Welt had originally intended to help Himeko argue with Kafka, but in the end, he found himself completely unable to interject into the conversation, since the entire topic revolved around godfathers and godmothers.
Moreover, he had no idea what Himeko herself was thinking, so he did not dare to speak carelessly.
'From the looks of it, this Kafka also knows Lucian...'
Welt thought with a thoughtful expression.
'Hm, Earthlings like me really are something else—he's not even here, yet he can still spark a conflict between two women.'
Fortunately, Kafka chose to leave before the atmosphere could grow any more dangerous, making the strange tension lingering in the air gradually fade along with her departure, and no fuse was ever truly lit in the end.
===
At the same time, inside the hideout of the Stellaron Hunters, Silver Wolf paused the holographic projection flickering before her and covered her mouth as she let out a quiet snicker, her shoulders trembling ever so slightly in amusement.
It was genuinely rare to see Kafka argue with someone, let alone end up being labeled by Stelle as some kind of bad woman coveting Lucian's looks.
Just imagining that scene again was enough to make her burst into laughter and roll around on the floor.
"Silver Wolf, what are you laughing at?"
Kafka tilted her head slightly and glanced toward Silver Wolf with a gentle, composed smile resting on her beautiful face, her tone calm and leisurely as always.
"Nothing. I just won a game."
Silver Wolf shrugged nonchalantly and turned her face away, clearly having no intention of admitting the real reason.
"If you want to laugh, then laugh, but before that, we should go check on the anomaly in Elio's script."
Kafka did not bother pursuing the matter any further.
Instead, she slowly rose to her feet with her usual unhurried elegance and calmly walked out of the room without a backward glance, the faint and rhythmic echo of her footsteps lingering softly in the corridor behind her.
Seeing this, Silver Wolf merely shrugged once again before silently following after Kafka with her hands tucked casually behind her head.
Moments later, as the two of them stepped into the meeting room, they immediately found Elio in his black cat form, quietly perched near a tall window.
His small silhouette was outlined against the vast and distant sea of stars beyond the glass, and he simply sat there in silence, calmly gazing toward the galaxy stretching endlessly outside, as though he had already seen through countless futures hidden within it.
In an instant, the elegance and composure on Kafka's face disappeared completely, while the faint smile she had been wearing moments ago quietly faded away, her expression gradually settling into a rare and unmasked seriousness as her gaze fixed firmly onto Elio's figure.
"Elio..." Kafka called out softly, her voice carrying a rare trace of urgency and confusion. "Jarilo-VI—what exactly is going on? Your script is completely off again."
Not holding back at all, she immediately began describing, in meticulous detail, everything she had witnessed through the holographic projection—the absurdly prosperous spaceport of Jarilo-VI, where fleets of spaceships moved in orderly streams through the docking lanes.
She also described the unexpectedly vibrant scenery on the planet's surface itself: vast and picturesque landscapes stretching endlessly beneath a sky filled with gentle, temperate weather, with greenery spreading across the horizon instead of endless snowfields.
At the same time, heavily armed mechas flew everywhere in disciplined patrol formations, weaving through the skies with a mechanical precision that looked completely incompatible with the word apocalypse.
After listening to the entire account, Elio initially only stiffened slightly, as though his mind was struggling to process the implications hidden within Kafka's report, but soon afterward, his entire body gradually went rigid, and he froze completely in place.
It was difficult to believe that such a scene could truly exist, yet Kafka had personally witnessed everything with her own eyes and recounted it without the slightest hesitation, meaning it was clearly not nonsense or some kind of misunderstanding.
"No... that shouldn't be possible..."
A low murmur escaped Elio's lips.
Back then, the futures he had seen branched into countless possibilities, intertwining like an endless web spreading across the cosmos, and from among all those futures, he had chosen the single path capable of saving the universe.
More importantly, throughout all this time, he had never once been wrong.
Not once.
So why had everything suddenly changed now?
Jarilo-VI was supposed to be a frozen planet buried beneath eternal snowstorms, with monsters running rampant across the surface while humanity struggled desperately on the brink of extinction.
Trailblazer Stelle was supposed to undergo an arduous adventure there, forge countless connections, and eventually, during the battle against the Mother of Deception, receive a gaze from Qlipoth and step onto the Path of Preservation.
