Mu Continent, The Moths Who Chase the Flames Headquarters.
[ Outdoor Temperature: -8°C ]
Recently, as the 3,333 Undersea Temples operated in synchronization for longer and longer periods, the global temperature has been dropping faster and faster.
The reason is simple: although the Earth's oceans have not yet frozen over completely, the area of ice is continuously expanding.
And with every single point of expansion, the amount of sunlight and heat reflected away each moment increases accordingly.
As a result, while the current temperature is still far from the extreme lows that would trigger a mass extinction event, the process will only accelerate like a snowball rolling downhill.
To be honest, if the Newborn World Serpent's Flame-Chaser-class MANTISes, who possess fire-attribute attack methods, had not been frequently deployed to repeatedly destroy Undersea Temples at key nodes, the global environment would be even worse right now.
And the worst part is...
"The final analysis results are out."
Today, with the advent of the super-artificial intelligence "Prometheus," destroying over three thousand Undersea Temples simultaneously is no longer an impossible feat.
This is because the current upper limit of the girl-shaped android army has reached a staggering ten thousand, and this number is rapidly being replenished.
That is more than three times the number of Undersea Temples... plus one.
Therefore, in the eyes of Prometheus, whose "mechanical bodies can be remanufactured and replaced at any time," she could fully dispatch her sub-units (avatars) to carry a large number of nuclear bombs, or even more powerful Honkai Fission Bombs, and teleport directly to the vicinity of each Undersea Temple to perform a series of "Allahu Akbar" acts.
In other words: self-destruction.
Having just been born, she had already stepped onto the Path of "Erudition." Although her individual strength was not equal to Kevin's or Fu Hua's, because of the reboot and reconnection of "No. 17," as well as the return of the "Void Archives," she was also much stronger than the single-core Herrschers of the Current Era.
It was enough to break through the defense perimeter of each Undersea Temple.
Even without acting as suicide infantry, if the girl-shaped androids spent a little more time, they would have the ability to destroy those Undersea Temples.
In short, for the Newborn World Serpent, the Undersea Temples themselves were no longer a threat.
What no one could have possibly imagined was... Kali, the Herrscher of Blood, after slaughtering the scholars of the Mu Continent and seizing their collective memories and knowledge, had formulated a meticulously interlocking plan.
Those interconnected, blood-red Undersea Temples were not merely meant to "cool things down."
They...
"Their true purpose is actually to 'absorb heat,' 'transport heat,' and 'store heat.'"
On the Mu Continent, Dr. Einstein, who was still under the close protection of the Memory-Hua, abruptly initiated an emergency contact with MEI, Vill-V, and the others.
The woman with the tuft of red hair on her forehead looked exceptionally anxious.
She had just received some good news: her developed ELF Unit, those children who, unlike Prometheus, would suffer the "death" of their consciousness if their individual bodies were destroyed despite having an "ELF" core network, would no longer have to be sacrificed.
But the bad news immediately plunged her heart into a roller coaster of emotions.
Because the problem now facing everyone had become: how to deal with the... consequences of their own side destroying all the Undersea Temples.
Indeed, this was the operation Kali had been covertly carrying out, utilizing the knowledge she had seized, in the wake of the "Cold Wave."
As everyone knows, according to the law of conservation of energy, heat, as a form of energy, cannot simply vanish into thin air.
If it could, the fundamental laws of the universe would cease to exist.
In fact, a standard home air conditioner isn't essentially "creating cold," but rather "transferring heat."
That is to say: in the sweltering summer, it pumps out the heat trapped indoors, much like a water pump, and expels it outside.
And the Undersea Temple Cluster, which Kali had recently planted across the globe like rice seedlings, was strictly speaking a similar device.
Only it was larger in scale, more complex in its operating principle, and did not consume refrigerant but rather semi-circulating Honkai Energy. It had also deliberately cut out the "heat dissipation" step, forcibly creating two "bombs."
Yes, those 3,333 Undersea Temples had already gradually extracted the heat from the seas where they were located.
