Didn't you go to Teyvat to earn money to support me?

Shen Liang didn't understand why anyone would like to be a cat, but he didn't care. He didn't understand the difference between a pet and a girlfriend anyway. He casually patted the two girls' heads, looked out the window at the dark sea, and suddenly felt a surge of inspiration.

"Let's go swimming together tonight."

----------

The atmosphere was as heavy as death, and Kosmo sat silently in the darkness.

He didn't know why he felt so uncomfortable, as if his whole body had been burned to ashes and then collapsed, leaving him feeling empty inside.

Dobia and Eve were very close, he had always known that, and he even knew very well that the lovely blonde girl had decided to bear Eve's offspring. He understood Dobia's purpose in doing so, because she was also the kind of person who didn't intend to date or marry. Without dating or marriage, there was no moral pressure, and she could freely find dolls to satisfy her needs, even her needs as a mother.

Everyone knows that the doll possesses "perfect genes." Although Möbius repeatedly emphasized that the so-called perfect genes are simply the ability to integrate all genes from birth, some people still believe, based on the name, that Eve's genes are excellent and that the children she will have in the future will be the most outstanding, the cutest, and even the most powerful. Therefore, for any girl who doesn't want to consider marriage but has an overwhelming maternal instinct, the doll is a highly sought-after treasure.

Although there is no evidence that "perfect genes" can leave offspring, the girls don't care. After all, even without children, Eve herself can satisfy their overflowing desire to care for others.

Kosmo had originally thought he wouldn't care about these things; a fusion warrior should be concerned with the safety and survival of the world, and he should ignore all interpersonal interactions that didn't concern him. But today he couldn't remain calm; Desdobia's rejection and indifference left him completely baffled.

He even felt a little irritable, especially after seeing the photos of Daisy Dobiya and Shen Liang embracing intimately. He felt a tightness in his chest... He should have been indifferent, he should have laughed it off, but he found that he wasn't as resolute as he thought.

"So this is... jealousy?" Kosmo sighed.

Suddenly, he heard a loud alarm broadcast outside. In an instant, the entire Fire Chaser base outside the window lost power. Kosmo was surprised to find that even the signal on his terminal had dropped to zero.

"All conscious Fusion Warriors, do not look up when you hear this broadcast! Do not look up! Do not attempt to look at any books, screens, or anything containing words! All conscious Fusion Warriors, do not fall asleep, and do not touch anyone who is asleep!"

"I am Kevin. This order is issued by Dr. May. The Eighth Honkai Impact has occurred. Do not question, do not ask questions, do as I say! Those who can remain conscious, stay in your rooms, close your eyes, do not try to see, do not try to listen, and wait for me to come to you!"

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Strange Tales, Meme Pollution

Moth Chasing Fire Underground Base, Central Control Room, Area A1.

"Bang bang bang bang bang bang."

The continuous gunfire caused the large screens that originally covered the walls of the huge control room, as well as the various projection screens filled with monitoring images and virtual projections, to burst into sparks and crackle.

Wearing a commander's uniform, Mei closed her beautiful eyes and unhesitatingly shot down all the screens in the room. Relying on her memory, she also destroyed many synthetic circuits, turning the brightly lit control room into a dimly lit space.

"Monitor number three, open your eyes and report the current brightness in the control room," Mei ordered.

One of the monitoring operators, who had been sitting with his eyes closed at another workstation, gritted his teeth, cautiously opened his eyes, looked around the control room, and whispered, "Brightness 25 lx, the brightness comes from the backup power supply of the lights, and no display devices are working."

"There's also text on the backup power supply, right?" Mei said. She remembered that the warning light that lit up when the backup power supply was working would say things like "Escape route here" or "Backup power supply time remaining xxxx".

"Yes, there are words on it, the words are..."

"Don't say it out loud!" Mei shouted sharply with her eyes closed. "Monitor Number Three! Now, give me a number every three seconds until I say stop!"

The third monitor was almost in tears, but he took a deep breath and stammered, "1...2...3...4...5..."

She kept counting up to 20, her voice trembling with barely suppressed sobs, before Mei said seriously, "That's enough. You haven't fainted after a minute, so the danger can be considered temporarily over. You're fine now."

She opened her eyes and looked around the control room. The other staff members who were still awake also opened their eyes and, finding that they had not fainted, cheered excitedly.

"Waaah..." Monitor No. 3 finally let go of her worries and burst into tears. Mei went over and touched her hair, knowing that she had completed the task while suppressing her inner fear. But she didn't have time to comfort her. She just walked to the door of the control room, picked up a broken chair leg, and pried open the alloy door that couldn't be opened automatically after the power was cut off.

However, she wasn't strong enough, and she was already panting halfway through. The people in the central control room were all clerical workers, delicate, ordinary young women, and Mei was considered one of the healthier ones among them. Just as she hesitated, a slender, white hand inserted itself between the two heavy alloy doors, tearing the gap open.

