she habitually moves, but she has not noticed at all.

"Lin, Titan is equipped with the latest micro-missiles that can destroy Herrscher shields." As soon as the First Ark finished speaking, the screen in the cockpit displayed all the information about the various weapons on the Titan. This massive amount of information was something Lin hadn't encountered in a long time, but in his Neural Connection state, he could process this information as before without needing to adapt.

"Cough--"

Coughing up a mouthful of blood, Lin, whose pain sensation was numbed, spun his fingers across the keyboard, selecting the weapon he needed.

The stronger the Neural Connection, the greater the side effects. He was currently Neural Connection to both the first and third Titans simultaneously, and was also distracted by directing the second Titan. Within just one minute, he was showing signs of brain death.

"A pile of scrap metal... is this all the confidence you have?"

The Sixth Herrscher coldly swept her gaze over the Floating Cannon and Titans that were still relentlessly attacking the shields.

Kevin's alarm bells rang. After noticing the Sixth Herrscher's expression, he quickly retreated. The instant he made his retreat, a massive Black Mist surged out of the Sixth Herrscher's body like a tidal wave.

Ten meters... fifty meters...

The Black Mist that originally enveloped only the Sixth Herrscher expanded to a radius of seventy meters. Two Titans were unable to dodge in time and were swallowed up. In less than ten seconds, the two wrecked and unrecognizable pieces of scrap metal fell to the ground.

"Corrosion of matter?" Kevin's expression was serious. He had already heard that the Sixth Herrscher's power could cause cells to die, which manifested as the ability to corrode any matter it came into contact with.

However, judging from the condition of those two Titans, the Sixth Herrscher's speed and effectiveness in eroding Non-biological entity matter will be relatively poor.

"Kevin, beam particles."

After a long silence, upon hearing Lin's voice again, Kevin's expression remained unchanged. He coldly replied, "Understood."

Su dared not breathe as he stared at the tree root that had pierced through him and absorbed him in the blink of an eye. His blood seemed to freeze, rendering him completely immobile.

"Run!"

Ragna and Far grabbed Sue's hand and dragged him out of the shelter. Countless terrifying, tentacle-like tree roots burrowed into the shelter, and within seconds, most of the people inside had turned into human skin.

This refuge houses tens of thousands of people.

But when Ragna and Far pulled Sura out of the car they were trying to rescue and shoved her into it, and he stared blankly at the demon roots that were "feeding," no one else escaped from there.

The engine started, and Far pressed the accelerator to the floor, sending the car speeding away. Some tree roots seemed to have noticed the fleeing guys and gave chase.

"Doctor Laguna ..."

"Stop looking, Sue, there's nothing we can do about those things..." Ragna's face was grave and grim as she glanced in the rearview mirror. "It seems the Fifth Branch couldn't withstand the massive Honkai ..."

"What about the patient? What should we do with the patient?"

While they were hiding in the shelter, in order to prevent the Honkai Energy emitted from infecting others, the Honkai Sickness were sent to another shelter. Sue remembers that there was a little girl who was no more than four years old in there!

"... Director Fal." Ragna didn't accuse Sue of anything; she simply looked calmly at Far, who was driving.

"We are doctors." Fard jerked the steering wheel, making a sharp turn to shake off the tree roots. "We couldn't save those people, but we must save those we can. Saving lives is our duty."

"Go to the shelters that haven't been attacked yet, get them out, and then treat the critically ill patients."

Chapter Ninety-Eight: Riddles

A torn sky, Honkai earth—the apocalyptic scene is playing out once again in this disaster-stricken city.

The Floating Cannon's fire was blocked by an inconspicuous shield, and the scythe severed the Floating Cannon that Kevin couldn't control. The Sixth Herrscher used the unexploded debris as a springboard to rush towards Kevin.

"Boom!"

The sharp cannon fire shot out at lightning speed. The attacks from the Floating Cannon were completely ineffective against her, so she ignored the tickling attacks and charged straight at Kevin.

With the aid of the Spatial Fracture Device, Kevin might be faster than her, but that device also has a cooling interval. Kevin's proficiency in using that small anti-gravity device is not high, so even if her speed is not the astonishingly high speed of the Fourth Herrscher, she can still catch Kevin in mid-air, a field where there is not much room for dodging.

She's not one of those fools who used up all her power at once, leaving humans an opening. As long as she defeats the Fire-Chasing Moths step by step, no one can stop her.

"Sizzle—"

As she charged toward Kevin, a discordant noise rang out from her shield. Before the Sixth Herrscher could figure out what was happening, the entire shield shattered, and the explosion engulfed her from directly behind.

Lin stared at the Sixth Herrscher shrouded in thick smoke. He was missing an eye, so he had a blind spot in half of his field of vision. However, the means he could use to perceive things through his Neural Connection were not limited to vision, so he used his limited energy to explore his environment.

The piercing bullet shattered the Herrscher's shield, but Lin didn't expect the power of this attack to defeat the Sixth Herrscher. Moreover... he felt that, given the Sixth Herrscher's performance, which was not comparable to the previous Herrscher, it was very likely that the bullet hadn't actually hit her.

The wind shifted to his side and rear. Lin spun around with Titan at top speed, only to be met by Black Mist resembling a dragon. Kevin used the remaining Floating Cannon to attack the appearing Sixth Herrscher, buying Lin half a second to escape the Black Mist's attack range.

