The Fire-Chasing Herrscher Who Destroyed the World

"What exactly happened here..."

When Sakura arrived at Fire Chaser Moth's transit station in Central Asia, she was suddenly told by Mei that the seventh Honkai Impact had been resolved, so she slowed down until the morning after the Honkai Impact happened and ended. Just arrived at the area where the headquarters is located.

The landform environment here has changed so drastically that Sakura almost didn't recognize it - the plateau that originally stood on the ridge outside the headquarters base has now formed a huge plain with a diameter of five to six hundred kilometers, and a large amount of water vapor condenses in the clouds , every once in a while there will be a sporadic rain or hail.

Of course, the biggest change is in the underground city... It seems that it can no longer be called an underground city. A large hole with a diameter of fifty kilometers has opened on top of its head - you know, the diameter of the entire underground city is only sixty kilometers, which is quite large. The "dome" in the underground city completely collapsed!

How many horrific battles have you gone through?

The dome was destroyed, and the chain of "Velvi" naturally became unusable, so Sakura had no choice but to take a helicopter and go underground.

Although she was mentally prepared, Sakura was still startled by the sight in front of her. There were no buildings visible in the entire underground city. The artificial lake was replaced by a huge pit, and everything else was just Dark, scorched earth fell.

"Ling, and..."

On the scorched earth, where the original headquarters base was located, apart from the ruins, were a group of green tents. Sakura was a little puzzled. The seventh Honkai Impact had just ended, and there were still some dead soldiers and Honkai Beasts that had slipped through the net. Logically speaking, it would be safer to stay in the base, right? Not to mention, even if the base is severely damaged, there are still many equipments that can be used...

Her eyelids kept twitching. Suddenly, she pointed at a place through the porthole and asked the pilot beside her: "What is that?"

In fact, she had already seen the abnormality there. After all, no one could ignore a thousand-meter-tall existence, and the driver seemed to have received instructions in advance, although he hesitated and couldn't tell her a concrete answer. The answer was, but he deliberately controlled the helicopter and circled the giant's body in a close circle, as if he was afraid that Sakura could not see clearly.

The helicopter landed on the flat temporary landing pad, and Sakura jumped out of the cabin. The moment her feet touched the ground, the soles of her feet still felt a little unrealistic due to the long flight.

She saw Mei walking out of a tent on one side and was about to walk towards here. Suddenly, the ground trembled slightly, and soon even the dust and mud on the surface of the scorched earth jumped.

Fortunately, the helicopter pilot was also quite familiar with this. He pushed the throttle valve, and the bottom bracket of the helicopter separated from the ground as soon as it touched, hovering steadily in mid-air.

Tens of seconds later, the shaking subsided. Now Sakura didn't need to ask, and she knew why everyone abandoned the headquarters base and would rather set up tents in the wild.

The shelters for civilians further underground were okay. They didn't know what was happening outside so far, and the building materials and building strength of the shelters were completely sufficient to withstand aftershocks of this magnitude.

But the underground base is riddled with holes. For the sake of safety, it is more appropriate to temporarily transfer personnel to the ground.

only……

"Mei, the cross I saw last night..."

"Yes, the aftershocks you just felt were the aftermath of that blow. According to Prometheus' calculations, there will be three to five aftershocks today, and probably one to two every day in the next month. In the next six months, there will be more intermittently.”

"Is everyone okay?"

Sakura gripped the handle of the knife at her waist and looked at the thousand-meter-tall giant unconsciously.

Mei didn't introduce this scary guy to her first, but took the opportunity to talk about a bunch of aftershock-related topics, which made Sakura feel... something was wrong.

"Overall, the situation is not good."

Sakura's eyelids twitched violently.

Mei smiled bitterly and shook her head, "The members in other areas are okay. More than half of the soldiers responsible for guarding the base have been lost, and almost everyone else is injured."

"That...that..."

"Don't worry! Ling is fine. As for the situation of the Anti-Entropy Brigade..."

Mei rubbed her temples with her index finger. Obviously, even if she was as smart as she was, it would be somewhat difficult to describe the current situation in one sentence.

After a while, she sighed and thought of the least exciting way to say it: "I can only say that no one from the Anti-Entropy Brigade died in this battle... everyone is still alive."

But this kind of rhetoric obviously also reveals another fact - they obviously paid a price other than sacrifice.

Just when Sakura turned her gaze to the giant who was standing still again, and was about to ask a question, Alicia suddenly walked out of the tent, and then Hua turned her head and said something inward while walking out, and then in turn It was Kevin, Velvet, Aponya, and finally Mebius, who was holding a crutch that was taller than her.

