The power linking the Cores to the Cocoon did not belong exclusively to the Honkai.
This was evident from the fact that Cores from the native world could be used in other worlds. Otherwise, the first person to have a problem when he traveled through the Imaginary Tree would have been Otto himself.
There was a real possibility of accomplishing what Kiana had proposed; the only question was how likely the Cocoon was to fall for it.
The other members at the meeting probably hadn't expected Kiana to drop such a bombshell right off the bat.
They began to consider the likelihood of such a thing happening.
Thinking about it, Elysia couldn't help but ask, "What if the new Cocoon we create also goes into hiding?"
"And that's a bad thing?" Noldrei was pleasantly surprised. He said happily, "That's even more in our favor. It just means we can keep creating the next Cocoon."
"What do you mean?" Elysia felt that one Cocoon was already absurd enough. Was Noldrei really thinking of creating a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth?
"I've been wondering about something. If everyone is a Herrscher, will the Herrschers from different Cocoons fight each other? Will their interests align?" Noldrei wasn't just spouting nonsense. Even Herrschers under the same Cocoon fought among themselves; it was a given that Herrschers from different Cocoons would do the same.
A river of blood would surely flow!
Elysia was taken aback, having not considered such a possibility.
She retorted, "But wouldn't ordinary people be out of luck then?"
"Then what do we have parallel worlds and Bubble Universes for? We'll move the Herrschers and Cocoons from other worlds to ours, and move the ordinary people from our world to theirs. That way, we'll have created a world with only Herrschers and Cocoons. Wouldn't that allow us to see what a world where everyone is a Herrscher looks like?"
Noldrei had always wanted to use the infrastructure of Bubble Universes and parallel worlds to conduct an experiment on Honkai isolation. Hadn't an opportunity just been handed to him?
"Huh? But... how do we tell which humans have the Cocoon hiding in their dreams? Oh, wait, it seems we actually can." Elysia began to ponder the feasibility of this method. As she thought it over, she realized the next step was simply to differentiate between people.
That was much simpler than the troublesome task of awakening the Cocoon. They just needed to use the Stigma Space to isolate people's consciousnesses.
And that was precisely one of the strengths of Noldrei, the man from the future.
Forget Noldrei; even Misteln could accomplish this task.
Thinking of this, Elysia had a strange thought. World Serpent had become so powerful, yet the final victory belonged to those who came after? There was a bit of a disconnect in the chain of events. When exactly did this change happen?
Perhaps... it was the moment Kevin changed his mind?
Elysia was naturally aware of Kevin's intention to activate Project Stigma. According to Noldrei's definition of authority, Kevin was changing humanity by stripping them of their power to act in reality.
In effect, it was a process of getting humanity addicted to the virtualization of their needs—in a way, it was just a form of harmless drug use.
Realizing this, Elysia understood that in the fight against the Honkai, Kevin had also been unconsciously corrupted by it. The only difference was that Kevin believed this corruption was, in reality, beneficial for humanity.
Project Stigma, that chuuni-esque course of action, was clearly not conceived to eliminate the Honkai from the start. It was obvious that Kevin had betrayed his past.
If he were to enter his own Stigma Space and meet the Stigma will he created, he would most likely end up fighting it.
"So, what do you think? If everyone's decided, then I'll announce this plan to all of humanity."
Noldrei's words gave everyone confidence in the plan.
Einstein was silent for a moment, then nodded in agreement. "If we can force the Cocoon of Finality out by dividing humanity, it's a price we can afford to pay. Besides, we now have tools like the Golden Courtyard and the Elysian Realm under our control through Dr. Mobius."
"We can also directly convert people into memory constructs, so we don't have to worry about resurrecting humanity later."
"From now on, we only need to do one thing: wait!"
"Once this plan is announced, the Cocoon of Finality will either remain silent and watch its own existence be eroded, or it will jump out and fight us to the death."
"Or it could go crazy and try to take all of humanity down with it. But in truth, it can no longer do that, because we have a population that it can't take with it. If the Cocoon of Finality tries to die with humanity, the end result is that it will die permanently, and humanity will start over at a great cost."
No matter how you looked at it, humanity would win. It was just a matter of a big win, a medium win, or a small win.
The battle plan was set. The next step was to announce to the Honkai what they were about to do.
"Do we... really need to make a special announcement?"
Kiana felt it didn't matter whether they announced it or not. Weren't they already playing with their cards on the table against the Honkai?
"Oh? Is that so? I can't believe there's a traitor among us! Tsk, tsk, tsk..."
Noldrei clicked his tongue in mock wonder. He said with a smile, "You'd think for something so powerful, the Honkai would be able to monitor Otto's thoughts while they were chatting, but it couldn't. Isn't that a bit pathetic? If I were hiding inside someone's body, I'd definitely know their every thought."
"Take Mei's other consciousness, for example. In reality, their thoughts are synchronized, but even then, the Honkai showed no ability to monitor human consciousness."
"And then there's the Herrscher of Dominance. Why give its power to all those idiots? They were already androids, yet it specifically chose the losers among the androids. Did it think the more capable androids wouldn't have a destructive urge?"
Noldrei shook his head and sighed.
If it were him, he would have sent out the Herrscher of Dominance first and then arranged for the other Herrschers later. That way, he could have used the crisis to let the Herrscher of Dominance infiltrate human organizations for surveillance.
"The Previous Era was so advanced, yet they suffered so many deaths and injuries fighting against this pathetic excuse for an enemy. It was completely unnecessary! They really didn't have to go about it like that..."
"Since this is the last loose end, we'll take the initiative and attack the Cocoon of Finality's backdoor. Let's take care of this final bit of trouble."
Noldrei made the final decision and issued the work notice for the next steps.
"As of now, declare a global holiday! Tell everyone to be a little careful when they sleep. And for those who really can't sleep, just have them buy some harmless pharmaceutical products from North America and use them."