"Hey... are you still there?"
Mei leaned against a colossal clock tower, utterly exhausted. Before her lay an endless desert, matching the state of her heart.
"Herrscher of Thunder, what's wrong? Giving up already?"
The woman's slightly raspy voice rang out. Although her attitude was still abrasive, Mei felt her tense nerves relax slightly.
Fortunately, there was a "living person" she could talk to.
"How is that possible... I just feel like it's time for an intermission." Mei coughed a few times. This wasn't reality, yet she felt as if her mouth were full of sand. "Judging by your tone, you're familiar with this place. Have you been through this before?"
"Forget about trying to fish for information from me. Everything here is a manifestation of the subject's inner heart. There are no 'walkthroughs' for this."
She wasn't as cold and heartless as she sounded.
"Then talk to me for a bit..."
"Hmph. Suit yourself."
"Is that person with the exact same voice as Lin your companion?" Mei asked impatiently. There was a familiar feeling about this person, much like... the connection between her and Kiana.
"Him? At most, we temporarily share a goal. We might not walk the same path in the future." She said sharply, "Consider this a warning: don't tell him about you and me. Don't think he's a good person just because of the way he talks."
"Can I ask what his name is?"
This person didn't want to tell Mei her identity, but that didn't mean she wouldn't reveal the other person's identity. From the description, they seemed to be in a partnership of convenience.
"He isn't anyone. Maybe he was someone once, with a name, but now he's a bona fide monster—more like an aggregate. A... 'thing' that surpasses the limits of your imagination."
"That person"...
Another piece of information. These two weren't consciousness fragments of the Elysian Realm, and likely had nothing to do with World Serpent either. But who were they? And how did they enter the Elysian Realm guarded by the true "Lord" of World Serpent, Kevin?
A "thing" that surpasses the limits of your imagination.
A terrifying hypothesis began to take shape in Mei's mind.
"Anything else? If not, keep going." Her tone was growing impatient. Mei's questions were many and sharp; had she not promised a certain someone to look after Mei, she would have abandoned this Herrscher long ago.
Thinking back to her very first guess, Mei's tone became a bit strange: "If I may ask... do you like Lin?"
The moment those words left her mouth, silence fell over Mei's ears. Then...
An indescribable terror, like a bullet piercing her heart, surged.
A pair of rainbow irises flashed before her eyes for a split second.
"You had better know exactly what you're saying."
"..."
"Anyway, it was supposed to be my sister and I fusing the Asshuva genes together. But... the surgery isn't something everyone can complete successfully. That's all."
As Delta recounted this, her face showed little change, and her tone was normal.
It sounded like a trivial matter.
"There's nothing worth complaining about. This piece-of-shit world is just like that. Anyone could leave for a bizarre reason, and anyone could stay alive in an unexpected way." Delta smiled. "I survived, so I must carry her portion and live on proudly with this identity."
So, this young girl, still full of childishness, appeared so strong and... proud.
"What about you? You haven't said why you underwent the Project Soldier Surgery."
"..."
At that moment, Lin could not speak.
He was supposed to have chosen to be the first to undergo the Project Soldier Surgery to prevent people like Delta from becoming MANTIS. But why... something was different... as if a link in the chain had gone wrong.
Could he tell the truth to a girl who held her MANTIS status as a symbol of her identity?
Could he tell her that precisely because he didn't want her or anyone else to become a MANTIS, he had made the decision to abandon the human identity he took such pride in?
Lin opened his mouth tentatively, but not a single word came out.
Phase Two of the MANTIS Project.
Lin walked slowly down the corridor. The screen in his helmet pulled files from the vast database and pieced together a truth.
"After the Project Soldier Surgery was refined by CM-003, Dr. Mobius, the success rate rose to 37.9%. On average, one in three people can become a MANTIS. However, certain side effects exist; the symptoms of beast-like alienation seen in CM-004 Sakura and CM-008 Kosma have intensified..."
Mobius had refined the Project Soldier Surgery.
Lin thought about the changes in Mobius body over the past year—the frequent triggering of her "death and rebirth" side effect. She had also casually mentioned the term "Active Reaction"...
The horns and tail appearing on Delta were a more severe animalization than Sakura, meaning she was a refined MANTIS.
Within the subdirectories derived from this information, there were project plans Lin clearance level couldn't access, all related to the refined Project Soldier Surgery. Lin could only infer from snippets in other reports that some of them were related to "The Deep."
Kali Yuga.
Among them, a specific term caught his eye. It felt familiar, so he searched for it among the classified data he couldn't access and found a document titled "KY-00." The clearance required for this document was...
Maximum Clearance.
Lin stared at the red-flagged document for a while, then began reading the subsequent parts of the MANTIS Project.
"However, the Project Soldier Surgery still has a high death rate. The number of soldiers willing to participate in the MANTIS Project is small, and they are all valuable assets of Fire Moth."
Assets.
The word lingered in Lin mind for a few seconds, as if something were pricking his brain.
Following that was another project proposal—a subsequent phase of the MANTIS Project. Lin clearance was still insufficient, but based on the growth of MANTIS data over the past year, he deduced its content.
Over the year, Fire Moth had found "talents" suitable for the Project Soldier Surgery all over the world and transported them to headquarters. Including those who hadn't undergone the surgery yet, the total number had exceeded ten thousand...
Files of MANTIS scrolled past Lin eyes.
Orphans, vagrants, terminally ill patients...
Aside from the original Fire Moth soldiers who volunteered, there was not a single exception among the remaining MANTIS...
In their most desperate moments, they had all encountered "hope," as if God had intentionally sent down light for them.
"Will you undergo the Project Soldier Surgery?"
"Consider this a piece of advice: whether the surgery succeeds or fails, you will no longer be human."
This was one of the "recruitment" recordings.
And beneath these recordings were the final results.
"Voluntarily" participated in the MANTIS Project.