The Twelve Trials Starting from Zero

"Heh, this is a mutually beneficial deal for us, but I obviously lost out in the last transaction. This time, I won't give in so easily."

He didn't seem to care at all, and simply said, "As long as this transaction is completed, I will free you from the Void Treasury and help you rebuild your body."

"That's a very tempting offer, but unfortunately it seems you can't meet it."

"I can't do it right now, but if this deal goes through, I might be able to."

"Oh, how do you want me to help you?"

"I want to meet 'God' once again, and then... obtain power sufficient to surpass even the Herrschers."

Moro didn't answer immediately, but instead manipulated the golden cube to slowly rise from Otto's hand, hovering in front of him. He said with a smile, "Otto, I must say, you're quite an interesting human. You always manage to surprise and amuse me. Seeking power from 'God,' do you know what that means?"

Otto frowned slightly. "Enough, stop talking nonsense. The reason I've gotten to where I am today, the reason I was able to create this body with near-perfect Honkai adaptability, isn't it thanks to your and that 'god's' secret guidance? Now that you're about to get what you want, why pretend to be uninvolved?"

Moro paused slightly, then burst into laughter, "That's right, things have come to this point, there's no need to pretend anymore, because you have no choice but to become one of us."

After saying that, the golden cube transformed into a stream of light once more and merged into Otto's brow.

Then his voice rang directly in Otto's consciousness, "In this world, the power you desire that surpasses the Herrschers, besides the supreme, omniscient, and omnipotent 'God' himself, is only the strongest apostle under the throne of God—the Herrscher of the End."

"Originally, the power of the Herrscher of the End was too immense, and only the descendants of the Kaslana family, who possessed the strongest resistance to Honkai energy, could barely bear this position. But now... the blood of the Apocalypse family, which can resist the erosion of Honkai energy on a spiritual level, the blood of the Kaslana family, which can resist the erosion of Honkai energy on a physical level, and the blood of the Schariac family, who are most skilled in controlling Honkai energy, are all combined in you. In addition, with the genes of the Herrscher, you are now the best candidate for the Herrscher of the End to descend. But even so, to become the Herrscher of the End, you still need to obtain the recognition of 'God'."

Otto said firmly, "I will persuade Him."

"Hehe, the way you're so eager to die really catches my eye."

Generally speaking, once a Herrscher awakens, the Honkai will, as a "god," will give rise to a Herrscher personality that hates humanity and obeys the Honkai, based on the original personality. The Herrscher personality will then suppress the main personality and seize control of the body.

As the Herrscher of the End, whose power far surpasses the sum of all previous Herrschers, this situation will undoubtedly be even more severe. Therefore, Otto's act of seeking power from "God" in an attempt to become the Herrscher of the End is indeed tantamount to suicide.

However, Otto, who was well aware of this, had naturally considered it beforehand. He completely ignored Moro's sarcastic remarks and simply said coldly, "You talk too much nonsense, Moro."

"Alright, alright, since you're in such a hurry, I'll take you there now, to where the gods are."

As soon as he finished speaking, Otto suddenly felt a wave of dizziness. When he came to his senses, he found himself in a strange, boundless, pure white space.

He had been here before, just fourteen years ago, guided by the consciousness of the Second Herrscher, Sirin. Now, the one guiding him is the previous generation's First Herrscher, Moro.

Otto looked around and quickly spotted his target. Not far ahead, in front of a huge blue cross, stood a human figure outlined in black and white. The figure's silhouette was exactly like his own, but it lacked a great deal of detail; it was the image of "God" that had last appeared before him.

"Revered God, we meet again."

Otto approached the humanoid figure and bowed with his hand on his chest.

The "god" did not speak, but the words directly transformed into information that flowed into Otto's heart: "You already know the answer."

Otto stood up and said calmly, "Yes, I finally understand the hint you gave me last time. Over the past ten years, I have tried various methods. I even briefly controlled the power of the Herrscher of Death using the Blank Key and the godlike body, attempting to resurrect Kallen. But just as I saw in the consciousness of the Second Herrscher last time, it was nothing more than cloning an identical body, integrating the information about that person from my own memories into a personality, and then stuffing it into that body."

"Everything I've done has been in vain, but I won't give up. I'll keep trying until I succeed... That's what I originally thought, but now, my attempts are impossible. The path to my goal has been cut off by a man, and this is the only option I have. But in the end, I still hope you can answer one question definitively... After killing the God of My Own and obtaining the power of the Herrscher of the End, can I really resurrect Kallen?"

The "god" remained silent, only nodding slowly.

"So……"

Otto knelt before the other party like a knight about to be knighted, bowed his head, and said respectfully, "My lord, please grant me the honor of becoming your apostle."

