Into the Marrow / Worsening

The damage may be limited, but that doesn't mean it has no effect.

Lin stepped onto the railing, his afterimage crashing into the balcony, but he had already leaped onto another balcony. He moved with incredible agility across these complex buildings, searching for a foothold and... an opportunity to strike.

"Hiss—roar—"

The monster sliced through Lin's foothold. He stared expressionlessly at the claws getting closer and closer beneath his helmet. Just as its forelimbs stretched out to their limit, he spun the blade with his left hand and plunged it into the joint of its right limb. He then sidestepped the left claw, drew his pistol, and aimed it at the monster's insect-like compound eyes, which were inches away.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Four shots were fired in quick succession. The first bullet struck the invisible energy and paused for a moment, but the second bullet struck the center of the first bullet, and the third bullet also hit the same point of force precisely!

After the fourth bullet transferred its kinetic energy to the bullets in front, the first bullet finally broke through the energy barrier and entered the monster's compound eye.

"Howl..."

Before the monster could even scream, Lin released the knife from its forelimb, grabbed the angular protrusion of its other compound eye, pressed the gun against it at point-blank range, and then coldly pulled the trigger.

Deprived of his sight, the monster, falling with Lin in mid-air, could only slam its thick tail at Lin's head, but Lin easily dodged it, then drew his knife and stabbed it into the softest part of its abdomen where its tail met!

"Bang!"

The man and the monster crashed heavily to the ground, but Lin was cushioned by the flesh beneath him and was unharmed. However, the monster was not so lucky. After being pierced through the body by Lin, it twitched a few times and then stopped moving.

Then, after it died, its body color changed from a dark purple to a purplish-white similar to that of Honkai Beast.

This is...

Before Lin could even see clearly, the monster's corpse turned into a dark purple dot of light and disappeared. This made him frown. There was no corpse left, which meant that it would be impossible to dissect the monster's body for research and analysis afterward.

However, there was no time to think about such things now. Lin immediately pounced on the crab monster, which was much less mobile. The city was now in what was tantamount to a medium-sized Honkai, with all sorts of monsters rampaging through it. The only good thing was that the monsters themselves did not seem to have the characteristic of Honkai Beast, which were filled with Honkai Energy, and would not infect people and animals into becoming Honkai zombie or Honkai Beast.

He had to do everything he could to save people before the Squad Thirteen arrived.

"Roar--"

The cries of monsters echoed through the city, weeping, screaming, and shouting... After a year, they had returned to the human world.

Upon hearing the transport plane's horn and seeing the trail of blue particles, Lin pulled his knife from the mouth of a snail-shaped monster. He planted the knife in the ground, breathing heavily, and whispered to the people beside him who were too frightened to move, "Stay here and don't move. There will be rescue soon. Follow them."

After he finished speaking, he drew his knife and took two steps forward.

"Hmm—"

Lin covered his helmet, the whispers were louder than ever before, as if they were about to burst his brain...

It was as if they wanted to expel his consciousness.

His body convulsed under the horrified gazes of the group before he collapsed heavily to the ground.

Chapter 193 Entering the Marrow

Tick-tock.

Tick-tock.

Tick-tock...

What is that sound... the sound of water?

Lin stood in the desolate darkness, the cold water beneath his feet reflecting his figure like a mirror.

The muffled sound of dripping liquid echoed in my ears, seemingly coming from somewhere in this darkness.

Lin forgot why he had come here; he simply lifted his leg instinctively and walked into the unknown depths of darkness.

"Splash."

The water was stirred up at his ankles, and he walked aimlessly in one direction, not knowing where he was going.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock...

The sound of the liquid dripping became rapid.

Lin had walked an unknown distance when he looked into the distance and saw a figure with his back to him. The figure was also standing in the water, head down, like a motionless doll.

A somewhat familiar figure from behind.

For some reason, Lin felt as if his heart was being squeezed by a hand. He quickened his pace and rushed toward the figure.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock...

Some rain began to fall on him, and his movements became more exaggerated. The water had somehow risen above his chest, and his movements felt sluggish. He was only one step away from that figure.

"You--"

Lin reached out to the retreating figure and shouted, but was swallowed up by the endless murky seawater in the next second.

The torrential rain continued to fall as he watched the waves on the sea surface sink towards the bottom of the ocean.

No... that's not rain, and this isn't the ocean.

A hint of crimson entered his eyes.

A sea of blood completely buried him.

"Woke up?"

