Rain struck the roof with a rushing roar.
Holding a heavy firearm, Kevin gazed at the despairing young Herrscher before him. Her slender shoulders trembled incessantly like those of an injured animal that had lost the strength to live.
Complicated emotions churned inside Kevin. His finger shifted against the trigger, then stopped.
For the first time, he realized that Herrschers—the outsiders and monsters humanity had always believed them to be—possessed the same emotions as ordinary humans.
She, too, understood death and feared it.
Every Herrscher Kevin had faced before had been a monster with no desire to communicate, one that knew only how to slaughter humanity.
The Herrscher of Death before him, however, seemed to be an exception.
Kevin sighed softly. His index finger remained on the trigger, but his resolve was no longer as firm as it had been at the beginning.
Feeling pity for a frail girl who had surrendered to despair was only natural human empathy.
But... Kevin had long since erased such empathy from himself.
The current Kevin was not an emotionless killing machine, yet he closely resembled one.
He knew that sparing an enemy of humanity would only lead to more human casualties.
Especially when that enemy was a Herrscher.
The weapon in Kevin's hands carried the lives of others upon it.
He had no right to let his own emotions determine where it pointed...
Doing so would be a betrayal of Mei and all humanity.
Beep, beep— "CR370, attention. CR370, attention. Terminate your current mission immediately and capture the Herrscher of Death alive. This is a special directive. Execute it at once. End of transmission."
A communication from his superiors sounded through his earpiece. It appeared that MOTH's upper ranks placed tremendous importance on the Herrscher of Death.
After all, the authority she wielded was the most extraordinary of them all.
No one could resist coveting the power of immortality and resurrection.
Should they lose the Herrscher of Death, the idea that humanity could independently research such power would be pure fantasy.
"CR370 acknowledges. CR370 is commencing execution of the special directive."
Kevin closed the communication channel and drew a deep breath. "Stop. You have no desire to kill anyone..."
The implication was that Kevin intended to give the girl a chance.
In truth, Kevin could have killed the Herrscher of Death immediately. By this time, Dr. Mei had already begun purging MOTH's upper ranks, so he would not have faced any punishment for disobeying their command.
Dr. Mei even planned to present Kevin as a hero capable of standing against a Herrscher upon his return, using his image to restore humanity's morale.
Yet allowing the Herrscher of Death to live would ultimately leave an uncontrollable threat within MOTH's future.
Killing the Herrscher was the choice that would benefit both sides.
Kevin did not know whether sparing the Herrscher of Death was right or wrong.
He could only reassure himself that the Herrscher of Death was different because none of the Herrschers he had fought before had ever been so kind.
Yes, kind.
This Herrscher of Death had yet to personally kill a single human being.
The dozens of deaths attributed to her thus far had all been caused by Honkai infection or Honkai Beasts.
Compared with other Herrschers, who unleashed world-shattering attacks and massacred humans the moment they descended, this Herrscher was practically a living saint.
She had even actively restrained the spread of Honkai Beasts and Honkai energy. Otherwise, Kevin could never have stood this close and pointed a gun at her head.
Humans surrounding a Herrscher? That was the greatest joke imaginable.
The domain of a god tolerated no desecration.
The concentration of Honkai energy surrounding a Herrscher was not something a human body could approach.
Even someone wearing a Honkai energy isolation suit would quickly be eroded and infected.
The Honkai was not some poisonous gas. Honkai energy operated upon the imaginary plane, so no physical substance in the real world could block it.
Pointing a gun at a Herrscher's head from close range should have been even more impossible.
Were it not for the Herrscher of Death continuing to attack human facilities, Kevin would have suspected that she bore goodwill toward humanity.
Perhaps the Herrscher of Death was humanity's opportunity to triumph over the Honkai, or even its hope of peacefully coexisting with it.
In the Previous Era, humanity faced the Honkai with nothing but despair.
An unsolvable natural disaster had fixed its malice upon humanity, leaving mankind unable to see even the faintest hope of resistance.
In the Current Era of the Honkai, most humans knew nothing about it. They therefore believed that as long as they resisted, there would always be a sliver of hope.
In the Previous Era, however, nearly every leading scientist understood the Honkai. Yet perhaps only a select few, including Mei, could propose any means of confronting it.
As for Dr. Mobius, she had never believed that present-day humanity could defeat the Honkai.
The more one understood the "Honkai," the more inevitable the conclusion became that it could not be defeated.
That was the calamity of the Honkai.
Because Kevin was constantly at Dr. Mei's side, he naturally had access to such information.
Although he often encouraged Dr. Mei with words and insisted that humanity had a strong chance of victory, Kevin trusted Dr. Mei's judgment. Deep down, he was equally burdened by despair.
Humanity did not have much time left. Herrschers would appear with increasing frequency, and one day, mankind would perish beneath their feet.
Yet at that moment, a Herrscher who did not kill suddenly appeared. Naturally, Kevin began to entertain other possibilities.
Perhaps giving her a chance would open the way to an entirely new future.
He believed that if a Herrscher could reclaim her human emotions and help humanity, she would undoubtedly become an enormous asset in the struggle against the Honkai.
The rain abruptly stopped, and a deathly silence descended upon their surroundings.
Only the occasional drip of water sounded from the puddle beneath the girl.
"Hey, some people die far too soon. Does their death have no meaning at all?"
The girl, who had been prepared for Kevin to execute her, suddenly raised her head and stared at him with hollow eyes.
Kevin's gaze remained unwavering, filled with the resolve and conviction of Deliverance.
"The meaning of death does not lie in death itself, but in the actions and choices that precede it."
If his life could secure humanity's victory, this man would load it into the chamber of his weapon without the slightest hesitation.
However, Kevin's abysmal emotional intelligence prevented him from understanding the girl's question. His blunt answer instead provoked her anger.
"Choice? Hmph. When did we ever have a choice?"
"Are you saying... that the deaths of my friends—Idovia, Isabella, Sirin... meant nothing?"
"You..."
Kevin wanted to say something more, but the words would not come.
When he received the special directive moments earlier, MOTH's intelligence department had already transmitted every record concerning Seele to his terminal.
Now, everything Seele and her companions had endured appeared before his eyes.
Faced with the sins of MOTH's upper ranks, Kevin... had nothing to say.
After receiving no answer for a long time, Seele muttered to herself, "That's right. Death was never a blessing. You simply killed them. Their deaths were meaningless, and they received no blessing."
"Idovia died... Isabella died... Sirin died... Seele died too... Hahaha."
"If death is no blessing, then I shall grant humanity the death it deserves."
Black butterflies from hell enveloped Seele.
The Herrscher who wielded death raised her scythe once more.