Wearing a strapless faux leather dress with a hollowed-out back, the petite green-haired girl easily broke through the door and entered. Mei breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her.

"You actually need a little girl to save you? Don't you know I'm usually very busy with work?" Although young, the half-grown girl with a stunning appearance and temperament stared at Mei, then walked past her to look at the devastated control room and all the damaged display equipment. She nodded thoughtfully. "But you are quite clever, Mei. It seems you have grasped most of the facts about this incident."

Mebius nodded. "I was just about to come and report to you as soon as I got out, Mebius."

"I thought you'd encountered a Honkai event that could directly attack you, and you'd be so scared that you'd run to Kevin for help~"

Mei glanced at her, and the snake-haired loli blinked at her. She could only sigh and say helplessly, "Kevin has more important things to do. To prevent the Fire Chaser Base from suffering heavy casualties, he needs to remind everyone at the base not to fall victim to the Eighth Honkai Impact. So he doesn't have time to come see me. Also, don't talk like Kevin and I have some kind of relationship. You know I've never thought about anything romantic."

"Is that so?" Möbius chuckled. "You're still young, but I've seen many researchers claim they'll dedicate their lives to science, only to find themselves unable to bear the loneliness in the end. Don't be so sure of yourself—well, my reliable assistant Blanca, hasn't she fallen for some young punk yet?"

At this moment, a monitor in the control room muttered in confusion: "Mr. Hen is over thirty years old, is he still considered a young wolf dog?"

The snake-haired loli glanced at the innocent-looking monitor and smiled happily.

"Alright, Dr. Mebius, let's talk about this Honkai event first." Mebius quickly changed the subject. "Clearly, this is the eighth Honkai event, and I'll tentatively name it the 'Herrscher of Knowledge Honkai Event'."

"The Law of Consciousness? The Law of the Consciousness Level?" Möbius reacted quickly. "Where did you get this conclusion?"

"First, let's look at the trajectory of this collapse incident." Mei went straight to the point. "Fourteen days ago, a strange tale circulated on the Asian internet. For safety reasons, I will not describe the content of the tale, but the end result was that about fifteen ordinary humans fell into a deep sleep after coming into contact with the internet tale, and eventually died of organ failure. After investigating, Fire Chaser Base discovered that the IP address that initiated the tale was within Fire Chaser Base."

"On the same day, the Fire Chaser Base detected a brief burst of Honkai energy radiation exceeding 2000 hw in the D5 dormitory area, reaching the level of a Herrscher. However, after investigation, we found that the monitoring program had malfunctioned, so we didn't pay much attention to it for the time being. Some people continued to investigate the strange tales."

"But no matter how they investigated the sleeping state of those people, they ultimately failed to reach any effective conclusions."

“Three hours earlier, a similar incident occurred within the base. From area A1 to area G5, more than 250 fusion warriors and over a thousand researchers suddenly fell into a deep sleep, either in their dormitories, at their work posts, or even walking in the recreation area or fitness area, listening to music and playing on their terminals, when they suddenly fainted in full view of everyone.”

Mebius narrowed his eyes. "You mean, there's a 'Mind-Controlling Herrscher' in our base, a Herrscher with the ability to put people to sleep, even Fusion Warriors. It was practicing on the internet before, hiding in our base, and now it's targeting the Fire Chaser Base."

As some of the highest-ranking researchers at the Fire Chaser Base, May and Möbius's communication was always highly efficient. Many things that needed to be explained to others were unnecessary in the face of such a highly intelligent person, because both of them believed that the other could understand.

Outsiders often find their accounts baffling until another person summarizes them concisely.

This might be a dialogue between geniuses. Mebius always hated explaining his thought process to others, and Mebius also always regretted that Kevin, as a super warrior, lacked cultural literacy and could only carry out her orders without understanding them.

“But theoretically, no ability should work unconditionally. To knock us unconscious without any of us noticing is even more bizarre than the Honkai itself. But if someone has this kind of power, would they need to hide or ambush us? So this power must not be unconditional; there must be a trace of it,” Mei said. “I conducted an investigation over the past three hours and have preliminarily determined where this power that knocks people unconscious comes from.”

"Where?" Mebius asked instinctively.

“Display device,” Mei said.

Mebius was taken aback.

“I know you may not understand, but thinking logically, I’ve noticed that everyone who has lost consciousness is facing a display device.” Mei looked around; more than half of the staff in the central control room were also unconscious, and she had been observing them for a long time.

“No one who wasn’t facing a monitor or projection screen lost consciousness,” May said. “At the same time, I had other people try it, and anyone who looked at the display device or the screen fainted within seconds.”

"Brain interference through electronic signals?" was Möbius's first reaction.

