At the moment her abdomen was struck by Leo Ash's fist, Yae Sakura, who had replaced Sakura, instantly regained her own consciousness under the guidance of the Stigmata's power.
Then, she looked at Leo Ash in astonishment, about to say something.
But very quickly, noticing that something was amiss with this place, Yae Sakura chose to keep her mouth shut.
She didn't consider herself a clever person, so at a time like this, she chose to obediently follow her Benefactor's lead.
There must be a profound reason for her Benefactor's actions.
As for her sister...
Did that child have an older sister before she became a Herrscher?
Or was she, just like herself and her Benefactor, simply replacing someone else?
Watching Leo Ash begin to coax the Yae Sakura who had replaced Sakura, Su completely understood Leo Ash's plan.
It was exactly as Su had guessed.
Leo Ash had only revealed these trump cards purely to give off the impression that 'Leo Ash is strong, but not that strong; we must kill him and the troublesome Bianka before he grows too powerful.'
But in reality, having seen Leo Ash fight, Su felt that...
This couldn't even be called fishing anymore; this was straight-up dynamite fishing.
And he was using a Honkai Fission Missile at that.
From this perspective, although Mr. Ash had changed his style, his core was still very cautious.
Over the next few days, Su was left dumbfounded as he watched Leo Ash's operations.
Using the intel on her superior provided by Yae Sakura, Leo Ash found the head of that assassination organization, and then followed the trail to uncover the client who had hired her for this assassination.
This client, of course, could not be one of the insects themselves.
Those insects, while inhuman... no, it should be said that precisely because they were inhuman, they were so meticulously careful when doing bad things.
After finding the client, Leo Ash directly activated his Phantasmagoria to hypnotize him, making him reveal who his superior was.
After unravelling seventeen or eighteen layers of this nesting doll, Leo Ash finally found one of these insects.
Using this insect's intelligence network, Leo Ash successfully located the other high-ranking officials of Fire Moth.
Then, without caring whether these people were planning to fight the Honkai or let it run rampant, Leo Ash hypnotized them all in one fell swoop.
Killing these people would have been easy.
But after killing them, taking over their resources would actually require a great deal of time.
Compared to simply killing them, Leo Ash chose a method that was not very ethical but extremely efficient.
He used the Phantasmagoria to hypnotize them all, directly forcing this group of people to unite in this manner and use all the support at their disposal to fully aid Fire Moth's fight against the Honkai.
In this illusion, Bianka who replaced Mei, Nagamitsu who replaced Mobius, Murata Ryusuke who replaced Vill-V, and Wraith who replaced Spaci, all found it incredibly strange that the funds they used to have to find reasons to apply for were now no longer being held up.
To be honest, although they couldn't figure out what was going on, it didn't stop them from being absolutely thrilled.
And outside, Su watched everything Leo Ash did within the illusion and shook his head with a wry smile.
Mr. Ash, the commotion you've caused... is truly massive.
I was thinking of testing you before...Well, I was being presumptuous.
However, despite the wry smile, Su could tell that he was secretly thrilled as well.
Even if Su was a benevolent doctor who saved lives, it didn't mean he was incapable of anger or devoid of a sense of right and wrong.
In the past, when Su learned about some of the internal secrets of Fire Moth's leadership, he too had been angered by these matters.
And now, even if it was just in an illusion, he was still seeing a scene that was incredibly satisfying to his heart.
Sigh, fifty thousand years have passed, yet I am still but a common man.
Even though I know it's an illusion, the situation Mr. Ash has created now...
—it looks so damn satisfying.
At this point, Su had completely given up on any ridiculous notion of a test.
Sigh, even if it's an illusion, this is still a 'possibility'.
I'm so tired. Today, I'll just use this illusory thing to rest my mind and body.
...
The events within the illusion were still progressing at a frantic pace.
Although the insects within Fire Moth had all been forcibly reformed, this only meant that there were no more enemies within the organization.
The external enemy, the Honkai, was still continuously wreaking havoc during this time.
When the Eighth Herrscher appeared, the warrior Leo Ash volunteered to become a MANTIS. In coordination with Dr. Wraith, he killed the Herrscher of Sentience on the spot.
Then, when the Ninth Herrscher appeared, the warriors Rita and Elysia were unable to kill the enemy immediately due to the interference of gravitational waves. As a result, the continent of Mu was nearly sunk to the bottom by the Ninth Herrscher.
But at the critical moment, Leo Ash, who hadn't been able to reach the battlefield in time, actually managed to lock onto the enemy from dozens of kilometers away using the power of his body, which had been fused with [Mayuri] factors.
After locking onto the enemy, Leo Ash used the prematurely developed Thousand Worlds to teleport a Special Beam Cannon. With a single long-range teleported strike, he pierced through the opponent's gravity barrier and successfully annihilated the Ninth Herrscher before the continent of Mu could be sunk.
However, after this battle, the warrior Leo Ash completely fell into a deep slumber due to exhausting all his power.
