Humans are in chaos, despicable outsiders.

Kiana gave a slightly bewildered look and began to play dumb.

"So, this is Miss Wendy's local friend?"

The group's gazes turned to the silver-haired girl.

"Ah, Miss Wuni... I met her on the road. When she saw me being surrounded by a group of Assault-class Honkai Beasts, she bravely rushed over and pushed my wheelchair, helping me escape from their pursuit..."

"That sounds like a very dangerous journey... So, Miss Wuni and Miss Wendy weren't hurt when they escaped, were they?"

Kiana looked at Wuni and Wendy with some concern.

"Miss Wuni ran very fast with me, I wasn't hurt at all... but Miss Wuni..."

Wendy looked at the silver-haired girl beside her with some concern.

"I wasn't hurt at all, just a little tired... Miss Kiana is really amazing... I really admired your courage when you pinned that... uh? cockroach to the ground and pounded it."

The silver-haired girl looked at Kiana with some admiration.

"Cough cough cough...!"

Above them, the raven that was Fukin in disguise circled for a while before flying toward the Anti-Entropy fleet.

[How did Lord Snow manage to produce such a group of actors... It's a waste of his talent if he doesn't go into acting.]

Chapter 114 Good Friday of Cocolia 1 /N.jpg

The Anti-Entropy fleet high in the distance was thrown into chaos for the first time in a long time—a meteor dragon girl doll crashed into the leftmost ship of the four airships, and the huge plasma sphere vaporized the main gun turret on the ship, leaving only a large crater filled with lava to tell the people on the warship that a huge main gun once existed here.

The only thing that gave them a breather was that the doll-sized humanoid creature didn't seem to have any intention of rushing into the warship to wreak havoc and make the radical members experience the fear they felt a few years ago when the Valkyrie of Destiny rushed into the warship.

Bella flew at high speed, weaving through the anti-aircraft fire net formed by four warships. Thanks to her petite figure, extremely high maneuverability, and superhuman reaction speed, Bella even had the leisure to play around with glancing bullets in the anti-aircraft fire net of the Anti-Entropy warship.

The playful dragon girl weaved between the four warships, constantly teasing the fire control officers and AI on board. She tore the main gun turrets off the warships and swung them onto the decks, adding to their workload for subsequent maintenance and polishing.

"Alliance Leader, what the hell is this thing?! It attacks you for no reason, and you can't even hit it. Is it some kind of mosquito?!"

After Bella's repeated teasing, the fire control officer on a certain warship, watching the continuous "Miss" notifications on the screen, finally couldn't hold back and started cursing. The weapons crew members next to him nodded in agreement.

"This thing has already destroyed half of the main gun turrets of the entire air fleet... and after taking them down, it deliberately smashes them onto the takeoff deck, preventing our armed drones from taking off... not to mention the Titans, compared to it, the Titans are like a tortoise crawling on the ground... no, a snail..."

The Anti-Entropy captain on the bridge shook his head helplessly, staring blankly at the smashed deck and the main gun turrets completely dismantled. He could almost hear the already meager repair budget burning away. Then he dialed the flagship's contact point—

"Lady Cocolia, what should we do next...? This little doll of unknown origin has already destroyed half of our fleet's warships' weaponry... If she's just trying to cripple our warships' combat capabilities, that's fine... but if she's just trying to dismantle something..."

"We've almost finished dismantling the ship's hull..."

The blonde woman on the other end of the communication screen frowned, staring at Bella, who was running rampant in the fleet, with a grim expression. Her fists clenched so tightly they cracked. Cocolia took a deep breath and calmed herself down.

"Captain Grace, keep going—we must retrieve the Gem of Desire or capture a Herrscher, or we'll really lose everything on this trip... and we're so close to succeeding..."

"Alright, Cocolia Enforcer. I hope you've made the right choice." The aging Anti-Entropy captain looked at his ship and shook his head helplessly.

"I'm sorry to have made you suffer... buddy—sigh, let's retire after this battle."

