"What happened?" Mei ignored Kevin's panicked expression. Or rather, she had already accurately anticipated what might happen next. Although the outcome might be hard to accept, she was at least sufficiently mentally prepared.
Conversely, Kevin, who had rushed in wanting to say something, seemed to have jolted all the pre-organized words out of his head during his run. His lips pursed and unpursed; he remained silent for a long time.
"Let's go." Mei didn't say much more, simply starting to walk. Kevin quickly stepped back, waited for Mei to pass, then followed closely behind her along with Elysia.
Mei's office was right next to the War Room; it didn't even take a minute to get there.
Seeing Mei arrive, Elvin, Fuxi, Nuwa, and Blanka all stood up. They collectively drew a sharp breath. Finally, Elvin spoke:
"Doctor, you'd better take a look at this."
Elvin tremblingly handed over a tablet from the desk. Mei quickly stepped forward and took it. The tablet was clearly very thin, yet in Elvin's hands, it felt as heavy as lead, seemingly about to drop at any moment.
A paused video was displayed on the screen. Likely to avoid disturbing others, the volume was muted.
Mei raised an eyebrow. The paused frame looked incredibly familiar. A closer look confirmed it: wasn't that the riot scene in Third New Heaven City from not long ago?
She thought for a moment, dragged the progress bar back to the beginning, and tapped the triangular play button. Of course, during this process, she also saw the video's title—
Fire Moth Suppresses Third New Heaven City Uprising?
The video wasn't long, mainly consisting of several edited clips. The first segment showed surveillance footage from outside the Tower and the factories, simply documenting the process of the crowd marching and gathering. Then, the screen abruptly went black, replaced by a line of text:
Why did they do this?
A double entendre. Mei tapped the edge of the tablet with her finger, roughly guessing the subsequent plot. They didn't refer to the crowd, perhaps implicitly pointing to others.
Next, the footage switched back to the surveillance camera at the Tower's first-floor entrance, showing the exact moment Stanfa confronted Michael [Official Michael], who stood speechless.
In the bottom right corner, the video's creator thoughtfully added the previously displayed unfavorable information about the Third New Heaven City Hall that had been shown on the factory TVs.
The screen went black again. The accompanying text was the same as before, but with an exclamation mark added before the question mark:
Why did they do this!?
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Although muted, Mei, having experienced it firsthand, naturally supplied the sound effects for the following scene in her mind.
It was a series of rapid, panicked gunshots, accompanied by violent camera shaking—bodycam footage from the military police at the time. They neurotically pulled their triggers, emptying entire magazines in one go, even firing extra shots into the bodies of the two fallen black-clad men.
The footage then cut again, switching to the bodycam of a military police officer wielding a flail.
From a first-person perspective, he continuously swung his weapon, sending chunks of flesh flying from the surging crowd. The front end of the flail, covered in bone and gore, even flew off due to excessive force.
The scene became extremely bloody, and then the screen went black.
Was it over? Of course not!
The annoying white text reappeared, this time reading:
Do they even treat us as enemies?
Mei's index finger, which had been lightly tapping the tablet's edge, suddenly pressed onto the screen, pausing the video. She stared at the stark white font for a good ten seconds before pressing play again.
As expected, the next video segment showed Michael [Duplicate Michael] invoking the Authority of Death and Stigmata power, using green vines to forcibly separate the rioting crowd and the military police.
But the editor clearly had intentions. They didn't show the entire process. Instead, right after the vines erupted from the ground and separated everyone, it cut to the next scene—
Both the rioting crowd and the military police had retreated. Dust motes in the air were dyed blood-red by the twilight glow, just like the ground.
Green vines stretched as far as the eye could see, many still retaining the posture of binding human bodies. The ground was covered in pools of blood. From the perspective of the person holding the phone camera, the blood even seemed to reach past their ankles.
This was clearly footage from the scene cleanup afterwards. The red "bloody water" on the ground wasn't purely blood, but the result of the military police washing the area down with water.
But ordinary people naturally couldn't distinguish between blood and bloody water. Such a scene could only evoke idioms like "rivers of blood." [Translator Note: The original idiom 血流漂杵 literally means "blood flowed enough to float pestles," a graphic depiction of immense bloodshed.]
The editor's intention in splicing the videos this way was self-evident.
Although nothing was explicitly stated, through this editing technique, the heavy casualties of the riot were blamed entirely on Michael [Duplicate Michael], despite the fact that he hadn't killed anyone.
