I write obituaries for the gods

"Why don't you treat this as a transaction?"

Xilena took two steps back, bound her hands behind her back, and then circled around Jürgen.

“My elder brother does want you to disappear, but I might be a bit rebellious and not really want to carry out his orders.”

"Coincidentally, I have a solution that is good for both parties."

“Speak up, don’t beat around the bush,” Jürgen said.

tide Leina nodded slightly and said:

"It's simple. Give me the data for the W array so I can go back and report. That way, at least my elder brother won't suspect anything."

“No problem,” Jürgen readily agreed. “Anything else?”

"If I'm not mistaken, you're planning to drill a deep hole in the subspace?" Xileina asked.

“That’s right,” Jürgen squinted. “Why?”

"You don't have fixed coordinates, do you?"

"No, the ruins that affected Litty can only be measured in terms of the number of layers, not their exact location."

"Then, how about we drill a hole at these coordinates I gave you?"

Xilena took out a slip of paper and handed it to Jürgen.

Jürgen unfolded the note, glanced at the coordinates on it, and his expression became meaningful.

“Interesting,” he said in a low voice. “If I remember correctly, this coordinate is the central area after connecting the thirty-six Siren Abyss coordinates, and it’s named ‘Katrina’s Eye of the Storm’.”

“Katrina is very likely here.” Xilena nodded gently.

“You want to unleash an Alpha-level anomalous entity? That thing is defined as Alpha because it exists in the subspace and can only affect a single city,” Jürgen frowned slightly. “But you should understand that if it is truly and completely unleashed, it can easily affect the entire world.”

"By then, it will be defined as 'Omega,' do you understand the cost?"

"It will not be released."

tide Lena shook her head slightly and said:

"I'm going to kill it."

"..."

Professor Jürgen stared at Xilena for a very long time, then smiled.

“Okay,” he put the note away, “I will use these coordinates to break through the subspace.”

Xilena sensed Jürgen's pity for those who shared his suffering in his eyes.

He pitied her.

Yes, perhaps she and Euclid were indeed the same kind of people.

So what if you have to pay the price to achieve your goal?

How could she not pity him?

"Buzzing..."

The massive hatch slowly opened, revealing the enormous core module.

The Black Star platform does not require human intervention to operate; screens are suspended throughout the hall, which should have been the eyes and faces of the hub AI.

Now, with the virus infiltrating the entire Starlink network, most of those screens are displaying chaotic blocks of color.

Once the constraint algorithm was removed, the AI ​​personality, simulated based on the frenzied emotions of the powerful and wealthy, went mad.

Its true nature is madness, and its purpose is equally madness.

Searching for God? Xileina doesn't trust God.

During the hurricane in New Orleans, the Catholic climbed onto the roof of the church but refused to let Shirena board the ark to escape the flood, simply because she was a Gypsy.

That night, God did not save Clement.

If His ark could not even save His own believers, how could it possibly save the Roma who could not board it?

tide Lena only believes in herself.

She must save the next version of herself—the next poor soul chosen by Katrina, the next family destroyed by a hurricane, the next city ravaged by a hurricane.

"W weapon platform, calibrating, connected to Starlink."

"Om————"

As the main star platform operated at full power and the gravity generator shut down, Xileina slowly floated up.

She gradually became upside down, looking down at the glass floor: the scene of the earth came into view.

"Identity confirmed... Xilena Boswell, Congresswoman F, highest authority."

“Charge Starlink,” Xileina said softly.

"Om————"

Another buzzing sound came, accompanied by countless murmurs flowing past my ears.

The emotions that had been deposited in the subspace of near-Earth orbit were surging out wildly, being absorbed by the black star units, and then converging along the star chain to the main star platform.

tide Lena felt her chest burning, and dark blue lines flew out from her silhouette, connecting with the instruments on the main star platform.

What followed was pain.

The pain was almost like having your brain torn apart.

"Uh..."

tide Lena pressed her temples, her eyes suddenly becoming unfocused.

She hung upside down in the core module, and in a daze, her mother's prophecy echoed in her ears once more, passing through the wooden table, the scent of mugwort, and time itself:

"The Hanged Man, upright, a great sacrifice."

