The director of the North American Central Intelligence Agency had been in a terrible mood lately.
In just a few weeks, more than half the soldiers stationed at bases across the Middle East had died for all sorts of bizarre reasons.
Some had been killed when their aircraft crashed during a troop rotation.
Some had been wiped out when the kitchen exploded while they were eating in the mess hall.
Some had suffocated in their sleep after a natural gas leak.
Others had been stranded halfway through a field operation when leaking fuel crippled the entire convoy, leaving them to be roasted alive beneath the sun.
He knew Commissioner Smith cut corners, but surely his shoddy work could not be this catastrophic.
With so many troops lost in such a short time, the garrisons could no longer maintain the intensity of their counterinsurgency operations.
The local resistance forces seized the opportunity to rise again, and before the replacement troops could arrive, their counteroffensive had already become impossible to contain.
Now the members of Congress were using the situation to attack him, while the president had strictly ordered him to uncover the culprit.
First, he arranged for a spokesperson to vehemently denounce the resistance’s counterattack as “a declaration of war against the civilized world and an obstruction of the civilized world’s efforts to reform the region’s feudal rule.” Then he urgently contacted the film crew secretly dispatched to the Middle East and told them to hurry up and produce a movie depicting the resistance massacring local civilians, diverting public attention.
Afterward, he increased the workload of the local intelligence personnel, ordering them to buy off more informants and use every means available to dig up clues.
Once all that was done, he let out a long breath and collapsed into his chair.
North America had always held an overwhelming advantage in the contest for the Middle East.
It had operated there for many years, and its lingering influence had yet to fade.
The other major powers should not have acted rashly.
Then who did it?
He flipped through the submitted reports and connected the times when each base had been wiped out in chronological order, yet the result remained an incomprehensible mess.
He threw down his pen and sighed.
His instincts, sharpened by years of intelligence work, told him that they would most likely never uncover the truth this time.
But someone had to be held responsible, or he would be the one taking the blame.
Pin it on those Middle Eastern remnants?
Claiming that a group of battered stragglers had nearly annihilated their forces would turn them into the laughingstock of the international community.
Accuse another major power of secretly deploying troops?
That might have worked decades ago, but with the balance of power shifting as it was now, they could no longer throw accusations around recklessly.
The whole affair was already so bizarre that it bordered on the supernatural.
He could hardly blame it on some mysterious resurgence of the occult.
Wait.
Supernatural?
He slapped his thigh.
Case solved.
Wasn’t there Honkai?
The existence of Honkai had not yet been disclosed to the public, but it had long since ceased to be a secret among the upper ranks of every nation.
All the major powers already had a hand in MOTH, the anti-Honkai organization, and intelligence was shared in real time.
He only needed to submit a report that looked plausible to his superiors, and Honkai was unquestionably the best explanation.
A high-speed infiltration-type Honkai Beast.
Presumed to possess rudimentary intelligence.
Weak in direct combat but highly skilled at infiltration and sabotage.
All departments are advised to remain vigilant.
After writing several thousand words, he printed the document, signed it, and prepared to submit it with profound grief a few weeks later.
He would say that he had failed to meet the president’s expectations, but that the incident lay beyond human power.
Then the entire matter could be put to rest.
As for the official explanation to the public, wasn’t there always the all-purpose excuse of biological weapons?
Now this can finally end.
He lit a cigarette and took a deeply satisfied drag.
…
“Now this can finally end.” Elysia marked an X over the final location.
Several weeks earlier, she had first used wide-range perception to identify the positions of every military base.
After marking them on a map, she eliminated them in random order to prevent anyone from deducing her route.
While infiltrating them, she occasionally saw soldiers performing their evening prayers, so Elysia granted their wish and sent them to meet God.
She had even been considerate enough to use more indirect and gentler methods.
She was softhearted and could not bear to look at corpses.
The resistance organizations seized the opening to gather their strength and launch a counterattack, advancing triumphantly all the way.
Once they liberated the capital and regained political power, the other major powers would naturally follow by recognizing them.