On the contrary, it was precisely his timely intervention with the green vines, separating the crowd and restraining the active elements, that prevented further escalation of casualties...
But who among those watching this video would care about these facts?
Next, as expected, were several photos of Michael [Duplicate Michael] high in the air, opening spatial rifts.
The photos themselves were blurry, and the editor had further blurred them, making it difficult to notice the white trails against the blue-gray sky behind the rifts.
Even if noticed, the trails looked like ordinary white clouds at low resolution.
And if one ignored those white trails, although no text was added, the intended impression of these photos was clear—
The person in the sky intended to use this method to annihilate the people on the ground.
After this, a few more photos followed, unrelated to Michael [Duplicate Michael], taken by others, showing the white trails left by flying missiles.
But was the editor contradicting themselves here? Clearly not.
They deliberately placed the effect of the incident—Michael [Duplicate Michael] opening spatial rifts above the city—before the cause—the incoming missiles. This was obviously done to split one complete event into two separate ones.
Sure enough, the accompanying text read:
"Fire Moth launched numerous ballistic missiles at Third New Heaven City. These photos were taken by witnesses."
"According to inside sources, the fuses of these missiles were ultimately forcibly disabled by a certain brave warrior within Fire Moth. We wish him well; he is a hero."
"..."
The video ended there. Mei took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
Just as I thought, she mused.
Putting herself in the Twelfth Herrscher's shoes, she wouldn't have opted for a direct assault on HQ either.
Theoretically, given the Twelfth Herrscher's nature, even if humanity could barely defend against its repeated attacks, they couldn't mount a strong counterattack.
Yet, the Herrscher could hide behind the scenes. Needing only one successful strike, it could achieve what the previous ten Herrschers failed to do.
But this wasn't the optimal solution. Humanity wasn't entirely defenseless. Over the past 200,000 years, humans conquered fire, rivers, land, and lightning. Given enough time, conquering the data world wasn't unimaginable.
Besides, humanity already had "Prometheus." Last time, the Herrscher attacked fiercely. Although Prometheus seemed defeated, she still managed to halt the Herrscher's further intrusion under surprise attack conditions and disable nearly half the missile fuses.
This could arguably be considered a success.
And Prometheus wasn't a static model; she grew stronger every day. With preparedness and experience, whether the Herrscher could successfully infiltrate HQ again was questionable.
In such a situation, the war between the Herrscher and humanity would become a long stalemate.
A war of attrition might seem unfavorable for humanity, but it could also be a way to recuperate—the Herrscher's Authority was mainly focused on the data world; in reality, it lacked the overwhelming destructive power of the previous ten.
Furthermore, humanity wasn't without methods to deal with it—
Mei herself had said earlier that completely killing the Herrscher required destroying all its carriers, which was impossible given the current number of smart devices.
But this statement was slightly biased. If civilization truly reached a point where only such measures could defeat the Herrscher, confiscating and destroying all smart devices, terminals, and servers wasn't an unthinkable option.
Even if some slipped through the cracks, when the vast majority of the world no longer possessed smart devices, the Herrscher couldn't expand its influence anymore.
Therefore, if Mei were the Twelfth Herrscher, she felt she would inevitably focus her attention outside Fire Moth HQ.
That is, undermining the foundation—destroying the trust between Fire Moth and humanity.
When humanity could no longer trust Fire Moth, the very reason Fire Moth fought would cease to exist. Humanity would then be powerless against the ensuing Herrscher of Finality.
Thinking this, Mei's expression hardened. She asked, "Has the Intelligence Department launched a counter-narrative campaign?"
"We..." Elvin's face flushed red, words catching in his throat. He wasn't oblivious; the situation was now clear. At least, as the head of Fire Moth's Intelligence Department, he understood perfectly—
Unlike the past where they mostly played supporting roles, this time, they would replace the MANTIS warriors as the main force against the Honkai.
Previously, these ordinary humans always lamented their powerlessness against the Honkai, against the Herrschers. While verbally claiming that playing support was nice, deep down, they likely envied those who could become MANTIS warriors.
But now, when civilization needed them most, they could do nothing.
"Sigh..." Blanka sighed deeply and stepped forward to explain for Elvin:
"Aside from Fire Moth's internal servers, the external internet is almost completely out of control. We tried to compile complete surveillance footage from the scene for rebuttal, but those records have all been wiped clean.
"Written counter-arguments on media platforms are inherently weak. They either can't be posted at all or are deleted the instant they appear. Even if one occasionally gets through, it's suppressed by algorithms, seen by very few.
