Without a doubt, when it came to advanced academic knowledge, Pardofelis's Sim could not compare to MEI or Vill-V.
Not even after living for more than fifty thousand years.
The reason was embarrassingly simple.
She had never bothered to study any of it.
Otherwise, after accumulating knowledge for fifty thousand years, even someone of mediocre talent who had no idea how to apply what she learned would at least have become a walking database by now.
Fortunately, Pardo did not need that kind of education to notice that something was wrong.
After becoming an Emanator, her command over space, or more precisely, her connection to the Imaginary, had reached an entirely different level.
And through that power, she had awakened a new ability.
"Cat's Eye."
It was a spatial perception ability that allowed Pardo to observe distant events occurring in the present.
In some respects, it resembled the deliberately restricted "Omniscience" screens Ling Ke often used.
Put simply...
It was clairvoyance.
Not precognition.
Not the ability to see the past.
A form of "present sight."
With her current strength as an Emanator of Harmony, Pardo was still nowhere near capable of casually observing the entire universe, much less the whole Imaginary Tree as Ling Ke could.
But the Solar System?
That was well within her range.
In effect, the ability was somewhat similar to Heimdall's vision from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And through this "Cat's Eye," Pardo had already discovered more than one hidden danger lurking throughout the Solar System.
More importantly...
She had also seen several of the traps Kali had prepared with the Herrscher of Thunder's assistance.
Including one particularly nasty truth.
The eruption of Yellowstone had not been triggered by some hidden "Temple."
There was no third Temple beneath the caldera.
Instead...
Deep below Yellowstone lurked an Ancient Honkai Beast.
One so enormous that its size was comparable to Chiyou.
Kali had deliberately planted it there.
Another deception hidden beneath a deception.
And then another beneath that.
This creature was the false answer Kali had intentionally allowed MEI and the others to discover.
A carefully prepared piece of "truth" designed to convince them that they had finally seen through her scheme.
When in reality...
Their attention had merely been redirected toward another decoy.
The massive Honkai Beast had remained hidden deep beneath the earth.
Thanks to its unique biology and inherited genetic traits, it could survive while submerged in magma as though it were nothing unusual.
And just moments ago...
That beast had released the enormous reserve of Honkai Energy accumulated within its body over tens of thousands of years, together with the additional energy Kali had injected into it recently.
Using its own genetic abilities, it destabilized the underground environment and triggered Yellowstone's eruption.
In other words...
The towering volcanic column Kevin and the others had just frozen had nothing to do with the heat stored inside the more than three thousand Undersea Temples.
In fact, Kali never needed that energy to erupt Yellowstone in the first place.
The accumulated power of a gigantic Ancient Honkai Beast that had existed for tens of thousands of years was already more than sufficient.
Sooner or later, Kevin and the others would discover the creature hidden beneath Yellowstone.
They would notice the clues.
They would realize how they had been deceived.
But by then...
They would have already missed the final opportunity to discover the most important clue of all.
Because during Prometheus's operation just now...
Not every Undersea Temple had actually been destroyed by the Girl Dolls.
Some of them had detonated themselves.
They merely timed their destruction to coincide with Prometheus's mass self-detonation, hiding their own explosions among thousands of others.
Perfect camouflage.
At present, the Newborn World Serpent had its attention divided between the Herrscher of Thunder rampaging across the Mu Continent and the aftermath of Yellowstone.
No one had yet noticed that the simultaneous explosions at more than three thousand locations around the world had been far more powerful than they should have been.
As had already been established...
Kali's placement of the Undersea Temples had been exceptionally deliberate.
And their positions along major ocean-current routes were only one part of the design.
Yes, those locations allowed the temples to spread the Cold Wave across the planet far more efficiently.
But there was another layer.
The temples were connected.
Together, they formed an enormous array.
The information MEI and the others had previously uncovered suggested that this array existed to improve the efficiency of Honkai Energy utilization, allowing the Undersea Temples to continue functioning almost indefinitely.
That interpretation was not entirely false.
It was simply incomplete.
Beneath the large array were several smaller formations, each designed to produce a different effect.
They overlapped with one another.
One massive structure containing several hidden structures.
Like smaller patterns concealed within a larger symbol.
Unless someone deliberately searched for those secondary formations and analyzed the network from that perspective, discovering them would be extremely difficult.
And if all of those hidden arrays were detonated simultaneously...
"The Day After Tomorrow turns into 2012."
Inside the Stellaron Train, Ling Ke gave his verdict while watching everything unfold.
From his perspective, one even more comprehensive than Pardo's Cat's Eye...
The truth was painfully obvious.
From Kali's original period of hiding...
To the "Impostor" operation.
Then the Cold Wave.
And now Yellowstone.
Every single stage had been preparing for one thing.
"The Undersea Temples stored enormous amounts of thermal and Honkai Energy."
Ling Ke rested lazily against the sofa.
"When the linked array self-destructed, Prometheus's own mass detonation provided perfect cover."
"But the real danger wasn't the explosions themselves."
"It was what the linked detonation produced afterward."
A planet-wide reaction had already been initiated.
According to the principles underlying Kali's array, the resulting neutrino activity would gradually disturb the planet's interior.
Earth itself would become the next weapon.
"The entire planet is about to turn into one enormous microwave oven."
Ling Ke's tone remained casual.
"Except instead of being heated from outside by something like a massive solar storm..."
"This time, the heating starts from within."
Nearby, Pam and Sirin were playing chess.
Ling Ke happened to glance over just as the Train Master delivered checkmate, leaving Sirin scratching her head in confusion.
Then he returned his attention to Earth.
"And after that..."
