An Accident / Probing Consciousness

"What do you mean by 'also'..."

"Roar----"

Suddenly, a chilling howl drowned out the city's clamor, silencing their conversation.

"Roar!"

Then, the howl drew closer.

Chapter Fifty-Eight: An Accident

"What's that sound? A movie commercial?" The agent looked in the direction of the sound, puzzled. It's normal for commercial areas in the city to have large screens showing commercials, such as movie trailers.

But wasn't that a bit too loud?

Eden also looked in that direction with some curiosity; she remembered that it seemed to be the construction area that had been cordoned off today...

Wait a minute, this area was only sealed off today... why are we hearing howls?

"Bang!"

The loud bang stunned them, and the violent shaking of the car made them instinctively look towards the source of the bang.

A bizarre, gigantic creature, a mixture of deathly pale and fleshy pink, was licking its claws on the ground not far ahead.

Its body blocked the entire street, and beneath it lay a huge crater in the ground.

"What is that...?" Eden had not yet realized what the appearance of that monster meant.

"Howl--"

The monster roared to the sky, then overturned an oncoming truck with a single claw. Its massive body did not affect its speed at all; like a high-speed train, it began to rampage. Buildings beneath its body were like blocks of tofu, easily collapsing with the slightest scratch.

"Squeak—"

The agent finally realized what was happening. She started the engine, put it in reverse, and floored the accelerator, trying to get away from the monster.

"Th—what is that?!"

The panic caused by the monster spread instantly. People scattered and fled, screaming, while the monster recklessly stretched out its claws to crush them.

However, they overlooked one thing: living things tend to pay attention to more active "things," such as... a car that is going too fast and is moving away from it.

"Howl!" It opened its blood-red maw, stretched its entire body, and aimed at Eden and the others' car like a slingshot.

"No! Don't come any closer!" the economist cried out in terror, while Eden, unable to maintain his composure, stared wide-eyed, sweating profusely.

It was as if they would be crushed in the next second.

"Boom!"

The monster's body soared into the air, hurtling towards them like a cannonball.

Oh no...

Many things flashed through Eden's mind like a fleeting glance.

Death comes so suddenly and without mercy.

There was no romantic scene depicting the dying moment in an opera, no deeply moving lines, and no meaningful words about death in a song.

It simply arrived, and that's all.

"Bang!"

Eden slumped in the passenger seat, feeling dizzy and disoriented. Her mind was still foggy and she couldn't quite process what had happened. The airbag deployment had buried her face in it, while her manager had already passed out.

They were not crushed into a pancake and kneaded together with the car.

What is going on...

Just before the monster landed, something seemed to hit it, not directly, but the shockwave from the landing still sent the car flying.

Surviving the ordeal brought her no joy, because now, she was no longer certain of being saved.

"Bang!"

"Roar!"

The monster's roar was nearby, accompanied by the deafening sounds of destruction in the city, making Eden tremble as he covered his ears.

But she also noticed that the monster's voice seemed a little different than before...

It was like the roar of a wounded wild beast, trying to intimidate its enemy.

After much hesitation, Eden cautiously stuck his head out of the window...

"Bang!"

A streak of light, barely visible to the naked eye, struck the monster's head head-on, and purple blood gushed from its wound like a fountain.

The streak of light stopped above the monster's head, revealing its form.

A person wearing bizarre armor and a helmet held a long knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. It seemed that the wound was caused by the bloodstained knife.

Beside the monster and the helmeted man lay an overturned small transport plane, which was also unfamiliar to them. It was very likely that the transport plane that had knocked the monster away was that transport plane.

Who is that person? What is he doing? Isn't he afraid of that monster?

While she was still completely confused, the helmeted man's next action left her utterly stunned.

As the monster tried to catch the insect on its head with its terrifying eyes, the helmeted man, holding a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other, fired the gun while simultaneously plunging the knife into the monster's eyes.

Blood splattered everywhere in an instant.

The helmeted man, like a butterfly fluttering about, nimbly seized the monster's wildly slapping claws and swung them away. While suspended in mid-air, he slashed off the monster's two pitifully small legs compared to its claws.

As he used one hand to prop himself up and flip himself up, the monster crashed to the ground. Having lost its sight and legs, it could only blindly attack its surroundings with its two front paws.

The helmeted man leaped onto its body again, gripped the long sword with both hands, and mercilessly plunged it into a certain part of the monster's body.

Twist it hard—

"Whoosh."

Pinkish-purple, foul-smelling blood splattered on Eden's dazed face.

"..."

The monster stopped moving.

"How are you?"

Another voice jolted Eden back to her senses. The hot blood on her face was still emitting a foul odor, but she couldn't care less about anything else. She turned her head and saw a pink-haired woman with a similarly strange appearance standing coldly next to the car.

"I... I..." Eden stammered, unsure of what to say.

What is all of this?

The pink-haired woman asked calmly, "Is there anyone else in the car who needs help?"

"Yes, yes! There are still people in the car! Please help me!" Eden nodded quickly.

At that moment, the helmeted man pulled the knife out of the monster's body, leaped down from its nearly seven or eight-meter-tall frame, and landed in front of the car.

