It was a hot mess.

  That was what Fire MOTH experie the night of the fifth major eruption.

  First was the loss of satellite feeds. Nearly all camera feeds within the four cities struck by the eruption got lost. As a result, they had to manually read and predict the situation through honkai energy readings as well as the vergence of honkai beasts.

  By the time Mei returned unscathed ihe fourth institute, she was weled by the hectic workload handled by numerous Fire MOTH analysts.

  “Loss of satellite feeds? At this point in time?”

  “Well, it’s strange, definitely. We’re—”

  “It’s back up!”

  “Huh?!”

  The researcher talking to Mei returned after a while.

  “Everything’s back to normal. It might be caused by the intense honkai energy readings…”

  The phone on her coat’s back pocket vibrated. She took it out and answered the call.

  “I’m heading back. The fifth herrscher is ralized.”

  “ralized?”

  “It’s a long story. Let’s just say that… we vince a herrscher this time.”

  “...”

  Mei could not believe it. Within all these years, Fire MOTH attempted to talk with the herrschers, only to be met by their destructive nature. It was at that time it was deemed impossible to vihem through words.

  heless, she did not dwell mu it. In the end, it h they were talking about.

  “Was that why you… did that?”

  “Yeah. As for the Herrscher Core, let’s just e up with a believable excuse.”

  Hearing his words, it seems like there would be more trouble for her.

  “Let’s deal with it ter… whehing ends.”

  “Alright.”

  *****

  The sheer iy brought by the fifth major eruption caught the entire world by the storm. The Western ti had just experienced a major eruption three months ago. The same went for the Eastern ti a year ago.

  The aftermath of revealing the honkai was still being processed when such a big thing occurred.

  It wasn't as simple as other major eruptions. The remaining honkai energy from the western aern ti stacked together with the newer honkai energy. It caused a huge surge of honkai beasts as well as people being corrupted by honkai energy left and right. It was bad enough for the casualties to reach millions.

  The appearance of a high-iy honkai eruption turhe four cities into a wastend. The other three weren't as taken care of as the City of Justice, moreover.

  It wasn’t just the Western ti. The Far East also experienced another o of a major honkai eruption. It was estimated they need years to recover to normal… if they were givehing time, that is.

  This i revealed a huge fw Fire MOTH has—military force.

  To deal with the fifth eruption, the dispatched troops were stretched out thinly. The respoime was also longer due to the st-minute allocation pnning done by the analysts.

  That brought out the existeneta-Morph Soldiers—MANTIS—to the forefront.

  “With that said, Direei asked Doobius to create these… soldiers. How e we haven’t heard about it until now?”

  “Soldiers strong enough to fight emperor-css honkai beasts alone is a big deal! Are you sure you aren’t pnning anything else, Director?”

  “Exactly! Fire MOTH belongs to humanity. oured tless funds to make it e true. Why is it so, Direei?”

  Amidst the questioning voices, Mei calmly looked at their projes. Only the ander-in-chief was the real person ihis meeting.

  ‘It’s time to deal with the checkmate.’

  “First of all, it fell uhe research policies. It was clearly stated in Project Soldier that for it to be sidered as a success, an acceptable success rate should be reached. In short, what Doobius did was an experimental trial with volunteers, just as what has been done in the past.”

  Mei listed out numerous respoo their questions.

  “Finally, the trial’s success was mentioo the ander-in-chief.”

  Everyone’s gaze turowards the steadfast middle-aged man in the ter of the fereable.

  “I attest to it. Given two to three months, we will receive its mature version. That annou was three months ago.”

  Silence swept all over the room. They didn’t expect the ander-in-chief, Hagen, to side with Mei. His words subtly remihem that Project Soldier reached success, and that the capabilities of the soldiers who underwent it could possess the strength of an emperor-css honkai beast.

  “It’s all within the rules. There’s o make a fuss about it.”

  “They e again with another round of snder. You aren’t even staying in the institutes, yet even I with little experience could see how difficult it was.”

  “If that is so, when are you pnning to distribute the research findings, Direei?”

  Amidst the ‘firing back’ of Hagen’s rades within the cilor circle, one of them asked Mei in a polite tone.

  “We started piling the reports three days ago. It should be accessible iabase tomorrow.”

  Another round of deliberation began. This time, however, the opposing voices to Mei shrank. It was at this time did the others realize it lot all along.

  Some of them are feigning ess despite seeing Mei alive and well oher side. It ily showed how much cards she has on her hands.

  Some realized that Mei pnned to establish her authority within Fire MOTH. Seeing that the ander-in-chief received updates and they did not, it only meant that Mei could do it again. Worse, they couldn’t even do anything against it as excuses such as experimental trials could be used again.

  In the end, it was forcibly turned into a situation where everyoacitly agrees with Mei’s as. At the very least, she has the authority to do that.

  The best they could do now is to stop pressuring her. Even the assassins they sent didn’t do anything to her.

  heless, they wouldn't have thought that there was another Herrscher-level bat power that sides with Mei this time, and that the fifth Herrscher was taken down by him alohe 'peaceful' facade they tried to put up would stay lohan they have expected.

  “We should stop with the snders now. Direei did nothing wrong.”

  “Project Soldier is successful. Let’s e up with the proper policies regarding it.”

  “Hm… the success rate goes lower the further it goes up. We should implement the listed pre-test policies to make sure…”

  At this moment, Mei had truly established her authority.

  *****

  “Phew… It should be fine.”

  Aleph heaved a sigh as he thought of Mei’s pns. He knew how difficult it was to pull off. After all, he already went through it on his past life. Before he got the position of director in the Specialized onry Research Division, he had to pull off stunts like it. Be it lobbying or f a circle through knowledge and exclusive teology you knew, he had gohrough it already.

  In this life, he saw that Mei was a better fit than him in this position… and he was right.

  “We should be able to do things more flexibly after this round of politics… Hm?”

  The bright white light in his left hand disturbed his thoughts.

  Over the past three months, it was fluctuating. Great Sage judged it as “increasing” its strength. Everything that he found about it were as follows:

  [Worlds’ Light]

  [Type: Artifact]

  [Use 1: To break world boundaries.]

  [Use 2: To interfere in space-time vectors.]

  …

  There are numerous theorized uses to it. The first one was the ohat took Aleph’s attention the most.

  “Kurumi… What were you doing over there…”

  The iy of the light became stronger. Yet, he did not see Vill-V react to it. This time, he turned on his Elemental Sight and saw more about it.

  ‘I k… An information state. Just what is…’

  Buzz-!

  Hum-!

  Shatter-!

  Within his sight filled with nothing but blue, a silver light appeared in the shape of a crack.