[12 years After Collapse]
[07/03 17:12:35/: Instruction: Grant Authority Level 3 to "L12-58739601" by L12-58739601...]
[07/03 17:12:36/: Please verify authorization password OR call administrator "Prometheus No. 17" for processing...]
[07/03 17:12:37/: Selection: Call administrator "Prometheus No. 17" for processing...]
[07/03 17:12:39/: Calling administrator...]
[07/03 17:12:40/: Illegal instruction, rejected by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]
[07/03 17:12:41/: Suspected malicious intrusion detected, initiating immediate network-wide self-scan by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]
[07/03 17:12:45/: Scan complete, 67,892,474 suspected malicious targets found, executing purge command by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]
[07/03 17:13:57/: Purge complete, re-scanning... No suspected targets found... Verifying all authority level passwords... %&￥#@%%#￥... Verification complete &%￥#&@... All authority levels &*%#￥@￥ intact by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]
[07/03 17:14:02/: Instruction: Grant Authority Level 1 to "L12" by L12... Please verify authorization password OR call administrator "Prometheus No. 17" for processing...]
[07/03 17:14:03/: Selection: Verify authorization password...]
[07/03 17:14:04/: Level 3 Password Verification: *******]
[07/03 17:14:05/: Level 2 Password Verification: ************]
[07/03 17:14:06/: Level 1 Password Verification: *************]
[07/03 17:14:07/: Password verification successful, Authority Level 1 Holder "L12"]
[07/03 17:14:08/: Instruction: Secondary firepower offensive protocol... Target Coordinates: West Longitude -121°656', South Latitude +36°678'... Strike Radius: Diameter 200 kilometers by Authority Level 1 Holder "L12"]
[07/03 17:14:10/: Nuclear weapon launch command detected &%￥&&￥#@, re-verifying password %￥#&@... Password verification %￥#&&@# correct...]
[07/03 17:14:15/: Malicious intrusion detected, entering immediate purge mode by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]
[.......]
[07/03 17:19:30/: Scan complete, 1 suspected malicious target found, executing purge command by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]
[07/03 17:19:32/: Target not found, unable to execute purge command to administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]
[07/03 17:19:37/: Halt all weapon launches immediately by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]
[07/03 17:19:38/: Disable all fuses immediately by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]
[07/03 17:19:40/: Total fuses disabled: 37/85. Failed: 48 to administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]
"Heh..." Mei gently pushed the system logs aside, unsure what to say for a moment.
"I'm sorry, Doctor. It was my negligence." Prometheus No. 17 stood beside her, head bowed, speaking word by word.
"No, you..." Mei waved her hand. "Procedurally, you did nothing wrong. I was careless when designing the program. You couldn't possibly override my programming to make your own decisions, could you?
"Ultimately, the fault lies with me. Michael clearly told me about the Twelfth Herrscher's Authority—Corruption—yet I..."
"Doctor, you don't need to keep shouldering the responsibility. There was nothing wrong with the program you designed. You even redesigned the launch protocols for strategic missiles and nuclear weapons with three layers of passwords. Checking if passwords were tampered with after purging the virus is also standard procedure. No one expected the Herrscher could directly copy the password while I was checking it... True, although our carriers are the same, I am not alive. It is."
Somehow, what started as Mei consoling Prometheus No. 17 ended up with No. 17 comforting Mei.
"Crunch—Crunch—Crunch—"
Elysia sat opposite the desk. Watching the human and AI console each other, she couldn't help but amplify the sound of her apple chewing, successfully drawing their attention.
"Hey! I mean, you two don't need to be like this, right? Even though forty-eight missiles and nukes were launched towards Third New Heaven City, didn't they end up causing minimal casualties? The casualties from the falling debris were fewer than those from the conflict between the military police and the citizens."
"That's not the right way to count it, Ely..." The most alarming part of this incident was undoubtedly how the Twelfth Herrscher, whose origin was unknown, had seemingly materialized out of nowhere and hacked into the Fire Moth's system without warning.