In Elio's eyes, that was how events were meant to unfold, because that was the only future he had ever seen that could ultimately save the universe from destruction.
And now Kafka was telling him that Jarilo-VI was undergoing large-scale interstellar development?
Peaceful and prosperous to an almost unbelievable degree?
How could that possibly make any sense?
Kafka slowly raised a hand to her forehead with restrained elegance, though even her usually calm expression now carried a faint trace of helplessness.
"I would also like to know what exactly went wrong on your end. Fortunately, when I made the oath, I used Silver Wolf's name instead."
As for Stelle's absurd 'bad woman nonsense,' it was definitely better left unmentioned—it stung far too much to even think about.
"Kafka, that's going too far!" Silver Wolf complained helplessly, crossing her arms. "And Elio, I already told you we should've checked Jarilo's current situation first before telling the Astral Express, but you insisted on it anyway!"
Elio did not offer any excuses and silently accepted the criticism.
After all, it was true that his own overconfidence had caused him to skip the on-site intelligence gathering this time.
Who could have expected that his future-sight ability would actually fail?
Wearing a deep frown on his cat face, Elio quietly observed the flow of fate once more. Invisible trajectories intertwined and overlapped within his vision, constantly shifting like an endless river flowing toward countless possible futures.
Soon, he noticed that aside from the image quality being somewhat blurry, there were no obvious abnormalities within the fate he observed.
'Wait... blurry?'
Elio suddenly paused, his pupils narrowing slightly as he fell into deep thought.
He remembered that the script at Herta Space Station last time had also appeared blurry, and that situation had ultimately led to a massive problem—the entire process had gone completely off track, with only the final result barely remaining consistent with the script he had originally foreseen.
And the root cause behind everything had turned out to be the presence of someone whose fate he could not observe at all, someone who had suddenly appeared at the space station and forcefully interfered with its trajectory.
Ever since that person appeared, he had no longer been able to observe the new future of anything he meddled with. What he saw instead was only an outdated version of destiny, as though his vision had become trapped behind reality itself.
Realizing something, the fur all over Elio's body instantly stood on end, while a strong sense of unease abruptly rose within his heart.
"Is Lucian... on Jarilo-VI?"
Elio suddenly asked Kafka in a low voice.
Kafka blinked in visible surprise at the sudden question, then slowly shook her head.
"Not sure... there's been no sign of him so far."
Lucian?
Considering the anomaly that had suddenly appeared on Jarilo-VI, along with Elio abruptly bringing up Lucian's name, there was a good chance he really had been involved.
After all, the script at Herta Space Station had completely collapsed because of his presence.
Elio slowly took a deep breath in a distinctly feline manner, his narrowed eyes carrying an unusual heaviness before he spoke again.
"Kafka, go there personally and find out what exactly happened on Jarilo-VI. If it really was Lucian... persuade him not to interfere any further. Saving the universe is not a trivial matter. You must find a way to ensure that Stelle walks the Path of Preservation!"
Even though his tone was calm as always, everyone present could still sense the seriousness hidden beneath those words.
Since the script had already gone off track, the only remaining option was manual intervention to forcibly guide the outcome back onto the correct path. If they wanted the future of the universe to retain even the slightest sliver of hope, then Stelle had to be shaped through countless influences and carefully guided toward the destined future.
"Do you want me to go with you?"
From a quiet corner of the room, Blade, who had kept his eyes closed and remained silent the entire time, suddenly spoke in a low voice, his eyes now slightly opened.
"Do you need me to accompany you?"
Firefly, having just entered after catching part of the discussion outside the door, asked as the light clanking of armor echoed through the room, her gaze landing directly on Kafka.
"...No need." Kafka let out a soft sigh before shaking her head. "I mean, this isn't a hunt. He might misunderstand if so many of us show up together. I can handle persuading him alone."
If Lucian really was involved, then bringing too many people along would only make the situation more troublesome.
"Alright, contact us if anything comes up."
Silver Wolf spoke calmly from the side, sounding fairly relaxed as though she believed Kafka would be able to handle the matter without much difficulty.
"Mm."
Kafka nodded with a faint smile before turning around and leaving the room.
A few minutes later, she piloted a spaceship alone and made the jump toward Jarilo-VI, intending to personally confirm whether the anomaly there truly had anything to do with Lucian.