When Lin saw the ceiling above him, which was still the same as before, he heard the voice of a young girl, with a tone that he was very familiar with, full of sarcasm.

He stretched his neck, turned his head, and saw a pretty face that was both familiar and unfamiliar.

It was familiar because Lin could still see that little face on the communicator every day, but it was also unfamiliar... because this was the first time he had seen Mobius after he had shrunk in person.

Her body had shrunk to the point of being smaller than Ling's. Her once perfect figure with its prominent curves had become almost blank. The researcher's white coat uniform looked too big on her, and now she couldn't even put her feet on the ground while sitting on the chair next to the original operating table.

"What? You're so engrossed in watching? Do you have pedophilic tendencies?" Everything had changed, except for Mobius's nasty tone, which remained as unforgiving as ever.

"No... my preferences haven't changed."

"..."

Mobius was taken aback. She glared at Lin, then jumped off her chair, pushed it to the computer, and looked at the data on it. She said to Lin, "You have some nerve, daring to keep this from me for so long. If it weren't for Vill-V explaining the situation to me, I'd probably still be in the dark even if your consciousness had completely turned into Honkai creature."

"I have good news and bad news. I know you'd like to hear the good news first, so I'll start with the bad news."

Mobius's childish voice said sternly, "Your body is very healthy, even abnormally healthy. When you were first sent back to headquarters, you suffered a serious abdominal injury and some minor injuries in other parts of your body. The number of hematopoietic cells in your body is more than five times that of an ordinary person in a short period of time. Your platelets, adrenal mineralocorticoids and thyroid hormones are also abnormally high. Even ordinary Flame-Chaser heal from injuries much slower than you."

"You might be thinking that this is the same as before, where Honkai Energy is eroding your body and causing it to develop into Honkai Beast. Unfortunately, if that were the case, it would be much simpler." After reviewing the data again, she pressed the delete button to clear the data, walked to Lin's side, and lifted his shirt. "No excessive Honkai Energy was detected in your body. The Honkai Sickness Serum is functioning normally."

"But the 'composition' of your body is different. Your hair is the main manifestation of this. Only by deep testing of the silvery-white part can Honkai Energy be detected. Moreover, it will accelerate its conversion rate when stimulated. Does that sound familiar? That's right, it's similar to Honkai erosion."

"After discovering this, I realized where you might have a problem, so I checked your heart area, and guess what I found?"

Mobius smiled coldly, but there was a lingering complexity in her eyes.

Lin waited silently for her answer.

"A 'core'."

"..."

"After all living beings are transformed into Honkai creature, they will have a high-concentration Honkai Energy core in their bodies, similar to a heart. This law applies to everything from ordinary Honkai zombie to Upper-class Honkai Beast and Herrscher. However, except for Herrscher, other Honkai creature only condense their core after the transformation is complete."

"In short... your situation is similar to those hosts who have been transformed into Herrscher."

Herrscher...

Lin looked down at his heart area. Was that human heart, or the core of Herrscher...?

"Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you've become Herrscher, just that the situation is similar. All Herrscher transform in an instant, even faster than Honkai Beast and Honkai zombie." Mobius could see through Lin's thoughts. "I call your current situation a 'Pseudo-Herrscher.' The strength of the Pseudo-Core is far inferior to that of a real Herrscher, and you can't even draw on Honkai Energy yourself."

"However, if things continue like this, I cannot guarantee what kind of 'thing' you will become."

Memories of being Honkai Energy resurface, and this time, he will not only die, but may also become a monster that threatens humanity.

Lin stared at the ceiling in thought for a long time, then opened his mouth...

"Stop. Your thoughts are like pig's ass, not only numerous but also foul-smelling, so don't let your mind wander."

Mobius crossed her arms, turned her head away, and then turned back after a while.

With a blank expression, she spread her right hand. "Now, I have some good news for you."

"Vill-V and I kept your condition a secret. Only you, me, and Vill-V knew about your health. The High Council knew nothing about it."

They've been hiding it?

"Heh, you two can keep it from me, but I can't keep it from others?" Mobius sneered, not knowing who he was mocking. "Thank me, because if those lunatics who are practically possessed by demons find out that you've actually become Herrscherification, they won't be satisfied until they drag you into all the live experiments you did before and then stimulate you to transform."

"They haven't dismantled the Eighth Herrscher's host girl yet, simply because they can't guarantee whether the Eighth Herrscher's core and Herrscher consciousness will still be useful after they're separated."

Chapter 194 Deterioration

"Damn it, that's the downside of shrinking your body." Mobius sullenly pushed the chair around. "I'm going to make Vill-V make me a chair that I can move around freely without having to get off."