North America had barred too many players from the Middle Eastern board.
Now that it had temporarily weakened, none of them had any reason not to take advantage of its misfortune.
A new and more balanced order would then be established, allowing civilians caught between the factions at least a sliver of hope for survival.
After leaving the Middle East, Elysia arrived in Central Asia, a region that could be called a breeding ground for terrorism.
Most governments there were incapable of controlling the situation.
Vast areas had become power vacuums, allowing extremist organizations of every kind to rise under the banner of religion.
Since the governments had become completely dysfunctional, a passing Elysia could only kindly send those extremists to meet their lord herself.
“Answer me.” Elysia looked down from above at the man kneeling on the ground with both legs broken.
“Why did you launch terrorist attacks?” “Monster.” The leader spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm.
“Will answering let me live?
Won’t you just leave me locked in here to suffocate to death anyway?” Elysia drew a confiscated handgun.
“Answer, and you can use this.
Your death will be quicker.” The leader fell silent.
No one understood better than he did, after years of using waterboarding to torture what he called two-legged livestock, just how agonizing death by suffocation could be.
This monster.
He cursed inwardly.
In a single night, she had indirectly killed every one of his subordinates without getting blood on her hands.
When he confronted her, she had crippled both his legs in a single exchange.
His only choice was to gamble that she would keep her word.
“Because of hatred.” He lifted his head and stared directly at Elysia with bloodshot eyes.
“Why should they get to live peaceful lives in the cities while we’re banished to barren wastelands like this?
If we’re doomed to rot, then they don’t deserve to live well either!” “Khaled.” She calmly spoke the leader’s real name, ignoring his horrified stare as she continued.
“You have personal assets worth 1.2 billion euros deposited in the European Union Central Bank and five villas registered under your name.
Shall I continue?
That story of yours might fool your subordinates, but no one else.” “Even at the very end, you still lie.
Your mouth is full of righteousness, but your heart is full of business.” Her voice sounded almost like a lament.
Resistance organizations born from the ruin of a nation and the destruction of families might become extreme, but they could still preserve the original desire to save their country and their people.
Terrorist organizations that spread through darkness like this, however, were rotten from the root.
“How do you know that?” He used every ounce of strength to rise, but his shattered legs could not support his weight.
He collapsed wretchedly to the floor and vomited a mouthful of blood.
“I have no obligation to answer you.
Goodbye.” Elysia turned and walked out.
After closing the door, she drove the bolt deep into place and jammed the lock.
This sealed chamber would become his tomb.
Then Elysia sighed beneath the faint light of dawn.
“I’m getting a little tired,” she murmured to herself.
Chaos, decay, slaughter.
Human malice eroded everything here without the slightest attempt at concealment.
Compared with this place, even the European Union was beginning to feel like a sanctuary in her heart.
Once my journey around the world is over, I’ll go back and take a vacation.
Yet in the next instant, an abrupt buzzing sound rang in her ears.
A bad premonition seized her.
The once-tranquil world became shrouded in a background noise imperceptible to ordinary people.
Behind the veil of reality, something grew restless, as though an unfathomably deep horror were about to break free of its shell.
In the next instant, the veil was torn apart, and a tide of destruction poured forth.
Elysia immediately raised her head and saw the Flawless Dome trembling beneath waves of purple radiance that filled heaven and earth, cracking sounds echoing continuously from its surface.
The First Honkai Eruption had begun.
The Cocoon of Finality had given no warning whatsoever.
She hurriedly took out her phone and tried to contact Vill-V, but the call repeatedly failed to connect.
A shadow gradually rose in her heart.
In the brief interval between hanging up and redialing, an urgent call came through.
She answered immediately, and Ato’s anxious voice sounded from the other end.
“Elysia, a Honkai Eruption has begun.
Get back as quickly as possible.
The location is…” Her entire body stiffened.
Her mind went completely blank.
The phone slipped silently from her hand and fell to the ground, scattering a puff of dust.
The location of the First Honkai Eruption was Lamington City.