Did Lucius know about Kallen's situation?
The answer was naturally yes.
Though he had verbally promised to let Kallen handle this one herself, he had still put a safety net in place. After all, the great sage had once said: having an extra backup is never wrong.
So in truth, he had left a mental projection inside the Herrscher of the Void's sea of consciousness — partly to monitor her condition, and partly to serve as that safety net.
Beyond that, he actually also had a mental projection inside Kallen's sea of consciousness. He simply hadn't told her, considering she might get irritated and snippy about it.
But the problem at hand wasn't actually Kallen's predicament — it was what was right in front of him.
Inside the Herrscher of the Void's sea of consciousness, Lucius studied the peacock feather in his hand, currently surrounded by several crimson feathers of Dust, and fell into thought.
"Strange — isn't Sa supposed to be a cowardly bridge-camper? Why has she gotten so bold? She actually dares to reach her hand into the Cocoon's territory?"
Yes — Lucius could see it clearly. What was before him was Sa's feather, and it was also the cause of the Herrscher of the Void's abnormal behavior.
He had also read the information carried within this peacock feather.
— Destruction. Sink everything in the vicinity into the Sea of Quanta through spatial force, and achieve destruction through that.
Sa's power wasn't capable of directly controlling the Herrscher of the Void — so what she was actually doing was guiding. Without violating the Cocoon's ultimate directive issued to the Herrscher, she was going with the flow and inserting her own interference.
Destruction — but she had redirected the method of destruction toward sinking everything nearby into the Sea of Quanta.
"Ha ha ha — getting the inside agent to actively feed you. How filthy clever."
Lucius had a rough picture of Sa's plan. It was nothing more than another inspirational story of an alien country bumpkin coming to Earth to beg for scraps.
Because the solar system had the Cocoon of Finality — an existence capable of obliterating everything — Sa could only hide in a little corner at the edge of the solar system and lay low. She normally could only harvest power from world bubbles in the Sea of Quanta.
But compared to the rootless world bubbles drifting in the Sea of Quanta, Earth in the real world naturally contained far more energy.
However, with the Cocoon of Finality watching, making a direct move would most likely result in getting elbowed by it — so she could only stare at the prize longingly.
But this clever little creature had obviously thought of a way to exploit a bug.
If acting herself would invite the Cocoon of Finality's retaliation — but what if an entity from Earth personally sank a piece of the surface into the Sea of Quanta and fed it to her?
Following that line of thought, Lucius realized the technology Sa had helped Nicholas create — something resembling the key-based divine technology of a Thousand-Realm Singular Passage — was probably made for exactly this purpose.
Once Nicholas truly used the Herrscher of the Void's core to produce the relevant Divine Key, it would probably go berserk very quickly, sinking everything in the surrounding area into the Sea of Quanta.
But because his intervention caused the Second Herrscher's revival, it wrecked Sa's original plan and forced her to change approach, switching to interfering with the Herrscher of the Void directly to achieve her objective.
Under normal circumstances, she shouldn't have been able to pull this off — the power she deployed would have been detected by the Cocoon of Finality.
The reason she could do it actually came down to two factors.
First, she had Nicholas as a relay station — a backup she had prepared in advance.
Second, it was because he himself had deliberately let it happen, wanting to see what Sa was going to do.
Yes — he had been watching Sa's small maneuvers all along. Or more precisely, once he discovered her arrangement within Nicholas's sea of consciousness, Lucius had been waiting for her.
The reason this peacock feather could fly from Nicholas into the Herrscher of the Void's sea of consciousness was precisely because he chose not to stop it.
Looking at the peacock feather coiled in the Feathers of Dust, Lucius understood that in essence this thing was the same kind of existence as his own mental projections.
To prevent it from syncing intelligence back to Sa's main body, Lucius used the power of the Feathers of Dust to trap it inside an illusion, making it believe its plan was still proceeding smoothly.
But this approach was ultimately not entirely safe. After all, Sa was unlike anyone else — she was a being who had walked extremely far in the realm of consciousness.
Lucius had no doubt that if he relied only on the mimicking power of the Feathers of Dust, she would sense something was off very quickly.
And so he quietly called upon Purgatory.
The next moment, wisps of pale violet force — like scrambled code — materialized from thin air, seeping into the crimson feathers wrapped around the peacock feather and dyeing them a faint violet that pulsed with an eerie light.
Under the combined work of the Feathers of Dust and the Erosion force, even a consciousness projection separated from Sa was kept under quiet control.
With Sa's mental projection handled, Lucius began thinking about how to deliver a serious blow to Sa herself.
There had never been a thousand days of guarding against a thief, only a thousand days of being one — to ensure the future script wouldn't suffer too many complications, it was necessary to hit Sa hard while the opportunity was here.
Even if she couldn't be killed, at the very least she had to be ensured she'd have no energy to meddle with Earth in the short term.
With that thought, he contacted Mei.
The next moment, through the connection between their mental projections, Mei appeared in this consciousness space.
