MGSFV?! Chapter 505. Suffering Is the Ultimate Answer of the Universe; I've Already Planned the QTE
From a rational standpoint—
If someone really managed to survive the apocalyptic calamity of the End, for an existence that seems nearly impossible to defeat, what they'd probably think about isn't how to defeat it...
But rather—how far they could run and how long they could stay hidden.
That seems to align more with human nature.
But the story of Earth clearly didn't go that way. The Previous Era often epitomized the idea of fighting despite knowing it was futile.
Low success rate? I know. But I'm still going to try—and believe this plan will work. Even if they fail, the people of the new era will carry on their will.
The Previous Era, the Elysian Realm... they all did the same.
That sort of mindset could easily be seen as... arrogant? That doesn't feel quite right. It's more like a form of romanticism.
A belief very similar to Elysia's "faith."
Cute girls can do anything~♪
To believe, no matter the situation, that beautiful things will never vanish—in fact, they'll shine even more brilliantly.
And this Elysia-style "faith" is actually the Herrscher of Origin's authority.
Truly a long-planted seed—granting the most fitting power to Elysia.
However, Mei was still far from comprehending this truth.
Otherwise, she might've already become the Herrscher of Origin.
Ahem… seems like that went a little off-topic.
Back to the point.
In short, due to the special nature of the "enemy," the First-Generation Moonlight Throne Plan had completely lost any chance of success.
Thus, Anti-Entropy drafted the Second-Generation Moonlight Throne Plan.
"And so, the second-generation plan from Anti-Entropy… is no longer an industrial solution, but a special operation."
"Special operation?"
"Yes. It's similar to how we dealt with the Herrscher of Domination or Otto—we need to fundamentally alter the enemy's form of existence."
[Otto being mentioned again... But now that Kiana and the others brought it up, I do remember Otto saying something before the Tree scene—wasn't it something about them making use of their experience defeating a false god?]
[Experience? What experience?]
[Uh… Kiana tapping further into her Herrscher powers?]
[That came with Mei's "power of a hundred people" support ( )]
[Which means she gained experience in wielding multiple Herrscher powers—once in Theater of Domination, once in Kolosten.]
[If Otto was referring to that… then what use is that experience?]
Even without arguing whether Otto actually wanted Kiana to use that multi-Herrscher control experience—
What could it even be used for?
They were about to find out...
...
Back to the story.
Upon hearing the introduction of the second-gen plan, Mei quickly realized—
"...This plan, is it closely related to Kiana?"
"It is." Einstein didn't deny it. "Simply put, we want to replicate what Sirin once did during the Second Eruption."
[...?]
[Why bring up Sirin all of a sudden?]
And not just mentioning Sirin—Tesla followed up by bringing up a plot point that players had nearly forgotten.
"You all should remember the unmanned battleship captured by St. Freya back then, right? Its original role was as the activation device for the second-gen Moonlight Throne Plan."
[Wait this is…?! A callback to Chapter 1!]
["Chekhov's Gun Fired"]
[I remember some veteran viewers in the stream speculated: If the major organizations already knew about the End, they'd have plans prepared for it. Turns out they were right.]
[Veteran "bro"? What if it's a "sis"?]
[Armed helicopter.jpg]
[Hey hey hey, your focus is way off!]
Tesla's sudden recall of Chapter 1 did catch many players off guard.
Even if some had seen it coming, most had long forgotten it…
Especially since it happened years ago in real-world time—if Tesla hadn't brought it up, they wouldn't have remembered at all.
But now the real question was—why was Tesla bringing it up?
Let's keep watching.
"It's just... too many things happened afterward."
Tesla sighed.
Indeed, a lot of things happened...
So many that the Moonlight Throne Plan was shelved until now.
"Back then, no one expected the Herrscher of the Void's consciousness to return in such an intensified way after lying dormant for so long," someone added.
Welt Yang chimed in at the right moment—it seemed he would deliver the conclusion.
"And so… it wasn't until today that Anti-Entropy was truly ready to officially announce the contents of this plan."
Here comes the main point!
"In short—the Second-Generation Moonlight Throne Plan aims to artificially create the Herrscher of the End, and use the Herrscher's power to operate the Moonlight Throne system."
[?????]
A wave of question marks flooded the livestream.
The players were clearly stunned.
[Artificially create? How?!]
...
"...Artificially create… the Herrscher of the End?"
In-game, Mei's expression turned extremely complicated as if she had thought of something.
With a tone of uncertainty—half hoping Anti-Entropy could do it, half fearing they actually could—she asked:
"Is that really possible?"
"In the past, Otto tried just to control the Herrscher of the Void's power, and it caused countless problems..."
[Right, artificially creating the End sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Does Anti-Entropy even have time to address all the potential issues?]
[Unless...]
Unless what?
Before the players could guess, Welt immediately provided a detailed explanation.
In truth, Anti-Entropy had discovered a viable technological route through studying the Herrscher of Domination.
Some might ask—if it's that simple, why didn't the Previous Era have such a plan?
...Because the current era has a wilder imagination—cough, not quite.
