Moments later, Mikael reappeared before Elysia and Seele, but vanished again before he could say anything.
"You saw it, right? The Mahadeva clones' foreheads are empty. No... to be precise, the Mahadeva's true form is that pink eyeball. We've tried everything. The conclusion? Killing it is simple. The eyeball needs the white tissue to exist. Separate them, and the eyeball dies."
Simple enough. The problem? Finding the eyeball.
He zipped through Attica's streets. Everywhere he looked, Honkai beasts swarmed, pouring from the sewers, converging into a white ocean flowing through the streets.
The noise woke the city, but before anyone could react, collapsing buildings buried them.
Mikael couldn't save them individually. Finding the Mahadeva's true form was paramount.
His gaze swept over the hordes, but he couldn't find the pink eyeball Elysia had described.
"This is like finding a needle in a haystack. What else can I do... so many, and they're multiplying. If they fuse..."
"Kosma! Kosma!" Anadiya dug through the rubble, tossing aside blood-soaked bricks, ignoring the Honkai beasts behind her, which, in turn, ignored her.
She hit a familiar metal door. "Kosma!"
Thump. Thump. Thump. Faint knocks from below. "Kosma?"
Thump—thump—thump thump thump—thump—thump thump thump thump—thump thump—thump—thump—thump—thump—thump thump thump—thump thump thump thump—thump thump thump thump thump—thump thump thump. (It's me.)
"Phew..." Anadiya breathed a sigh of relief, finding a steel bar, wedging it under the door, and heaving. The door shifted slightly, but no more.
She put her full weight on the bar. This time, the door lifted a few inches, but she knew it wasn't her strength—the trapped teenager was helping!
She quickly wedged a brick in the gap, repeating the process until the half-buried door was open wide enough.
As she reached for Kosma, the ground gave way—the rubble collapsed again, burying her too.
In the darkness, they crawled towards each other's voices until they touched the same wall.
"Anadiya... big sis, what's happening?" Kosma's voice came through the wall. She imagined him sitting with his back against it, just like her.
"Well... I didn't expect to confess all this under these circumstances..." Anadiya sighed. She had used Kosma, but she also cared for him.
She liked his feigned maturity, his unnecessary sense of justice, his impractical persistence, and his occasional melancholy...
All of it reminded her of something she'd lost.
No—something she, as a double agent, had to lose.
Something she perhaps never had.
Kindness, justice, principles, a moral compass...
She was much older than Kosma. She'd killed many with her own hands, and her intel had indirectly killed ten, a hundred times more...
But those people had one thing in common—they were her colleagues, even though they were enemies.
In the end, she couldn't tell which of her identities was the real her. So she just numbly did her best at every job.
She was a despicable, irredeemable person...
"Confess? Anadiya..."
"Kosma, like you suspected, the disasters aren't natural. But don't overthink it, it's not man-made... Kosma, the world isn't as dark as you think, but... but your kindness, your sense of justice, they're not pointless. There will be a day when they matter..."
"The door is above Kosma. If I push this wall towards him, it'll fall on my side, bringing the rubble with it. He can escape... or at least, the door will form a protective triangle..."
"Wait! Anadiya! What are you doing?!"
Kosma's terrified scream was music to her ears. See, someone cares about me.
This was what she'd always wanted. She craved being seen as kind and gentle.
She wanted someone to cry for her, to remember one of her identities.
It was a selfish desire.
But it drove her to push the wall, just to hear Kosma call her "big sis" again.
"I am Ana, Kosma's big sister. I'll make sure he lives."
"No... Anadiya-big-sis! Stop!" Kosma braced himself against the wall, but his action only made it tilt further.
Bright morning light streamed down. Kosma's eyes welled up.
He was saved, but at a cost...
"Come now, boys shouldn't cry!"
Someone pinched his cheek, and tears streamed down.
The despair and fear vanished. Anadiya's muscles spasmed, and she coughed violently as Elysia pulled her up.
"Seems I arrived just in time!"
"Miss Elysia, thank you..."
The Honkai beasts were gone, the white tide receding.
"Mm-hmm! Take care of another child for me!"
Elysia dissolved into pink petals.
"Mikael, what have you and that woman done in Attica?!" Mobius's furious voice crackled through the forced comm link.
"The Honkai energy readings near Attica are over 1000 HW and rising! Fire Moth has issued a Herrscher-level alert!"
"A Herrscher? No, it's not a Herrscher!"
"Not a Herrscher?! What did you do? No, wait, Fire Moth should factor you into their calculations..."
Before Mobius could finish, Mikael felt a spatial distortion beside him.
A flash of green materialized.
"This... this!" She saw the white tide below.
"What are you doing here?" Mikael's tone was sharp. Using the Second Divine Key was reckless.
Even with Eden's upgrades, the core was still an inanimate object, unlike a Herrscher's. Each use at full power required two hours to recharge.
Mobius's impulsive action had cut off reinforcements for two hours, though with him and Elysia, they weren't essential.
She glanced at him, hesitant, then looked back at the Honkai beast tide.
"What is that thing?"
"As you can see, a Honkai beast."
"Don't be ridicul... Wait! One Honkai beast? One?"
Mikael didn't explain. They both looked towards the horizon. On the beach, several white tides converged.
After repeated merging, a colossal, hundred-meter-tall Honkai beast stood bathed in the rising sun—still bovine, but with four extra arms sprouting from its back.
"Hey! I'm here! Huh? Mobius... why are you here?!"