Mei looked around with some curiosity, but turned toward Lucius, her face lit up with a cheerful smile.
"Father called for me?"
Lucius explained the situation to Mei.
"So that's the situation. I plan to turn Sa's scheme against her and hit this bridge-camping squatter hard. Is the Soldier God System ready to use?"
Given Sa's power level, taking her down under normal circumstances was very difficult. And so Lucius had thought of the Soldier God System that Mei was currently constructing.
But hearing Lucius's request, Mei shook her head.
"No — right now it's only a framework. Not even 10% of the total is complete."
"But to deal with Sa, the Soldier God doesn't necessarily have to be activated."
Mei adjusted her glasses. A cold gleam passed across the lenses. "Another alien country bumpkin who doesn't know what she's getting into. Looks like I'll have to personally step in again."
"Mei — what's your plan?"
"Father, although the Soldier God System can't be used yet, give me some time and I can reconfigure it as an electromagnetic force amplification device. As long as sufficient power can be accumulated, I can absolutely beat her to her knees."
Lucius thought it over and said: "Good plan — but I want to modify it slightly."
It wasn't that he doubted Mei's capabilities. Following her plan would in all likelihood deliver a serious blow to Sa.
But it still wasn't enough. Given Sa's power level — cultivated over hundreds of millions of years — it would be difficult for Mei to deal her a lethal blow in a short time.
"If we're going to act, we have to go for the kill."
"Mei, your plan can continue — but the direction needs to change."
"Sa's main body has been lurking in the Sea of Quanta all along. I want you to change the objective to forcing her main body to descend into the real world."
As the apex 'monster' of human intellect, Mei immediately understood what Lucius was getting at.
"Father intends to use the power of the Cocoon of Finality?"
Through the intelligence Lucius had provided, Mei knew that Earth was the Cocoon of Finality's domain.
Most of the time, the Cocoon operated in a free-range state and paid no attention to ordinary outsiders.
But Sa was different. Her power level had already exceeded the threshold the Cocoon could tolerate. If she dared descend to Earth, she would genuinely be hit with a heavy fist.
"Precisely."
"As expected of Father — truly a world-shaking plan!" Mei offered her praise, delivering full emotional value. "I'll go prepare immediately."
Mei was just about to leave when a voice suddenly carried over.
"Hey — don't come near me!"
"Help — Lucius, save me!"
"What's that sound?" Mei asked, puzzled.
"Kallen has probably run into trouble." Lucius said without sympathy.
Outside, staring at the spatial rift right in front of her, Kallen was sweating profusely.
"I've steered Schicksal for five hundred years — am I really going to meet my end at the hands of an evil degenerate?!"
"This outcome is absolutely unacceptable!"
"Lucius — save me!"
In the depths of her despair, Kallen noticed the Herrscher of the Void's movements had stopped. Lucius's voice emerged from the Herrscher's mouth.
"You've begged so earnestly — what else can I say. Saving you is the obvious call. And you don't need to worry — this Herrscher of the Void isn't that kind of creature."
"Earlier, to create the Benares, I controlled her and forced her to use the Herrscher of the Void's authority to resurrect Benares. The reason she's drawn to you is simply because she wants to reclaim the power she split off to restore herself to wholeness."
"She just has poor eyesight and mistook you for Benares."
"...Lucius, can you please just get me out of here first!"
"A minor matter." Lucius's tone carried full confidence. He said to her: "In that case, Kallen — kill yourself."
"I'd love to die for a moment, but I can't do it on my own!"
"No worries — I'll help."
With those words, Kallen felt a surge of heat flow through her body. As the heat transformed into searing agony, she felt something tear through her skin and begin to grow out of her body from within.
"Lucius — what did you just do?"
"Activated the inactivated Benares Super Mutation Factor inside your body. Don't worry — you and Benares aren't compatible, so you'll explode and die very shortly. It won't be too painful."
"...Lucius, try being a decent person for once!"
BOOM——
A violent explosion sent the Herrscher of the Void flying. The spatial rift was released along with it.
But to everyone on the ground, this entire sequence appeared as no more than a single instant.
All they saw was the girl believed to be the Messiah defeat the great beast that had sought to bring destruction. In a cascade of golden ribbons, the 'Messiah' transformed into light that filled the entire sky.
And then, emerging once more from that golden radiance, she descended slowly.
"A miracle — it's a miracle!" The crowd erupted. Many raised both hands with tears streaming down their faces. "Lord — is this the savior you foretold?"
But amid the frenzy, there were some whose faces showed confusion.
They kept feeling as though from the mouth of the Messiah in the sky came words resembling 'reckless fool' and 'inhuman creature' and other rather colorfully unpleasant language.
But looking at the fanatical crowd around them, they felt that if they said anything, they would probably be elbowed as heretics.
Of course, most of them concluded it was just their imagination anyway.
After all — how could the great Messiah possibly swear so creatively?
It was surely their own lack of piety!
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