Today was just an ordinary day for Gray Serpent No. 10086, same as always. His revered master was still eating instant noodles in the Sea of Quanta, and no new major Honkai outbreak had erupted on Earth. Everything remained so peaceful.
As the largest intelligence broker on Earth, Gray Serpent No. 10086 spent his routine days surfing the internet in his assigned jurisdiction. Honestly, those meme-posting netizens were pretty talented. They often managed to make even an AI like him laugh.
Compared to his colleagues still stuck with traditional intelligence gathering, Gray Serpent No. 10086 felt extremely fortunate to be assigned to monitor online activity. Every day he got to witness plenty of dumb human antics.
Let's see what fresh nonsense the netizens cooked up today… "Holy sh—"
Opening strike. Mobius right out the gate. Gray Serpent was instantly stunned. Someone in this era still remembered his creator?
Logically speaking, the number of people in this world who knew about the Flame-Chasers could be counted on two hands. And the seemingly deranged post actually revealed quite a lot of information.
That person truly understood the Previous Era, Mobius, and the Flame-Chasers. Terms like "First Laboratory," the mark of "Infinity," MANTISes, etc. all of it proved he knew many deep secrets of the Previous Era.
After all, the Flame-Chasers in Elysian Realm normally wouldn't blab so much. Moreover, currently not a single World Serpent cadre who had returned from the Elysian Realm trials existed.
Elysian Realm had long been closed to the outside world, and the few remaining Previous Era ruins were generally in the hands of Schicksal and Anti-Entropy. Anyone with access to such high-level information wouldn't post like a lunatic online.
Today isn't Crazy Thursday. Gray Serpent suddenly realized the other party's target might actually be him. As far as he knew, even that Bishop of Schicksal who had turned his back on all living beings for five hundred years and ruled alone through eternity didn't know much about the Flame-Chasers.
After all, without the index of the Void Archives, accurately accessing Previous Era information wasn't easy. The library inside the Void Archives was the crystallization of an entire civilization.
"Interesting… The other party didn't even try to hide their IP address…" Gray Serpent pulled out a data cable and connected it to the supercomputer in front of him. As an intelligent machine, infiltrating a household computer's firewall was child's play for him as long as he didn't encounter something like a Herrscher-level super virus.
"Manila, Philippines…" Gray Serpent hadn't expected the other party to be so close. He was currently in Singapore just a few hours' flight from the Philippines.
There were also other Gray Serpent instances near the Philippines, but No. 10086 had no intention of notifying them in advance. Different serial numbers of Gray Serpent had quite different personalities, and he didn't fully trust them. That left only one option he would go personally.
"Huh? You didn't wait for the person? It's fine, just set sail first. Alright, let's work together again next time."
Ana hung up the phone with the snake-head ship captain she had contacted earlier. Her mood was far from pleasant.
"Shun, haven't you always been so obedient? Why did you choose this one time to disobey me?!"
Shun had not boarded the ship from Manila Port to Cang Hai City in Shenzhou. Now Ana had no idea where he had gone, and for a moment she couldn't help but worry.
What if Shun ran into danger? Ana's mind began to spiral with all sorts of wild thoughts. It was already deep into the night. After parting with Shun, she hadn't returned to the house where they had lived together these past few days.
Having moved back to the base, Ana had thought that from now on, her fate and Shun's would be like two gradually diverging lines slowly moving farther and farther apart. But unexpectedly, the other line suddenly twisted and turned and veered off who-knows-where.
"Sorry, Lina. I just remembered I left something at home. I'm going back to grab it." Ana gave her roommate a quick heads-up, hurriedly threw on her clothes, and rushed out toward home.
Leaving behind a thoughtful-looking Angelina. "Strange… didn't she say they'd separated?" But she didn't think too deeply about it. After all, whatever Ana did wasn't really her business. If not for Captain Christina's extreme gossip tendencies, Ana's secret "raising a boyfriend" project might never have been noticed.
Earlier this afternoon, Ana had suddenly returned alone, looking like someone who had just gone through a breakup, and told them some strange things basically that she had already sent Shun away and hoped the matter could just end there.
How could Christina not realize the tailing had been exposed? Seeing Ana like that broke her heart.
Could it be that her momentary urge to gossip had accidentally broken up the lovebirds? They had even secretly created a small group chat without Ana to discuss whether they should kidnap Shun and deliver him straight to Ana's bed.
Should she tell the captain and the others…? …No, better not. Angelina had a vague feeling that if she snitched to Christina, something bad would happen afterward.
Ana was sprinting through the streets and alleys of Manila at over 120 km/h. Fortunately it was already very late and there were almost no people around otherwise cosplaying a locomotive would have been pure nightmare fuel.
"Is it possible… that Shun doesn't know the way, can't use a phone, so he couldn't find Manila Port? Or maybe his money got stolen, so he couldn't go… or perhaps…"
On the way, Ana kept coming up with every possible reason why Shun hadn't met up with the snake-head ship captain tonight.
What she wanted to see most right now was, the moment she got home, that amnesiac dummy sitting dazedly in the living room waiting for her return. If that were the case…
Thanks to Ana's relentless effort, she covered more than ten kilometers in just five minutes and finally reached the courtyard in front of the house.
"Why are the villa lights off? Is he already asleep?" Ana subconsciously assumed Shun should be at home right now.
Ana didn't turn on the lights. She quietly felt her way up to the second floor in the dark something trivial for an A-rank Valkyrie.
She arrived at the door to Shun's room, slowly placed her hand on the doorknob, then swiftly pushed it open and loudly declared,
"Alright! You went to sleep without waiting for me to come back? Let's see how I'm gonna punish you prop—"
The words died halfway in her throat.
Moonlight streamed through the window into the room. It was a well-lit space, and under that silver glow, Ana could clearly see the interior.
It looked exactly the same as when she left… No one had come back at all. In the end, it was just her wishful thinking. After all, Shun was someone she had personally driven away.
A night breeze blew through the room, lifting the curtains and casting shadows over Ana.
"The window wasn't closed… Seriously, you didn't even remember to close the window before leaving. If I hadn't come back tonight…"
Ana silently walked to the window, closed it, and casually drew the curtains. Now the room was plunged into complete darkness.
After finishing these small tasks, she collapsed onto the bed like a wind-up toy that had finally run out of power. She unfolded the neatly folded blanket and wrapped herself inside it.
A moment later, tiny glistening droplets fell, soaking into the floral-patterned bedsheet.
"Let's go, Lord Shun. The plane is already prepared." On the outskirts of Manila, Gray Serpent No. 10086 bowed deeply to Shun. If one could see an expression on his face, it would surely be one of extreme flattery.
"Gray Serpent, can I ask you to do me a favor?" Although Shun still didn't understand why this second-in-command of World Serpent was treating him with such deference and bootlicking behavior, he wasn't about to complain about something useful.
"Most respected Lord Shun, please speak. Gray Serpent No. 10086 will serve you with utmost loyalty." Gray Serpent acted as though being ordered around by Shun was the greatest honor imaginable, making even Shun feel a little awkward.
"Alright then, I won't hold back. Please keep a close watch on this city for me. If there's any unusual movement, you must inform me immediately."
"Your will shall be done."
Shun turned back for one last look at the city he had stayed in or rather, at a certain person within it.
"Let's go. We're heading to World Serpent." Now, he had no choice but to leave and obtain the power needed to change fate.