Honkai: Fire Moth Herrschers

"One thousand! You're kidding!"

This was the first time Michael had seen Sakura truly angry. Her voice wasn't shrill, but it was full of fury, even though it remained subdued. The intensity was clear, and Michael could feel a faint chill standing next to her.

But her anger wasn't directed at Harris.

"Shocked, are you?" she scoffed. "Heh… I wasn't much better when I first learned about this."

She took a deep breath. "With all the sufferers in the world, how much serum can they possibly produce? We strongly suspect they're doing this on purpose. They're deliberately spreading Honkai sickness among us ordinary people to get enough serum. The medicine they gave us was nothing but saline, glucose, placebos! They're letting us die just to keep those so-called VIPs alive."

Suddenly, Harris turned, grabbing Michael by the collar. His hands trembled violently, lacking the strength to lift Michael, but he managed to slam him against the elevator wall.

Sakura immediately drew her pistols, aiming them directly at Harris and Aldemir. Aldemir reached for his own gun, but then froze. He realized it was empty, offering no deterrent.

"Sakura! Don't be impulsive!"

Michael quickly signaled Sakura to lower her weapons, but she remained unmoved.

Harris's grip on Michael's collar gradually loosened, but the rage in his eyes didn't diminish. In their staring contest, Michael could clearly see the network of blood vessels in the white of Harris's single eye, as if they might crack at any moment, shattering the cloudy orb.

He knew the man before him was at his breaking point.

The immense blow of reality, the relentless torment of the disease, the extreme scarcity of resources, and the despair of watching familiar faces die day after day for thirty days—powerless to help…

As expected, in the next moment, the man, a hardened warrior by any measure, crouched down, clutching his head and sobbing.

"Sigh…"

Michael turned to the younger Aldemir. "So, Harris escaped from the official hospital? The 502nd Hospital in Dagon District?"

"Yes. There were still over a thousand people in the blocks who hadn't evacuated. He came back and revealed the truth, and we chose to stay with him."

"Why… You must know that staying here means either dying from Honkai sickness or being killed by Honkai beasts… The outcome is the same."

Michael had never loathed himself as much as he did at this moment. He even questioned whether it was truly him who had just spoken. How callous, how cold-blooded must he be to utter those words so casually: The outcome is the same…

For him, an observer, the outcome might indeed be the same. But for the people before him, it meant hunger, death, the ultimate end, and the dissipation of everything.

It meant…

Nonexistence.

Ceaseless nonexistence.

It meant the end.

But Aldemir seemed to have anticipated this. He answered seriously, "At first, everyone was just hot-headed. We didn't realize the consequences and stayed. It's not like no one left to go to City Hall… But I still think… well, there was this movie. I don't know if you've seen it. The villain asks the protagonist, since his fate is already written, why struggle, why resist? The protagonist's line was: Even if the final outcome is predetermined, I will choose the path to that ending myself."

Michael pursed his lips. Sakura silently lowered her guns.

Harris wiped away his tears and slowly stood up, his voice hoarse. "Of course, there's also… a faint hope. What if the United Government notices the abnormality here? What if they send someone to investigate? We have to survive, counting the days, surviving until the last person, until the very last moment… We don't desire salvation, and we can't be saved. We just want to tell the world what happened here."

"Well… that's all idealistic talk. The truth is, we're already living corpses. We don't even know why we're forcing ourselves to keep living…"

The overhead light flickered, causing the shadows in the enclosed space to dance. Michael took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Just then, the elevator stopped on the 39th floor. The doors opened, and Michael and Sakura rushed out as if escaping.

With so few survivors left, Harris had gathered them all on the 39th floor.

With the utilities cut off, they had collected a lot of bottled and barreled water from the supermarket. But that fresh water was barely enough to sustain life, let alone for washing.

So, the smell in the small, enclosed space was imaginable.

Most of the survivors were still on the first floor, resting before coming up. As for those who remained here, Michael observed them briefly. The purple veins on their bodies had spread to their chests and faces, even creeping into their eyes like reverse tear tracks…

At this stage of the illness, they didn't have much time left…

Aldemir knelt before a woman as thin as a mummy, dipping his finger in drinking water and applying it to her dry, cracked lips.

The woman's eyes were closed, as if she lacked the strength to open them.

The water slid down the corners of her mouth, washing a pale path through the grime on her cheeks. Her lips parted slightly, emitting a faint whimper. Her tongue darted between her teeth, unable to reach the moisture.

"That's his mother," Harris said quietly.

Whether she heard Harris's words or felt her son's warmth, the woman used all her strength to raise her head, opening her eyes a sliver.