"Hiding his true intentions in a useless attack, he's always resorting to such petty tricks." The Sixth Herrscher's expression subtly changed as she watched Lin barely escape the Black Mist's limit.

To be precise, that's not the limit. As long as the Honkai Energy and her control over the power are sufficient, the Black Mist can spread almost without limit. Even now, she can make the Black Mist envelop Changkong City and decompose all the people here.

But if she did that, her body would also be affected by the backlash from the Herrscher Core and collapse. Even Herrscher has to pay a price for using her powers, otherwise she wouldn't have bothered to create that tree to clean up the people in the shelter in her place.

The current limit is a range that will not allow the shield to be maintained without any gaps or put any strain on her body.

If she had tried to make the Black Mist attack Lin, she might have exposed a weakness to Kevin was watching her intently from the side.

Lin stopped at that distance, so close yet so far, just a hair's breadth away from touching him, clearly using himself to lure the Sixth Herrscher into a trap.

Rather than hiding penetrating bullets within the attacks of the Floating Cannon, this was Lin's true plan.

"Your body won't last much longer. Let me wait until you die of Honkai Sickness or brain death before I kill Kevin." The scythe in her hand transformed into a pair of giant claws, and she extended her scarlet tongue to lick the blood still clinging to it. "As for my familiars, your defenses will collapse sooner or later. Just wait a little longer..."

Yes, they are the ones who should be anxious now, but the longer she delays, the more advantageous the situation will be for her.

"Oh, right, I just remembered that your behavior at the beginning didn't completely match what you said."

The Sixth Herrscher dodged the penetrating bullet, flashed forward and stabbed her claw into the Floating Cannon, turned her head and revealed a sweet smile and voice, "Your initial target was that group of Honkai zombie, which means you really thought I considered myself human, but in the subsequent conversation, you acted as if you never had any expectations of me."

"You're just fooling yourself."

The beam of light swept out, but was deflected by the Sixth Herrscher's shield and landed in Changkong City, piercing through the middle of a building, causing half of the building to collapse.

"You've probably thought about it too, given how special the Sixth Herrscher is, whether her soul might still linger in this body."

"But you can't let yourself have any illusions, otherwise you'll waver, and you'll be gambling when you fire the gun, right?"

"So, shall we guess again? Is the soul... still alive?"

"Team Member Lin." This sentence completely transformed into Hun's tone.

Lin paused for a moment as the mechanical finger controlling the Titan paused firing.

Hesitate.

The Sixth Herrscher smiled coldly, and the Black Mist around her immediately gathered to block Kevin's attack. She activated the Phase Transfer Device and appeared directly in front of the stopped Titan's cockpit. Her right claws mercilessly tore through the metal, and her left hand, which was poised to strike, stabbed in fiercely the moment she saw Lin appear.

"Bass!"

Lin, who was wearing a helmet, was pierced through by the claws along with Prometheus Unit 1.

The Sixth Herrscher seemed to see the astonished expression on Lin's face beneath her helmet. She cruelly curled her lips into a smile.

"Doctor Spacy, I have some bad news."

Spasi silently watched the battle unfold, took a deep breath, and asked Einstein, "Is there any worse news?"

The forces were divided into three groups, totaling thirty Autonomous Titan. Kevin took four, Hen took four, and the rest were scattered throughout the city to defend various fronts. The actual results were... not optimistic.

Just as the Sixth Herrscher had predicted, with the forces dispersed, the defense proved inadequate against the endless stream of Honkai creature.

Not far from the Fifth Branch, ten Titans and Himiko's forces are fighting against Emperor-class Honkai Beast. However, the number of casualties among the combat personnel is still rising, and the losses are heavy. The condition of the Emperor-class Honkai Beast does not seem to have decreased much.

There has been no positive news from Kevin, who was tasked with delaying the Sixth Herrscher, and from Hen, who was tasked with defeating the Giant Tree. It's safe to say that if things continue like this, the destruction of the Fifth Branch and even the entire Far East is only a matter of time.

The Sixth Herrscher, whose way of thinking is far superior to the previous Herrscher, will likely eliminate the weakened Flamemoths immediately after destroying the Far East. This would prevent humanity from finding an effective solution to stop her in a short period of time.

In this situation, Spasi couldn't imagine any worse news.

"Based on air quality tests in your area, the pollen emitted by the flowers on that tree appears to have a similar composition to the Black Mist of the Sixth Herrscher."

"... So, does that mean that pollen can also cause cell death?"

"The effect may be less, but... it's the same for humans."

"Even worse news...?"

Spasi sighed.

"Are you thinking about how to write your will?" Einstein asked.

Spasi scoffed, "A will? Can you even write one?"

"I don't have that kind of thought."

"What a coincidence, me too." Spasi's gaze was cold and piercing. "I'm not one to spend my days thinking about how to die gracefully."

They are humanity's last line of defense; even if it means biting with their teeth, they will take a piece of flesh from these monsters that are trying to destroy humanity.

Chapter Ninety-Nine: The End

"Bass!"

After piercing through Lin and Prometheus Unit 1 together, the Sixth Herrscher's eyes shone with a bloodthirsty light, and she couldn't help but smirk.

Success!

While delaying is the safest approach, there are too many variables, and we cannot allow Lin to live.

This method of tearing humanity apart from the inside out, revealing cruelty and eeriness beneath its calm exterior, is what she should be doing.

It doesn't matter if she doesn't know why she's laughing.