Honkai: Fire Moth Herrschers

Chapter 238: It’s Decided! You’re Up!

Chapter 238 - It's Decided! You're Up![165:52:25]

Michael glanced at the number displayed at the top of the war room's holographic projection screen. Two hours had passed on the countdown. Adding the thirty-three hours Kevin and Sakura had been unconscious, they had effectively wasted thirty-five hours.

Nearly one-fifth of their total time...

Michael ran a hand through his hair, beginning to feel agitated in this battle devoid of smoke and gunpowder.

"Prometheus, push Elvin again. Now that we know the transmission vector of the attack, why is progress still so slow?"

Due to the ongoing upgrade, many of Prometheus's modules were suspended. It couldn't even "speak" now, only executing Michael's tasks via pop-up messages.

"Forget it..." Michael smoothed his bangs again. Good thing I'm still young. If Ato were here, the console would probably be covered in hair by now... He tried telling himself a lame joke to calm down.

"Patch me through directly to Elvin."

Although they were both in the same war room, not even twenty steps apart, such a call still served a purpose—like further pressuring Elvin, forcing him to talk while working.

"Yaaawn! Alright, alright, I heard you, Captain Michael." Elvin yawned, but his voice was overly excited. Some people get drowsy after over twenty hours without sleep, while others become increasingly agitated, unable to sleep. Elvin was clearly the latter. This excitement and agitation had another, less auspicious but fitting term—a final burst of energy before collapse.

"So, where are your results?" Though feeling some reluctance, now wasn't the time for mercy. In a sense, they were racing against death itself.

"It's a bit complicated... Yaaawn! Not quite what we initially thought. There doesn't seem to be much commonality in what the sleeping sickness patients viewed before falling ill. Some were watching videos, some reading novels, some listening to broadcasts, even watching... adult films. Later, I thought, maybe it's because the onset times were different? I checked patients who fell ill around the same time, but unfortunately, still couldn't find any commonality."

Elvin slowly slumped in his seat, the fatigue from prolonged lack of sleep and rest spreading through his body.

Michael couldn't push him any further for the moment. He sighed softly. "If you really can't go on, go get some sleep. Working without rest only lowers efficiency."

"It's fine. I've divided the rest of the intel department personnel into two shifts. Fuxi leads one, Nuwa leads the other. I'm just doing some information collation and summarization."

*"Then you should rest even more."*—Michael wanted to say, but the words remained unspoken.

Repeating such sentiments when every second counted felt somewhat hypocritical. Michael had to admit, compared to letting people rest, he genuinely wished everyone could work 168 hours straight without breaks.

Of course, there was another reason—it was no longer necessary.

Faint snoring sounds were already reaching Michael through the communication channel.

"...Forget it. Get some proper sleep."

"Captain Michael? Captain Michael?" A familiar figure suddenly stood up in the intelligence bureau's office area. She called Michael's name in a hushed tone, then gestured for him to meet her in the corridor outside.

"Aunt Blanca, what is it?"

Since giving birth to Griseo, Blanca's already faint presence had become even... fainter. If she hadn't stood up just now, Michael would have forgotten that after leaving Mobius's lab, she had actually worked in the intelligence bureau for six whole years.

"I've found something, but I'm not entirely sure."

"Hm?" Michael paused, the earlier disappointment and frustration not yet faded, now suddenly pierced by surprise.

Although Blanca explicitly stated "I'm not entirely sure," and looked slightly hesitant, this only made Michael more excited.

Aunt Blanca was tactful. Her uncertainty, Michael believed, was merely consideration for others, like saving face for Elvin. And even if Michael was wrong, a discovery she wasn't certain about but felt compelled to discuss privately with him...

Even if it wasn't the transmission method Michael sought, it must be infinitely close to the truth.

Her next words undoubtedly confirmed Michael's thoughts:

"Personally, just my personal opinion—we know the sleeping sickness spreads via the internet. Considering the Herrscher's powers, it should be related to what the patient viewed. The reasoning up to this point is correct."

"Then where did it go wrong?" Michael asked directly.

Unexpectedly, Blanca shook her head:

"Our understanding wasn't wrong. What was wrong was... our... imagination wasn't bold enough."

"Hmm... What do you mean?"

"Michael, you, Elvin, Nuwa, Fuxi all imagined the target as a webpage, an article—a whole entity. That's why you couldn't find any commonality."

"!" Michael took a deep breath, first patting his flushed cheeks, then slapping his forehead in annoyance—

Blanca's words were a wake-up call!

The Eighth Herrscher's ability involved applying psychic interference to specific information, causing those who see it to fall into sweet dreams, then spreading it via the internet. That much was correct. But why did the information carrying her psychic interference have to be a complete "piece" of information?

It could just be a scattered fragment. This fit the requirements of propagation. If it were a complete piece of information, what were the chances of countless people globally encountering it simultaneously?

Unless it was related to Eden, but that would be far too obvious.

Therefore, for both broad applicability and secrecy, this fragmented information could only be— "Characters".

Because regardless of whether humans opened text, video, or audio online, they would inevitably see characters. The number of commonly used characters wasn't small, but not excessively large either. Their repetition rate was moderate, perfectly corresponding to the moderately sized waves of sleeping sickness patients.

"Immediately start manual checks... Right, still pay attention to time periods. The Herrscher isn't stupid; she likely changes the corresponding characters periodically. And you don't need to check the most recent patients... Don't want you falling asleep yourselves."

"Alright, alright! Give those orders to Fuxi and Nuwa. Honestly, child, who did you learn from? Nagging just like my Ato."

Michael didn't know whether to laugh or cry, unable to respond either way.

Fortunately, Ato hadn't returned yet, so he probably wouldn't hear this.

"But, why manual checks? Oh! If Prometheus had

Noticed by Michael, a flicker of panic crossed his eyes, but he quickly composed himself.

"Regardless, I am nominally the head of Fire Moth, right? You only forbade me from leaving the underground city, not from moving around within Fire Moth, correct?" Vaschak spread his hands. "Or are you going to deprive an old man of his last shred of freedom? Might as well lock me in prison then. Come on, although I've made some mistakes, I am still one of Fire Moth's founders. When you left with Anti-Entropy back then, I facilitated things quite a bit. Later, when you wanted to merge, I didn't resist either. You can't treat me like this!"

His hoarse throat clearly and fluently spat out sentence after sentence of "heartfelt words," truly evoking pity and guilt in any listener.

So Vaschak saw Michael staring intently at him.

"It's decided! You're up! Go, Vaschak!"