"Speaking of luck, it's quite something, isn't it? Asia took the brunt of the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Honkai Eruptions. Its wealthy coastal regions are nothing but ruins now."
"Europe went through the Fifth, Sixth, and Eleventh Honkai Eruptions; even the European Branch was almost wiped out. On top of that, Southern Europe, with its ideal climate, was also hit by the Fourth Eruption. The normally calm White and Black Seas saw their water levels rise sharply, submerging countless settlements."
"The Mu Continent suffered the Eighth and Ninth Honkai Eruptions, and we still haven't located the Bubble Universe it collapsed into. Naturally, being so close, Australia was also affected and has very few residents left."
"Africa wasn't hit quite as hard directly, but its development level was already low. Before the Honkai began, the United Government never managed to establish effective administration there. Now, with war, disease, and Honkai all striking at once, it's become a living hell.
"Occasionally, some people make it to the North African coast and are integrated into our system, but most survivors have retreated into the rainforests, living like their ancestors did fifty thousand years ago."
"So, adding it all up, the Americas have suffered comparatively less destruction. Of course, they haven't been spared from Honkai outbreaks, they just haven't endured the devastation wrought by a Herrscher."
Inside the spacious aircraft cabin, Mei was reviewing a stack of paper files, summarizing the global situation. Michael leaned back in his seat with his eyes closed, wishing he could just fall asleep and wake up at their destination.
But it was just an act. Even as a duplicate, he still lacked the ability to sleep, something he'd lost long ago. So, the more he tried to rest with his eyes closed, the more awake and alert he became.
"So, you chose the Americas for this inspection trip... are you trying to see what kind of blessed place this is, that somehow managed to avoid the first eleven Honkai Eruptions?"
"Definitely not."
Mei instinctively reached to push up glasses on the bridge of her nose, but her fingers met empty air. She then wanted to rub her sore eyes, but remembering the blue colored contacts she wore, she ultimately resisted the urge.
Her hairstyle had also changed. Her perpetually unchanged bangs were hastily combed back, gathered with the rest of her snow-white dyed hair and piled atop her head.
She had an incredible amount of hair, seemingly directly proportional to her workload, which felt fundamentally wrong—normally, it should be inversely proportional, right? Could she be the legendary "Herrscher of Hair"?
Just a bad joke...
She wasn't wearing her usual white lab coat either, having swapped it for a standard uniform.
At first glance, who would guess this was Mei and not Kevin Kaslana in drag? Let alone Michael; even Mei herself hadn't quite come to terms with her current appearance.
Disguise was naturally necessary to gather more authentic information, and Michael's duplicate was no exception. He'd altered his face to resemble Kalpas—aside from the full-face scars, he actually looked quite handsome. Anyway, even Kalpas's official ID photo in the Fire Moth archives showed him wearing his mask, so no one would recognize this face.
Even the two pilots had no idea who they were actually carrying.
"The Fire Moth planned long ago to gather the world's remaining two billion humans onto the relative haven of the Americas. It makes management and production more convenient, and the continent's geography can absolutely accommodate that many people.
"To date, over 1.2 billion people have already been settled here. If I recall correctly, that plan was submitted to you for review 275 days ago, and you approved it the very same day."
"Two hundred and seventy-five days ago..."
Michael tilted his head, pretending to think. It didn't actually require thought; it was just his usual slacking off.
He didn't feel particularly awkward about it, though. After all, he was just a duplicate. The slacking off was done by the original Michael; what did it have to do with this recently created duplicate?
More than any non-existent embarrassment, he felt a sense of worry:
"Mei, you should be well aware of the Twelfth Herrscher's Authority. No, wait, its Authority might not be the same as the Previous Era's, but regardless, gathering everyone in one region is like handing the Herrscher an easy opportunity to annihilate everyone at once, just like we did to the Tenth Herrscher."
"Rest assured, I wouldn't make such a basic mistake. However..."
"However?"
Mei tapped the end of her ballpoint pen against her head and let out a long sigh.
"Michael, we have to consider humanity's own opinions, their own desires."
"Humanity... itself?"
"Mhm."
Mei nodded firmly. Her massive amount of hair, piled up like a small mountain on her head, made the sharp nod seem perilous to Michael, who had a brief, irrational fear that it might suddenly collapse like an avalanche. Thankfully, it was pinned securely, and the "disaster" didn't occur.
It seemed she had rehearsed these words countless times in her mind, as she spoke without her usual careful consideration of phrasing, translating her thoughts directly into language:
"In this war against the Honkai, our enemies aren't just the Honkai, but also humanity itself."