"Crustal displacement."
According to Ling Ke's calculations, humanity now had less than three years.
Three years before the next extinction-level catastrophe.
And during those three years, the Newborn World Serpent would be completely incapable of stopping the changes already underway deep inside Earth.
Reversing them?
Even less likely.
The process had already begun.
In other words...
A civilization-ending crustal displacement event was no longer merely a possibility.
It had become inevitable.
A fixed outcome waiting three years in the future.
Even if MEI discovered Kali's real objective immediately...
It was already too late.
She could not stop it.
The Newborn World Serpent simply did not possess the power required to directly control a planetary system on that scale.
As for the few beings who did possess such power...
They were forbidden from intervening.
And that was not even the worst of it.
The Nihility embryo remained.
After the interference of those three "uninvited guests" had caused Ling Ke to accelerate its incubation by two-thirds...
Less than ten years remained before it would hatch.
That left a gap between two deadlines.
Three years.
And ten years.
And during that interval...
As long as the Herrscher of Blood and the Herrscher of Thunder remained alive, the two could continue complementing each other.
Kali's computational ability.
The Herrscher of Thunder's control over electromagnetism.
Together, they could gradually perform increasingly precise modifications on the Herrscher of Thunder's own body.
To put it simply...
Her growth ceiling would continue rising.
Again.
And again.
Until eventually...
Short of Finality itself, even Kevin the Returnee might no longer be capable of surviving a direct confrontation with her.
Seen from that perspective, Kali's countless plans to destroy human civilization all served another purpose as well.
They bought time.
Time for the Herrscher of Thunder to grow.
And the situation only became worse from there.
The Herrscher of Thunder was already difficult enough to deal with.
She could enter an elemental state.
Her speed was absurd.
Catching her was already nearly impossible.
Killing her was even harder.
Meanwhile...
Humanity would eventually discover the coming crustal displacement.
They would have to devote enormous resources to dealing with that.
Then there was the Kindling Migration plan, created because of the Nihility embryo.
That would consume even more.
Ships.
Fuel.
Industry.
Manpower.
Research.
Infrastructure.
All of these civilization-scale projects would have to continue while the Cold Wave itself had not even completely ended.
And while humanity struggled to gather the necessary resources...
The Herrscher of Blood's Spawn would still be everywhere.
The Herrscher of Thunder could emerge at any time and tear through another region.
The Sixth Herrscher might be born.
Then the Seventh.
Then others after that.
After all...
The Cold Wave had already pushed the entire planet into an atmosphere of fear, despair, anger, and instability.
For the Cocoon of Finality...
There was no shortage of potential Herrscher candidates.
The Great Honkai had already begun snowballing.
And now...
It had become a vicious cycle.
Ling Ke considered the situation for a moment.
"In the original timeline, the Sixth Honkai Eruption wouldn't even begin for another three years."
"And the Seventh, the one where the scale of destruction suddenly jumps from a few cities to an entire continent, hasn't even happened yet."
He paused.
"But here?"
"At the same point in history, humanity is already standing on the edge of extinction."
Ling Ke shook his head.
For once, even he felt a peculiar sense of futility.
"This game is already lost, 'Deliverance.'"
He leaned back against the circular sofa, clasped his hands behind his head, and yawned.
"And crustal displacement isn't even Kali and the Herrscher of Thunder's last move."
"They still have several other troublesome plans they haven't started yet."
"Meanwhile, the Newborn World Serpent can only react."
Again.
And again.
Always one step behind.
"At best, they build a few more starships and flee the Solar System with whatever fragments of civilization they can save."
Ling Ke closed his eyes briefly.
"And even that will be difficult."
There was still Dr. Einstein's Sea of Quanta Portal.
But that route had its own problem.
With the Herrscher of Blood now functioning as a genuine external super-brain and warning her partner of danger in advance...
The Herrscher of Thunder was about to tear across the entire Mu Continent.
And the Sea of Quanta Portal was not some compact piece of machinery that could simply be packed up and moved somewhere safer.
It was an enormous underground installation.
Completely immobile.
Even MEI's current access to the Authority of the Void through the Key of Blankness could not solve that problem.
The portal was a colossal structure powerful enough to convert nearly half of the Mu Continent into a World Bubble and send it into the Sea of Quanta.
If MEI possessed enough spatial power to casually teleport something of that scale...
Then she would not need the Sea of Quanta Portal in the first place.
It was far beyond her current limits.
Pardo, however...
An Emanator of Harmony?
She actually could move it.
But Pardo could not interfere.
Which meant...
"If they don't deal with the Herrscher of Thunder, the destruction of the Sea of Quanta Portal is only a matter of time."
Ling Ke reached his conclusion.
"The World Bubble route is effectively dead."
"Unless the Mu Continent makes an immediate decision and activates the portal now, sending away the first batch of Kindling before the Herrscher of Thunder destroys it."
"Otherwise..."
His gaze shifted toward the distant stars beyond the train.
"Interstellar migration is the only path left that still offers even a sliver of hope."
Having reached that conclusion, Ling Ke rose from the circular sofa.
Then another thought occurred to him.
"Hmm."
"If things have deteriorated this far..."
"It's probably time to move Sundown Alley."
The original Pardofelis was still there.
Ling Ke had, by this point, essentially abandoned any expectation that the Current Era could still save itself.
And if that was the case...
"A World Bubble feels too cramped."
He remembered Seele.
She had performed exceptionally well before.
And as her reward, Ling Ke had given her...
A world that existed because of her.
So...
"I'll just create another timeline."
"A whole new universe."
Ling Ke made the decision almost instantly.
"And move Sundown Alley there."