"Your body structure is highly similar to a Honkai Beast's. This means you originally modified yourselves into bodies suitable for a Honkai energy environment. The claim that you cannot survive on your native planet is a lie."
The girl clearly stated the content of the Starlight's conversation with Kevin and the others, information she had acquired by eavesdropping on their conversation.
Furthermore, not only was there a high degree of structural similarity to Honkai Beasts, but the girl also discovered that the Starlight's outer shell was actually a "container." Their internal contents were the true entity.
This meant that the Starlights Kevin and the others had encountered were merely "Honkai Beasts" that had deliberately compressed their size.
They could revert to the size of a typical Honkai Beast by leaving their outer shell.
And their true forms... were distorted entities that could not be described using Earth's biological terms or previously encountered Honkai Beasts.
"Are you what humans call a 'Herrscher'?"
Just then, the silent Starlight, having finished its analysis of the girl, spoke this sentence.
The girl, however, simply sat there calmly, asking in an accusatory tone: "Tell me your purpose."
...
"Dr. Einstein, this is the latest result."
"...This is simply too... insane." Einstein rubbed her messy hair, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at the report Mei handed her. "The consciousness inside the Herrscher Core is gone?"
The Core of the Herrscher of Reason, excavated from the previous civilization's ruins, had vanished from the core after arriving at headquarters.
Neither she nor Mei could believe that the Herrscher consciousness had coincidentally dissipated completely during transit after millions of years. Whether a Herrscher consciousness can truly die is still a debatable question.
That left only one possibility.
The Herrscher consciousness had escaped.
"Impossible. How could she leave the core without a body?" Einstein chewed on her coffee spoon, her mind racing. "The transport personnel? The Armed Dolls?"
The two most likely options surfaced in her mind.
"I have checked all the Armed Dolls and transport personnel involved at the time, and I can confirm that none were possessed by the Herrscher consciousness."
"…"
The discussion reached a stalemate. If the Herrscher consciousness hadn't escaped by possessing these people, where was it?
They had to find the Herrscher consciousness quickly. Even if she left the Herrscher Core, she shouldn't be able to use her Authority, at least not the near-divine Authority she possessed while in the Core. But she was still, at the very least, the consciousness of an absolute anti-human monster.
"Wait a minute... What if she didn't use an existing body to escape?" Einstein suddenly had a bold conjecture.
Something else found along with the Herrscher Core was also worth attention.
Hearing this, Mei brought up the containment data for Soulium. She scanned it and asked calmly, "Dr. Einstein, what was the mass of the Soulium when you first discovered it?"
Einstein reported a number.
Mei fell silent.
And Einstein, from Mei's silence, confirmed that her conjecture was correct.
Soulium was a metal with high malleability in a special state. If a portion of its mass was missing, the remaining part could still be molded into an identical shape.
Between the time Einstein first discovered the Soulium and when it was finally contained, a portion of its mass was missing.
That missing portion was exactly the mass of... an ordinary human.
"I think I know who it is."
Mei pushed up her glasses.
"You know... Wait, are you saying you've been suspicious of someone all along?"
"It's less suspicion and more just gathering evidence to confirm a lock-on."
"Then why aren't you hurrying to..."
"I am already conducting an experiment on her."
Mei smiled. Her smile was utterly devoid of warmth.
...
"Herrschers should be the natural enemy of humanity."
"Do you want your plan to be discovered by humans?"
"If I disclose my plan, you may also inform humanity." The Starlight's voice sounded like a vibration in the air. "Therefore, rejected."
"…"
The girl naturally knew that questioning the Starlight's purpose in this manner was unrealistic.
But what she wanted to test was precisely the Starlight's logic.
"My subsequent actions can be determined by your purpose. If your purpose does not conflict with mine, I will not inform humanity and will assist you."
After hearing this, the Starlight began a cycle of logical deduction.
This creature with a human appearance was not human. According to human data, she highly overlapped with a Herrscher, and there was a partial similarity between Herrschers and the Starlight.
Before long, as the logical deduction reached the point that a Herrscher was an enemy of humanity, the conclusion appeared.
"I understand. Next, I will state the purpose of my plan."
A contemptuous smile appeared on the girl's beautiful face beneath her helmet, as if she had already anticipated the level of intelligence of this alien species.
However, she felt there was something "abnormal" about what the Starlight just said.
"My plan."
Why "my"? This couldn't be a slip of the tongue caused by a difference in cognition between an alien and human civilization.
Could it have a personal plan that conflicted with its species?
No... A species whose foundation was logic could not have a difference of opinion.
Difference of... opinion?
The girl suddenly understood why it used the individual-designating term "my plan."
They... were a "collective" from the very beginning, and also an "individual."
"My purpose is..."
If the thought process of a species was calculated using one set of logic, after discarding their original bodies, they gathered their thoughts to condense into a massive, inseparable whole, and that whole was simultaneously every individual Starlight.
Then, the Starlights humanity had encountered so far were probably just...
Puppets controlled by the alien collective consciousness, "Starlight."
From the very beginning, there was only one "Starlight."
"To seize the Earth's resources and the Herrscher Cores owned by humanity, and to transform the separated individual human consciousnesses into a single whole."
And for a civilization of this existential form, they were one and all, all and one. They would naturally arrive at the most "basic" judgment regarding a civilization like humanity, with its distinct individual differences:
To turn humanity into the same form of existence.
"If humanity refuses, I will summon the Planetary-class Honkai Beast located in the Centaurus star system."
"To destroy this planet."
There was no mercy or emotion, as if a mechanical god had descended and issued a decree.
And at this moment, the girl also realized that the Starlight was not the concept of an exiled "alien civilization," but an alien invader with strong goals of conquest, colonization, and assimilation.