"We aren't gods; we can't force people to do things they don't want to do. At times, we even have to compromise with them. After all, we can't tell them the whole truth. We can neither make them fully believe us, nor can we guarantee the consequences of revealing everything."
"Many people still refuse to even acknowledge the existence of the Honkai. They prefer to believe it's some man-made genetic virus—a disaster triggered by the selfish desires of a small few, with the consequences borne by all of humanity. This narrative resonates well with human sensibilities and the values shaped by millennia of history, making resentment towards the Fire Moth almost inevitable."
"So, what role did humanity itself play in this decision, then?"
Michael didn't seem particularly interested in hearing all this.
To be precise, he didn't want to understand the reasons quite so clearly.
Perhaps it was because he was only a duplicate sitting before Mei, a duplicate created by the real Michael to accomplish a specific task. He had been brought into existence solely as an executor; he didn't need to know why, only how.
"Regardless, this is the apocalypse. When material possessions vanish into thin air, people naturally turn to the embrace of religion, seeking spiritual peace. And within religious texts, it's hard for them to overlook mentions of 'End Times,' 'Noah's Ark,' and a 'Promised Land'."
"Hmph... So, they see the Americas, which haven't suffered a large-scale Honkai Eruption, as some kind of Promised Land amidst the apocalypse. They think just getting there is like boarding Noah's Ark, allowing them to escape the disaster of destruction."
"...People actually believe that?"
"Mhm? Is it really that strange? It's impossible to verify exactly when this rumor started spreading. It might have existed for a long time, only building up momentum until now. In any case, because of this rumor, many people came to blows fighting for the chance to get to the Americas sooner, even causing small-scale work stoppages. Fortunately, we implemented a pure 'lottery' system, which doesn't give people grounds to complain about fairness."
"So, basically..."
Michael glanced out the porthole. At some point, the shimmering surface of the sea had silently given way to dark grey land below. Details on the ground became exceptionally clear. Obviously, the plane was descending. Their destination: the largest coastal settlement in the Americas, Third New Heaven City.
"This decision to migrate the population... it wasn't entirely driven by humanity's own desires, was it?"
"You might have misunderstood. When I say 'human desires,' I'm not specifically referring to that rumor. Concentrating everyone in the Americas creates the visual illusion of a relatively dense population, which is also a way to reassure people."
"Alright..."
"But you're also right."
Mei had also noticed the plane's descent. Knowing their time for open conversation was limited, she took out a mirror and carefully checked her disguise for flaws while explaining rapidly:
"The Council proposed this plan primarily for economic and political reasons. Setting aside the aspect of accommodating human desires we already discussed, economically, centralizing the scattered population significantly reduces administrative and logistical costs for transporting supplies, and enhances organizational efficiency. In short, there are many benefits."
"But the downsides are just as obvious. It makes everyone vulnerable to being wiped out in one go... Anyway, the Council has been purged, more or less. Why not try revealing some information to them?"
"Better not."
Mei quickly shook her head, giving Michael another jolt of that irrational fear. He truly didn't understand how these women managed such mountain-like hairstyles while still moving their heads freely—wouldn't that cause neck problems?
"That purge—carried out indirectly—only removed the subjectively unstable elements. But considering the Twelfth Herrscher's all-pervasive Authority, what if some council member went back and jotted down notes in a digital memo... Heh."
"Caught between a rock and a hard place..."
Thump—
A loud bang, and the entire cabin jolted up and down.
Anyone with a little imagination could picture the scene—
The plane, nose tilted up, brought its two rear wheels down like feet about to touch the ground. The pilot must have deployed the landing flaps; the changing airflow produced a sharp whistling sound.
But the pilot clearly hadn't controlled the landing speed well. The plane's rear wheels slammed onto the concrete runway. The elastic tires and landing gear quivered like springs, sending a jolt through the fuselage. This was followed by the long, drawn-out screech of tires frictioning against the rough runway surface.
"Seriously, do these guys think they're flying fighter jets?"
Michael grumbled. The unexpected jolt had almost made him bite his tongue off.
The jolt had shaken some of Mei's hair loose. She steadied the piled-up hair with both hands while winking at Michael:
"Of course, nothing has purely pros or cons. Migrating everyone to the Americas significantly reduces our required operational radius. Previously, because the operational radius was too large, even the rapid response forces from various branches couldn't reach battlefields quickly enough. That's why nuclear weapons, primarily delivered via long-range ballistic missiles, still had a reason to exist. But now..."
The plane's taxiing speed gradually decreased, and the bone-jarring vibration subsided.
