Time in a collapsing world

An invisible spiritual fluctuation spread like mercury across the entire square.

Just as Fu Hua was maintaining her mental control over the hundreds of citizens, her senses finally caught a subtle ripple in someone's mind at the center of the square, the center of the circle subtly surrounded by the crowd.

The next moment, a "flame"—or rather, an enhanced version of the "consciousness aggregate"—that was more solid than anything seen before, its eerie blue light almost tangible, suddenly burst forth from the void! It was no longer just a floating halo; its core vaguely revealed a more complex structure, radiating a cold and powerful malice, its target aimed directly at Fu Hua, who was maintaining a large-scale mental control! Clearly, it realized that Fu Hua was the greatest threat.

"..."

Fu Hua had anticipated this. She did not withdraw the power to maintain the morale of the citizens; instead, a flash of crimson light appeared in her pupils.

"Suddenly——!"

A crimson feather, condensed to the point of being almost tangible and with a faint golden halo flowing around its edges, shot out from between her brows! This feather was not a physical object, but a combination of highly concentrated spiritual power and the Feather Crossing Dust power, moving at a speed beyond visual perception!

"puff!"

Like a hot knife cutting into butter, the crimson feather pierced the core of that dark blue flame with unparalleled precision!

The pierced, ghostly blue flames paused abruptly, and then—

"boom!!!"

Centered on the point of piercing, it suddenly erupted with an even more intense and violent blue flame! This flame did not spread outwards, but instead, like countless tentacles, frantically rolled back towards the flames on the foreheads of the controlled citizens connected to it!

“Ahhhh——!!”

In the square, hundreds of detained citizens simultaneously let out piercing, inhuman screams of agony! They collapsed to the ground, clutching their heads, convulsing violently, blood even seeping from their seven orifices! The eerie blue flame between their brows flickered, as if it might burn away along with their host's consciousness at any moment!

Fu Hua frowned. She immediately understood that the core "flame," upon being attacked, had chosen to distribute or even transfer the damage to all its controlled "sub-bodies" and hosts! If she continued to attack or attempt to destroy the core, the consciousness of all the controlled citizens present would likely collapse first!

In a flash, Fu Hua made a decision.

She decisively cut off most of the crimson feather's power output, retaining only the most basic "piercing" effect to temporarily restrict the core flame's movement. At the same time, she poured almost all of Yu Duchen's power into maintaining and reinforcing the consciousness of those hundreds of citizens on the verge of collapse!

A pale golden halo gently rippled outwards from the center of the symbol, like a mother's arms, trying its best to envelop the fragile consciousnesses struggling painfully in the dark blue flames, providing them with a final refuge.

The core flame seemed to sense Fu Hua's "retreat." It suddenly broke free from the greatly weakened crimson feather, causing it to dissipate into specks of light. The eerie blue light flickered violently a few times, and then it stopped fighting. With a "whoosh," it transformed into a streak of light and sped away towards the outskirts of the city!

"Target escaped! Track locked! Activate all-around monitoring!" Cecilia immediately gave the order, and the Destiny's monitoring system went into full operation, tracking the whereabouts of the dark blue light.

As the core flames receded, the agonizing cries of the citizens in the square gradually subsided, and the eerie blue flames between their brows dimmed and disappeared once more. Under the continued soothing power of Fu Huayu's Transcending Dust technique, one by one they succumbed to a deep, but seemingly safe, coma.

After a long while, the square finally fell completely quiet.

Siegfried wiped the sweat from his brow, walked over to Fu Hua, and asked with concern, "Are you alright? Those citizens..."

Fu Hua shook his head slightly, closed his eyes to regulate his breathing for a moment, and then opened them again: "I'm fine. Their consciousness has stabilized for the time being. Although it was damaged, the core of their self-awareness has not been destroyed. They need long-term mental conditioning to recover. Right now, they are just exhausted and unconscious."

Cecilia breathed a sigh of relief and immediately directed the Valkyries to carefully transfer the unconscious citizens to a safe temporary shelter for medical monitoring.

"Tsk, that thing ran pretty fast!" Siegfried looked in the direction where the core flame disappeared, somewhat annoyed. "These alien things are such a hassle. We can't fight them, and we can't capture them either!"

“No,” Fu Hua shook her head, “it is not an alien creation. At the moment when it was stabbed by Feather Dust and resisted fiercely, I clearly felt... it belonged to this planet and had a rich and pure Honkai energy fluctuation.”

She looked at Siegfried and Cecilia, and said, word by word:

“That ‘consciousness aggregate,’ the core of that ghostly fire that controls the consciousness of hundreds of people—it is a Herrscher.”

"A Herrscher?!" Siegfried exclaimed in shock, his eyes wide with disbelief. "There are Herrschers in this form... Oh, Anti-Entropy has one too. Seriously, are even Herrschers mutating these days?"

Cecilia also looked shocked, but she quickly calmed down and realized the seriousness of the problem: "A Herrscher at the consciousness level... This explains why the phenomena it causes are so bizarre. This information must be reported to the Bishop immediately!"

She looked at Fu Hua and said solemnly, "Miss Fu Hua, thank you for your support and judgment. The next course of action must be completely adjusted. Facing a Herrscher with such bizarre abilities, conventional tactics are likely to be completely ineffective. We need a more detailed plan, and perhaps... we need to gather more people who are skilled in the mental realm or have special abilities."

Fu Hua nodded slightly. Although she could handle it herself, she didn't object. Her gaze drifted to the outskirts of the city, in the direction where the "flame" had left, where the cold and malicious aura of the Herrscher seemed to linger.

She walked to the side and began to contact Mei, informing her of the general situation.

"I see. I'll have Su Ye come along too, is that alright?" Mei asked Fu Hua.

Fu Hua usually doesn't object to her companions' suggestions, and this time was no exception.

“I will try to continue tracking them. Destiny’s technology can roughly predict their movements.”

"Hua, thank you for your help."

After ending the communication, Mei received another message from Kevin—there were traces of a large number of creatures moving around the city that Anti-Entropy was investigating, and the direction of their movement... whether it was a coincidence or not, seemed to match the direction in which the "ghost fire" had left.

Mei didn't believe in "coincidences" and immediately contacted others, instructing them to go to the key locations as soon as possible, just in case.

Zijing also received Mei's message, but instead of going there, he followed the figure of a girl who suddenly left the academy.

After being quiet for so long, is it finally time for them to slip up?

Looking at the twin ponytails bouncing behind her, Zijing thought to herself.