None of them looked relaxed, especially Mebius, whose face was gloomy, as if she had had a quarrel with someone.

Sakura's eyes paused for a moment on Mebius, who had obviously died again, and then asked:

"Where's Mi... Qianjie? And Pado?"

"Qianjie and Phyllis...the two of them, as well as Yimer, were the first to come into contact with the Herrscher. Except for Qianjie who was seriously injured, Phyllis and Yimer found an extraterrestrial He ran to the underground shelter through the orbital ladder there, so he was unscathed. As for Qianjie... you also know that with his physique, the so-called serious injury may still be nothing to him. It’s a kind of enjoyment, but Felice and the others still feel bad about it, so they go and take care of him.”

Alicia tried her best to make her words sound lighter, but the actual effectiveness depends on different people's opinions.

"That……"

Sakura wanted to ask, but she suddenly found that everyone's eyes were focused on the sky, so she turned her head and looked over.

Lifted by multiple transport helicopters, two pieces of special alloy armor that looked completely rushed and had not even been painted gradually hovered before and after the giant's right shoulder.

Then it gradually moved closer until it blocked the giant's right shoulder and the upper part of his arm.

"Enter level one alert, Prometheus, prepare to insert restraints."

As Mei's order was issued, a burst of noise quickly came from the surroundings, but it soon fell silent.

"Restrainer insertion countdown..."

"Gulu..."

I don’t know who took the lead in swallowing, but it obviously caused a chain reaction, and even Sakura, who was confused, also swallowed.

"Three...two...one, the restraint begins to be inserted."

Except for Mei, who was holding a telescope, the rest of the people present were fusion warriors with excellent eyesight. They could clearly see without external assistance that the wedge-like devices on the alloy armor were stabbing fiercely. Entered the giant's body.

The air was stagnant at this moment, and it was not until two or three seconds later that the sound of exhalation came one after another - the giant had no response to this, and even its own survival was a doubt in Sakura's opinion.

"I'm sorry, Alicia, but you should understand that no matter what, I have to give priority to the remaining hundreds of thousands of people living in the underground city."

"Of course I understand."

She turned her head away, which was the expression of her unspoken half-sentence in the form of actions - "But understanding doesn't mean you can accept it."

For Sakura, the development of things was even more confusing.

In the end what happened? And Mikael, why hasn’t he appeared yet?

As long as she had a little bit of association ability, it would be difficult for her not to associate the giant with Mikael.

"Okay, it seems that the insertion of the restraint is not a big problem. Next, as for how to get him back... let's sit back in the tent and talk about it first."

Having said that, when everyone entered the tent, no one spoke for a while.

"Ahem——"

Seeing this, Mebius took the initiative to clear his throat.

"What are you doing with this expression? Making it look like Mikael is hopeless? What a joke! I told you, this is the greatest experiment I have ever conducted in my life. Of course I can find a way to bring him back to you guys. Come back unscathed."

"However, you yourself said yesterday that you were unable to awaken the original consciousness of the body after the [Overweight Super Transformation], or even confirm whether it still existed. And don't blame me for exposing you, Mebius, what did you say yesterday? I must have stayed up all night.”

Mei spread her hands, took a sip of coffee, then leaned back on the chair and closed her eyes to rest.

The corner of Mebius's mouth twitched twice, and then he admitted: "Okay, okay, Mikael's performance did completely exceed my expectations, and to be honest, yesterday, There is really no way to bring Mikael back.”

Facing everyone's gaze, Mebius sneered innocently, "Why, aren't there many authors of serial works who only know the upcoming updates a few hours before readers? Aren't I allowed to do this? "

"Mebius, your joke is too big. If, I mean if he... it starts moving here now, we have absolutely no confidence in destroying it."

"Mei, have you not rested for too long and your brain is exhausted? How can it wake up on its own in this state?"

Mei suddenly opened her sour eyes, "You mean..."

"Yes, no matter whether it swallowed the two Herrscher cores intentionally or unintentionally, this was undoubtedly the reason why it stopped its actions."

This conclusion was so decisive that no one except Mei could understand it at all.

Mebius was naturally too lazy to explain, but as long as he saw her confident yet idle look, Mei knew that her plan would probably require the understanding and cooperation of most or even everyone present. So Mei could only hold her head, resisting the heavy sleepiness that had not closed her eyes for many days, and said: "All of this must start with the nature of [overweight and super-transformation]. Alicia, remember what I told you before. The theory of id, ego and superego?”

Ali Muran, who had been in a daze for a long time, raised her head and said, "Of course I remember!"