Then, Su, who had watched this segment of the illusion from the outside, knew full well that the next disaster humanity would face was the Herrscher of Domination, which would sow suspicion among humankind.
But now, looking at the unconscious Leo Ash, Su had a rough guess as to what Leo Ash was thinking.
In truth, while the individual Herrschers of Domination were not strong, their destructive capability against human society was, in a sense, more terrifying than other Herrschers.
But at the same time, Leo Ash's crimson barrier that could hypnotize others was, in a sense, a direct counter to the quantum-entangled Herrscher of Domination.
So, during the period of Leo Ash's coma, some of the Herrschers of Domination who had infiltrated Fire Moth cautiously probed Leo Ash. After confirming he was truly severely injured, they finally chose to dispatch a combat-type Domination Herrscher.
And then—they were taken down on the spot by Leo Ash, who hadn't been asleep at all.
In reality, while the Special Beam Cannon that killed the Ninth Herrscher had exhausted most of Leo Ash's power, at most he would have been weakened for a while.
However, considering the characteristics of the Tenth Herrscher, he felt that if he didn't give them an opportunity, they would just keep hiding and causing destruction. That's why he started pretending to be severely injured right after the Ninth Herrscher's death.
Of course, while he said he was pretending, Leo Ash was actually constantly using his power to damage his own body, allowing the medical staff in charge of checking on him to confirm the 'fact' that 'warrior Leo Ash is still severely injured'.
Don't ask him how he was so proficient; just say he'd read the script.
In the original story, the reason the Herrschers of Domination could be annihilated was because Dr. Mei was ruthless enough to herself, walking out with the Blank Key carrying two Herrscher Cores, using herself as bait to lure the enemy into attacking her, an important figure.
Now that a senior had already written the guide, Leo Ash just needed to copy it carefully without revealing his hand, and the enemy would naturally walk into the trap as expected.
As for why he judged that the Herrschers of Domination would choose him—did they think he had used the Phantasmagoria for nothing?
The Phantasmagoria was both the ultimate move to control those insects and the bait to lure the fish.
And unfortunately, although these fish tried hard, they were still hooked by Leo Ash.
Under the cognitive rewriting ability of the Phantasmagoria, the Domination Herrscher whose perception had been altered by Leo Ash directly used quantum entanglement to confirm the locations of the remaining 999 Herrschers and told these coordinates to Leo Ash.
In the following month, the awakened Leo Ash, with the cooperation of his comrades, successfully annihilated those Herrschers of Domination who could have caused immense damage.
After all, the places these Herrschers of Domination planned to cause trouble were mostly important locations for the human camp.
After Leo Ash had the organization publicly reveal their appearances and identities, launching a worldwide manhunt for these Herrschers, they had no chance to cause trouble even if they wanted to.
To be honest, Su had already anticipated that Leo Ash would be able to resolve this Honkai crisis more efficiently.
But when the 'facts' within the illusion were laid out before him, he still felt a bit...
—Um, Mr. Ash, the speed at which you're resolving the Honkai, isn't it a bit too fast???
No, why are you still so confident now that the Herrscher of Binding has appeared????
Could it be that you've even thought of a way to deal with the Herrscher of Binding???
In fact, Leo Ash, currently within the illusion, had already figured out how to handle the Herrscher of Binding...
Alright, that's a bit too shameless.
To say he'd figured it out was an overstatement; he was actually still copying from the answer sheet.
The Herrscher of Binding, whom many in the original story referred to as being 'stymied by Otto,' was indeed blocked by Otto.
But in reality, even though the Herrscher of Binding was gone, the Binding field still appeared on the battlefield.
In the original story, this era's Binding field was used by Otto to block others' advance.
In that event, many people worked hard to break the Binding field.
Bronya endured great pain, projecting enough Moonlight Thrones with the help of 300,000 people's will.
Seele and the Olenyeva twins covered for the suffering Bronya.
The two doctors of Anti-Entropy calculated the field's threshold at top speed and provided a solution.
Theresa risked death to use the Divine Grace Field to handle the second phase of the Binding field's defense mechanism, which could have wiped everyone out.
And the much-lauded Otto?
Oh, he was just the scumbag who used the field to stall and mess with people's minds.
Moreover, Otto's purpose in using the Binding field to stall for time was essentially to create the False God, an even greater threat to humanity.
Leo Ash really didn't understand why, when so many people contributed to breaking the field, that crowd went off to praise the scumbag who used the field to cause trouble.
As for those who say that if Otto hadn't blocked the Herrscher, it would have caused even greater casualties like in the Previous Era, that's just pure nonsense.
If Otto hadn't blocked it, the Herrscher of Binding would have been born normally and caused some casualties at its birthplace.
But the reason the Previous Era suffered so badly in the tragedy of the Herrscher of Binding was mainly because they didn't understand its abilities and lacked time, so they couldn't prepare.
But in this era, the main cast had the Divine Keys made by the Previous Era and the Moonlight Throne they had repaired. With the path opened by Elysia, they had Herrscher-level combat power, making them effectively second-run players.
