Vwoom~
Golden-orange teleportation gates materialized across North Africa.
There was far more than one.
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh~
Figure after figure flashed out from within them, every one looking utterly disheveled.
The Newborn World Serpent Headquarters had fallen.
Who could possibly have imagined...
"The Sixth Herrscher... She actually... She actually..."
...that she would be born inside the base?
...that she would be none other than Dr. Einstein, the genius responsible for groundbreaking technologies such as the Sea of Quanta Portal and the ELFs?
"Control over gravity... That was the power wielded by the Ninth Herrscher in the original timeline, the Herrscher of Rock."
Among the survivors who had barely escaped from Headquarters, MEI spoke with a deathly pale face.
"No. According to records from the Old Era, the former Current Era, it would be more appropriate to call her the Herrscher of Stars."
The Sixth Herrscher: the Herrscher of Stars.
Herrscher Core: Einstein.
A truly disastrous combination.
And yet another monster who commanded one of the universe's four fundamental forces.
"Damn it... We don't even get a moment to breathe..."
Cough.
MEI suddenly collapsed onto her knees, her face bloodless as crimson spilled from her lips.
Upon closer inspection, her entire left arm, still clad in the Key of Blankness armor, was gone.
A large chunk of flesh had also been gouged from the outer side of her left thigh.
"MEI!"
Kevin instantly flashed to her side, desperate to help her.
Unfortunately, he possessed no ability capable of healing another person.
Instead, MEI had to save herself.
Ngh~
She had already pushed the Herrscher of the Void's Authority to its limit during their desperate escape.
Now, despite her grievous injuries, she had to force the damaged Key of Blankness to switch between Herrscher Authority modes.
Fortunately, the Key of Blankness was not the kind of worthless equipment that became useless the moment it was damaged.
MEI successfully switched it into the mode powered by the Herrscher of Death's Authority.
Then she began using the Authority of Creation to regenerate her own flesh and blood.
With MEI's vast knowledge, controlling this Authority came almost naturally.
It was also far more efficient than the alternative.
Otherwise, she would have needed to remove the Herrscher of Death's Core and hand it to Elysia, who also possessed a Key of Blankness, or perhaps to Sim Elysia.
Before long...
Huuu~
Her missing arm regenerated, and the gaping wound in her thigh closed completely.
MEI tested her body's movements.
There were no problems.
It felt exactly as it had before she was injured.
There was not the slightest sign that her body had been "patched together."
A Herrscher's Authority truly is miraculous.
The thought flashed through MEI's mind, an almost instinctive moment of wonder.
It lasted only an instant.
Immediately afterward...
"Kevin, we need to move..."
"Dr. MEI."
A familiar figure rushed toward her, carrying another grievously wounded person.
It was Fu Hua.
Cradled in her arms was her father, now barely clinging to life.
Of course, to be more precise, he was now regarded as the father of Fu Hua, the Hua of this era, Sim Hua, and Xiao Shi.
At that moment, he stood at the very edge of death.
"Leave him to me."
Understanding the urgency of the situation, MEI immediately activated the Herrscher of Death's Authority and began healing him.
Fu Hua had been truly fortunate to bring him to MEI in time.
Although she still had to wait anxiously beside them...
Compared with the others...
"This... I..."
"Eden..."
"..."
Nearby, many of the core members wore expressions of utter bewilderment.
When the disaster struck, MEI had reacted with remarkable speed.
In that critical instant, she opened numerous teleportation gates at the same time.
Each gate led directly to the location of a member inside Headquarters.
Unfortunately...
In her haste, MEI's initial judgment had been wrong.
Everything happened too quickly, leaving her no opportunity to think more deeply.
Her first instinct was that Headquarters had come under another external attack.
However...
Prometheus Prime had warned her that the high-energy reaction originated inside the base.
The first barrage of Gravity Rays, along with the angles from which they had been fired, confirmed that warning.
Yet in that fleeting moment, MEI had only one thought.
Save everyone. Now.
And so, she prepared a teleportation gate for everyone.
Among them...
...was Dr. Einstein, who had already undergone Herrscherization.
Moments earlier, MEI's devastating injuries had been inflicted by Dr. Einstein herself when she ruthlessly attacked the teleportation gate opened at her location.
Had MEI failed to evade in time, she might have died on the spot.
Even though she narrowly escaped the fatal blow, her injuries destabilized many of the other teleportation gates and caused them to collapse.
Ultimately...
"Prometheus."
"I'm here."
While continuing to heal Fu Hua's father, MEI spoke quietly into her communicator.
"Who failed to escape?"
At that moment, she truly did not want to hear the answer.
But she knew...
...that she had to.
The casualty report was crucial.
Prometheus was a super-AI cluster that possessed both emotions and self-awareness.
She cared deeply for her creator.
But she also understood MEI's personality.
Therefore, after a brief silence...
"Miss Eden."
"Mr. Kosma. Miss Destopia."
One name followed another as Prometheus Prime continued reciting the list.
"And..."
"Mr. Kevin's parents."
"As well as..."
At that point, Prometheus Prime's synthesized voice faltered.
For the first time, she sounded hesitant.
"I understand."
MEI cut her off before she could say the final name.
She did not need Prometheus to speak it aloud.
She already knew.
Her father.
By then, MEI had finished healing Fu Hua's father.
But when she surveyed the surrounding survivors, she could not find her own father anywhere.
The Newborn World Serpent Headquarters had been annihilated by the Pseudo-Black Hole.
In other words, everything that was not here, including The Prometheus, the Ark spacecraft she had secretly constructed, was gone forever.
Before her...
"Dad! Sob... You scared me to death!"
Xiao Shi suddenly cast aside her previously composed demeanor and threw herself into her father's arms, her crimson eyes overflowing with tears of relief.
She had clearly been badly shaken by how close she had come to losing him.
Just then, Sim Hua and the Hua of this era approached as well.
Their father had long since accepted several daughters into his family. Recently, he had found immense happiness in privately guiding each of them through her own troubles.
He had only just recovered from the brink of death.
Though merely an ordinary man, he still smiled kindly and comforted his girls.
Watching this scene...
"..."
MEI remained silent.
After a long moment...
Once Fu Hua's father had calmed his most boisterous daughter, he tried to stand and thank MEI.
But the solitary purple-haired girl had already walked away.
Only a few inconspicuous teardrops remained where she had stood.
The wind buried them beneath the snow, where they quietly melted away.