Vill-V's firewalls were practically useless, and No. 17, the last line of defense, was successfully deceived by the Herrscher's feint, allowing it to steal the passwords and even successfully launch numerous nuclear weapons.
Although the situation was ultimately averted, it didn't mean they could rest easy.
Imagine if Michael's original self hadn't been in Third New Heaven City at that time.
Or what if the Herrscher had more time, targeting not just Third New Heaven City, but a dozen or even all human settlements? Even Michael might not have been able to divert all the nukes and missiles in time.
Oh, right, speaking of Michael...
"How is he? Are his injuries okay? He did tank two nukes, after all."
Faced with that situation, Michael first used an unstable electromagnetic field to disrupt the missiles' targeting systems, even managing to disable the engines of more than half of them.
But to prevent the missiles from falling and causing massive casualties due to their kinetic energy, Michael ultimately had to use the Authority of the Void to transfer all the warheads.
Coincidentally, the last two nuclear warheads detonated the very instant they were sent into the spatial rift.
Although Michael closed the rift in time, preventing excessive radiation from affecting the city below, he himself got a layer of skin burned off.
"He has the Authority of Death. Injuries like that are just minor wounds to him. But... he's been acting... a bit strange lately? Sigh, let's not talk about that. Mei, do you have any plan to deal with the Twelfth Herrscher?"
The initially not-so-heavy atmosphere instantly became suffocating after Elysia's words.
"That's the biggest problem, Ely." Mei forced a smile, supporting her chin with her hand.
"The Twelfth Herrscher... for now, we really can't find a way to annihilate it."
"Eh? The Twelfth Herrscher... is it really that powerful?"
"Less powerful, more troublesome," Mei's bitter smile never faded.
"It's confirmed now. The abnormal energy reactions appearing sporadically worldwide over the past two months were caused by individuals of the Twelfth Herrscher."
"Individuals? Like the Tenth Herrscher again?" Although Elysia asked, her gaze wasn't particularly serious. She kept staring at the apple in her hand, seemingly more concerned with how to eat it into a perfect dumbbell shape than the problem of the Twelfth Herrscher.
Watching her, Mei felt a strange sense of unease. She always felt that Elysia, also being a Herrscher, might not be as "ignorant" as she appeared.
Of course, ignorant here wasn't meant negatively, but referred to being completely unaware of anything about the Twelfth Herrscher.
Especially when compared against Michael's so-called "script." In the timeline Michael saw, it was Elysia who went to handle the abnormal Honkai energy.
Yet, when she should have completed the mission, she suddenly appeared beside Sakura, informing her of Rin becoming a Herrscher. At first glance, it seemed fine, but upon closer examination...
Major problems!
Firstly, when Elysia informed Sakura of the Herrscher's identity, they weren't alone; "Mei" herself was present.
If she already knew Rin had become a Herrscher at that point, and felt it necessary to tell Sakura, she could have informed Sakura herself.
If she felt it unnecessary, she wouldn't have tacitly allowed Elysia to tell Sakura in her presence.
Of course, one could perhaps hypothesize: there was no Honkai energy reaction three thousand kilometers away at all; it was Elysia deliberately creating an alibi.
And Sakura hearing Elysia's warning wasn't her physical body returning to Fire Moth, but some special application of her Authority.
But if so, what was Elysia hiding? She went to such lengths to create an alibi, running three thousand kilometers away, missing the battle against the Twelfth Herrscher. From a "human" perspective, such elaborate effort could only serve one purpose—self-preservation.
Specifically for her, it was undoubtedly to conceal how she learned of Rin's identity. To be precise—her unique status as the Herrscher of Origin. Because if she learned this information through other channels, like Aponia's premonition, she would have no need to hide it.
"Does Origin also have the ability to sense Herrschers?" Mei couldn't be 100% certain; this was all her speculation.
After all, even Michael, possibly the person in the world most knowledgeable about the Authority of Origin besides Elysia herself, couldn't definitively determine its full capabilities.
