The girl unlocked the door of the data library and stepped inside. The door automatically closed behind her.
The night-vision function of her helmet was activated as she searched for something in the unlit data room.
Quickly, she found her target—the storage device that could connect to the main data library.
She casually clenched her hand in the air, and a Fire Moth standard long sword materialized in her grasp. Taking a large stride toward the equipment, she raised the sword high, her azure visual display coldly scrutinizing the device in front of her.
Then, she slashed down without hesitation.
"Clang!"
…
The night was peaceful.
"Anything unusual?" Kevin came to the monitoring room and asked the last shift of rotating monitors.
"No. Although we can't tell exactly where it is, we can see if it's active. It has now resumed activity and is observing the room's facilities."
Kevin leaned closer to the monitor screen, squinting to observe the tiny transparent undulation inside, confirming that its outline was the Starlight silhouette he had memorized.
He let out a long breath and changed the subject, asking, "Has anything happened inside the Shenzhou Branch?"
"Well… it seems like there was some anomaly in the data library last night…"
"Why didn't you report it to me?"
The monitor was at a loss facing Kevin's reprimand. He was just a newly assigned staff member, and only following the script for these duties. The unusual movement in the data library had not caught their attention.
In fact, the anomaly in the data library was that he had glimpsed the data library door seeming to unlock for an instant while monitoring, but when he looked closer, it was normal again.
And the system showed no abnormal access records.
"…Never mind. I'll go check myself."
Seeing his demeanor, Kevin knew he couldn't get a clear answer, so he simply headed to the Shenzhou Branch's data library himself.
There were some differences between the Branch and Headquarters data libraries. Because each Branch had distinct responsible projects and functions, the stored data also varied.
However, the Headquarters data library could be accessed through a specific terminal. The Headquarters data library contained all the data of the entire Fire Moth, and even most human data was stored within it. It could be said that the Headquarters data library was a microcosm of the human race.
Accessing the Headquarters data library via the specific terminal required identity verification from the person in charge of each branch, so not everyone could access it.
But Kevin thought of Immer's previous report about the Starlight hacking his computer and absorbing most of the Fire Moth' data.
The intrusion of a mechanical life form like the Starlight probably couldn't be stopped by human security measures.
Arriving in front of the data library, Kevin used his badge to open the door, and the sight that greeted him made his pupils shrink into a tiny dot.
The terminal, cleanly split into two halves by a single slash, was sparking faintly.
"Creak."
…
"A unique aspect of humans is that they are always advocating for peace and equality, yet they have never truly achieved it."
The man wrote this sentence in his diary, but quickly crossed it out. The writing in his diary was sometimes neat, sometimes sloppy, reflecting his volatile state of mind and emotions.
He tapped his pen, then used his metallic-sheened hand to write another sentence: "But who gets to decide who survives… If life is equal, is death correct? If death is equal, what meaning does unequal life hold…"
"Can one person's life truly be decided by a complete stranger?"
"Can I really… decide who lives, and who dies?"
He finished the last sentence, closed his diary, and pushed his glasses up.
"Have you decided?"
"…"
The pink-haired girl stood behind him and repeated: "Have you decided?"
The man stared at the cover of the diary in his hand. He stroked the wrinkled texture on it, and after a moment, he nodded silently.
"Then go and issue the order quickly. They are all waiting for you."
"…Don't you want to ask me what I decided?"
"I trust that you will make the correct decision."
"Correct?" The man chewed on the word. He raised his head, and something flickered in his dark pupils, but upon closer look, there was nothing. "You're right. I will definitely make the correct decision. Any order I give will only be the most correct one."
No, it must be "correct."
Even if he was about to press a button and kill tens of millions of lives in a city, that would also be correct.
Because humanity needed someone to do it.
"Do you believe a miracle will happen?"
The man turned back to the pink-haired girl, who had been his companion for years and grown from a girl into a mature woman, asking: "Do you believe that just before I press the button, everyone in that city will wake up from the state of consciousness contamination? Do you believe their feelings can transcend the Herrscher's power?"
"…What kind of answer do you want by asking me that? Do you hope I believe, or don't believe?"
"…"
"Lin, the question you should be asking is not me, but yourself." The pink-haired girl's smile seemed never to have changed. She stood in the light, not distant, yet not within reach. "Because you know that even if you still believe deep down that a miracle will happen, you will still cruelly press that button."
The man stood up. He had forgotten how to curve his lips into a smile, or when the last time he smiled was: "The consciousness of everyone in the city recovers the second before its destruction, and then they have to face the fact that their own compatriots abandoned them. No… they won't even have time to realize it, they will just die meaninglessly."
Both the man and the girl had intimately experienced the Herrscher's power. It was a strength against which the individual human could absolutely not contend, with no possibility of luck. A miracle could not happen to them.
Therefore, his decision was not wrong.
"So, you're thinking that a miracle can't happen. That way, you won't have to bear any psychological pressure for what you do, because those killed are merely Honkai Beasts eroded by the Herrscher, not living human beings."
However, the girl saw through his thoughts.
Tearing away his disguise, and harshly pulling out the most vulnerable, detestable, and utterly ashamed part of him.
"...Then what should we do?"
The skin on the man's face twitched. He couldn't even manage a decent expression anymore.
"In the current reality where the global human population has been sharply reduced by a third, can we still pray for a miracle? Pray that those monsters won't appear again, pray that those monsters will regain their senses, pray that they… will come and help us?"
"I have wished for countless days and nights that the people who were eroded into monsters by the Honkai could recover using the so-called power of human emotion."
"We wouldn't have to raise our butcher's knives against those who were once our kin. We could also believe that the miracle sparked by human emotion can defeat the Honkai."
"But the truth is…"
"Not even the smallest miracle will be left for humanity."