Michael narrowed his eyes. He didn't respond to Mei, instead starting to gather the few things he needed to take with him.
Because there was no need to say more—if all humanity was gathered in the Americas, excluding non-essential structures like parks, plazas, and shopping malls, two billion people actually wouldn't require an enormous amount of land to survive.
Then the Fire Moth's operational radius could shrink enough that reliance on long-range ballistic missiles—and by extension, nuclear weapons—would become unnecessary.
In other words, nuclear weapons would no longer be necessary.
Besides, they were probably useless against the Herrscher of Finality anyway. Now that they'd lost even their last shred of value, might as well dismantle them.
Destroying all nuclear warheads wouldn't completely prevent the destruction the Twelfth Herrscher could cause, but it would at least eliminate the potential worst-case scenario.
Moreover, the nuclear materials could be specially processed to provide some fuel for nuclear power plants. While this process might seem inherently wasteful, if not done, the materials' value would be zero, or even negative (due to storage costs/risks). From a certain perspective, it was actually a net gain, not a loss.
But Michael did have one question he didn't voice:
"Is there still time?"
Even though the vast majority of the world's nuclear weapons had sunk into the Sea of Quanta along with the Mu Continent, the remaining inventory still held over three thousand warheads of various types.
Dismantling nuclear weapons is incredibly costly and time-consuming, with many steps requiring manual labor.
Even now, proceeding with dismantlement at full capacity, regardless of cost, it would be absolutely impossible to finish the job within a year.
And just one-tenth of those remaining warheads would be enough to destroy human civilization as it existed at its peak before the Honkai began.
"Heh..."
Michael shook his head, unable to be bothered dwelling on it further.
"Anyway, that's a headache for the original Michael. None of my business."
His existence had a very specific purpose: to protect the disguised Mei during this inspection tour. Beyond that, he wasn't needed to meddle in other affairs.
He even suspected that the original Michael might have placed some kind of mental restriction, like a geas, on him during his creation.
Knowing himself, the original probably would do something like that.
Although, he had used the portion of the Authority of Sentience he possessed to examine his own consciousness, and hadn't found any such restriction.
Then again, maybe not. After all, the Authorities he possessed were extremely limited—enough to complete his mission of protecting Mei, but incomparable to the original's. Given the vast gulf between their powers, the original could easily have made such a mental suggestion incredibly difficult to detect.
But this Michael—let's call him 'Michael' for simplicity's sake—didn't really care about such precautions. Ultimately, while they were distinct individuals, he was a duplicate of Michael's consciousness, an existence both different from and identical to the original.
Since they were essentially the same, was he really going to enact some kind of 'I kill my original' drama?
Still, it was good that the original was cautious. After all, to humanity, the original Michael himself was potentially the greatest threat.
If the original truly decided to disregard everything and destroy the world, wielding the Authorities of eleven Herrschers, a being with virtually no weaknesses... it was hard to say if Kevin Kaslana and the others, with their current strength, could even stop him.
Shaking his head again, Michael cleared his thoughts and moved to the cabin door, getting there just ahead of Mei.
"Seriously, who the hell is arriving? Making us come meet the damn plane personally? It can't possibly be her, can it? That **** Mei wouldn't come here herself, right?"
"No way, right? My buddy at HQ said he saw Mei eating in the cafeteria just this afternoon. Tsk, heard her boyfriend ditched her to go vacationing with those Anti-Entropy folks? See? Told you! With that permanent sourpuss face of hers, what man would actually like her?"
"Ahem, ahem, ahem!"
The scene fell utterly silent. A group of well-dressed city hall officials stared nervously at the ground near their feet. The only sound was the metallic ring of Michael's footsteps as he descended the ramp.
"This scene... it really reminds me of R'lyeh back then..."
Though the differences were significant, of course. A small passenger jet was hardly comparable to humanity's largest-ever skyfaring warship. And while this place was coastal and had some sea breeze, it wasn't humid and salty like Pohnpei.
He also couldn't spot that figure in the crowd—the one Michael still hadn't figured out, the one who might have corresponded to Otto Apocalypse.
But at least Otto had been happy before his death, hadn't he?
These politicians in front of him were still some distance from the plane. Their earlier whispers had been mixed in with the general noise; a normal person naturally wouldn't have been able to make them out clearly.
Michael wasn't a normal person, so he'd heard every word.
But he said nothing, even feeling a slight urge to laugh—who would have guessed that the "Mei" seen eating in the cafeteria was actually another one of Michael's duplicates in disguise?
A cold smirk playing on his lips, he strode step by step towards the apprehensive politicians.