"How is Svatogor 51 doing?"

"Not bad, the casualties are under a thousand. You took care of a lot of Honkai Beast before the Squad Thirteen arrived, and Elysia and Sakura handled the situation very quickly, effectively curbing the spread of casualties."

Upon hearing the casualty figures, Lin silently stared at the ceiling, listening to the sound of Mobius typing on the keyboard.

After a long while, he asked again, "Is that Honkai Beast?"

"Of course, but they don't belong to our 'world.' Instead, they should come from the Quantum Sea. Their composition is different from that of ordinary Honkai Beast. To explain it in terms of knowledge that even a layman like you can understand... you know the famous story of Schrödinger's cat, right?" Mobius held up a finger with his back to Lin. "When you shoot at the cat in the box without observing the cat inside, the cat is in a superposition of being dead and alive."

"When a person observes the cat in the box, the multiple possibilities of the quantum disappear instantly under the influence of the observation, collapsing into a single eigenstate, which is called quantum collapse."

"These Honkai Beast have similar characteristics. Their state is a superposition-like state. Our Intrinsic World can only have limited influence on these monsters from the Quantum Sea, a place that science cannot fully explain. Furthermore, they do not spread Honkai Energy outward through the superposition state, and their corpses return to the Quantum Sea after death, turning into the most basic particles."

"Of course, you'll definitely ask me why I know so much. It's because during the time you were unconscious, Mei had already analyzed those Honkai Beast quite thoroughly and also found a way to turn the superposition state into a collapsed state, which is the Second Herrscher's ability."

After finishing her speech in one breath, Mobius didn't give Lin time to digest it. She turned around in her chair and stared straight at Lin: "Instead of worrying about Svatogor 51, you should worry about yourself first. The people above are investigating why you and Vill-V were in Svatogor 51. Although Vill-V used the excuse that you were 'on a date,' whether they were really fooled by that excuse... hehe, it's hard to say."

Those in the know about the Moth of Fire are in a state of constant fear. The internal chaos hasn't completely affected normal operations yet, but it may only be a matter of time.

At this moment, Lin remembered what the Gray Serpent had said.

Organizations and beliefs...

"Mobius, can you put a small bomb in my heart?"

"Click." Mobius's fingers slammed down on the keyboard, her long, dark green curly hair swaying as she turned her head, her snake-like eyes reflecting Lin Pingjing's calm face.

"Humans are fragile creatures, easily swayed by emotions and the opinions of others. I can say without shame that my lifelong ideal is to liberate humanity from this boring biological form. So, as my possession, you should also have the same ideal and not be swayed by the emotions and opinions of others," Mobius said coldly. "So, you want to put another leash on yourself for the sake of the 'stability' of the Fire Moth? As its master, I will not agree to that."

"..."

Although the message was ultimately conveyed, there was an overall subtle feeling that the dog owner was against spaying or neutering their pet dog.

"From now on, you are forbidden from leaving the house. I will be monitoring your physical condition closely. When you are conducting this research in my lab, you cannot disclose it to anyone else..." Mobius added, as if considering something, "If you leak it, I will not be happy either, understand?"

Lin nodded after hearing this.

In the gloomy corridor, an even colder figure was waiting. Lin glanced at the two pistols at his waist, which were holstered and did not exude the power of the Divine Key.

"The Phoenix usually separates the Herrscher Core, and its existence is extremely dangerous to ordinary people." Kevin saw Lin's gaze and explained, "The Fifth Divine Key was given to Su, and only someone like Su can control the destructive power of that thing."

"..."

"I have something to say to you, Lin."

"..." Lin exhaled, "Me too."

"That's terrible."

Delta stood beside the ruins, forcing herself to calm down but still unable to hold back her emotions. Seeing the city ravaged by Honkai Beast, she realized what humanity had been fighting all along. Seeing the Honkai Beast and the aftermath for the first time made her waver.

"Is this... the Honkai?"

"CM-079, what are you doing? It's time to go. Leave the rest of the work to the logistics department." The commander's voice came through the terminal. Delta realized what was happening and hurriedly headed back to the transport plane of the Branch 10.

"Waaaah... Sister..."

Delta stopped abruptly, raising her head in horror, her trembling eyes fixed on a distant pile of ruins.

Hesitant and fearful, she took a step and walked toward the sound of crying.

Swallowing hard, Delta's gaze fell on the small figure kneeling on the ground as she walked past the ruins.

"Elder sister..."