Hello, Earthlings / Separation

"What is that...?"

At that moment, he had no idea that this was just the prelude to the end of the world.

He never imagined that he would spend the rest of his life fighting "that thing," nor did he realize that the fate of him, the girl, and humanity had already been sealed at this moment.

Humanity will need a savior at the end of the world.

Even if that person doesn't want to be a savior.

Chapter Forty-Six: Hello, Earthlings

"The third one...?"

Hua frowned and rubbed the edge of the pit, the warmth from her touch making her furrow her brows even more.

Before heading to Australia for their assigned mission, they had to complete their exploration of Shenzhou, and this was the last place they needed to investigate.

This is the latest location where the Honkai Energy anomaly was discovered. They arrived here in just a few tens of minutes, but what they saw was still the same crater as before.

"Including this one, the number has reached over a hundred." This time, Immer brought other instruments with him. He squatted down and examined the surrounding environment. "It can be confirmed that they are from outside Earth, but neither satellite surveillance nor human observation has detected anything unusual."

"So it's something extraterrestrial..."

The threat of Honkai was already enough to overwhelm humanity, and now something resembling an alien creature has descended upon Earth at this time?

Extraterrestrials have always been a hotly debated topic, but now they may very well be proven true under the worst-case scenario.

The fact that they sneaked into Earth without leaving a trace is enough to make one's heart sink.

"Wait a minute... it's hot..." Hua, who had originally wanted to continue observing and see if there were any other discoveries, suddenly tensed up.

High-temperature residue is common, but what fell was not a meteorite, but some kind of living, hard-to-detect "thing".

They overlooked one thing: whether something that descends upon Earth might attack humanity.

"Bang!"

A burst of fire erupted from behind Immer, and Hua almost instinctively grabbed his shoulder and pulled him away. The smell of burnt and rotten food filled his nostrils the next second.

The towering flames turned the trees behind them into charcoal, and Hua and Immer quickly drew their weapons.

Under their watchful eyes, an indistinct, transparent phantom flashed by. Hua's excellent dynamic vision allowed her to capture this subtle moment, and she decisively threw a punch in the direction the phantom had moved.

"Boom!"

The hard, metallic texture and a dull thud made Hua quickly pull her hand back, but she was too slow. A terrifying force slammed into her fist, followed by an unstoppable blow that sent her flying.

Immer raised his pistol and fired four shots at the "thing" that had attacked Hua. However, the bullets didn't even graz the outer shell of the thing. The transparent phantom rushed straight towards Immer at an unbelievable speed.

Left with no other choice, Immer put down his computer and stepped back to help Hua, preparing to retreat with her.

But just as the phantom was passing by the computer that Immer had left behind, it suddenly stopped. Judging from its complete transparency, it was indeed standing still.

Meanwhile, Immer had already come to Hua's side, helped Hua up whose shoulder was dislocated, and prepared to leave.

"Wait a minute," Ke Hua suddenly called out to him, "Look over there."

Immer turned around and saw a strange scene. "That is..."

A jet-black, square, seemingly curveless "mechanical arm" emerged from mid-air, picked up the computer that Immer had dropped, and then, as if inspecting it, flipped the entire computer over in the air.

Finally, after removing the back cover, I placed the arm, which had a mechanical style but no metallic sheen, onto the power supply.

At this moment, the computer screen began to refresh rapidly. Almost all the software that Immer had installed on the computer was opened at the same time, and countless words flashed past the input fields.

About seven seconds later, the computer screen went black.

Finally, the screen lit up again, revealing a simple text box in the center.

Hello, Earthlings!

"Data from Previous Civilization?"

Judging from Mei's unusually surprised expression, she was probably not pretending not to know, but genuinely knew nothing about the matter.

Lin nodded.

He recounted to Mei the incident where he and Sakura encountered a data malfunction in the simulation lab. He should have told Mei about it immediately, but she had been conducting closed-door experiments for the past few days and hadn't made a sound even when Lin came to find her.

