"Big Sister Hua, you haven't changed at all,"
Griseo said innocently, glancing at both women's chests with childlike sincerity.
Fu Hua: "…"
Hua: "…"
If anyone else had said that, both would have probably erased them on the spot—but since it was Griseo, they could only swallow their pride. Children spoke without malice.
The other memories turned their heads.
Only now did they notice—so many years had passed, and neither of them had developed at all.
"Were you two victims of capitalist manipulation or something?"
"The fusion warriors still have a chance to develop," Mobius remarked, landing the final blow on Fu Hua's pride.
So… I can't develop because it's my fault?
Fu Hua's composure cracked, her irritation barely contained. Griseo had unknowingly stepped right on her weak spot.
"You're Griseo?" Mobius asked curiously.
"Griseo…"
At that name, every Flame-Chaser fell silent. They all knew her story—the one who carried out the Ark Project, venturing alone into the stars.
"How is Griseo now?" Mobius asked softly.
Normally indifferent, she truly cared for the little girl.
"She's fine," Koji replied. "The ark she boarded landed safely on a distant planet. She's just in stasis right now."
Mobius exhaled in relief, but her brow furrowed again. Had Griseo run into trouble?
She suddenly wanted to leave the Elysian Realm and go find her.
"Kiana, you'll train here for a while. Everyone's fine with that, right?"
"No problem," Mobius said, giving Fu Hua a long look. "Plenty of space for you to unleash some chaos."
Her tone was loaded with implication.
"A living Herrscher—such valuable research material."
"Kiana isn't a single-core Herrscher, right?" Elysia asked.
"...My body does contain multiple Herrscher cores," Kiana admitted hesitantly.
"Multi-core Herrscher?"
Mobius' curiosity flared. "That never happened in the Previous Era."
"By the way," she added, "don't you Herrschers hate humanity?"
"Well… I…"
Kiana struggled to answer. She knew her truth—she wasn't the original Kiana, but a clone created to host Herrscher cores.
Fu Hua briefly summarized Kiana's background and what she'd learned about the Second Eruption from Schicksal.
Because she had burned away her memories, Kiana had no recollection of that event.
"The Herrschers of this era are that pathetic?"
Kalpas scoffed. "Six cores, and still lost? Back in our time, a single-core Herrscher was enough to massacre legions of fusion warriors."
A six-core Herrscher should've been near-godlike—short of Finality itself—yet she'd been defeated so easily.
The others looked uneasy. The notion of a six-core being still losing was absurd.
"Damn it! You bastard! Let me out, I'll kill you!"
The Herrscher of the Void inside Kiana snapped. Provoked again and again, she was ready to explode.
The more furious the Herrscher became, the more relieved Kiana felt—it was oddly cathartic.
"But Kiana, those multiple cores must be taking a toll on your body," Elysia sighed.
Kiana fell silent. She could already feel it—her body was slipping out of her control, becoming a vessel for the Herrscher within.
Even her senses were dulling. Food had started to taste like nothing at all.
"Kiana, why didn't you say anything?" Himeko frowned. She hadn't realized Kiana's condition was this severe.
"I… didn't want to worry you. After the Herrscher of the Void stole the Gem of Conquest from Mei, the pressure from the cores only grew stronger," Kiana murmured.
"Elysia, you can help her, can't you?" Eden asked.
Elysia smiled and nodded. "Since she'll be training here anyway, I'll take care of it."
"By the way, little white mouse," Mobius turned to Fu Hua, "when all that happened, didn't Kevin or Su come to help you? What were they doing?"
Fu Hua opened her mouth to answer—
but Koji stepped in. "Over a thousand years ago, Kevin was sealed in the Quantum Sea. Su was using Thousand Realms One Thought to observe parallel worlds."
"Huh?"
Mobius squinted at Su. "A psychic-type fusion warrior with that kind of ability? Kevin was the strongest of us—how did you manage to send him into the Quantum Sea?"
Su gave a weary smile. "I didn't. He chose to go."
"There was no way I could have overpowered him—not even with a surprise attack."
"Don't apologize," Kevin said calmly. "If my true self made that choice, it was for a reason. You needn't feel guilty."
"I'm guessing you two split because of the Stigmata Project, right?" Vill-V said thoughtfully.
It was the only thing big enough to divide them.
"The Stigmata Project?" Durandal asked curiously.
Mobius' tone darkened. "A disaster of a plan. Version 0.5—the worst one of all. If you knew about it, you'd want to stop it immediately."
She scowled. She had revised that project dozens of times herself, only for that profiteer Mei to pick the first, most brutal version.
"It was awful," she continued, "but it guaranteed survival. If you can defeat Honkai, the project is meaningless. If not, at least humanity wouldn't be completely erased."
The present-era group looked uneasy. That sounded like a plan that ignored all moral boundaries.
"Your bishop—since he possesses the Imaginary Space Vault—must already know of it," Mobius added coldly. "If he's kept it from you, it's probably because the truth would cause chaos."
Durandal memorized the words. Once she returned to Schicksal, she would demand answers.
She needed to know what exactly the Stigmata Project was.
(End of Chapter)
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