...

Not long after Cocolia ended the communication, a black raven landed on the flagship of the fleet—Cocolia's flagship, the "Onomia." This warship, which had weathered many storms, once again welcomed an uninvited guest.

...

"I observed, and I saw through the fear hidden behind the calm facade; I listened, and I discerned the darkness hidden behind the meticulously planned lies."

The black raven shed its original appearance and transformed into a human form, with long silver-white hair, equally scarlet eyes, and a white and gold dress outlined with a few tufts of black feathers. The non-human girl, like her deity, now strode on the deck of the Onomia.

"I wait for you on the edge of reason. I taste the despair in your heart—the longing to end the false pretense."

Unlike before, this time the warship's communication channels were not hacked. The eerie yet melodious humming sound echoed directly in the minds of everyone on the Onomia, and the resulting fear was amplified.

"Quickly! Deploy the Titan forces and stop that silver-haired, unidentified humanoid life form!"

"No, the Titan forces aren't reacting at all?!"

Panic erupted from the bridge as technicians discovered with horror that all the Titan mechs on the warship had gone out of control.

"What's going on! Why is the Titan mech out of control?!"

"I don't know, the Titan mechs' underlying logic program has been instantly rewritten! And it's constantly changing... Oh my god—they're attacking the maintenance personnel inside the warship! Where are the armed forces! Quickly stop those Titans! They've gone out of control!"

The technicians, seeing the transmitted footage, shouted incoherently.

"Where are the defensive turrets inside the warship? Activate the turrets and destroy those mechs!"

Another staff officer seemed to have an idea and shouted loudly to the technicians on the control panel.

"Yes! Self-defense turret...! Self-defense turret..." The personnel were typing on the control panel...

Then, the technician's voice, which had initially been excited at being reminded by someone, began to crumble again...

"What's wrong with the self-defense turret...?!"

"We've lost control of the defensive turrets—no...we've probably lost control of the entire Onomia..."

...

"If we were to give a definitive answer about this warship now..."

"She came back to life. Literally, she gained her own thoughts... and then, she came to life. Now, all the control consoles on our bridge... are just for show. We can't even open the bridge gates..."

The technician in the white uniform slumped down beside his control panel, staring blankly at the floor. Meanwhile, the other crew members, ignoring the warning, pounded on their own terminals, praying for feedback. But just as the technician had predicted, all their commands went unanswered, receiving no response whatsoever…

"Snap—"

The sound of guns being cocked was so clear in the silent bridge that it drew everyone's attention to the direction from which it came.

The technician, initially slumped in his seat, shakily pulled out a pistol, disengaged the safety, and pressed it against his chin, leaving behind his final words—

“We can’t win…we have absolutely no chance of winning…the enemy attacking the fleet is a Herrscher…the owner of that voice is also a Herrscher—!”

"Capture a Herrscher... Hahaha, what a pipe dream we're having! We're doomed, we're doomed—!"

"Bang"--!

The wailing ended with a desperate gunshot and the heavy thud of a body falling to the ground.

...fragile, and utterly vulnerable.

Foggin, who deliberately amplified the thoughts of despair and fear in their minds, leaned listlessly against the deck, using his senses to see everything clearly in the bridge.

Chapter 115 Cocolia is having an absolutely terrible day too.

Cocolia stared silently at the body lying on the ground—she recognized the technician who had shot himself; he was originally a technician in the ship's internal guard force...and had been promoted to the bridge as a core operator because of his outstanding performance.

Similarly, he was one of the few non-bridge crew members who survived the incident on the Onomia.

He broke down... Cocolia thought to herself, silently looking at the others on the bridge—[They're almost there too...] The blonde woman fell silent as she looked at the increasingly desperate crowd before her.

Two Herrschers, and both of them are attacking this fleet—this desperate reality is laid bare before everyone…

Am I not far behind...?

The woman's hand had unconsciously reached for her sidearm, the cold metal of the gun bringing her a moment of clarity...

