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Chapter 94: Crossroads
🕑 Added 2024-10-24 14:50:24 +0000 UTCAn extremely lengthy document was soon sent to Aleph.
It didn’t take long for Mei and the others to narrow the targets down. There are three suspicious places within the neighborhood where the Herrscher attacked.
The first one was a meth lab.
The second one was an unauthorized laboratory.
The third one was a port for human trafficking.
After a round of searching, he found the girl whom he saw in his elemental sight. He read through her documents. The remaining clues were enough for Aleph to piece together a story.
‘...Fuck.’
A few months after the third eruption, Aleph pushed forward for the crackdown of unauthorized laboratories. He knew it was a hotspot for Herrschers to be created. Just by himself, he cracked down on dozens of them. It takes a night in general to fly to five hidden laboratories found after a week of preparation.
Despite all of that, they kept on appearing. Both the incidents he saw in the councilor’s base as well as Otto’s example in Siberia made him extremely wary of the dangers it posed.
It was akin to a bacteria that couldn’t be removed no matter what.
As other philosophers say, humans are inherently evil. It would always exist at some point. It was just that this time, it shot them straight in the foot.
‘Humanity created another Sirin. Damn it.’
The girl in question was called Ling. In official records, she was reported missing three years ago by her parents. However, the truth was that these parents trafficked her for a hefty sum of cash. Their contact person was the mother’s sibling, which made her Ling’s aunt.
It was sickening to see these kinds of things done by one’s parents. Not only that, her immediate family followed suit.
‘She was sent to the laboratory later on…’
It wasn’t a surprise to know that human traffickers and unauthorized laboratories were connected.
‘Three years… If I managed to find this group back then…’
Aleph couldn’t dedicate all of his time to hunting these small organizations. He first took out the biggest ones in the other continents before settling in the Mu Continent. It was a clean-up that targeted the biggest ones before doing another clean sweep for the smaller ones.
‘Sixth Herrscher. I need to follow her trails constantly.’
He thought of the sixth Herrscher’s abilities. It was described as the decomposition and recreation of biological matter. If the girl was as determined as Sirin to wipe out humanity, she would know how to deal with Fire MOTH’s chase. If she was more intelligent than expected, she might as well contact several higher-ups of MOTH and tempt them with her powers.
After all, the sixth’s authority was the most suitable for that. Recreating an organic body was possible as long as she had access to honkai energy—to which she possessed through the core with her.
Just then, Aleph recalled the most important point.
‘I can’t let her get to the Moon.’
With all the unexpected changes, he was no longer confident of his foreknowledge. He had to take this more seriously.
Zoom-!
A silver streak appeared once more in the dark sky.
*****
“He’s moving frantically… Did you really see something?”
Looking at the swiftly moving dot on the screen, Vill-V fixed the glasses on her nose. They were cooperating as usual until Aleph asked her to conduct a background search to the girls in the unauthorized laboratory.
Unlike other illegal laboratories, this one worked on experimenting with the so-called Sea of Quanta—the same field the fourth institute focused on. The only defining difference was the former’s lack of restraint when it comes to human casualties. Hundreds of children died over the past three years. There weren’t any documented successes, either.
When Aleph heard about it, his speed became even faster.
“Was it related to his… superpower?”
Vill-V knew she wasn’t just the one who thought so. Aleph’s abnormal strength—one that couldn’t be explained—caught the attention of everyone in Fire MOTH. Most thought of it as a result of Mobius’ work, but only their circle knew it wasn’t that.
Upon the completion of the MANTIS surgery, he immediately adapted to his rise in strength. He could also freely control his ICHOR, removing any side effects as he will. It was completely different from the others.
Mobius had to wear contacts when going outside due to her eyes. Elysia and Sakura had to wear the transfiguration hood Vill-V invented. It was a hood that creates a visual illusion to cover up their ears.
Even Kevin suffered from it via his surroundings suddenly becoming colder and hotter, though it was the smallest recorded side effect so far.
Time and time, Aleph showed his abnormalities.
‘Was it like that time? He shot all the cameras down…’
For a while, Vill-V was sent into a deep thought. It wasn’t until Aleph’s voice came from the other side once more did she break out of it.
“...Vill-V.”
“Y-yes?”
“Can you pick up the readings around my location? Be it honkai or other energy readings…”
*****
Aleph looked at the space in front of him. The chase lasted for nearly two hours. The trail ended at this exact place, a mountainside. There was an abandoned black car along with several footprints.
Upon further investigation, it ended at the start of the hiking path.
‘...It’s noisy.’
His Deathly Intuition had been pricking the back of his neck the moment he arrived. He used his Elemental Sight to scan his surroundings, to which he found nothing. There weren’t any ambushes or the likes.
All he found was a slight disturbance in space. It was extremely similar to Newton’s visualization of the Sun’s surroundings. Frankly put, the space was bent. It was as if there was something here akin to a sun.
A while later, Aleph saw the past. From Ling leaving the car up to her arrival in this place, he saw everything.
Then…
‘...That’s it.’
Within this dark blue sight, her body turned into a similar color of the space. Just like that, she disappeared.
Aleph took some time to resolve his inner conflicts.
‘She went there. Sea of Quanta.’
In the Current Era, the Sea of Quanta was the place where Kevin was trapped. It was also the place where Seele got stuck after an experiment that went wrong.
It was a place known as the place where numerous world bubbles (i.e., worlds that couldn’t defeat honkai) fall. It was a place filled with numerous uncontrolled variables.
Aleph thought of his newest weapon, Yamato.
‘It’s something that could create a portal to the demon realm. If it’s converted, at least to honkai’s standards…’
It might be something that could forcefully open a way to other dimensions.
‘To enter or not…’
The strong ‘pricking’ sensation at the back of his neck discouraged him otherwise.
‘Is this a trap..?’
A crossroad was presented upon Aleph.
