"Dr. Mobius, wake up, Dr. Mobius!"
That voice… Klein? Mobius opened her eyes, somewhat surprised, and looked at her former assistant. She clearly remembered that Klein had already been… the Tenth Herrscher.
She sat up and felt a weight she hadn't experienced in a long time pressing against her chest. She looked down, then froze in place. Had she… been reborn?
It took Mobius several days to finally confirm that she had indeed been reborn in the past.
But why? What was the underlying principle? And what kind of force could reverse time itself?
After struggling with those questions for a long time, Mobius eventually forced herself to stop obsessing over *why* she had been reborn. Only then did she realize that she felt strangely lost, unsure of what she should do next.
Everything she had once pursued—her ideals, her ambitions—had already been fulfilled by that boy in her previous life.
"With my hand, I will ascend to godhood."
"With my body, I ascend to the throne of God."
"…Lumine," she whispered the boy's name, recalling the one who had borne all the world's sins alone, remembering his lonely figure as he departed at the very end. Mobius clenched her hands. At the very least, this time, she had to live.
He had never owed the world anything. It was the world that owed him far too much.
If she remembered correctly, Lumine's earliest identity had been that of a survivor rescued by Elysia during an incident caused by Honkai energy. Thinking of this, Mobius looked at her assistant. "Klein, where did Elysia go?"
She couldn't recall which collapse Lumine had survived, since she hadn't known him back then. But she knew everything about his physical condition afterward.
She only vaguely remembered that Lumine had been discovered before the Third Collapse, and the timing should be around now. As long as she followed Elysia, she would be able to find him.
"Elysia?" Klein looked at Mobius with a somewhat speechless expression. "Doctor, wasn't she transferred a few days ago to participate in the investigation of a small-scale Honkai incident? The investigation results were already sent here."
And didn't you dislike her?
"Let me see it," Mobius said. Klein flipped through the reports Mobius had casually tossed aside and found the one she had only glanced at before discarding. "Here it is."
Mobius took it almost eagerly, her gaze stopping on the line listing the survivors.
"One survivor. Name: **Lumine**."
"Klein, send my regards to those old men for me. I need to go see this survivor."
Klein thought Mobius had set her sights on a new experimental subject. She hesitated. "But even if he's the only survivor and has a higher resistance to Honkai energy than ordinary people, we still need his consent if we want him to assist with experiments, right?"
"He'll agree," Mobius replied firmly. "Klein, don't waste time. I need to see him as soon as possible."
Regardless of whether Lumine had been reborn or not, Mobius was certain he would agree. Moreover, she didn't believe rebirth was something that had only happened to her. Others might have been reborn as well—especially Elysia.
She needed to bring him under her protection first, before any of the others who might have been reborn could act.
She knew, to some extent, that Lumine had initially joined Fire Moth for Elysia's sake. But that didn't matter. To Mobius, he was like a reckless younger sibling walking straight toward a battlefield—someone who needed to be pulled back, watched over, and protected, even if it meant forcefully dragging him away from danger.
Meanwhile, on Dusk Street.
"Oh my, Sister Nia, don't you have *any* ideas at all? This is a perfect chance to save Brother Lumine!" Pado looked at Aponia, who remained calm, with utter frustration written all over her face.
After realizing she had been reborn, the usually carefree Pado had immediately rushed to the orphanage where Aponia lived, wanting to confirm whether Aponia had also been reborn. She had received an affirmative answer.
Pado only wanted to pull Lumine out of the mire of fighting the Honkai. Then the two of them could live ordinary lives, free from everything else.
"Pado, there's no need to rush. We will meet when the time is right," Aponia said softly. "Now is not the time to see him."
"Aponia, get out here!"
A hoarse voice rang out from outside the door. If Pado still had a tail, the fur on it would have been standing on end.
"Kal—Brother Kalpas?" Pado stared in shock. "Sister Nia, you've known Brother Kalpas for that long?"
Aponia shook her head.
She had only come to know Kalpas after the Fifth Herrscher incident—after he had torn the Fifth Herrscher apart. When she met him back then, he wasn't shouting outside the orphanage like this.
Although Fire Moth had blocked all information about the Honkai, Aponia could still deduce that the Fifth Herrscher had not yet appeared. Kalpas hadn't torn her apart before coming here.
"So Kalpas, you've also been reborn…" Aponia thought. "Then Elysia… you must have been reborn as well."
She still remembered Elysia's forlorn expression at the final banquet. She also remembered Lumine's reply when she asked why he wasn't going.
"There's nothing to see. My relationship with her… isn't that close."
The boy who had once chased after Elysia's retreating figure had finally parted ways with her.
Aponia walked to the orphanage gate and saw Kalpas waiting there. He went straight to the point.
"Aponia, do you know where the nearest Fire Moth base is?"
Kalpas hadn't thought too deeply about it. After being reborn, his first thought was to beat Lumine senseless—preferably cripple him so he couldn't join Fire Moth.
But he had no idea how to find Fire Moth, so he came to Aponia. He assumed she had probably been reborn too.
If she hadn't been, he would have gone back the way he came, waited for the Fifth Herrscher to appear, torn her apart, and then waited for Fire Moth to arrive.
"Kalpas, that is his destiny," Aponia said calmly. "Even if you go to Fire Moth now, you cannot change his fate of becoming a Fusion Warrior—a Satan."
Pado, standing to the side, was completely dumbfounded.
"So you do know where Fire Moth is…" she thought. "And you're not planning to save him at all."
Her eyes darted around. If Sister Nia wouldn't help, then there was only one other option.
Sister Vill-V.
Sister Vill-V had to know where Fire Moth was. All Pado needed to do was find her.
"To hell with fate!" Kalpas cursed. "Your so-called destiny is letting Lumine die alone on the moon? Never getting another chance to rest in peace?"
"I'll c**sh you! Aponia, don't forget—it was you who almost got Lumine killed by those scumbags!"
"That is my sin," Aponia sighed softly.
During the Twelfth Herrscher incident, Lumine had reached Rin's side before anyone else. While protecting her, soldiers had used Honkai energy interference bombs on him, causing the various super-mutant factors in his body to repel each other.
He never fought back.
As a result, he had nearly died at the hands of the humans he had always protected, succumbing to her commandments. The awakening of the Twelfth Herrscher was also tied to him.
"Aponia," Kalpas growled, clenching his fists, "do you think I can crush you into dust right now?"
Aponia met his gaze calmly, without answering.
She knew better than anyone how crucial Lumine was to humanity's future—for he was the only person she had ever met who could truly challenge fate itself.
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