Creditorship of Life.
This was the answer the Will of the Honkai left for Noldrei.
A civilization built upon the foundation of life's reproduction, a societal framework constructed through human practice, using the binding of power and responsibility to complete the social structure of this new humanity.
This method was, in effect, a way to use the wisdom of more people to compensate for the work.
Newly born humans were placed at the very center of the civilization's contradictions, forcing them to iterate and update continuously, birthing new keys to resolve these contradictions through the clash of intellects.
Yet this process, whether intentionally or not, ignored the organizational danger of those who held the "right to reproduce."
In practice, it was the bitter fruit of cashing in on "trusting in the wisdom of future generations" in the quickest way possible.
The originally sustainable but uncontrollable phenomenon of civilizational reproduction was forcibly accelerated.
Humanity, upon stepping into the cosmos, gained transcendent productivity while simultaneously losing the individual spiritual subject.
The future humans of Noldrei's world were integrated into the entire social order through a method of centralized borrowing.
This was what Kevin spoke of. This was Noldrei's greatest sin.
The Will of the Honkai sought to create more of its own kind while also ensuring its own will was passed down.
But it could not interact with Kevin in the form of human consciousness.
Kevin would never have believed it if it had. So, the Will of the Honkai chose another path...
To clash head-on with Noldrei, to pierce the veil of the beautiful new world he had constructed.
Noldrei was slightly stunned upon hearing Kevin's conclusion. He knew this was a conclusion no one from the Previous Era could have possibly conceived.
After a brief moment of shock, Noldrei guessed that this was the [Answer] given by the Will of the Honkai.
And this answer had undoubtedly convinced Kevin, making him realize that Noldrei was, at this very moment, the true enemy of human civilization.
For the next few thousand years, at least, Noldrei should no longer interfere with the evolution of human civilization.
What came after that was beyond Kevin's ability to imagine. His wisdom could only see that far, and that was only thanks to the Cocoon of Finality expanding his vision.
"Kevin... oh, Kevin..."
Noldrei considered many possibilities, but he had never imagined that the Will of the Honkai would, at the very end, leave Kevin with such a horrifying, unsolvable problem.
And the method to delay the arrival of this problem was to expel him—the very person who had guided humanity into this new civilization—from its ranks.
"What a truly interesting idea."
"Kevin, you actually managed to obtain a correct answer from the Cocoon of Finality."
"Good! Excellent! It seems this method was correct after all. Using the Honkai, using the Herrschers, forcing them to stand from a conservative human position and reflect upon the progress of proliferationalism... it was absolutely the right call."
"If I hadn't pushed the Will of the Honkai to its absolute limit, how could it have produced such an outstanding social theory!"
Noldrei wasn't angry in the slightest. In fact, he saw in this a glimmer of hope for anti-proliferationalism.
Noldrei was even willing to refer to the Will of the Honkai as 'he,' treating it as a lifeform that had truly existed.
Although this hope was a parting gift left for humanity by the Cocoon of Finality, it had indeed torn a massive hole in the sky that proliferationalism had once obscured.
Kevin witnessed Noldrei's madness firsthand. His mania was not a loss of reason, but a seemingly absurd developmental path chosen after extremely rational deliberation.
He was no longer the Noldrei who exuded a youthful air, no longer the future human concerned with the well-being of mankind. At this moment, he was no longer the important 'father' figure in Kiana's heart.
Now, he was the true anti-proliferationalist warrior who existed in this world.
Kevin knew he could no longer dissuade Noldrei.
He had placed his hope in Noldrei's lingering affection for the people on Earth, hoping Noldrei still retained some feeling for the current human civilization.
Yet things had developed in the direction he least wanted.
It was precisely because Noldrei was so full of emotion for human civilization that he would always choose to use his own methods to expose the cracks in proliferationalism's theories.
He used the methods of proliferationalism to let humanity control the Honkai, and through controlling the Honkai, he established a class system just like the Honkai's. By isolating and besieging the Will of the Honkai, he had forced all the Herrschers to stand in opposition to the new civilization.
He had obtained a new ideology for rebelling against the new civilization, but this ideology was merely a sprout, not nearly enough to make humanity relinquish the "organizational right to reproduce" that it now held.
What is the best kind of creditor?
A creditor who never existed in the first place, and... a creditor who doesn't know they are a creditor.
Once a crack of rebellion appears in a civilization's ruling ideology, that crack will seep upward, infiltrating the highest echelons of rulers.
"A ruler must be filthy! A ruler must be bloodstained! A ruler must be political, and must be unscrupulous!"
"Kevin, since you have already stolen the answer from the Cocoon of Finality..."
"Then you must be prepared to kill me. Otherwise..."
"After I am gone, there will be a moment when countless people rush to charge you in order to protect the interests of proliferationalism."
Noldrei's words held no threat to Kevin.
He had been through everything in his life. He had seen a new civilization and a new world, and had even stood before Finality itself.
To speak of fear or hesitation at a time like this was simply out of the question.
But a seed of doubt remained in Kevin's heart.
He didn't know how powerful Noldrei, a man from the future, truly was. But at the very least, he had dealt with Sa as easily as handling a pet.
Even as Kevin, who had obtained the power of Finality, he couldn't be certain he could actually defeat Noldrei.
Kevin was silent for a long time before asking:
"You have already obtained the complete genetic tree of this planet's humanity, haven't you? All their memories, including the ability to reconstruct them... you hold it all in your hands. Correct?"
Though phrased as a question, Kevin's tone was one of absolute certainty.
Noldrei must have already obtained all of humanity's information on Earth and could, in a creator-like fashion, restore the entire planet to the state he desired.
And he would, step by step, advance the forces of anti-proliferationalism within the civilization while simultaneously advancing proliferationalism itself.
Kevin's hesitation was not about fighting Noldrei.
It was that after fighting Noldrei, Earth's civilization... and possibly all life within the solar system... could be ground to dust by the aftershocks of their battle.
He couldn't fight...
For the sake of Earth's civilization.
Kevin felt himself standing on the very precipice of a civilizational conflict.
The immense pressure made him feel, for the first time, a despair that far surpassed what he had felt when facing the Herrscher of Finality in the Previous Era.