Honkai: Man(Sludge) From Future

By now, Welt Yang had left the Indian Ocean behind.

He was hovering over the Mediterranean, gazing down at the two vast no-man's-lands created by Honkai Energy.

It wasn't exactly surprising, more...

"What a travesty."

If he weren't a staunch materialist, Welt would probably have started chanting Buddhist scriptures. He pulled out his phone and began recording the hazy, Honkai-infused landscape below.

Even now, Welt likely had no idea that Noldrei's only intention was to use the Honkai fission bombs for poverty alleviation. Though, in a way, it certainly did "level" the playing field.

Is this really how you do things? So crude...

Giving away Honkai fission bombs for a single dollar, even fighting one's own enemies over it... At this point, arguing over who pushed the button first was meaningless.

Both sides' command centers had been obliterated. It was likely that both sides had decided to annihilate the other simultaneously and pressed their buttons at the same time. Otherwise, it would be impossible for them to have both struck each other's central command.

If one side had launched first, the other surely wouldn't have had time to retaliate. But the current situation, with both command centers gone, meant both launches had been successful.

What a bunch of geniuses. Even in something like this, these enemies can be so in sync.

Welt truly didn't know what to do. If Academy City had taken money, he could have at least accused them of extending a hand of evil for profit. But Academy City really hadn't taken any money.

Who's worse? The one who gives away weapons for free, or the one who sells them?

At least the United States committed its evil deeds for its own benefit. But Noldrei? He didn't seem like the type to do bad things for profit at all.

Could it be that he's willing to sacrifice his own interests just to do evil? If so, isn't that kind of person a bit too terrifying?

Welt genuinely didn't know how to deal with someone like that. For now, it seemed Noldrei's goal wasn't simply profit. In that case, he must want to extend Academy City's reach into the world.

There was definitely a need to spread the gene-information system mixed in there.

Sovereign Yang had charged over, expecting to face two insane national organizations. But when he arrived, he found... they had already wiped each other out. There was no legitimate national organization left here.

Forget national governments, even the neighboring countries eyeing Jerusalem wouldn't dare take a single step near this place. The area was saturated with Honkai Energy, turning it into a dead zone, much like Siberia after the Second Honkai Eruption.

Things were different now. In the past, humanity could at least try to test their own Honkai Energy resistance. But now, after Noldrei's tampering, contact with Honkai Energy meant instant death, unless Noldrei himself lifted that genetic lock.

Killing them is out of the question, but what about saving people...? Is there anyone here who needs saving?

Thanks to Noldrei's handiwork, even those who might have had Honkai resistance no longer did.

Even if Welt wanted to save people, he didn't know who or what to save.

It was a truly lamentable situation...

Besides, even if someone could withstand the Honkai radiation, they couldn't have survived the physical blast of the fission bombs. They were probably pulverized into dust at the first touch of Honkai Energy.

Why did I even come here?

Sober now, Sovereign Yang sank into contemplation. He felt he couldn't just keep muddling through like this. He had to change his passive approach, or he would always be cleaning up the messes left by Otto and Cocolia.

What was Cocolia? A woman whose mind was practically unhinged. What good could she possibly do?

And what was Otto? A man Welt couldn't comprehend, one whose moves were completely unpredictable.

To be honest, as Welt looked down from the sky, he still felt that the people here had suffered a terrible fate...

But then, the scattered glimmers of starlight in the dead of night, accompanied by the sound of gunfire, shattered his calm.

My god, this place is right next to a Honkai radiation zone, and there are still people having a firefight down there?

It was a real eye-opener for Welt. These people fought with a complete disregard for the Honkai fission bombs, thinking only of sending their opponents to hell at every moment.

What the Palestinians had once done to the Israelis, the Israelis were now doing to the Palestinians.

"As I thought, I still have to act..."

Welt fell into thought again. If he was going to start killing, who should he kill first?

It didn't take him long to figure out who his first targets should be.

Since I can't find a single target to act against, I'll just wipe out the leaders of all the armed groups.

Though the fumes of alcohol had mostly cleared from his head, the alcohol itself was still at work in his system, making his blood boil with a short-lived passion.

"I wonder what the leaders of these armed factions are even doing!"

In Welt's eyes, anyone not immediately working to manage their country's internal affairs could no longer be considered a government or army. They were all just leaders of local armed factions.

In reality, the situation Welt found was even worse than he had imagined.

With both central governments having nuked each other with Honkai fission bombs, what remained were completely autonomous local military factions. In simple terms, they weren't necessarily fighting the so-called "enemy nation," but more often, their own former countrymen.

Cocolia had seen this situation clearly, believing the Middle East was likely to plunge into an even greater crisis.

She hadn't actually just handed out one or two Honkai fission bombs. In fact, she had given both the Israelis and Palestinians ten each. In terms of efficiency, that was enough to completely cleanse the opposing nation, leaving no one alive.

With this in mind, Welt contacted Cocolia.

"Cocolia, just how many fission bombs did you deploy here?"

Welt decided to first recover all the bombs and use his powers to temporarily disable their launch systems.

"Oh? Sovereign Yang is in the mood to contact me? Seeing as you're on-site, I take it? Not many. Each side has only nine left now."

"As for where they're storing them? Well, I wouldn't know..."

Eighteen.

Welt cut the communication before she could finish. He didn't want to hear another word from that woman.

"Eighteen. It seems I'll have to interrogate them all for information as quickly as possible."

Sovereign Yang's gaze turned cold, his mind sealed shut by the Honkai crystals, just like the land below after the two fission bombs had exploded.

He admitted to himself that this would likely be his first time actively carrying out a large-scale purge of human beings.

From this day forward, he probably wouldn't be able to claim his own methods of governance were all that clean either.