Kalpas, You Don't Want Lee Going to the Battlefield, Right?

Humanity's resources were no longer abundant, and they couldn't afford Kalpas's nonsense. Therefore, stopping him was necessary.

But the awkward problem was... no one was taking action.

Currently, even if you counted all of humanity, there were only three people who could reliably defeat Kalpas: Lee, Kevin, and Elysia.

Lee, due to the side effects of the battle, could only stay in a specially made room. Leaving it would be an enormous ordeal for her. Although if she were told the reason, Lee would definitely choose to come and stop Kalpas... but no one wanted to do that.

Kevin, because of everyone's suspicion of Lee during the Herrscher of Legion incident, was extremely dissatisfied. If he weren't relatively rational, he would have wanted to help Kalpas beat up everyone who couldn't get away.

Therefore, he had absolutely no intention of helping to stop him.

As for Elysia... after the Herrscher of Legion incident, she had been in a daze, not even having the energy to do her usual favorite thing of getting close to girls, let alone stopping Kalpas.

Could it be that we have to send Sakura? If Sakura and I work together, we should be able to subdue him...

Su sighed wearily and decided—

"Kalpas has been temporarily restrained by me."

A gentle female voice sounded at the door. Su suddenly looked up, puzzled. "Aponia? Weren't you still at the Europe Branch helping Mei complete the plan for the Key of Domination and the [Meta-Morph] serum?"

"We've already achieved results there..." Aponia, with her eyes closed, shook her head gently. "And if things continue here, it will only lead to the outcome she least wants to see."

The threads of fate allowed her to see a glimpse of the future, but they couldn't let her see everything clearly. Otherwise, if she had known the true face of the Herrscher of Legion in advance and come to help Lee, the situation wouldn't have been so bad.

If there really were gods in this world, to let her see the future but not let her see all of the future, to give her some power but not the power to change everything... such gods must be the most sadistic existences.

But no matter what, even if humanity was destined for destruction, if Lee chose to resist before that, Aponia would use all her strength to help Lee accomplish everything she wanted to accomplish.

"No matter what, thanks to—"

Su's voice was interrupted by the shrill sound of the siren. And this sound, almost engraved in their DNA, made both him and Aponia instantly turn their heads to the screen beside them.

This was Fire Moth's highest internal alarm. Whenever it appeared, it represented only one thing, the same word that was now frantically scrolling across all the screens—Herrscher!

"What a joke?! It's been less than four months since the last Honkai!"

Su, uncharacteristically losing his composure, slammed his fist heavily on the desk in front of him. The solid wood tabletop was pierced directly by his blow.

But the facts would not change because of his anger. Detailed information was immediately transmitted to the screen of Fire Moth's supreme leader.

Although it didn't have the terrifyingly high Honkai energy reaction of the previous Honkai, the value was still at a level that only a Herrscher could possess.

Without a doubt, the Eleventh Honkai had descended, giving humanity no chance to breathe.

"Notify all of Fire Moth. Prepare for the Eleventh Herrscher subjugation operation."

Aponia stood to the side, watching Su issue orders methodically to the various departments of Fire Moth, not interrupting him, until he sat back down wearily in his chair before speaking.

"Then, what about Lee?"

"...Let's not notify her for now," Su clenched his fist silently. "The aftereffects of the last battle were too severe for her. It's too risky to let her participate in combat now. This reaction seems similar to the previous Ninth Herrscher. We should be able to successfully subjugate it without Lee."

"Successfully?" Aponia sighed softly, saying nothing more.

In the face of Honkai, did humanity really still have the right to use the word "successfully"? Even if the strength of this Eleventh Herrscher hadn't increased further and was similar to the Ninth Herrscher, it still meant that humanity would lose an entire continent as a price.

Besides, how could Lee possibly let others risk their lives to subjugate the Herrscher while she stood by and watched?

As it turned out, the [surprises] given to humanity by Honkai would only get bigger and bigger each time.

In the conference room of the Asia Branch, everyone looked at the data projected on the screen by Mei, their hearts turning cold.

Two subjugation operations against the Eleventh Herrscher had already been carried out. And apart from leaving behind a large number of casualties, they had returned without any success. The only thing they brought back was this intelligence, paid for with their lives.

Within a radius of 100 kilometers centered on the location where the Eleventh Herrscher appeared, there was a huge barrier. And within the range of this barrier, all Honkai energy was nullified, and other forms of energy were also weakened.

Ordinary soldiers, upon entering the barrier, would die instantly due to the disappearance of their bioelectric voltage. MANTIS warriors, who had fused with Honkai beast genes, would also experience a malfunction of their bodily functions the moment they stepped into the barrier, persisting for about a minute before similarly dying.

All electronic systems failed, and various high-tech weapons became scrap metal. In the barrier, the only weapons that were still effective were surprisingly cold weapons.

In the face of previous Herrschers, no matter how powerful the enemy was, no matter how heavy the price paid, humanity had never thought of giving up. But this time, even many determined frontline soldiers collapsed in despair, dropping their weapons.

And the worst thing was that this barrier was still constantly expanding, now covering half of the Eurasian continent.

Despair.

MANTIS warriors, technology, everything humanity was proud of was meaningless. Not to mention the hope of victory, they hadn't even seen the face of that Herrscher yet, and didn't even know where she was!

"I'll lead a team of the most elite MANTIS warriors and go in to search for the Herrscher's traces," Kevin, with a serious expression, put forward his idea.

His dissatisfaction with some of the people present was not something he could waste time thinking about now. All he had to do now was subjugate the Herrscher and win a chance for humanity.

"Your survival time inside is too short. You might not find her. Even if you find her, without combat effectiveness, you won't be able to pose a threat to her," Mei shook her head silently. "Without finding a way to deal with that barrier, going in is meaningless. Once a fighting force like you is lost, things will only get more difficult."

"...If humans can't do it, what about non-humans?"

Mobius, sitting to the side with a haggard expression, voiced her thoughts. "I examined Kalpas before. He... is not quite human. The barrier's influence might be ineffective on him. Kalpas's combat power is very strong. If we use space-based kinetic weapons to provide support strikes from above the battlefield, he might be able to eliminate the Eleventh Herrscher alone."

"It's worth a try..." Mei silently looked at Su. "Is he still in the prison, reflecting?"

"Mm, no intention of coming out," Su sighed. Since being subdued and imprisoned by Aponia, Kalpas had not escaped to continue his destruction, but he had also shown no signs of returning to work. "Because of what happened before, um... I don't know if he'll agree to help."

"It doesn't matter," Mei adjusted her glasses calmly. "Just tell him that, other than him, Lee is the only option."