"Data error... I understand. I'll have Prometheus Unit 2 search the database later." May turned to the large screen beside her and said softly, "II."

"Doctor, what are your orders?"

A mechanical, emotionless voice emanated from the room.

"Were you monitoring the backdoor left by the last hacker intrusion?"

"Yes, as you instructed, I am monitoring the hackers' movements 24 hours a day."

"Has that hacker recently performed any database intrusion operations?"

"No, the backdoor hasn't been used recently."

"Give me a list of people who have recently logged into the database and made changes."

"Yes."

Lin investigated the equipment in the simulation room afterward and found no malfunctions. So the only possibility was a data problem. However, the data left by the Previous Civilization could not have appeared in the simulation room for no reason. There was a significant possibility that it was caused by human intervention.

Since it wasn't done by hackers, it's likely an inside job.

The Cleansing Incident has served as a wake-up call for the Firefly; the enemy may not only be the Honkai, but could also come from within.

"But what a coincidence! We've only just confirmed the existence of the Previous Civilization, and you and Sakura have already encountered this," Mei murmured.

"Confirm?"

"It hasn't been made public yet, but you should contact them in the future." Mei smiled faintly. "Doctor Einstein discovered the ruins of Previous Civilization, as well as the core of the Herrscher of Reason from that Previous Civilization."

"..."

Lin suddenly fell silent.

He looked at Mei's smile, glanced subtly at the door behind him, and finally nodded silently, signaling her to continue.

"Judging from the situation, it is similar to the case of the last Herrscher of the previous Previous Civilization that you described. Next, we will analyze the data attached to its core and use it to create the side key of the Divine Key."

The Herrscher of Reason is Herrscher capable of analyzing human technology. The Herrscher of Reason from the Previous Civilization was the last Herrscher, so her core should also contain an extremely terrifying amount of technological data, which would undoubtedly be a great help to humanity at present.

This may also be the reason why the mechanical humanoid chose to preserve the core of the Herrscher of Reason.

However, what Lin cared about was another word in Mei's words.

"The Key to the Extra Chapters?"

"Simply put, it's Divine Key that's not part of the Divine Key Project. We already have a general direction, but the candidate hasn't been decided yet."

"...I see."

Afterwards, Lin and Mei talked about some other things, mostly about the Poisoned Cocoon Squad and Sakura.

Finally, Lin walked towards the gate.

Mei asked from behind him, "Lin, have you been training new recruits lately?"

"...Um."

"Her helmet looks the same as yours, is she trying to cultivate the same style?"

"No."

Lin Zaimei walked out the door under her meaningful gaze.

"Is it all done?" The girl stood obediently at the door, seemingly having waited for a long time.

"Um."

Lin glanced back at the tightly closed door of the Research and Development Department.

Chapter Forty-Seven Separation

A month and a half is neither a short nor a long time; it passed in the blink of an eye, and it was time for Lin to leave headquarters to carry out his mission.

The investigation into Lin is nearing its end. Those above can see clearly that this kid does nothing but spend all his time hanging out with a girl; he's practically transformed, harmless to an extreme. Mobius hasn't found anything wrong with his mental state either; there seem to be no signs of him Herrscherification of Consciousness.

But the problem lies in this "taking girls around everywhere".

How come they never noticed Lin's strange taste before? No matter how they tried to coax or plead with her, it was no use. Although most of them had come to believe that Lin was truly fighting only for humanity and therefore wouldn't accept any attempts to please her after experiencing so many Honkai, they never expected that Lin was actually a girl who liked helmets.

The reason why the High Council had no prejudice or opinion against Kevin was because his relationship with May was well-known. If they attended a meeting together, Kevin would only stand behind May instead of facing her, which was blatantly saying, "I am nominally one of your men, but if my girlfriend says I'll cut you down, I won't hold back."