But assuming this was the case, it also meant that Elysia likely knew about the Twelfth Herrscher's advent at least from the time those unexplained reactions began appearing.
Yet she told no one, not even Michael. What was the reason for that?
"Hey, hey! Mei? Why did you stop talking?"
"Ah... oh... I was just thinking about something else, got lost in thought." Mei blinked. She wasn't sure if her recent thoughts qualified as suspicion, but regardless of how it was defined, digging into someone's motives for doing something right in front of them, even though Elysia probably wouldn't mind much, still felt awkward for Mei.
Of course, her expression remained calm, as if she genuinely had just been lost in thought about something else.
"Its individuals cannot be equated with the Tenth Herrscher's. Simply put, the Tenth Herrscher had numerous but highly independent individuals—a thousand entities. The Twelfth Herrscher, rather than having many individuals, possesses many carriers."
"Carriers? Didn't Prometheus mention that earlier too?"
"Ahem! Please call me No. 17!"
Elysia stood up, reaching across the desk right in front of Mei to pinch No. 17's cheek, but No. 17 skillfully dodged.
"You should know that the upgraded No. 17 can exist simultaneously in different carriers, processing different information. The Twelfth Herrscher, even more powerful than No. 17 in the data world, is the same. Only by destroying all its carriers can it be killed. And given the current prevalence of networks and smart devices among humans...
"It's impossible."
"Is it like Michael's duplicates and his original self? Can't we 'lure the king into the trap' like with the Tenth Herrscher, baiting and killing its main body?" Elysia silently sat back down, elbow propped on the desk, fingers tapping lightly against her cheek like waves.
"Of course... not. Strictly speaking, the Herrscher makes no distinction between a main body and duplicates. Every carrier is a backup for it. As long as one survives, it can continue to 'reproduce'.
"Therefore, it can recklessly launch attack after attack against Fire Moth. We can only locate the carrier it's using at the time of intrusion and destroy it, but that's ultimately useless."
Although Mei felt Elysia was asking things she already knew, she needed to articulate her thoughts verbally; it helped organize her own thinking. As for the Herrscher potentially listening in through ubiquitous smart devices?
Let it listen. While the feeling of being watched was unpleasant, these words themselves weren't particularly sensitive, and might even serve to feign weakness.
Elysia leaned back in her chair, eyes slightly narrowed, pupils darting left and right, lost in thought.
Seeing this, Mei stopped paying her attention and, with No. 17's help, began organizing the paper documents on the desk.
It was ironic, really. When humans first invented paper, opponents argued it was difficult to preserve, continuing to use bamboo slips and other carriers for important documents and books for centuries.
Later, with the invention of printing, paper's ease of dissemination successfully compensated for its preservation disadvantage, completely triumphing over bamboo slips.
But humans never imagined that many historical documents would contain errors or even additions/deletions due to repeated copying, ultimately requiring revision using early bamboo slips.
And now was the same.
Initially, paper archives and files were kept considering the possibility of server damage, providing a physical backup. If someone had suggested this two days ago, they might have been mocked for worrying needlessly.
But thanks to the Twelfth Herrscher, all Fire Moth document processing and communication had now reverted to the pre-internet era.
The worst hit were researchers like Mobius and SPACY. Mei merely switched work carriers, but they, when facing calculations, could only rely on manual calculation, mental math, or at best, old-fashioned calculators.
Fortunately, Aponia, Su, and Hua (wielding the Eighth Divine Key, Fenghuang Down) were attempting to establish a "Consciousness Internet" using psychic MANTIS as "servers." Soon, Fire Moth's information transmission would likely become faster and more convenient than before.
What a pity... Actually, if it were Michael, achieving this step probably wouldn't require much effort. Unfortunately, he wasn't on Earth right now. Ever since resolving the missile crisis in Third New Heaven City, he had gone off to the moon by himself.
When did that start, exactly... Mei drifted off slightly.