“No, I disconnected the internet, physically disconnected. Essentially, anyone who looks at a screen, in any sense, will faint,” Mei said. “It’s not just that. I’ve also found that some people fall into a coma even with their eyes closed. For example, Monitor Number Six, I told everyone to close their eyes two hours ago, but now you see she’s passed out too, just like the example Kevin reported… She was wearing headphones with her study materials playing in them, and she’s also asleep, but her terminal is also disconnected from the internet.”

Mebius stared at the unconscious girl, Number Six, wearing headphones, his delicate eyebrows furrowing as he pondered for a moment: "So you believe that if the internet has been cut off, then the common thread among these unconscious individuals is...text?"

Intelligent people communicate very quickly.

In an instant, Mebius understood Kevin's previous broadcast announcement. No wonder, in Mebius's eyes, the way this Herrscher made people unconscious must be through "text".

If there's anything in common among those who watched ghost stories before, those who are watching on screens this time, and those who are listening to audio with their eyes closed, it's that they are all experiencing "text."

The Fire Chaser Base is full of large screens, and there must be text on these screens, even if it's just scrolling advertisements or shift schedules. So anyone who sees these screens will faint... Therefore, Mei ordered the power to be turned off at the Fire Chaser Base, the use of terminals to be prohibited, and everyone to close their eyes, not to look or listen, and to stay indoors.

Because there is no light source and everyone is indoors, those who are not unconscious at the Fire Chasing Base will have no space to see, hear, or even come into contact with written words.

"But if it's 'text,' why didn't our conversation cause us to faint?" Möbius pondered, "Could it be... there is..."

“Keywords,” Mei said bluntly.

“Yes, if the target of this Honkai is a Herrscher, then the power of a Herrscher is not infinite. It is impossible for it to make all the concepts of ‘words’ its medium. That’s impossible. It’s more difficult than destroying the world itself. Therefore, it must make the most of its power to pose a threat to us,” Mebius said. “If not all words can knock us unconscious, then it must be certain special ‘keywords’ that will become the medium for it to remotely knock us unconscious.”

This is a very simple and easy-to-understand principle: Mebius believes that the power of the Herrschers cannot reach the level of "commanding concepts." If the Herrschers truly possessed such power, destroying human civilization would be a matter of a single thought, and they wouldn't even have a reason to resist.

The destruction of human civilization by the Honkai will require a gradual approach, and the Honkai's apostles must be subject to certain limitations.

What are the keywords?

"do not know."

"do not know?"

“My current communication with you, Dr. Mebius, still carries the risk of triggering a certain textual concept that could cause us both to fall unconscious.” Mebius took a deep breath. “Even our current guesses may not be correct. The only thing we can do is avoid contact with the ‘text’ and find a way to locate and eliminate the Herrscher hiding in the base. The fact that it needs to attack us in this way may precisely mean that it is inadequate in direct combat.”

Mebius remained silent for a moment.

Then she gradually frowned and said in a low voice, "Putting aside what you've said for now, have you considered... what if this Herrscher's abilities weren't limited to the Fire Chaser Base?"

"Do you think that humans living in other cities on Earth will also be affected by this strange text? Probably not. The power of this Herrscher should be biased towards the 'consciousness realm,' and the scope won't be too large. After all, if it covered all of humanity, then human society would probably be in a coma by now. The United Nations and our one-way hotline should have been overwhelmed with calls, but I haven't received any inquiries from the United Nations yet."

"But are you sure it's not contagious? You know, it once spread on the internet," Möbius said coldly. "No, the internet inside the base must be shut down, forcibly shut down! All communication with the outside world must be prohibited to prevent this strange tale from spreading like a virus!"

------

Just as the two doctors in the central control room were making a preliminary assessment of the meme of the Eighth Honkai Impact, Kosmo was spinning a silver terminal in his hand.

He was ordered not to leave his dormitory, not to go online, and not even to read any text, but he still felt uneasy.

He was inside the base, so these messages could reach him, but those on field duty probably wouldn't receive them, since even May had strictly ordered them to disconnect from the network.

He didn't know why he had to do it, but...

—What if Desdovia doesn't receive news of the Eighth Honkai Impact and gets into trouble while she's out and about without being on guard?

—Kame's orders...

After much hesitation, Kosmo decided he should at least send a text message to notify them. It only needed to be done once, and there were two other people with Desdobia; notifying all three at once would put them on high alert… even if he got punished, it would be worth it.

He turned on the screen to enter the communication interface, hesitated for a long time, and then entered the information about the eighth Honkai.

At this point, he had not yet felt any changes in his body.

He was still thinking about... things related to Daisy Dobia and Shen Liang.

After another moment of hesitation, he added to the message, "You're my partner, I need you, and the Firemoth needs you right now too. Come back when you've had enough playing with the doll."

After clicking send, Kosmo put down the terminal, staring at the dark bedroom wall with mixed feelings, anxiously awaiting a reply.

But after about five seconds, he suddenly realized that he was really wrong.

A wave of overwhelming drowsiness washed over him, and he fell backward, unconscious on the cold floor.