"Who knows?"
In the end, Herta only gave a vague answer. Who could say how this trial world, born because of Kiana, was supposed to be cleared?
Perhaps some specific condition had to be triggered?
She did not understand.
Perhaps if Kiana had not lost her memories, she might be able to offer something useful.
She thought so.
After finishing her survey of the moon and preparing to call Kiana back to the space station, she suddenly saw several locations in that world erupt with extremely intense Honkai energy fluctuations.
From this angle, she could clearly see vast regions turning gray-black. One entire continent had even sunk into the azure sea.
"This is—!"
Kiana's eyes widened. She realized something almost instantly and instinctively looked toward Herta.
Herta was frowning, her expression grave.
"The places with the most intense Honkai energy reactions... seem to be..." Kiana's voice was dry, thick with disbelief. "The few remaining human bases?"
"Mm." Herta's face was expressionless, but it was obvious her mood was terrible. "Judging from the energy signature, it was an attack from the Skynet."
Skynet.
It was the global surveillance system Herta had constructed, a superweapon capable of striking any location at any time.
It possessed enough power to sink a continent with a single blow.
If Herta had felt it necessary, what they would be witnessing now would not be merely this, but the entire planet splitting apart before their eyes.
"Skynet lost control?"
Kiana asked instinctively. Then her heart tightened as she stared at those locations, her expression complicated.
"...Are the two of us the only ones left?"
"Perhaps."
Herta's mood was wretched. This was the second time. The second time one of her creations had gone out of control. It was not that she had never considered the possibility, but she had never expected the firewall she had personally constructed to be breached so easily.
Perhaps.
If even Herta said so, then the possibility that only the two of them remained in this world was very high.
Kiana looked at Herta, then at the world below. For a moment, she did not know what to say.
She thought of the humans she had met.
The pessimistic ones. The optimistic ones. The kind. The selfish. All sorts of faces flashed through her mind.
Her chest felt tight.
Humanity had perished. What were they supposed to do next?
Kiana felt lost.
The trial had failed, right?
But then why were they still here?
"Let's go back and take a look," Herta said after calming herself, making a bold decision. "I want to see what exactly managed to bypass my firewall."
Failure was already a foregone conclusion.
But the trial had not ended, which meant that protecting humanity and saving the world were not the actual requirements for clearing it.
"Now?"
Kiana hurried after Herta as she strode forward and said warily, "Even Skynet was breached. Wouldn't it be too risky for us to go back right now?"
"Are you afraid?"
Kiana's eyes widened. "How could I be afraid? I'm worried you'll get hurt!"
Skynet was a space-based weapon built by Herta herself. Kiana understood exactly how powerful it was. And precisely because she knew, she understood.
With Skynet out of control.
Just how much risk they would be taking by going back.
Neither she nor Herta could withstand a single strike from Skynet.
"So you think I'd be injured by my own creation?" Herta snorted coldly. "I already prepared for that."
Though she spoke that way, her expression did not soften in the slightest. It remained as unpleasant as ever.
She returned to the ship. Instead of heading back to the space station immediately, she used the ship's system to connect to Skynet, attempting to seize back control.
But the moment the ship's operating system linked to Skynet, a shrill alarm rang out in the cockpit. Red warning lights flashed nonstop.
A massive red vertical eye appeared on the screen.
It looked like the eye of some living creature. The pupil rolled once before locking onto Herta and Kiana.
There was no doubt.
This was the enemy that had seized Skynet.
Kiana felt the danger radiating from it. She stepped forward, intending to pull Herta back, and warned her, "Be careful!"
"This thing..."
It was a Herrscher. Perhaps it could be called the Herrscher of Corruption. It was like a string of viruses. The instant the ship's system connected to Skynet, it had invaded along the information stream.
"Truly the enemy of technology."
As she spoke, Herta became completely calm. She understood what had just happened—and why Skynet had been tampered with.
This Herrscher was the nemesis of civilization and technology. Any creation could potentially be corroded and controlled by it.
As if sensing Herta's mood, the massive red eye, its outline almost pixelated, narrowed slightly as though it were smiling.