"Yes... a speed-specialized Honkai Beast, a completely new type... has caused chaos, please clean up the mess immediately..." He seemed to be talking to someone, and his calm voice sounded somewhat familiar to Eden, "...after being born, it was not stopped immediately, and it broke through the encirclement. It can jump to a height of nearly fifty meters... Yes, I understand."

After ending the communication, the helmeted man said to the woman who stepped forward to cut open the locked car door, "There's a new mission."

"I understand. Let's rescue them first."

The helmeted man nodded, then went to the passenger side door. The metal door in his hand was similar to the building in the monster's hand; he ripped it off with a casual pull, then touched Eden's seatbelt and lifted her out.

"Thank you..." Eden breathed a sigh of relief. Although he still didn't know what had happened when he fell to the ground, he was now considered saved.

"... Eden?"

The helmeted man asked in confusion.

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Consciousness Exploration

The swaying carriage emitted a faint creaking sound.

The pink-haired woman's expressionless face revealed no emotion, while the helmeted man, sitting upright like a statue, remained silent. This extremely oppressive atmosphere placed immense pressure on Eden and her agent.

What they encountered was no longer a sudden incident.

Eden's turbulent emotions gradually calmed down amidst the swaying of the train carriage.

On the contrary, their minds became active.

"Um..." she cautiously began, wanting to ask where the two men planned to take them.

"Eden announced that her next tour will be held in central Australia. Every year, she chooses to hold a concert in Australia in mid-July to comfort the Australian people who have suffered great losses due to the bushfires."

The helmeted man's muffled voice from inside the helmet suddenly reached Eden's ears. He remained motionless, not even moving a finger, but he was reciting information about Eden.

"You... know me?"

"No one will not know you."

Lin coldly watched Eden and her agent; such a major blunder in this mission was unexpected.

Because when Himiko notified them, the mutated Honkai Beast had already been born. It was a speed-specialized Honkai Beast broke through the encirclement of the nearby soldiers at an extremely fast speed and went into the bustling city.

Before Lin and his team could return to their base, they had to change course. At the critical moment, Lin, who was on the transport plane, noticed that the Honkai Beast was wreaking havoc and was about to crush a car. He then piloted the transport plane into the Honkai Beast.

Then came the scene Eden saw.

"I will give you two choices next, and I will not offer any other suggestions," Lin said in a chilling tone.

"Does that mean... we make all the choices ourselves?"

"The witnesses just now would all have made the same choice, but your influence is too great, so I was the one to carry it out."

"...I see."

Eden easily realized that as a world-renowned singer, her disappearance or any statement she made would cause a huge uproar in the world. These two people were obviously from an organization, and the monster was something they were hiding, so they had to be treated specially.

"Speak freely." At this point, she was also a little curious. What exactly were these two people and that monster? Could his choice be related to them?

"You can choose to go back to your lives. We will not interfere with you much, but as a precaution, we will have a psychologist hypnotize you to a certain extent."

"Change memories?"

"Won't."

In fact, unless brain surgery is performed, it is virtually impossible to modify specific memories. Moreover, given Eden and her peers' age, their brains are already fully developed, so even if memory surgery were performed, the results would be extremely poor.

Perhaps it will be possible to achieve this after further research into consciousness-related aspects, but for now, all we can do is use hypnosis to give them some simple suggestions to try to prevent them from casually revealing the Honkai Beast.

"... That's the first option, right? What about the second one?"

"..."

Why did you stop talking?

Lin Weilan's blue viewing window remained fixed on Eden's face. "Join us."

Eden remained silent for a moment, then a subtle smile crept onto his lips, "Heh... Excuse me, is there any alcohol in the car?"

"Arrive."

Kevin kept staring at the empty seat in front of him, but in reality, it wasn't empty; there was a star there.

This race claims that in changing their very existence, they abandoned their physical form and used a special Honkai Energy- resistant, metal-like material to create movable bodies. This material is almost transparent, so they can also be said to have no appearance. When they are not moving, their existence cannot be detected by the naked eye.

Furthermore, they are affected by this body in many ways. For example, emotions are lost during the body change process. Apart from the difference in logic caused by different memories, they are practically highly consistent rational thinking machines.

According to them, the non-quantifiable existence of emotions is the root cause of their failure to defeat the Honkai planet and its eventual demise. Therefore, rational thinking from the root is the correct approach.

After receiving information about the Honkai of other planets, according to the terms of the deal, this Starflower will come to the Shenzhou Branch as an explorer to conduct research.

Out of caution, the Fire-Chasing Moths only allowed one Star to come, and only within the Shenzhou Branch; they did not lower their guard against this mysterious race.

Xingcai did not share her knowledge of fighting Honkai with humanity, nor did humanity directly reveal the Herrscher Core to Xingcai; neither side has fully disclosed their secrets to the other.

"Okay, please lead me on a tour of the human anti- Honkai base." Xingcai made a strange sound that sounded like multiple voices combined together, but Kevin and Elysia could understand what she was saying.

Kevin and Elysia led Xingcai on a tour, as agreed upon. They wouldn't allow Xingcai to freely visit the Fire Moth's base, not even a branch.

However, Xingcai was surprisingly easy to talk to. Perhaps their way of thinking is different from that of humans. In transactions that humans might need some time to make a decision, they gave a reply in less than a minute.