===
Meanwhile, on the surface of Jarilo-VI, at the outskirts of Belobog's newly expanded district, March, Stelle, and Dan Heng walked along a brand-new alloy road marked with clear lane lines, steadily heading toward the city entrance wrapped in a sleek silver-white exterior.
Although the cold wind carried a faint metallic chill, the surroundings were far livelier than anyone would expect from a world once buried beneath an eternal winter.
"Whoa, the air here's so fresh! And the scenery's amazing!" March skipped ahead while holding up her camera, constantly snapping photos of everything around her. "How is this a doomsday planet? Honestly, this is basically a vacation resort!"
"Vacation resort!"
Stelle immediately echoed in excitement while raising her right hand high into the air, her expression filled with agreement.
Along both sides of the road stood newly planted greenery and rows of modern structures still under construction. Transport vehicles occasionally sped past in the distance, while aerial patrol mechs silently cruised through the sky overhead.
Dan Heng, meanwhile, remained vigilant, calmly observing the patrol mechs flying at low altitude and the distant rumbling of heavy construction machinery that never seemed to stop.
Still, what surprised him was that there were also quite a few foreigners along the road, such as foxians from Koolur, employees of the IPC, intellitrons from Planet Screwllum, and people of the Xianzhou Alliance.
Some walked alone, while others moved in groups, seemingly discussing trade deals, business contracts, or tourism plans, causing the once-isolated world to now clearly carry traces of interstellar civilization everywhere.
Upon seeing those familiar people from the Xianzhou Alliance, Dan Heng's gaze paused slightly, and he couldn't help but be reminded of his homeland.
Before long, when the three of them passed by a less crowded side entrance, they witnessed a rather strange scene.
Beside the side entrance gate, shimmering beneath the glow of a translucent energy barrier, stood a separate processing building alongside a long line of people who appeared to be going through some kind of registration procedure.
Surprisingly, although the line stretched surprisingly far, the atmosphere remained strangely quiet and orderly.
Beside that long line, a group of workers wearing fully sealed protective suits was unloading items from a large transport vehicle. It was not ordinary cargo, but body bags, and some of the bags were even seeping with a suspicious dark red liquid that slowly dripped onto the cold alloy ground below.
However, more than that, they also carried down several massive containers from another vehicle, each one filled with jars and storage canisters containing organs, dismembered body parts, severed hands, and bloodstained biological samples preserved in murky liquid.
It was a grotesque mix of red and pale white, visually overwhelming and deeply unsettling, enough to make an ordinary person instinctively avert their eyes after a single glance.
Yet the people standing in line showed no reaction whatsoever, their expressions remaining calm and indifferent, as if such a horrifying scene had already become something completely ordinary to them.
"..."
March abruptly stopped walking, the smile on her face freezing stiff, but her finger resting on the camera's shutter button was still instinctively pressed down. In an instant, with a crisp 'click,' the camera accidentally captured a disturbingly well-composed photo.
One had to admit, the entire scene genuinely looked like some kind of underground black-market organ trafficking operation.
"Ugh…" March covered her mouth with one hand as she felt her stomach churn violently. "What is this place even for…?"
Hearing that, a sudden spark of realization flashed through Stelle's mind.
"I know! People lining up to sell kidneys! Trading kidneys for money!"
As she spoke, Stelle immediately turned to look at Dan Heng, her expression clearly saying, 'You're up.'
Noticing this, Dan Heng instantly felt slightly speechless.
"You expect me to sell my kidney, too? Drop that idea."
Just as the trio was left thoroughly shaken by the surreal and grotesque sight before them, a woman in a spotless white doctor's coat, wearing a white surgical mask, happened to walk past behind them and slowly stopped after overhearing their discussion.
"You there, please don't speak nonsense. What you're seeing is the Supreme Guardian's benevolence, a blessing bestowed upon the people of Belobog."
Her voice was calm, gentle, and unexpectedly pleasant to listen to, completely at odds with the horrifying environment around her.
Hearing the sudden voice, the three turned around in unison and immediately saw the woman standing behind them.
From her beautiful eyes alone, it was obvious she was an exceptionally gorgeous woman, but unfortunately, that impression was instantly shattered by the horrifying sight of the half of a bloodied, mangled face she was calmly holding in her hands.
===
[A bonus chapter for every 300 Power Stones.]
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