"Kallen, you can't stop me! I need to go!"
Outside of Schicksal HQ, Lihua struggled desperately. But with Kallen holding the back of her neck, she couldn't break free.
"No, it's too dangerous!" Kallen said sternly. "I know what you want to do. I'll go find Eleanor and the others, you need to hide somewhere safe."
"Lihua, you don't have to worry too much about their safety. The casualties were high at the start, but when Schicksal's gate was broken, most of the Schicksal forces surrendered under Otto's leadership. They're on their way to the Archbishop now."
Lihua paused when she heard Kallen's words. She thought that she hadn't seen many corpses near the center of Schicksal HQ, but they were more noticeable when she got closer to the walls.
But why did Otto surrender so easily?
"Otto surrendered? Isn't he still researching the box?"
Lihua asked. Kallen shook her head. "I'm not sure… After talking with you that day, I thought a lot and realized that you might be right. I haven't been paying attention to that side of things."
"But I heard that Otto's research was completed a few days ago."
"Completed?!" Lihua widened her eyes in disbelief. No wonder Otto hadn't come to see her. It turned out the experiments had reached a crucial stage.
But why?
According to what she knew, the box should have released the Twelfth Herrscher once opened. Surely, that would have some kind of effect…
Could Otto's research really be so good that he could study that box without releasing the Herrscher of Corruption?
But Otto had been so slow with creating the cure for the Black Death! His research ability could only be lower now.
"Can you tell me more?" Lihua asked.
"Sorry, I don't know much. It seems that only the Archbishop and Otto were there when the experiments were completed…" Kallen shook her head apologetically.
Everything was fine after the experiment completed. Did Otto really control the box's power?
But something still feels off…
"I sense an ominous aura. Be careful." Eleanor gripped her Black abyss White Flower tightly. As the Valkyrie second only to Kallen in power, she had been given the right to use that Divine Key.
It was a shame that the Schicksal Archbishop, who had bestowed the weapon, could never have imagined that its gun tip would be pointed at him.
However, unlike Eleanor who was on edge, Otto seemed calm. He stretched out his hand to stop the rushing army behind them, and waved them back.
"What are you planning to do?" Eleanor looked at Otto suspiciously. That guy always had a hidden agenda.
"I want to protect everyone's lives, Eleanor. Don't look at me with such suspicion." Otto smiled. "Do you know what's beneath the cathedral?"
"Why do I have to know?"
"It's normal that you don't know. It's a secret that only the Schicksal executives know about." Otto pointed at the hill beneath the cathedral. "Beneath that cathedral is Schicksal's treasury— or more accurately, armory."
"The most valuable items of Schicksal are kept there. For example, the unused Judgment of Shamash, and even the Black abyss White Flower and Oath of Judah were kept there before they found their users."
"Are you saying that the people inside the church might use the Judgment of Shamash against us?" Eleanor asked in confusion.
"Judgment of Shamash?"
Otto paused after hearing Eleanor's answer, and then laughed. "No, no, no. Those old men are too afraid of death to even try to use that thing. I'm talking about something else."
"It's the newest Honkai weapon that Schicksal developed. It's powerful enough to give a normal person the power to crush even Schicksal's strongest Valkyries."
"Ha! Do you know what you're saying?"
Eleanor looked at Otto like he was an idiot. "Make a normal person stronger than Kallen Kaslana? Even with the Judgement of Shamash, that's impossible! If Schicksal had such a weapon, they would have conquered the world!"
"They didn't have it before, but now they do."
Otto didn't care about Eleanor's rude glare. Instead, he said modestly. "And the one who led the development… it was me."
"..."
Eleanor glared at Otto. Finally, she knew that he was telling the truth.
"Then what do you want now, you jerk? Because the weapon that you created is too strong, we should all go home?"
"No way. Once a rock starts rolling downhill, it will never stop. It's the same with our actions. It's either success or death." Otto quietly looked at the cathedral. "But death is not for us."
"I stopped you because since I developed the weapon, I had to make sure to take care of it. My father would never have let someone else have it. He must have stored it in the safest place in the cathedral, so that he could use it in a critical moment."
"So I added a little something to it. Originally, that weapon would make Honkai energy flow into a person like a stream, but now it will be like a river. What do you think will happen to a normal person using that thing?"
Otto didn't wait for Eleanor's reply. He opened his fist. "The answer is, 'Boom'~"
His tone was light, as if he was talking about a balloon that was about to pop, instead of his own father.
"Otto, you are a terrifying man..."
Looking at the smiling blonde man, Eleanor felt a chill run down her spine.
That guy was too dangerous. Lihua shouldn't stay with him. Otherwise, she might be killed, and she would even have to count the money for him.
"Thank you for the compliment." Otto nodded politely, then gestured at the crowd behind him. "For now, let's help evacuate the civilians. The explosion at the cathedral will be huge."
"And I planted bombs all over the hill, just in case."