"Doctor, can we borrow Prometheus's computing power to counter the Herrscher? Continuing like this really isn't working."
"No." Mei flatly rejected Blanka's request.
Indeed, with Prometheus's computing power, if fully utilized, they might be able to preserve Fire Moth's voice online. But the risks were simply too great.
"All of Prometheus's computing power is needed to protect the HQ base. Diverting a portion for counterattacks would, on one hand, increase the risk of virus infection, and on the other, weaken HQ's defenses. The potential gain doesn't justify the risk."
"But if we don't do this, we really... Forgive my bluntness, Dr. Mei, but we no longer know how to counterattack online."
"But if we do, and it leads to HQ falling, the entire world will be destroyed. Don't forget, all nuclear launch keys and fuse unlock keys are currently under Prometheus's control."
Although putting all eggs in one basket was inherently dangerous, it couldn't be helped. In a sense, the data world controlled by Prometheus might be the safest place in the world for the foreseeable future. Distributing those keys...
Ugh... The Herrscher could infiltrate HQ's firewall as if it were nothing. The branches...
But saying this directly would be too demoralizing. Mei was about to speak when she suddenly seemed to think of something. She beckoned. Fuxi and Nuwa instinctively sat down. Elvin, Blanka, plus Elysia and Kevin, silently followed Mei into the small room behind the War Room.
All smart devices had been removed from the room. Only here did Mei dare to lower her voice:
"There's no other way right now. Vill-V has already started rebuilding the servers for No. 16 and No. 0. As long as their rebuilt computing power can reach No. 17's level, we'll have room to counterattack. For now... we can only wait."
"How long do we need to wait?" Blanka asked directly. Given the urgency, formalities were disregarded.
"At least a month. No. 16's servers are at the North Pole, No. 0's are in Europe. Migration work needs to be completed first. Then, No. 17 needs to scan their servers for viruses before basic operations can begin."
"Then, forgive my bluntness again, but after a month..."
"I know..." In the presence of close associates, Mei could shed a layer of her mask. She took off her glasses, wearily ran a hand through her hair, and said helplessly, "I know all this, but... are there any other options?"
"Uh..." Blanka was instantly speechless. Anyone can point out problems, but if the problem cannot be solved, pointing it out is meaningless. At least at this moment, it was meaningless.
Silence filled the small room.
After about a few minutes, Mei put her glasses back on, stood up, her expression once again stern.
"If there are no new developments, I'll head back. There's still a pile of City Officials to deal with in the American Branch."
Those American Branch City Officials, aside from Michael [Official Michael] who willingly walked into the crowd to his death, the rest had vanished completely after the incident.
It was unknown if they received advance notice, but none returned to their jurisdictions; they disappeared uniformly.
Combined with the inexplicable appearance of Stanfa, and the discovery of Levi's and the driver's bodies in the City Hall secret room, it felt like these people were inextricably linked to the Twelfth Herrscher.
Of course, even if unrelated to the Twelfth Herrscher, these individuals could hardly escape the death penalty. Sakura had already taken a MANTIS team to the American Branch to locate them. Once found, kill on sight.
But Mei had just reached the door when Nuwa preemptively opened it from the outside. The two nearly collided. Before Mei could ask, Nuwa spoke first again:
"Doctor, the TV station has invited you and Mr. Vássago [Welt] to participate in tonight's program..." [Translator Note: 瓦沙克 refers to Welt Yang, whose alias Vássago is sometimes used.]
"Hmm?" With rumors about Fire Moth flying everywhere, the TV station naturally wouldn't miss such a prime opportunity for ratings. Inviting them onto a show was logical.
"I can't go." Mei certainly didn't have time for such a program. But also thanks to the Twelfth Herrscher, the whole world now knew Vássago was just a figurehead; Mei was the one truly in charge of Fire Moth. If Vássago went on TV alone again, people likely wouldn't buy it.
However, could the program even air? The entire external data world was practically under the Herrscher's control. If the program's direction was unfavorable to Fire Moth, the Herrscher would gladly let everyone see it. If favorable, it would likely be cut off by the Herrscher, never making it to air.
But this was still somewhat of an opportunity, the only feeble counterattack Fire Moth could muster under desperate circumstances. Someone still had to go.
Since Mei couldn't, besides Vássago, another figure with real power within Fire Moth needed to appear. And preferably someone with basic self-defense capabilities, otherwise, wouldn't it be sending them to their deaths?
"Have Dr. Mobius accompany Vássago."