Haha, how ironic. He was once the archbishop of Destiny, an organization that swore never to yield and represented humanity against God, but now he kneels before God and begs to become an apostle for a woman... Love is truly a terrifying thing...

In the air behind him, Moro, appearing as a golden light, watched this scene with delight, anticipating Otto's death and the birth of the Herrscher of the End.

"Your request is granted."

The voice of "God" flowed into Otto's heart again, and then He came closer, stretched out His right hand, and gently pressed it on Otto's head.

The next moment, his mind exploded with a bang, and countless streams of information burst forth like a torrent, appearing suddenly without warning and forcibly pouring into his mind, instantly overwhelming his consciousness.

boom!

Before Otto could even cry out in pain, he felt as if his soul had been torn to pieces, and everything went black before his eyes as he collapsed at the feet of "God".

He didn't know how much time had passed—perhaps a moment, perhaps ten thousand years—before his consciousness finally began to awaken from the darkness and emerge.

But when Otto came to his senses, he found himself no longer in that pure white space, but in a medieval European town.

"here it is……"

He turned his head and looked around. The messy streets, collapsed houses, fleeing residents, and huge Honkai Beasts came into view, and a sense of familiarity rose in his heart.

Then, he saw Kallen. Dressed in tattered nun's habit, she was pierced by a lance from a Temple-level Honkai Beast. Although she was covered in blood and about to die, there was no fear or pain on her face. She was still bravely protecting the child behind her. Kallen was bathed in a holy light in the afterglow of the setting sun.

"This is... the time when Karen died."

Having relived this scene countless times, Otto instantly understood where and when he was.

He stepped forward quietly, coming to stand behind Karen. Everything around him remained perfectly still except for him. The splattered blood, the raised dust, and the fleeing civilians all seemed like insects frozen in amber, together forming a delicate picture frozen in time.

"Karen..."

Otto slowly reached out, seemingly wanting to stroke Karen's hair, but just before touching it, he suddenly stopped as if afraid he would shatter it, and then slowly withdrew his hand.

"Karen is dead."

A voice suddenly sounded behind him. Otto turned around abruptly and found another version of himself standing in front of him, identical in every way, as if he were looking in a mirror.

He narrowed his eyes slightly. "Who are you?"

The other Otto smiled and said, "I am you, Otto Apocalypse."

Otto snorted coldly, "No need to play tricks, you are the Herrscher personality born from my body, aren't you?"

The other person smiled and clapped their hands, "As expected of me, you're really smart, you understood the situation so quickly."

Otto frowned slightly. "Enough. Stop wasting time talking nonsense. The only reason you're here is to take away my control of my body."

"Take it? No, no, no, wasn't this body something you willingly offered as a sacrifice to save Karen?"

"If I give you my body, will you resurrect Kallen?"

"Of course, this is nothing more than a piece of cake for me, the Herrscher of the End. It's something you'd do anything for, right? In that case, how about you obediently hand over your body to me?"

Otto sneered, "No, I don't trust you, so why don't you obediently go to the corner and go to sleep?"

……

A moment later, in a moment of destiny, Otto, suspended in mid-air, slowly opened his eyes, which were filled with a sacred and cold golden light.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: A Long-cherished Wish Fulfilled

"Success!!"

The golden light was forced out of Otto's body by an immense repulsive force, and once again condensed into a golden cube.

But Moro didn't care at all. He just circled Otto, who was floating in mid-air, and exclaimed with ecstasy, "Good! Excellent! The strongest divine messenger has arrived, and the horn of the end will resound throughout the world! Humans, those hateful humans who imprisoned me in the Key of God for tens of thousands of years and destroyed my story will once again face their doom!!"

As he spoke, a massive amount of Honkai energy overflowed from Otto's body, naturally condensing into magnificent robes, a majestic crown, a sacred halo, and dazzling wings of light on his body... Coupled with his incomparably handsome face and noble, cold golden eyes, he was undoubtedly the embodiment of the "god" in people's ideals at this moment.

"The Herrscher of the End..."

Overjoyed at achieving his goal, Moro approached the silent Herrscher of the End and humbly pleaded, "Could you please free me from my bonds? In accordance with the will of the gods, I am willing to follow you and together bring absolute destruction to all humanity!"

The Herrscher of the End remained silent, only a slight ripple appeared in her cold eyes. Then, like ripples spreading across water, those ripples gradually expanded, slowly filling her eyes.

Then, the coldness in his eyes shattered, his humanity surfaced, and a slight smile appeared on his lips as he finally spoke, "Of course, after all, this was a condition I agreed to beforehand."