"If we look at [Excessive Weight and Super Change] alone, there is actually no need to divide human consciousness into three levels. Only two levels are enough - one level is consciousness and the other level is instinct. Such a division is psychologically From a scientific point of view, it is unreasonable, because human beings must first be an animal before becoming a human being. When we define consciousness philosophically, it is also difficult to distinguish it from instinct - such as the many bad qualities of human beings, Greed and cowardice, in the final analysis, are just the instinct of animals [to survive]... Well, did I go too far..."

In the past, when she said this, the only audience was Kevin, and Kevin would never miss a word of what she said. But now when facing a group of people, she has to consider whether her language is too obscure to be well accepted by others.

Fortunately, the response was good. She only talked about some relatively common knowledge, but Kevin's performance in the past made her somewhat unsure of her ability to express herself.

"In short, we only need such a simple division now. Of course, this kind of polarization processing is, for example, a seesaw. For a normal human being, most of the time consciousness plays a larger role. For another example, like losing weight, it is actually biological instinct to consume more energy. However, many factors such as self-discipline in human consciousness and the need for beauty make us fight against this instinct. Of course, instinct sometimes occurs. It will also get the upper hand, just like people often act according to pure instinct."

Her eyes glanced at Mebius as if pointing, and the latter immediately stared back, and then took over the conversation:

"For fusion warriors, this smoothness is a little different. In fact, it should be easy to understand, right? After fusing the factors of Honkaiju, we are completely different from the previous humans from a biological point of view. Then Naturally, the status quo of one side being dominant will be broken - the weight of the animal's [instinct] has expanded, while the absolute weight of the human's [consciousness] has not changed, but the relative weight has also changed. This is Mikay. The reason why I am still unwilling to carry out super-transformation surgeries in batches is that, except for a very few lucky people, most people cannot balance or even suppress that instinct. Their end is to become a bunch of people who don't look like humans, and Honkai beasts who don't look like Honkai beasts. A bad beast."

Mebius didn't say it clearly, but since she was able to come up with such an accurate theory, it was probably not just based on her own experience. No one could tell clearly how many bloody experiments she had done behind the scenes.

At least the more than 100 poisonous chrysalis wounded who disappeared inexplicably have something to say.

The premise is that they can also speak human language.

"This is the truth of [Excessive Weight and Super Transformation]. Completely obey the instinct of the beast in the body, abandon all reason, and even abandon the human form, so as to obtain power far beyond human form, and the price is—— Just like ordinary people's consciousness can easily suppress instinct most of the time, once the instinct completely suppresses consciousness, it is not easy to get it back. Moreover, Mikael's situation is a bit special. "

"special?"

"Yes, there is something wrong with his mental state. Zaixi... after the sixth collapse, let alone right or wrong, just looking at the situation, his mental state has indeed become more unstable. Moreover, he also committed suicide on his own Stripped of the core, the core is not only part of the Herrscher's body, but also due to the special ring structure of the First Herrscher's core, a large part of his consciousness is stored in it. In other words, his human [consciousness] weighs less than The height is lowered, but even in this situation, Vishnu's instinct can still be suppressed."

"But you let him devour the bodies of Parvanti and Shesha, as well as Yaksha's cultivation tissue, so the absolute weight of his beast side's [instinct] also increased, right?"

Faced with Alicia's questioning and gaze, Mebius was a little angry at first, but his confidence gradually declined, and he finally turned his head to the side.

"And it, and the beast outside now, does not actually have its consciousness falling into a deep sleep! But after swallowing the Herrscher's core... Even though the Herrscher's core was crushed by it, it still exists in a certain way, and it is completed. His consciousness, so that his human and beast sides have reached a delicate balance in the body - and in order to protect us from harm, instead of fighting for body dominance with [instinct] at that time, it is better to maintain balance and let this His body is temporarily in shock that can easily destroy this place again... So, he can actually vaguely feel the changes in the outside world, and he can even feel the pain of the restraint being inserted into his body, right? "

Mebius snorted, not knowing how to respond to Alicia's words.

Mei covered her forehead and said lightly: "I'm afraid yes, yesterday, at the end, when you were walking towards each other... I initially thought that it was your action of approaching it without hesitation that made it mistook you. He was regarded as an enemy, but it seems that that may not be the case now. At that time, because the core entered the body, he briefly controlled the body, and all he wanted to do at that time was to get closer to you. "

"..."

The wind lifted the curtains of the tent, and Alicia hurriedly glanced outside. Velvet moved quickly. Restraints had been installed on her arms, chest and abdomen, and she was now installing restraints on her knees.