However, this can be seen as reassuring to the High Council. Since those who were previously abnormal have now become normal, there is no need to worry.

Are you really leaving?

Lin, who was about to leave, was pulled by his sleeve. He turned around and looked at the girl with disheveled hair and sleepy eyes. He nodded without saying anything.

They had been "married" for over a month, and the relationship between Lin and the girl hadn't changed... yet it seemed to have changed somewhat, something that couldn't be explained directly. He could sense that the girl's emotions were changing more and more each day. Her original curiosity and desire to ask about everything had decreased over time, and with Lin always answering her questions.

Simply put, she's becoming more like a human being.

The process was so fast that Lin was somewhat moved. It took nearly three years for Prometheus Unit 1 to transform from a monotonous Artificial Intelligence in a metal shell into a bionic robot that could be expressionless, cunning, and mischievous, while it took Lin a full twenty years...

"Okay... wait a minute, I'll go out with you."

Lin sighed, sat on the edge of the bed, and listened to the rustling sounds of someone changing clothes behind him. His thoughts had already drifted off to another place—

Lin Cong the Spiral Workshop. He glanced back and saw that no one was coming out. He then turned on his camera, quickly skipped the first long segment of the recording, and went straight to the part where the girl entered the Spiral Workshop.

He observed the girl's every move in the video, not missing a single detail, from her stiff expression and actions to the wrinkles in her clothes.

Soon, their conversation reached the point where Lin was verifying the girl's number and badge.

At this moment, Lin slowed down the entire recording. Even though his speed of information gathering was enough to see every detail of every frame clearly, he still chose to slow it down.

The girl reached her hand inside the neckline of the ball gown-like dress...

From Lin's perspective at the time, he couldn't see what was inside the girl's neckline, but from the camera's perspective, he could clearly see the girl casually grabbing something from her bare neckline...

A badge appeared in his empty hand through the recombination of particles.

"..."

The rest of the content was just the same as the Spiral Workshop. Lin turned off the recording and held the camera in his hand.

Lin didn't rewind the video; he wouldn't have the naive thought that "maybe I'm seeing things wrong."

The facts are right in front of us.

His most important task at this moment should be to notify May's Titan unit to be on high alert, then sound the alarm and have all the soldiers at headquarters take up arms to capture the girl who is waiting for him. Then, whether to conduct live research or kill her directly would be up to Moth to decide.

What should be done most...?

"How can I become human?"

Lin looked down at the video camera in his hand. He thought for a long time, so long that he almost stood still like a pine tree, before he made his decision.

This was the second time he had made this decision; the first time was when Mobius had asked him to handle "that thing."

Lin broke the video camera in his hand in half, threw it into the trash can next to him, and then decisively turned and left.

Back to the present, the girl changed her clothes faster than expected; before he could even finish recalling what she had just done, she was already sitting on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs.

Lin got up and took her boots from the shoe rack. She took them and quickly put them on, then picked up the helmet next to her and put it on.

"... Are you still going to wear it?" Lin glanced at the girl standing next to him after she put on her helmet. "You can smile normally now."

"Hmm, but I don't want to show it to anyone else." The girl shook her head. "It's fine to show it to Lin."

"You'll meet many more people in the future, there's no need to wear this helmet forever."

"Let's talk about it in the future then." The girl tilted her head and thought for a while, then corrected herself, "No, Eri can also watch it."

"..."

Lin didn't know whether being able to get acquainted with Elysia was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was clear that Elysia really liked this girl who had Lin's style. It must have been a rather novel experience for her.

Lin and the girl walked out of the room together and headed towards the Research and Development Department. Before they carried out their mission, Mei had some things to tell them.

At the entrance of the Research and Development Department, Sakura had been waiting for a long time, fully armed. Her armor seemed to have been updated with newer technology, and her ordinary standard-issue sword had been replaced with a weapon that resembled the katana of the Far East.

Lin and Ying nodded to each other silently as a greeting.