As previously mentioned:
Even though Prometheus had anchored the Herrscher order, the current Herrscher of Domination developed a new ability not present in the Previous Era's version—an ability to seize and control other Herrscher powers.
And isn't the end of that ability practically identical to the theoretically all-encompassing power of the Herrscher of the End?
With an existing template, the difficulty of research plummeted.
[So by studying the Herrscher of Domination, Anti-Entropy's plan to have someone master all Herrscher powers has a non-zero success rate?]
Someone?
Who?
[But how do we know that someone possessing all Herrscher powers will become the End?]
Well—
"Bronya's sublimation previously serves as strong evidence for this."
"Bronya... and the situation with the Herrscher of Domination?" Bronya asked, a little puzzled as Welt mentioned her.
"To be precise..."
Just as players had suspected during the conference scene—
If all that effort was made to gather everyone, it had to be so that each person would understand the three-part plan.
So when Bronya voiced confusion, Welt gave a more detailed explanation.
Just like he and Bronya were each 1/300,000 of the Herrscher of Reason's core—
All Herrschers are connected, in some hidden way, to the same "entity."
In the past, that "entity" was thought to be the Imaginary Tree. But now, based on the latest information, it was more likely the Cocoon of Finality.
The Cocoon of Finality is the [Sole Herrscher Core]. All Herrschers (including the Herrscher of the End) are merely its projections across different dimensions.
"You could say that each Herrscher's birth is the Honkai's way of embracing reality."
"Perhaps because of the vast difference in dimensions between us, that embrace is always full of errors."
"That's why the Herrscher of the End was given the authority over time—to use repeated trial and error to find the correct embrace."
[Isn't that treating humanity like lab rats?]
An obvious conclusion.
[Pretty much—but maybe the End "means well"? It might just be trying to find the right way to embrace humanity through endless time loops—because it simply doesn't understand us yet.]
The ultimate answer in the Honkai Impact universe: Suffering ( )
[...Wouldn't a face-to-face chat just solve this?]
[If an ant danced in front of you, even if you wanted to observe, you probably couldn't figure out what it was trying to say.]
[...]
...
And the gap between ordinary humans and the End might be greater than the gap between ants and humans.
It wasn't that the End refused to understand—it's that human thoughts were so abstract it didn't even recognize they were trying to express something.
But even lab rats occasionally get a chance to escape the lab.
Humanity wouldn't just let the End run rampant.
So, Anti-Entropy created the plan to artificially forge the Herrscher of the End.
If they could gather enough "shadows," then in theory, they could print out a "silhouette" of the Cocoon of Finality.
Kind of like a three-view blueprint.jpg
Of course, that's still a far cry from the real Herrscher of the End—but complete replication wasn't necessary.
Just like the famous Turing Test teaches us:
If a computer can fool over 30% of judges into thinking it's human, it's considered to possess human intelligence.
So the person who integrates all powers doesn't need to be identical to the End.
"In other words…"
Bronya asked the most critical question of all.
"Someone among us needs to step up, seize the End's authority, and become the Herrscher of the End?"
[???]
W-What?
Players felt their hearts sink.
Because what Bronya meant—was choosing one from the trio to become the End?
Sure, from every angle, picking someone from the main trio made the most sense.
But sense doesn't mean acceptance.
In-game—
Einstein gently nodded. "That's essentially correct."
"And... to be more precise, there's another precedent besides the Herrscher of Domination."
"..."
"During the Second Eruption, Sirin once wielded the powers of Reason, Void, Thunder, Wind, Death, and Fire—six Herrscher authorities."
"Although her efficiency in using those powers was... abysmal… what's truly noteworthy is that wielding so many Herrscher powers had no visible impact on her personality."
[XDM, I have a bad feeling about this! Something's going to happen!]
[Why bring up Sirin now?! Didn't Yatu also hint at this before? Who's going to become the End is basically spelled out now!]
[And compared to the other two, she does have lots of experience with multi-authority control. Crap, how did I not see this coming—this was all setup…]
Some players typed so fast their fingers flew.
There was barely anyone left to joke about how Einstein "diplomatically" said Sirin was inefficient with her powers.
Clearly, emotions were high.
[Caught off guard—I wasn't ready for this at all!]
[Buggy: Just say my name already.]
Honestly, no one expected that a strategy meeting would shift from "how to surpass the End" to "how Kiana becomes the End."
How is this happening?!
How is this happening?!
[We finally got the sisterly reunion, the father-daughter moment, Kiana and Mei are back together... and now you're going to drop a bomb on us?!]
[Drop a bomb? Wait, if Kiana becomes the End, wouldn't that mean Mei becomes the Herrscher of Origin?]
[...I have a feeling Kiana won't be able to control herself—and then Origin will have to awaken her?]
[Elegy for the Sinner 2.0???]
[I've already thought out the QTE.]
"To begin with Mei? And end with Kiana?"
Elysia already knew Mei would eventually become the Herrscher of Origin.
So...
Could it really be as everyone speculated?
Are we truly headed for a 2.0?
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