Michael saw something flicker in her eyes, but it only moistened her eyelashes.

Perhaps her body didn't even have enough moisture left for a final tear.

The next moment, her head fell back onto the yellowed pillow.

Aldemir didn't cry.

Or rather, in this environment, he was controlling himself, not letting himself cry out, not wanting to affect the others.

Michael stood frozen.

He wasn't a stranger to death.

The Honkai eruption in Irkutsk had left no survivors, the death toll estimated at over three hundred thousand.

But facing a cold corpse or hostile Zombies was entirely different from witnessing a living, breathing person take their last, inevitable steps towards death.

A weight as heavy as a mountain pressed down on him from all sides, making it difficult to even breathe.

As a Herrscher, he had thought he could do something to change this era.

Just like he had vowed – to no longer be a witness, but someone who could truly alter fate.

But only now did he realize: he could do nothing.

A Herrscher, in the face of death, in the face of Honkai, was nothing.

"Saving the world is no easy feat. Sometimes, it's difficult to even save a single person."

That man's words echoed in his mind.

As for the serum, Michael could certainly condemn the powerful who used it to prolong their lives, but he couldn't condemn Dr. SPACI and Alfred, who had developed it. The serum wasn't only used on the elite.

The real consumers were Fire Moth…

His captain, Himeko, had temporarily left the team to recuperate after the Second Eruption due to Honkai sickness. Now, she had returned to the Fifth Squad, with no trace of the illness.

Seven other veterans from the other four squads had gone with her for treatment.

Considering the timing, it was highly likely that the eight doses of serum used to cure these warriors contained antibodies from the deceased here.

It was a trolley problem. Sacrificing one life to save a thousand was a topic of endless debate, let alone sacrificing a thousand to save one.

But what if the person being saved was a warrior like Captain Himeko?

Their survival might save a thousand lives, or even more, someday…

But then again, was sacrificing the few to save the many truly the answer that rationalism offered?

No. In everyone's heart, there were always a few whose weight far surpassed the many, even everything.

How could such weight be measured?

It couldn't.

Because from the moment the dilemma was born, it was destined to be unsolvable.

The person making the choice, regardless of the choice made, would undeniably bear the burden of sin.

As for Harris's claim that City Hall deliberately spread the Honkai sickness… Michael subconsciously felt it was unlikely. Honkai was akin to a natural phenomenon, and it might have simply erupted here by chance.

As for the hospital, they weren't at fault either. Aside from amputations, saline, and glucose, they had nothing to offer these patients.

So, was it the fault of Harris and the others? How could they possibly be at fault?

A numbness spread from his back to his scalp. No one was wrong, but the outcome was.

"This damned feeling of helplessness…"

Michael's dangling hand felt a chill. Sakura, at a loss, had grasped it.

Soon, her other hand joined, her entire weight seeming to lean on him for support.

Michael suddenly realized: perhaps this girl wasn't as strong as he'd thought. Perhaps the darkness she had seen in Chrysalis wasn't dark enough, leaving her weak and lost in this moment.

He shifted his position, supporting Sakura's arm, letting her small frame lean against him.

But suddenly, another problem occurred to him:

Since entering the Tower, he hadn't closed the comms, wanting Himeko to know what was happening.

"Oh no!"

Michael put himself in her shoes. For an ordinary person, knowing their life was bought with a thousand others, that weight could easily crush them.

"Excuse me, I need to go to the roof."

Harris gave Michael and Sakura, now half-collapsed in his arms, a strange look, and couldn't help but scoff, "It seems even the warriors who survived Irkutsk are nothing more than this."

Ignoring him, Michael half-carried, half-dragged Sakura to the roof.

Immer's drone had landed there.

Michael leaned against the railing, the wind whipping his thoughts and the hair on his forehead into a mess.

"Captain, Captain? Can you hear me?"

There was no response from the comms.

"Chirp, chirp." The sound of birdsong reached his ears. Michael looked up. Two birds, probably petrels that had strayed inland, flew past the rooftop. They flapped their wings vigorously, trying to fly higher and faster, as if they could escape this dead land.

Suddenly, one of them stopped flapping. Its claws straightened, its body convulsed twice, and then, unable to maintain its glide, it plummeted无力地 downwards.

The other bird cried out mournfully, flapping its wings even faster. It quickly became a small black dot in Michael's sight.

But just as Michael thought it had escaped, the tiny black dot fell straight down.

The Honkai was fair, treating ordinary animals and self-proclaimed primates alike.

Finally, there was a response from the comms, but it wasn't Himeko's voice.

Elysia's voice was filled with confusion and an unspeakable weight. "Michael, the captain said… she understands."