Mocking.
"This damned thing!"
Kiana frowned. But it seemed to have no physical body. She looked at Herta, unsure how to deal with this enemy.
Herta's expression did not change. She calmly pressed a button. In an instant, the screen returned to normal, as though everything that had just happened were an illusion.
Kiana stared at her in astonishment.
Herta operated the controls for a moment longer before pressing the same button again.
In the next second, the Skynet suspended high in the heavens extinguished its ominous red glow. The entire system collapsed and became a heap of scrap metal, plummeting from the sky.
Not only that.
In places they could not see, the machines that had already been corrupted—those that had gone out of control and slaughtered humanity before the disaster—also shut down instantly.
All technological creations in this world.
Under Herta's command, they all ceased functioning, becoming scrap that could never be reactivated.
"You just—?"
"A backdoor," Herta explained succinctly. Then she seemed to sense something and frowned, raising her hand to glance at it.
Was it her imagination?
"Even after the system was corrupted, you could still control it? As expected of you!"
Herta's strength was beyond doubt.
But the enemy... was simply too powerful. And it was growing stronger, impossible to guard against.
"This Herrscher is different from the others. It's more like a virus." Herta lowered her hand, her brows tightly knit, and looked at Kiana. "Use your power of the Saint to examine my body. It felt like that thing did something to me just now."
Could it only corrupt technological creations?
Not necessarily.
Herta had not ignored that subtle abnormal sensation.
"Did it do something?"
Kiana grabbed Herta's hand anxiously and used her power to examine her body.
"Maybe."
Herta was not certain. It had just felt as though her fingertips had been lightly shocked by something. She did not know if it was related.
Kiana carefully scanned Herta from head to toe with the Saint's power. Finding nothing abnormal, she finally let out a breath of relief.
"There's nothing wrong with your body."
"I see."
Herta nodded thoughtfully. Then she took Kiana's hand and left the cockpit, returning to the moon.
Kiana followed, puzzled. The moment they stepped outside, she heard Herta say to her:
"Destroy this ship."
Why?
If they destroyed the ship, wouldn't they have no way to return?
Kiana was full of confusion, but she obediently reached out and did as she was told, watching as the ship burned to ashes before her eyes, devoured by raging flames.
Herta maintained the same cold expression, standing to the side and watching without saying a word. Only after the fire died down, leaving nothing but wreckage, did she finally speak.
"That thing can not only corrupt technological creations. It can also corrupt living organisms."
"Just now?"
Kiana looked in shock at the pile of debris, then at Herta with concern. She understood immediately why, after asking her to check her body, Herta had ordered the ship destroyed on the spot.
"We probably can't return to the space station either."
The space station had been connected to Skynet. If Skynet had been invaded, there was no reason the station would have been spared.
That Herrscher might even be hiding within it.
"Then doesn't that mean we can't go back at all?" Kiana hesitated, looking at Herta anxiously. "There's no water or food here. We can't stay on the moon forever."
"You're right."
Kiana looked at the planet, then at the distant space station, and finally lowered her gaze to her pale hands.
If she were stronger.
Maybe...
"This is when we need a little magic to get us out of trouble," Herta said.
"Magic?"
"Yes. Magic." Herta nodded and glanced at the barren lunar surface. "But before I demonstrate it, I need to make some preparations."
She made no effort to hide her emotions. The appearance of the Herrscher of Corruption had rendered ninety percent of her preparations useless.
And with humanity already wiped out.
The trial had still not ended. That meant Kiana's trial had nothing to do with human civilization. The key likely lay with Kiana herself.
There was nothing left for Herta to worry about. Even if she accidentally blew this world apart, it would not matter.
Kiana could not fully grasp her thoughts. She simply did whatever Herta asked. When Herta did not need her, she stood there staring at the planet in a daze.
Herta had said the trial was not over. Earlier, she had claimed it was related to civilization. Yet now civilization had already been destroyed, and still the trial dragged on.
She had not regained any of her so-called memories either.
Was everything here truly fake?