Under these circumstances, among the group that broke through the Binding field, apart from Nagamitsu who was a last-minute defector, all the others were from Anti-Entropy and the Far East Branch.
The fact that they went from seeing the Binding field to breaking through it and dealing with its second phase in less than an hour just goes to show the huge difference between going in blind and having intel plus divine equipment.
Leo Ash truly believed that anyone who had seriously watched the story and analyzed the plot slightly would not have praised the difficulty of this era's Herrscher of Binding to be the same as the Previous Era's.
For Leo Ash, who had carefully studied this part of the plot, he had laid out his own plan long after entering the illusion.
The Blank Key, which could originally only be fitted with one core, was directly modified by Leo Ash with the help of several doctors into a special armor that could link with the Moonlight Throne.
Moreover, these doctors were all masters in their fields.
After Leo Ash gave them the requirements, they discussed it briefly and actually came up with a connection system similar to the Nexus System used by Himeko.
When the Herrscher of Binding appeared, Leo Ash had his other MANTIS comrades continuously attack the field from the outside, while he himself, wearing the Blank Key and piloting the Moonlight Throne, charged directly into the Binding field.
Because the Herrscher of Binding was being constantly harassed from the outside, it didn't dare to use all its power against Leo Ash.
After all, the Herrscher of Binding could feel that there was a powerful warrior outside, waiting for a change in the energy intensity of its field.
But at the same time, it had to focus its attention on Leo Ash.
Because the current Leo Ash was simply too bizarre.
Normally, after entering the Binding field, all energy would be weakened by it.
And as a Herrscher that was a natural counter to the Honkai, the Binding field used by the Herrscher of Binding could weaken the Honkai Energy within it even further.
The Moonlight Throne, which used a Herrscher Core as its power source, should have been driven by Honkai Energy.
But now, the Herrscher of Binding could feel Honkai Energy on the Moonlight Throne.
However, the field it used to weaken energy was being forcefully blocked by another kind of field used by Leo Ash.
The Phantasmagoria, being used through a fragment of the Void Demon Stone and not the stone itself, of course couldn't completely neutralize the negative effects of the Binding field.
However, Leo Ash, using his Energy Conversion ability, turned himself, clad in the Blank Key, into an energy relay station. He converted most of the Honkai Energy into mana and then used the mana to cast the Phantasmagoria, enveloping the Moonlight Throne.
Under these circumstances, the [Energy Weakening] ability of the Phantasmagoria successfully resisted most of the Binding field's power.
And the remaining power of the Binding authority, while able to slow Leo Ash's advance, couldn't stop him completely.
Thus, the Herrscher of Binding, which couldn't relax its guard on the outside due to Rita, but was also being blitzed by Leo Ash's cheat-like assault, was ultimately run over and killed by Leo Ash's Moonlight Throne runaway truck.
It was supposed to be a thrilling scene, but watching it, Su only felt...
Wow, this Herrscher of Binding died a miserable death.
With Kevin as a deterrent on the outside, it didn't dare to show any weakness.
But Mr. Ash directly used a special method to assault it... and it actually worked???
Looking at the still incredibly confident Leo Ash, Su truly felt that the scenes he was watching were too surreal.
Even if these were scenes that could only happen in an illusion, it was still too surreal!
Herrschers are not enemies that can be bullied so easily!
They are dangerous and difficult to deal with!
But looking at these Herrschers being conquered one after another, no matter how much Su complained internally, he wasn't going to lose his reason over it.
And because of that, he knew...
This Herrscher business, as long as you can find the right method, the difficulty of dealing with them really does decrease a lot.
But then again, Mr. Ash could even play dead to bait those Herrschers of Domination...
—Actually, he probably woke up a long time ago.
Thinking of this, Su truly felt that he had underestimated the other party.
Previously, Su had actually thought that he could test the other's character to determine if he was worthy of being entrusted with the Divine Key.
But now, after seeing everything Leo Ash had done, Su felt that his mentality had undergone a huge change.
Objectively analyzing, Leo Ash's ability to achieve such astonishing results was definitely greatly related to the special abilities he possessed.
But even setting aside these special abilities, Leo Ash's ability to act and his decision-making level were far different from his usual self.
It could be said that the past Leo Ash, in Su's eyes, was at most a lone wolf.
But in this illusion, the lone wolf shed its disguise and directly turned into a super Godzilla—they weren't even the same species anymore!
So, what was it that made Mr. Ash so restrained in the real world?
The moment he thought of this question, Su felt a name that could be the answer faintly come to mind.
Otto Apocalypse.
Compared to our Previous Era, although the current era has fewer insects, Mr. Otto is a great mountain standing in the way of all the heroes of the world.
If he, who wants to let the Honkai develop, were to learn that Mr. Ash possessed such terrifying operational capabilities, perhaps he would no longer value Mr. Ash so highly, but would instead see him as an obstacle to his plan of letting the Honkai run rampant.
Hmm, looking at it this way...
—Could it be that Mr. Ash has long known that Mr. Otto is not a good person?
....