The atmosphere suddenly froze, silence settling heavy like mist.
A strange tension began to ripple through the air—so sharp that even Paimon, who didn't understand a word of what they'd been discussing, could feel something was wrong.
She tugged at Nagami's sleeve, blinking rapidly to signal him to stop.
Even without knowing the details, she could tell—whatever he had just asked, he shouldn't have.
Kevin remained silent.
After thousands of years of despair, his heart, long turned to stone, stirred once again with a faint, aching sadness.
Nagami, receiving no reply, shifted his gaze among the fusion warriors until his eyes settled on the cold little serpent resting in his palm.
Mobius's lips twitched, the amusement she'd worn moments ago fading fast.
She was furious—not at what was said, but at herself.
A Herrscher, yet she hadn't even noticed the moment he entered the Elysian Realm.
She'd only realized something was wrong when her secret data modifications triggered an anomaly.
And those eyes… those strange, star-filled eyes—and that overwhelming pressure.
As the starlight in Nagami's gaze dimmed back into bottomless black, the space beneath their feet began to warp and twist like ink spreading across water.
Dark, poisonous swamp matter—thick and green—bubbled up from the void, coiling and writhing like a nest of serpents.
A violent surge of Honkai energy erupted outward.
The flood of black-green energy engulfed Mobius completely, wrapping around her delicate frame like living liquid.
Cracks spread across the air itself with the sound of shattering glass, forming a web of glowing fractures that laced through the space around them.
When the storm finally subsided, what emerged was a colossal serpent glowing faintly in the dark—its scales shimmering with eerie emerald light.
"So this is what you call artificial collapse?"
She had unleashed the forbidden limit of the Fusion Transformation Surgery, abandoning her human form and merging entirely with her Honkai Beast genes.
Yet before she could even laugh in triumph—
A soft, calm voice shattered her confidence.
The giant serpent blinked.
Confused, she looked around— only to realize she was still curled up in that same slender, pale hand.
Reality warped around her.
Space and scale distorted in ways beyond logic and Nagami could manipulate the very ratio between himself and Mobius, altering their relative size at will.
No matter how large she grew, no matter how immense her Honkai energy became—
to Elysia and Kevin, Mobius still looked no bigger than a finely crafted figurine in his palm.
"Impossible…!"
Mobius's face twisted in disbelief.
Everything she had unleashed—the space-rending power, the destructive energy felt like a mere illusion before him.
Elysia was equally stunned.
In this state, Mobius's power was normally so intense that three fusion warriors working together could barely contain her.
Yet Nagami was holding her effortlessly, like a toy snake in his hand.
Was this really happening?
"So that's how the super-evolution factor works…"
Through observing Mobius's transformation, Nagami had already reverse-engineered the integration process of the super-evolution factor.
The very essence that made fusion warriors possible.
Even organizations like Schicksal and Anti-Entropy, who had plundered countless ancient ruins, had never managed to unearth this technology.
And yet Nagami, in less than an hour, had already grasped nearly eighty percent of it.
If he wanted to, he could now play surgeon and replicate the fusion process—extracting high-tier Honkai Beast genes and crafting new super-evolution serums with ease.
But the power of each fusion warrior was directly tied to the specific Honkai Beast from which their genes were derived.
Mobius's came from the Judgment-class beast "Shesha," also known as Ananta-Dragon—the thousand-headed serpent king from Hindu mythology, said to be the first serpent ever born.
Among the Thirteen Flame-Chasers, Mobius ranked tenth.
Though the ranks didn't strictly represent combat power, they were undeniably related.
Nagami raised his head as Elysia approached, her graceful steps light and measured.
The fairy-like woman leaned forward slightly, her curious gaze fixed on the tiny snake in Nagami's hand.
Her motion accentuated the elegant curves of her upper body, a glimpse of her collarbone peeking through her soft, ivory skin—smooth as milk.
"So… the Dharma-class Honkai Beast, Mahākāla…" Nagami murmured.
Dharma-class—a rank even higher than Judgment-class.
The name came from Buddhist cosmology.
According to legend, after the Buddha's passing, the world entered three successive eras: the True Dharma Age (lasting 500 years), the Semblance Dharma Age (1,000 years)
And finally, the End Dharma Age, lasting 10,000 years—an age where the true essence of the teachings fades away, twisted and misunderstood by mankind.
At the end of the End Dharma Age, the Buddha's teachings would vanish completely.
And perhaps… the world along with them.
That—was the true origin of the word "End Dharma."
When a Dharma-class Honkai Beast descends upon the mortal world, civilization itself collapses. Its mere existence marks the end of an era.
From the birth of humanity to this very day, no creature higher than this rank has ever been recorded.
As far as anyone knows, there is only one—the Mahākāla, the supreme being of the "Twenty-Four Heavens," a deity from ancient Indian belief said to govern the outer path and hold dominion over creation itself.
That was the Honkai Beast whose power Elysia had fused with.
Of course, if a monster of that magnitude truly once walked the earth and still perished in the previous era, that only made Dr. Mei's achievement all the more terrifying.
She didn't just break limits—she rewrote them.
At that point, you couldn't even call it genius anymore.
Dr. Mei had reached the level of someone who could manufacture her own hacks.
Every piece of cutting-edge technology from the Previous Era was touched by her hands.
Nagami couldn't help comparing her to someone else he knew—Raiden Mei, the modern Herrscher of Thunder.
"Elysia-san," Nagami spoke softly, "among the Flame-Chasers, aside from Kevin… you're probably the strongest fusion warrior, aren't you?"
Though his tone sounded polite, there was a firm certainty hidden behind it.
"Oh my~! So that's how highly Nagami thinks of me?" Elysia's surprise was laced with amusement.
She smiled warmly and tilted her head in that disarming, fairy-like way of hers.
"I'm flattered, really! But compared to everyone else, I'd say I'm just… average. Especially when it comes to our dear captain—there's no comparing to him!"
She giggled softly and reached out with two slender fingers, gently poking at the tiny serpent Mobius coiled in Nagami's palm as if she'd found a new toy.
Mobius, struggling helplessly, gasped for breath and glared at her with barely contained rage.
No matter how she twisted or hissed, she couldn't escape.
The difference in power was absolute.
Nagami merely smiled—calm, patient, unbothered.
He had no intention of correcting Elysia's humble little joke, though in truth, her words were absurdly modest.
As the only fusion warrior who carried the genes of a Dharma-class Honkai Beast, Elysia's claim of being "average" was like a dragon calling itself a goldfish.
The difference between her and Kevin was, indeed, enormous— but only because Kevin was something else entirely.
Nagami could now see it clearly, every hidden truth laid bare through his Alpha Stigma Eyes.
The Honkai Beast gene that Kevin had fused with wasn't the Emperor-class Pavanti that could be crushed with a flick of the wrist—
or rather, not just Pavanti.
The Chimera Project…
Nagami's eyes narrowed.
Not the Babel Project—that one was tame compared to this.
The Chimera Project or what it later name the Mantis Project aimed to fuse multiple Artificial Honkai Beast genes into a single human host—creating a warrior capable of wielding several evolutionary factors simultaneously.
In his enhanced vision, Nagami saw the faint glow of countless gene patterns swirling within Kevin's body.
Strands of different colors—crimson, violet, gold, and ice-blue—wove together in a complex, chaotic dance.
At the top of that kaleidoscope burned the cold, pure blue of the Pavanti Factor.
Nagami exhaled slowly.
"Just… how many have you fused with, Kevin?"
Even for him, the answer was beyond comprehension.