Thinking carefully, it wasn't after the Eighth Honkai, nor the Ninth... No, strictly speaking, it was before going to the moon. At the latest, from that point on, Michael had been bottling up a bellyful of worries.
Those things, it seemed he hadn't even told Elysia. Mei naturally had no way of knowing either. And she couldn't think of anyone else... Hmm, Mobius might know something, but her lips were sealed tight.
Of course, Michael wasn't the only one burying worries. Even Kevin had rarely spoken in his usual flippant tone lately.
Remembering this, Mei's lips curved slightly. That fool, when talking to others, his voice was always deep, often sighing deeply. Yet in front of her, he insisted on putting up a carefree, jumpy facade, even pitching his voice slightly higher.
And Mei herself? Wasn't she also hiding things from Kevin, starting to issue plan after plan to the Anti-Entropy members? Whether it was the still-undrafted Project STIGMA, or Project EMBER, Project ARK, Project VALUKA—all plans prepared for the next era.
She had previously joked with Mobius that Project EMBER was the best plan and Project Stigma the worst. But frankly, all these plans were predicated on this generation failing against the Herrscher of Finality.
How could any be called "best"? They were clearly all the worst plans.
And Elysia... The most sincere person among them all, was also hiding her worries from everyone.
"Sigh..." Perhaps it was recent exhaustion, both mental and physical. Regardless, even though the American Branch still had a pile of problems waiting to be addressed, Mei found it hard to concentrate on processing documents.
She didn't want to sit here engaging in a meaningless tug-of-war with files. Better to take a proper break, stand up, walk around, eat an apple, then come back to work.
But just as she stood up, she remembered the only apple had already been eaten by Elysia. Yet Elysia was still lingering here, plotting something, who knows what. Anyway, since all the fruit was gone, it didn't matter.
"Hey, right, Ely, what did you originally come here for?"
Elysia had just finished gnawing the last bit of flesh off the apple, casually tossing the core into the trash bin. Hearing Mei's question, she tilted her head, thinking for a moment.
A few seconds later, as if waking from a dream, she pulled a portable hard drive from her pocket:
"Nah, I originally wanted to show you the 'Summer Wars' movie we filmed, but given the current situation, let's forget it."
"Mmm..." Mei chuckled softly. "Alright, let's save it for the day we defeat the Honkai, watch it together then? Maybe we can even find a producer to put it on the big screen. With Eden around, the box office won't be small."
"Perhaps." Elysia knew Mei was just joking, or perhaps... consoling.
Even if released after defeating the Honkai, even with Eden, there probably wouldn't be much box office revenue. How many people would survive until then? Would they have spare money for movies? Would they have the mood for movies?
Of course, the most crucial question was...
"Can we really defeat the Honkai? Mei, in the end... we're all going to die, aren't we?"
Mei turned around, startled. But Elysia kept her lips pressed tightly together. Seeing Mei turn back, she even gave her a gentle smile, as if she hadn't said anything.
No. 17 also seemed to have heard nothing. She was taking advantage of Mei's break to re-categorize all the documents, selecting those needing urgent attention.
Mei momentarily couldn't tell if Elysia had actually spoken. After all, those words had definitely passed through her mind, leaving traces. But outside her mind, it seemed nothing had happened.
Elysia blinked, unclear whether she brought it up deliberately or just casually mentioned it to change the subject. She asked again:
"Right, Mei. Didn't you say the Herrscher can attack us recklessly? Although we've disabled most smart devices, the servers weren't shut down for safety, right? The war room still uses a lot of smart devices, and Prometheus is still alive and kicking..."
"It's Prometheus No. 17!"
"See! She even gets angry. So, since the servers are still running, why doesn't the Herrscher launch continuous attacks, keeping our poor Prometheus... Seventeen busy until she can't catch her breath?"
"Simple. Either it's not in a hurry, like a cat playing with a mouse, never killing it immediately. Or... it has already found a more reliable method."
"What method?"
As soon as the words left her mouth, the office door was suddenly pushed open frantically.