"How is that possible!?"

Moro was shocked and said in disbelief, "Why you?! Otto, your consciousness should have been suppressed!"

“Because I won,” Otto sneered. “So of course he was the one who was suppressed.”

He had long known that, under certain circumstances, the dominant personality could suppress the Herrscher personality; otherwise, the first Herrscher of this generation, Welt, would not have been able to betray the Honkai and become a "pillar of the righteous path" for the human camp.

That's why he made up his mind to choose the path of becoming the Herrscher of the End and then seizing the power of the Herrschers. Otherwise, even if he was driven to the brink of despair, as long as there was even the slightest hope of survival, he would not choose the option of suicide, because there is hope only in living.

In Otto's mind, since Welt could maintain his self-awareness after becoming a Herrscher, there was no reason why he couldn't do the same. Because of his inherent pride, he absolutely did not believe he was inferior to that man, Welt.

And as it turned out, he did succeed.

Walter's success was somewhat accidental, aided by the spirits of hundreds of thousands of Berlin residents who died in the first Great Collapse, but Otto, solely through his obsession with Kallen, successfully overwhelmed the consciousness of the Herrscher of the End.

This situation can only be attributed to Otto's profound love for Kallen, a love so intense that, over five hundred years, it had become almost obsessive, completely ingrained in his soul and consciousness. Consequently, the Herrscher personality that had developed from his own consciousness was suppressed.

"impossible!"

Moro remained incredulous. "How could such an absurd thing happen?! How could a mere human, a mere human soul and consciousness, possibly contend with the strongest apostle of God, how could it possibly suppress the Herrscher of the End?!"

"Mere humans? Ridiculous. Weren't you also sealed away by mere humans for tens of thousands of years?"

As Otto spoke, he merely flicked his finger, and the Void Treasury, the highest technological achievement of the previous generation of civilization and the first divine key that sealed the Herrscher core, exploded on the spot, turning into countless golden light spots that scattered in all directions, leaving only a black Herrscher core floating in mid-air.

"Alright, the one I love is still waiting for me to resurrect her. I don't have time to listen to you wasting your time, so... get ready to welcome your rebirth, Moro, the first Herrscher of the previous generation of civilization."

The next moment, he extended his finger and gently touched the Herrscher core. Centered on his fingertip, endless Honkai energy was continuously drawn from the imaginary space and then injected into the Herrscher core.

Immediately afterwards, a massive amount of Honkai energy exploded and contracted from the core, transforming into a large purple cocoon that enveloped the Herrscher core, pulsating like a heart.

"You should start by reconstructing your body here."

Otto withdrew his hand, and with a flash, he traversed space and appeared in another location in the underground base—the Herrscher of the End, the strongest Herrscher, and also the most perfect and comprehensive Herrscher. Now that he has obtained the power of the Herrscher of the End, he possesses all the abilities of the previous thirteen Herrschers, and even enhanced versions of them. Naturally, he can easily use the skills belonging to the Herrscher of the Void.

……

Meanwhile, in a secluded underground base, Su Qi received a communication from Rojell.

"What happened?"

In the chaotic laboratory, Su Qi kicked the last defensive mech to pieces, then opened his personal terminal and made contact.

"A massive collapse energy aggregation reaction has just been discovered in Antarctica, with an instantaneous power exceeding 16000 HW, and it is still rising rapidly."

"Antarctica? 16000 HW? I remember that the instantaneous power output of a typical Herrscher at birth is only about 1000 HW, right?"

“That’s right, so something big must have happened there. And the timing is so coincidental, it’s very likely related to Otto.”

"I think so too."

Su Qi looked at another Otto clone lying limp and unconscious on the ground not far away and said, "At the same time just now, one of my Otto clones suddenly suffered a mental shock and collapsed to the ground. From my observation, his soul is in an extremely weak state, and the subtle connection between his soul and that of other Otto clones has been forcibly severed. I suspect that there is a problem with Void Treasury or Otto's main body."

“Now is not the time to study this. We can pursue the other remaining Otto clones later. The most important thing is what’s happening in Antarctica… If that scale of Honkai energy eruption is also a phenomenon caused by Herrschers, then…”

He continued, "It's very likely that the Herrscher of the End has descended, right?"

"Yes, Theresa and the others think so too. According to the records left by the previous generation of civilization, the Herrscher of the End has the power to destroy a city with a single blow. So if there is no combat power of the corresponding level to resist, no matter how many people or armies rush up, they will only be doomed. If she is allowed to act freely, it probably won't take half a day to destroy the entire human civilization."

"I understand. To avoid mass casualties, I'll run over right away and see what Otto is up to."