She scooped up a handful of lunar soil. Fine gray dust slipped through her fingers. The tangible sensation made her instinctively clench her fist.
No matter what.
She would just do what she wanted to do.
"We're leaving."
A beam of light shot from the moon, piercing through space toward the space station that had been floating unused in orbit.
Kiana followed the direction of the laser and saw Herta holding a staff about one meter long, her expression indifferent as the station erupted in explosions and broke apart.
"Herta?"
She walked over.
Herta waved the staff in her hand and said, "See? That's magic."
Kiana looked at the exquisitely crafted staff, then at the disintegrating station.
"That is... very magical."
Considering Herta's abilities, Kiana felt there was nothing she could not accomplish.
Herta traced a line in the air. A familiar door materialized before them.
She glanced back at Kiana. "Let's go. We've stayed here long enough. Whether it's success or failure, there has to be a result."
With that, she stepped into the luminous doorway first. Still stunned, Kiana hurried after her.
One step carried her from the barren moon to a world of ruins.
Kiana rubbed her arm uneasily, a sense of dread rising in her chest—an indescribable feeling.
"I have a bad feeling about this," she murmured, warning Herta that this place was dangerous now. A great deal had happened here while they were in space.
Large sections of the city had collapsed into rubble. Some streets remained relatively intact. On them lay motionless machines.
And... bloodstains. Corpses.
It was obvious that these machines had also gone out of control.
Herta frowned but said nothing. Only after confirming that no survivors remained—and that no Herrscher was waiting in ambush—did she stop.
Better to see if she could draw out the Herrscher of Corruption.
With that thought, Herta raised her hand and tapped a deactivated machine by the roadside.
The machine twitched and slowly rose from the ground. Its electronic eye glowed red. Without hesitation, it raised its right hand. Dangerous energy fluctuations gathered in its palm.
Before it could finish charging, Herta flicked her staff. A beam of light struck the robot, sending it flying. Parts burst from its damaged frame.
The red glow in its eye flickered.
Then went dark.
"The Herrscher is still here."
"Yes. Still here." Herta stroked her chin. That machine had merely been influenced by its power. It had not been personally controlled.
She needed a way to lure it out.
That would not be too difficult.
Herta returned to the base they had previously occupied and tested the systems, confirming it had also been corrupted.
She had Kiana purge the corruption, then conducted experiments in one of the laboratories. After some time, she successfully attracted the Core of Corruption itself and sealed it inside a specially made black box.
For the moment, the crisis of corruption was resolved.
Now came the most important question.
It was already certain that the trial revolved around Kiana. So what was its true purpose? To push her into becoming a full Herrscher? Or to restore her memories?
Herta did not know.
Kiana's amnesia was strange. It was as though she had been reborn. Herta could find no trace of her past. It was as if her previous life had been severed completely, giving rise to something entirely new.
Under such circumstances, restoring her memories would be extremely difficult—because Herta knew nothing about Kiana's past.
If Ruan Mei were here, or that Self-Annihilator were present, she might have had some options.
But they were not.
There was no solution to be found within Honkai either. In this world, Kiana's state was "normal." One could not retrieve something that had never existed.
That left only one path.
To trigger her Herrscher transformation.
"If I become a Herrscher, will that end the trial?" Kiana asked after hearing Herta's conclusion. There was hesitation in her voice.
She thought of the Herrschers she had encountered.
Even though she knew she was one as well, she was different from them. She did not possess such overwhelming power, nor did she have the manic desire to destroy everything.
Now Herta wanted her to become a Herrscher.
To become like them.
If doing so could end the trial, return them to the real world, and clear it successfully...
...But what if it wasn't that simple?
Kiana's expression wavered. If she transformed and lost control, would she end up hurting Herta?
"I don't know," Herta replied without offering any guarantees. "We won't know unless we try."
This time, Kiana did not comply as readily as before. She fell silent for a long while. Herta did not urge her.
"Isn't there another way?"
"Perhaps. But since it concerns you, the likelihood that it requires your Herrscher transformation is very high."