"You willingly allow yourself to be bound and suspended atop the world, to fight a final battle against your past."

The Hanged Man, a symbol of sacrifice.

Despite the excruciating pain, Xileina pressed the button on her headset—the one she'd kept since the RBAI era.

"Old Jiang," she called softly, "are you listening?"

"..."

Five seconds later, a response came:

"I'm here."

......

“When my mother did a divination for me before, she said that my future card was the ‘Hanged Man,’ which meant that I was destined to sacrifice myself and fight to the death against the past.”

In the passenger seat of the Toyota, Xileina looked out at the rain and grumbled.

"That was the first time she predicted my fate so tragically. I even said some unpleasant things back then... making me sound like some tragic heroine. She clearly knows that I hate being the protagonist the most."

"So what do you like?" Jiang Zhengge asked with a smile, looking at the girl in the passenger seat.

"Me? Playing the violin and singing songs, that's about it."

tide Lena propped her cheeks up with her hands, her fair face distorted into a comical shape, tinged with a hint of resentment.

"If I had to say who I would be the lead singer of, I always wanted to be the lead singer in a band, but unfortunately it wasn't my turn because my voice isn't the best."

“You don’t need to be the best to be the lead,” Jiang Zhengge said softly. “As long as you live up to your ideals, that’s enough.”

"But my ideal is to be the best!"

tide Leina gently patted her leg and turned to look at Jiang Zhengge in the driver's seat.

“Because every time I don’t do well enough, someone pays the price for me,” she said softly.

Jiang Zhengge gazed at the girl. After her complaints subsided, that familiar loneliness and sadness seemed to once again envelop her.

"It's alright," Jiang Zhengge said softly, "I'm with you."

"..."

Gazing at the brightest star in the night sky, Jiang Zhengge softly responded to tide Leina:

"I'm with you."

"..."

He thought he heard the girl on the other end of the channel laugh, a very soft laugh, but she definitely laughed.

"Are you still angry with me? It took you five seconds to respond."

“There is a delay in signal communication,” Jiang Zhengge said in a low voice.

"Could you please take my brother back to the cemetery and bury him with the other Rom hunters?"

"it is good."

Jiang Zhengge's hand trembled slightly.

After a long while, he asked softly:

"how about you?"

"..."

It's unclear whether it's a communication delay between the ground and space, or if Xileina is hesitating.

A good ten seconds or so passed before her voice came again:

“I’ve said before that I’m going to do something, and that will come at a price.”

"The price is yourself?" Jiang Zhengge murmured.

"The price was worth it."

tide Lena closed her eyes.

"I will avenge my family, avenge my brother, avenge my mother..."

"Moreover, I will avenge your uncle and aunt. It's all my fault that you lost them."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Jiang Zhengge clenched his fist. "We can face this together."

"Fool..."

tide Lena chuckled softly.

If I told you, would you still let me go?

Goodbye, Lao Jiang.

Inside the orbital core module, Xileina opened her deep blue eyes, took out her headset, and tossed it aside.

At this moment, she was connected to the main star platform, and all the information was operating in her mind.

As the Anchor of Katrina, Xilena possesses the power to control wind and water, and her domain, like Triton's, is a city.

However, when Xileina's abilities were amplified to their maximum by the Black Star Platform, she could see almost everything in the world, from wind to water.

She can calculate the wind speed and humidity at any location, and based on this data, she can perform high-precision calculations to perfectly calculate the landing point of "Black Star" without any deviation.

If that were all, Hub AI could also calculate the impact points of space-based weapons through the Foundation’s weather stations around the world.

But this time, the landing point is deep within subspace.

The hub AI is unable to measure the chaotic subspace.

But tide Lena can.

To excavate "God," the W weapon's beam must penetrate subspace.

Only Xileina can do that.

After absorbing the emotions deposited in the subspace from the Black Star Chain, Xileina could theoretically approach the Omega level infinitely.

This gives her the ability to compete with Katrina.

"Starlink fully charged and calibrating coordinates."

tide Lena felt her vision enveloped in a layer of ethereal blue, and in her eyes, everything on Earth was becoming clearer.