"Seele gently picked up a picture book. Its hand-drawn illustrations were exquisite and delicate, depicting a story about Seele—a story about Seele's death."
Seele read aloud in her sweet voice.
"This Siberian wasteland appeared especially bleak and desolate beneath the sky-filling blanket of goose-feather snow."
"Once upon a time, this place was filled with modern high-rises. People hurried through cities built of reinforced concrete, living amid bustling prosperity."
"Seele and her family were the same. It was a beautiful bubble."
"After the Second Herrscher unleashed the Calamity of the Void, Seele's home was reduced to ashes. That catastrophe flattened every beautiful thing from Seele's past."
"Now, this once-prosperous land has become a deserted wasteland. Looking into the distance, the only thing visible is the towering Babylon Laboratory of MOTH."
"This magnificent structure, hailed as the Lighthouse of Siberia, publicly claimed to have been built to restore Siberia."
"The truth, however, was far from that. Beneath the lighthouse, the ugly, dark, and filthy side of humanity was laid bare before Seele..."
"..."
"Seele, hang in there... Right, water. You can have Ido's water too... You have to get better."
"Cough, cough, cough... There's no need. Death is life's blessing. Once Seele dies, Idovia-nee, Seele will become a ghost and stay by your side forever."
"Seele also wants to see the butterflies dancing across the snowfield that Idovia-nee talked about. Seele has never seen a butterfly before. When the time comes..."
Idovia was afraid of ghosts, but as she watched the light gradually fade from Seele's eyes, she wept and clutched Seele's hand, hoping her warmth would not disappear here, inside this freezing cell.
"Mm-hmm. You will. You definitely will..."
But some people could not have cared less about such precious things.
"Experimental Subject C41 is failing. Take her away immediately."
"Yes!"
"Stop! Seele! Seele! Don't take Seele away!"
Smack!
"See... le..." Idovia murmured in agony, forced to watch helplessly as they took Seele away.
Bzzzt—
The sound of an electromagnetic gun briefly silenced the freezing cage.
Once Seele left, they would be separated forever by death.
...
Outside the book, the reader turned to the next page with her fair hand.
"If Seele had merely fallen into eternal sleep here, this story would have ended."
"But even death was far from an experimental subject's final destination."
Seele, whose vital signs had ceased, was dragged out of the laboratory.
She would be taken to Dusk Street to undergo another experiment.
A forbidden Honkai experiment concerning life and death.
Every experimental subject was one of the living dead.
Seele had not died completely. As she stood at death's door, researchers within MOTH subjected her to special treatment, preserving her final breath.
These living dead were secretly taken in by Heliopolis Life Sciences. The experiments were still spearheaded by MOTH's biological research department, which conducted all manner of undisclosed experiments in an attempt to unravel the secret of crossing the boundary between life and death.
Even the horrifying Babylon Laboratory provided its experimental subjects with a certain degree of care, if only to preserve the quality of its experiments.
Here, however, every experimental subject was treated like garbage meant to be recycled. Every experiment was conducted with the expectation that its subjects would be destroyed. No one cared in the slightest about how they felt.
This was a purgatory beyond all boundaries, the deepest abyss of human malice.
Inhumane experiments?
No, "inhumane" was no longer enough to describe them.
Those "living dead" had already been mutilated beyond recognition. It was impossible even to tell what part of them had suffered.
They were like Schrödinger's cat, simultaneously regarded as alive and dead, seemingly trapped forever in a superposition of those two states.
For those "living dead," even death seemed like happiness—a form of release.
At least then, they would still resemble human beings.
Among every "living dead" kept here, very few were allowed to sleep peacefully in death. Those who met a dignified end as human beings were rarer still.
Immortality.
Everything had been done for the immortality project pursued by certain members of MOTH's upper ranks.
Those MOTH leaders were traitors to humanity. To prolong their own lives, they would pay any price. Even if it meant surrendering themselves to the Honkai, they would do so without hesitation.
And the result?
"The Honkai granted their wish and caused the Herrscher of Death... to descend upon them."
...
The search for the Herrscher of Ice from the Fifth Honkai Eruption was still underway.
Another colossal Herrscher-class Honkai energy reaction erupted in Europe.
The piercing alarms throughout MOTH Headquarters jolted everyone awake.
This was the third Honkai Eruption to descend upon Europe, so MOTH naturally regarded it with the utmost seriousness.
After all, the Herrscher of Ice from the Fifth Honkai Eruption was still missing. No one knew whether she had gone into hiding to prepare something devastating. (Dr. Mobius had hidden the Herrscher of Ice's corpse.)
Upon receiving the news, every available military force at MOTH Headquarters was immediately deployed. As a rising supernova among its elite soldiers, Kevin naturally joined the operation.
At first, Kevin worried about how many people would have to be sacrificed to delay the Herrscher during this hastily arranged confrontation, and how great a price humanity would have to pay to defeat her.
In reality, however, the battle against the Herrscher proceeded exceptionally smoothly.
This Herrscher was weak. Although her Honkai energy output reached 3,600 HW, the combat power she actually displayed fell far below that figure.
She possessed no authority over ice. Moreover, the Herrscher seemed to have no desire to attack and fought MOTH's armed forces with extreme passivity.
Rather than attacking, it was more accurate to say that she sought death with all her heart.
MOTH lost only two combat units before successfully surrounding her.
In a battle against a Herrscher, losses of that scale were practically negligible.
MOTH even suspected that the Herrscher before them was merely a decoy meant to draw their forces away from another target.
"Will you be the one to grant me eternal sleep in the end? Finally... finally... Seele can finally rest, can't she?"
Seele knelt before Kevin as raindrops pattered against her head, plastering her beautiful hair to her cheeks.
"When the white-haired man before her remained silent, the girl recounted everything she had experienced."
"This was not because Seele harbored any other feelings toward Kevin. She was preparing her own funeral."
"Only a 'death' like this would leave an echo behind, allowing her to live on in someone else's heart."
"Just like Idovia, Isabella, and Sirin. As long as Seele still remembered them, she could meet them again in her dreams every night."
"They were still alive... in the form of ghosts. At least, that was how fairy tales described it. This was Seele's final, humble hope—that fairy tales were real."
"Death would carry Seele to another world, where she could lie on the grass beneath the radiant sun with her friends amid laughter and joy. No one would ever fall ill there, nor would anyone suffer again. Everyone would live happily."
"Even on the verge of death, Seele continued to believe that death did not mean everything would turn into bubbles and drift away from her."