Even if Mebius claims that he has a way to bring Mikael back, the implementation of this method must start after all the restrainers are in place - as Mei said, they must give priority to the hundreds of thousands of people in the underground city. The person is responsible. Once the attempt to wake up Mikael breaks the balance in its body and causes it to go berserk, the restraint is almost the only insurance.

"Alicia, in a sense, this is also its own choice."

Mei's consolation went unanswered.

Alicia seemed to stare at the scenery outside the curtain for a long time. Yes, starting from abandoning the human form, this was Mikael's own choice. Even though this was the decision that was most against his will, it was the only one at that time. A decision that could save everyone.

At the end, she turned her head and suddenly smiled softly: "This idiot, even overweight and super-transformed, wants to make himself as more human as possible."

"... Alicia, is there a possibility that the reason why his overweight super transformation takes on a human form to a greater extent is not determined by his consciousness, nor can it be determined by his consciousness. And It’s because as a Herrscher, his Honkai energy adaptability is too perfect, so even after the excessive transformation of the four fusion factors, he can still appear like a human..."

At this point, a spark suddenly flashed in Mebius's mind, but when she tried to reach out her hand to catch the spark, she found that the light in front of her was just the afterimage left by the strong light in her eyes. faint.

She redirected her thoughts back to the problem at hand. Alicia was right about one thing. From a human aesthetic perspective, objects with more similar shapes would naturally feel closer to them. But for Mebius, it doesn't really matter. After all, what she cares about is the [overweight and super-change] property under the skin, which in her eyes means a kind of [beauty]. After all, to her In the concept of human beings, defining human beings is far from looking at morphological similarities.

But she doesn't mind a little bit disgusting the other person over such small things.

"And if you insist on linking it to yourself and the guy outside, why not think about what it did yesterday?"

"Ugh! Ugh——"

Just thinking about that scene made both Kevin and Hua vomit.

Mei, Alicia, who had also witnessed that scene, and even Mebius himself, who had just finished speaking these words, all looked extremely ugly.

Only Sakura, who didn't know anything, remained calm.

"Okay, let's not talk about this anymore. Let's talk about what we should do - rescue Mikael."

Hearing this, Mebius stuck out the tip of his tongue and licked his upper lip gently, "There are many ways, but...how to say..."

"Well, it seems that this is the safest plan - I believe that Mikael himself must have thought of many ways for such a long time, but one thing is inevitable, whether he wants to use this body as a In the battle between consciousness and instinct, or if he wants to start anew with the help of the Herrscher Core, he needs to suppress the so-called instinct within a certain period of time, that is, let the side of the seesaw symbolizing consciousness fall to the ground.

"There are only two ways to do this. One is to increase the weight of its consciousness, and the other is to reduce the weight of its instincts. I think everyone can think of this, right."

"Mebius, you just have to tell us what to do."

"Tch, okay, to put it simply, I need a few people to contact Mikael's consciousness and help him... Mei, your metaphor is terrible! Let's put it another way and compare [consciousness] with [ The battle between instincts is regarded as a tug-of-war. Then, what you need to do is to help Mikael’s consciousness win in this tug-of-war——

"Coincidentally, Kevin, Ying, and I all have the genes of Parfanti, Yaksha, and Shesha respectively, and our consciousness also has stronger suppression power on the corresponding genes. Although I can't do it due to physical reasons, Participate in this plan, but I think it’s enough for the two of you. It shouldn’t be difficult for Mikael to suppress Vishnu and Shesha with his own will..."

Mebius turned to Alicia, "Isn't this also you?"

"Is this your plan, Mebius...it's as simple and crude as ever..."

Mei drank the coffee on the table, but her hand holding the cup suddenly stopped in mid-air.

"Wait a minute, Mebius, you want to put other people's consciousness into Mikael's body. Aponya alone may be able to do it, but in such a huge body and such a huge consciousness, unless you find someone quickly Mikael's consciousness, otherwise the entrant will gradually lose it, and Aponya will not be able to maintain it for too long... You don't know this, right?"

"Ha! How could I make such a stupid mistake? Don't worry, there is another one in Mikael's body... uh, no, it should be two? Well... anyway, there is another one in Mikael's body. A human who exists in two ways, she can help us find Mikael's consciousness. But in this case, we need two spiritually aware warriors, and we have exactly two of them when Hen is not around."

Strangely enough, when she said these words, Alicia suddenly thought of the time in Twilight Street when she sneaked into Mebius's laboratory and asked for the super-transformation surgery of the Great Freedom. She didn't pay much attention to the sound coming from the cabinet behind her...

That smell... is really familiar... "Xie'er?"