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Chapter 222: Occurrences
🕑 Added 2025-03-07 11:19:59 +0000 UTCThe eighth eruption was the largest and most chaotic mess Fire MOTH faced since their conception.
A major eruption occurred in one city, followed by four other Herrschers appearing in different places.
Worse, they appeared in strategic places—one that would cause unthinkable damage to humanity once destroyed.
Although they were soon handled by the MANTIS soldiers, the damage was done. The casualties on the fifth institute ranked first, followed by the military base attacked by the Herrscher of Death. An estimate of ten thousand casualties were dealt to the soldiers of that base alone.
Things did not end there.
The arising of traitors followed next. A thorough investigation revealed that they somehow cooperated with the Herrschers. Leakage of confidential information was but the least of their concerns.
It was later revealed that the disappearances of several rising prodigies were related to them. They even had the gall to strike on the fifth institute, hoping they could eliminate Mobius and monopolize Project Soldiers to themselves.
All of that was foiled by the swift and decisive actions of Mobius herself—that, and Aleph.
Aleph was reported to have dealt with the three Herrschers. Each time, he appeared in one place within five minutes. This publicized data to internal staff shocked them.
The more they progressed on Project Soldier, the more they realized how absurdly strong he was. No living human could ever come close to him—not even the Herrschers.
The current eighth eruption was more than enough to highlight the fact that humanity stood a huge chance against the Honkai.
Not everyone went along with that fever, however.
“Do you know anything about this?”
Tchk-!
Mei opened her can of coffee as Hagen asked along the opposite side of the conference table. Only the two of them sat here.
Click.
Several images flashed on the conference room’s walls. It was made of reinforced glass installed with billions of small interactive projectors.
As if following his hand gestures, the stacked photos moved out of the way and stayed in a more understandable position.
Each photo consisted of pictures of the dark void. The smallest picture was blurry and only a dot of purple light could be seen.
The most detailed one revealed the “explosion” of the said purple light. Vaguely, a translucent light could be seen deforming the purple light, acting as if it was a shield.
The other pictures detailed similar instances, such as two purple lights colliding, a mountain-sized silhouette appearing, and so on.
From the moment Hagen saw these, chills were sent to his spine. Under the cover of this eighth eruption, there was a disturbance this large.
“I asked the technical staff to classify this information to the highest level available.” He said before adding, “The estimated distance of these lights are more than five hundred million kilometers from Earth.”
Mei drank the entire can of coffee before she placed it on the desk. Her pupils became more focused when she looked at the images.
“Vill-V discovered these images three days ago. I was the one who asked her to remove any traces of it online.”
“..!”
Three days.
It coincided with the duration of the eighth eruption’s descent.
‘They already knew three days ago..?’
Hagen picked up the underlying meaning of her words.
“We also dealt with the technical staff whom you interacted with.”
If the previous revelation made Hagen frown, these words made him jump out of his seat.
Before he could ask anything, Mei continued speaking.
“Captain Hua, who is under Major Himeko, has a psychic-type ability that could erase memories. I asked her to use it on everyone who knew about this.”
Hearing that, he heaved a sigh of relief. Only then did his mind begin acting properly. Mei’s previous words almost made him misjudge her, though he could not be blamed.
Her current cold attitude could be felt by anyone who talked to her.
‘Everyone… Only we know about this…’
Hagen realized it was her way of showing trust. That much should be placed on someone who supported their side.
“It has something to do with Aleph. He won't be able to appear for a while.”
Another bombshell was dropped.
“Sir Aleph…”
Unbeknownst to all, Aleph has the power to create a huge mess three hundred million kilometers away from Earth.
That power made Hagen pause before feeling relieved. It was the first time since his ten years of tenure did he feel this light.
‘The hope of humanity…’
He did not speak further and waited for Mei to explain things.
“We should be able to handle the subsequent major eruptions. It won’t be as abnormal as the last three major eruptions.”
She explained more technical things to Hagen before leaving. It was enough to make the latter completely relieved.
Before she could return to her office, she could not help but think of something.
“Where did you go..?”
*****
One year has passed since the eighth eruption. The current honkai eruptions did not pose much of a threat to humanity. The number of times high-level MANTISes took action also lessened. It was as if the controller of Honkai did not have any energy to spare.
The relevant people knew that was truly the case, though.
“Ugh… What went wrong..?”
Frustration welled up in Vill-V’s after repeated and cumulative failures. Before this, no amount of roadblocks blocked her as much as this. Even if there were roadblocks, she could see herself progressing.
It was different now.
“Light differentiation did not work. It’s still futile to force its current range to the entire solar system. It’s right to focus our efforts on breaking the barrier he mentioned…”
When Aleph disappeared for more than a week, everyone started worrying. The images brought back by the satellites on the orbit made it clear that things aren't simple.
His words of “going to the Moon” made them think of the Cocoon associated with it. The images proved Aleph fought with it afterwards.
After that…
There was nothing.
For an entire year, nothing came up on their radar. Even when the Second Divine Key was finished, they saw nothing of use. Su’s extremely high compatibility did not serve much use. All he saw were things related to Earth, nothing else.
Without any results on it, Vill-V created numerous inventions, most of which were centered on interplanetary reconnaissance and devices used to observe the Imaginary Tree and Sea of Quanta.
Unfortunately, they did not discover anything from all of them, as if Aleph vanished out of thin air.
Earth’s technological tree did advance nonetheless.
“...metaphysics.”
She recalled the news shared to them by Kurumi. Apparently, Aleph became similar to the mythical gods. His existence was not on the same level as theirs. They could also form a connection with him so long as they associated themselves with the concept he held.
Vill-V was sent to a daze. If someone saw her magician persona acting like this, they would doubt whether their eyes were working. It was unheard to see Vill-V acting downcast.
“Aleph… What else can I do?”
Only her rhythmic tapping resounded throughout her workbench.
