As mentioned before, the Ling Ke of today already saw everything in the entire world of Honkai Impact 3rd as nothing more than a game.
And once someone had truly taken on the mindset of a "player"…
Back when he used to sit at home playing certain hack-and-slash games, like the once wildly famous but later steadily declining Dynasty Warriors series…
had he ever felt guilty over how many nameless grunts died on the screen?
Or when he played real-time strategy games, like Warcraft or StarCraft…
had he ever hesitated to wipe out the other side?
Obviously not.
All he felt was excitement.
A sense of accomplishment.
That was the state Ling Ke was in now.
He was no longer a transmigrator who loved this world.
He had become a fiend from beyond the world.
"Thanks to Honkai and the system, I've been given the chance to command an army of more than ten thousand."
Inside the Theater of Domination, Ling Ke laughed softly. "But a force of barely over ten thousand still isn't enough."
"Even if they can revive without limit, the more the better."
"Otherwise, the efficiency is too low."
"And the threat isn't strong enough."
"After all, the game character templates I've drawn so far don't count as top-tier combat power."
"Never mind blowing up stars. I don't even have anyone on Kevin's level yet. Not even a proper Herrscher-class fighter beneath him."
"So if a qualitative leap can only be left to luck for now, and can't be counted on…"
"then I'll make up for it with quantity."
Put plainly, all of that meant one thing:
he still needed to keep killing.
Needed to kill on a grand scale.
So…
"To everyone in Schicksal, Anti-Entropy, and World Serpent, and to any random passerby who might happen to see this video, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening."
That day, a video was distributed at the same time to all three major organizations, reaching every senior figure and every core member across their different time zones.
For a moment…
"For those who don't know me, let me introduce myself."
"My name is Ling Ke."
"I am the Tenth Herrscher of your era—the Herrscher of Domination."
"Let me make one established fact clear to all of you here and now, so that none of you will keep clinging to any unrealistic fantasies from this point on…"
In the video, the black-haired young man wore formal dress. His bearing was elegant, but his smile was cold.
And the words that followed were colder still.
"Although no so-called Herrscher personality was ever born inside me, and my own judgment has not been affected in that respect in the slightest, I will still never become a Herrscher who stands on humanity's side."
"From this day forward, I will take one action after another for the sake of destroying every human being on this planet."
"Yes. From humanity's point of view, I am your villain, your criminal, your wicked enemy."
"But history has always been written by the victors."
"You…"
Ling Ke leaned toward the camera with a smile. "Are you ready for war?"
"I am."
"This war will not end until one side is dead."
The video ended there.
"..."
Otto saw that video.
Welt saw it.
Kevin saw it too.
The people around those three leaders, their subordinates and their comrades, saw it as well.
Even on World Serpent's side…
the Flame-Chaser memory entities within Elysian Realm came to understand the matter too.
"Ah…"
One certain girl (?), brilliant as drifting blossoms and born loving all people, let out a long, helpless sigh.
"Why is the world always this cruel?"
"Because that is human nature."
In the hall of Elysian Realm, a small green figure wore a mocking expression. "This era is no different from ours."
She looked at Ling Ke's image in front of her. Her jade-green snake eyes narrowed slightly, full of interest. "Another monster born from malice."
"Hmph."
Not far away, a tall figure in a mask turned and left.
It was obvious that this bad-tempered old bastard was in a terrible mood right now.
Ling Ke's experience made him think, without meaning to, of that little girl from back then.
The same kindness, gone.
The same hope of civilization, cut off.
Only, the latter had already become an established fact.
As for the former… he was walking toward that future step by step.
"...Sigh."
Another sigh sounded.
It came from a mature woman with an elegant air, a striking figure, and wine-red hair.
When she was alive, she had been the unquestioned greatest superstar of the Previous Era.
And now…
"War…"
She sighed softly. "How many more people are going to die this time?"
During this same period in the Previous Era, the war between humanity and the Tenth Herrscher had claimed billions of lives.
And in this era…
while there had been no disaster on the scale of the sinking of Mu, the various abilities this Herrscher of Domination had displayed were clearly far stronger.
"Humanity will defeat the Honkai."
A cold male voice suddenly rang out.
It belonged to a white-haired man.
He was one of the few Flame-Chaser memory entities whose real self was still alive in the world today.
After hearing his declaration…
"Yeah. Humanity will defeat the Honkai."
Someone repeated the words. "Because…"
"Other than that, there is no road left."
After Ling Ke released his war declaration video, that very evening… evening in the North American time zone, anyway, Schicksal, Anti-Entropy, and World Serpent held an emergency joint remote virtual meeting.
This meeting was no longer just empty argument and talking in circles.
Now they had already begun fully assigning which war zones each side would be responsible for.
They had no choice.
Ling Ke's side had only grown more vicious in its attacks.
That video from today, if one insisted on calling it a declaration of war, was really more like a formal notice that had simply come late.
And under that larger situation…
"At present, based on the real-time surveillance data we have deployed across the world, we can confirm that the combat units under the Herrscher of Domination, Ling Ke, number far more than one thousand."
"Their numbers are enormous, and they are still increasing."
"At this stage, the total has already passed ten thousand."
"The Far East, North America, Europe, Africa, Australia… the whole world has come under indiscriminate attack."
"According to the analysis provided by our intelligence department, they have not adopted traditional methods of warfare, nor do they appear to have any intention of occupying territory."
"They are simply making use of that spatial transfer ability to carry out high-efficiency slaughter over and over again."
"Every day, tens of thousands of people are dying."
"And that number is still continuing to rise."
Inside the virtual conference room, Amber, the Archbishop's secretary of Schicksal, was sharing intelligence on Otto's orders.
And every piece of it was bad news.
Among everyone present, the one who looked calmest on the surface was World Serpent's leader, Kevin Kaslana.
Because in his distant memories… the Herrschers of the Previous Era had been like this too.
All of them, except for her.
As for everyone else…
to be honest, even Otto was having trouble keeping that infuriating face of his steady now.
Because the Puppets of Domination carrying out massacres across the world were still using the Sixth Serenade template.
Every one of those faces, identical to Kallen Kaslana's, made Otto feel as though his heart were being cut apart if they so much as showed a savage smile for a single instant.
"This farce has to end as quickly as possible."
Otto's hands had already clenched without him noticing.
Lately, he had shown more signs of losing control than he had in the past five hundred years combined.
That alone showed…
Ling Ke had indeed found the one weak spot of this selfish schemer with terrifying precision.
Compared to killing people…
he was clearly more interested in twisting the knife.