Then, utilizing their interconnected array, they silently transferred all that heat to...
the South Pole and the North Pole.
Thus, a dire dilemma was forged into reality, supported by that utterly unreasonable and devilish power: Honkai Energy.
Now, they faced a choice: either destroy all the Undersea Temples immediately, which would trigger super-high-temperature pressure storms at the North and South Poles, causing glaciers and ice sheets to melt on a massive scale.
Afterward, global sea levels would rise by dozens of meters.
The Ice Calamity would become a flood disaster.
And choosing to just let it be... was obviously impossible.
As mentioned multiple times before, as long as those Undersea Temples existed, Earth's temperature would gradually drop to the super-frigid levels of the Ice Age.
Therefore...
"We must now come up with a way to address the problem of the melting glaciers at the North and South Poles in the shortest possible time after all the Undersea Temples are destroyed."
"And..."
After MEI learned the relevant information and had Prometheus perform simulation calculations and verification, she made a decision in her heart. "We need to look further ahead."
"For example: completely eliminating the possibility that the Herrscher of Blood will take advantage of us being busy cleaning up this mess to create new trouble."
Clearly, she had fully realized how troublesome a Herrscher who could use human knowledge and technology to counterattack humanity could be.
Using the Alien Monsters to divert their initial attention, she established a massive network of Undersea Temples.
When our side thought the Ice Calamity was her ultimate weapon, she planted a hidden trump card in the sparsely populated North and South Poles.
What does a dozens-of-meters rise in global sea level actually mean?
Setting aside the initial tsunamis, there's... one very easily overlooked detail.
Many of the world's major cities were built in coastal areas because of the convenience their ports offered.
And these economic hubs were almost all on the first construction list for the Base City Project.
Imagine this: if we hadn't discovered Kali's trump card, we would have been overcome with the relief of surviving a near-catastrophe, thinking we'd just managed to destroy all the Undersea Temples and stop the global freeze from worsening, only for... BOOM!!!
More than half of the Base City construction sites would have turned into Atlantis.
In the end, it would be as if humanity had gathered a huge portion of its population together, just waiting for the raging waves to execute them.
And caught completely off guard, there simply wouldn't be enough Arks to serve as sanctuaries.
Even if there were...
Sinking a floating Ark would be far easier than conquering a land-based city.
Faced with this reality...
"The previous Base City site selections must be completely redesigned," MEI proposed.
Though many Base Cities were already under construction, her sudden change in orders carried a sharp sense of irony: a classic case of the top levels making a snap decision while those at the bottom ran themselves ragged to implement it.
But ultimately...
In the original historical timeline of this era, there had never been a Herrscher capable of raising sea levels.
Those Herrschers were almost all mere killing machines.
Aside from the Herrscher of Domination, who was uniquely special for initiating the Chain of Suspicion, no other Herrscher knew how to lie low, how to strategize, or how to use schemes.
Therefore...
"We must treat this type of Herrscher as a high-intelligence superpowered anti-human criminal."
The leadership of the Newborn World Serpent had already completely defined the nature of this threat.
However, the repeated internal strife and the major incidents caused by several Time-Reverse Descendants had left many of those involved completely overwhelmed by a constant stream of trouble.
Now, Kevin, MEI, and the others had not only welcomed the addition of Prometheus as a powerful ally, but they had finally achieved a long-overdue victory.
They had successfully defeated the Fourth Herrscher (Seele) and eliminated a Remnant of the Old Days (Bronya Zaychik) who had been operating with her.
Unfortunately, they would have no time to rest. A much greater challenge awaited them immediately.
And the source of this greater challenge... was not just the Undersea Temple Cluster.
Because, at almost the exact same time...
The Stellaron Train, departing from North Africa, arrived at the Mu Continent.
A certain Self-Annihilator, wrapped in blood-red serpents and having resolutely embarked on her final journey, arrived at the Mu Continent.
And a white-haired girl, who had escaped from the Far East... also arrived at the Mu Continent.