"I make my home in the darkest abyss of your soul. In the shadows, I polish time. I patiently wait for you to open your eyes and realize that only my will can give you breath. For I am both the embodiment of thought and you are my puppet, and you will dance to my melody—"

The mocking and sarcastic voices echoed in everyone's minds again, seemingly ridiculing their arrogance and overestimation of their abilities.

"Bang!"--

Gunshots rang out again, accompanied by the loss of yet another life.

He's gone mad too...

Cocolia looked at the staff officer lying beside her, a relieved smile on his lips. She knew him well—he was the brother of the only staff officer killed in the bridge crew during the incident—their only son was left, and now that only son was gone too.

Fate is fickle—a sense of desolation inexplicably crept into Cocolia's heart. The plan, which had been progressing steadily and even assembled a force that was extremely advantageous to Schicksal and even against a single nascent Herrscher, was about to be nearly wiped out by an attack from two fully-formed Herrschers who were not even part of the plan... no, by being toyed with.

"Oh, fate, as ever-changing as the moon, fortune and misfortune are intertwined, a life of hardship followed by sweetness, manipulated at will, poverty and power melt away like ice and snow, fate is terrifying and empty, twisting and turning viciously and cruelly, prayers are in vain, all things are vanity."

That voice, filled with malice and mockery, seemed to read Cocolia's mind, using lyrics from the human work of art, "The Song of Boylen," to ridicule their insignificance and sorrow.

"Enough, Herrscher! Is this all you can do? These boring tricks! If you're going to kill me, then do it quickly!"

Having been repeatedly mocked by Fokin, Cocolia has lost her usual sly facade and revealed her true Slavic nature, transforming into a grumpy older sister.

"Hehehe—Herrscher? How rude! Only apostles of the Honkai God would call themselves Herrschers—a boring trick? Kill you? Do you think I'd smash a bunch of exquisite, ridiculous, and amusing toys?"

"Cocolia—pathetic human, you are such a contradictory and ridiculous individual, wavering between collapse, power, and kinship, do you think you have it all figured out? Hahaha—"

"As a farcical actor in this tragicomedy, your existence has been laughable to me from the very beginning. You shouldn't exist. Why do you exist? To add a comical touch to this sacred tragicomedy of civilization and humanity?!"

"Hmph—mortal, you can continue to wander in this boring little triangle—! In the great grand plan of the goddess, she has still left you a small piece of the puzzle."

"But please remember—that's just a small corner... a negligible corner, it wasn't even left because of you—"

The mocking voices disappeared as if they had never existed in the first place, and the bridge returned to silence. The invisible despair and oppressive feeling vanished instantly with the disappearance of the last sound.

The people on the bridge emerged from their despair, and apart from the two extra corpses in the room and the badly damaged hull, it was as if nothing had happened.

"The warship's command and control system has been restored!"

"The out-of-control Titan has returned to normal!"

"The other commanders of the fleet reported that the unidentified individuals who initially attacked us have left. Most of the fleet was severely damaged, but there were not many casualties!"

As the crew of the Onomia, now back to normalcy, began reporting one piece of good news after another—something that sounded acceptable, no, rather, quite good—hope seemed to have returned to the ship's crew.

Until a strange email arrived—

"Lady Cocolia...there's an unsigned letter here. Shall we open it?"

The staff looked at Cocolia, who was sitting on the captain's chair.

"Open it and take a look."

Cocolia sighed. Then, she immediately regretted her decision.

"I'll come back for you... my amusing dolls—how many more times can your pathetic and fragile souls endure... I—look forward to taking them all into my possession... hehe~"

This was a voicemail. As it was opened and played, the all-too-familiar voice cast a shadow of gloom over the bridge once more. Some people seemed to trigger a kind of stress response upon hearing the voice, reaching for their holsters...

...

"Hope in reality is the worst of evils, because it prolongs people's suffering—" Fokin, who had never actually left, stood at the highest point of the bridge of the Onomia, looking mockingly at the people he had tormented once again.