The dusk of yesterday is not eternal. After enduring a long night, the dawn's first light will inevitably shine upon the land once more.
The great internet silence Ren had engineered didn't last long. After just twenty-four hours, he voluntarily woke Bella from her slumber. But even that short day had been enough to change everything.
"Workers should not be exploited by capitalists! We demand more reasonable working hours and fair pay!"
"Everyone has the right to live! We need fairer healthcare and more equitable education!"
"We've suffered too much from school violence and workplace bullying! We are constantly shouldering the pressure of society as a whole! We want to change it!"
Under the influence of the thousand wills, the long-oppressed masses could no longer suppress their anger. They spontaneously took to the streets, storming the once-lofty buildings of power, demanding fairer rights for themselves and for others. Although these metropolises were equipped with heavily armed emergency response units, Ren's communications blackout meant that any calls for help simply vanished into the void.
Compared to the violent protests in these developed cities, many others chose a more direct approach. They stopped working and flooded every corner of their cities like a tidal wave.
If society wouldn't give them fairness, they would find it themselves. If the upper class had forgotten their promises, the people would use their own power to make them a reality. In less than a day, over a hundred thousand smaller cities had fallen.
Once the dormant sparks were ignited, they could no longer be contained. Like a wildfire sweeping across the plains, the movement engulfed the entire globe in an instant. The order that humanity had built with violence and civilization was now crumbling at the hands of its own creators.
Linburg City.
The Theater of Domination still floated silently two thousand meters in the air, like a lofty god looking down upon all of creation.
It was strange. Ren had done nothing, yet everything seemed to have been set in motion by him. From beginning to end, all he had done was unleash that single sword strike and plunge the world's communication systems into twenty-four hours of silence.
It wasn't until Schicksal's propaganda machine was back online and its global intelligence network was restored that Otto finally realized Ren had outplayed him once again.
"I see. First, he used the Theater of Domination to draw the world's attention, using the anomaly to tear open the secret of the Honkai and intensify people's fear. Then, he used that single sword strike to demonstrate his own threat, forcing Schicksal to assemble its forces to deal with the Herrscher of Domination. But in reality, it was all a feint, a smokescreen to divert my attention."
Once my gaze was fixed on Linburg City, my target would naturally be the Theater. During that time, he used his Herrscher authority to cut off the global network and unleash the true Domination incident...
"For Schicksal, those twenty-four hours were an absolute black box. Without Durandal providing intelligence from the front lines, it was like I had lost my eyes. Not only was I unable to react to the global situation, I couldn't even get a clear picture of what was happening in Linburg City itself."
Simply put, the Theater of Domination was like bait cast into the water. While it drew the world's attention, it also muddied the once-clear pond.
Under normal circumstances, Otto might have seen through Ren's ruse. But Durandal's disappearance meant he couldn't afford to gamble on whether the bait was rigged to explode. His only option was to dispatch a massive force of Valkyries to surround the city and make up for the gap in combat power left by Durandal's absence.
But mobilizing such a large force meant leaving gaps in Schicksal's defenses across the globe, giving Ren the opening he needed.
The main reason for his miscalculation, however, was likely that past Herrschers had always been one-man armies, fighting the world with absolute force. There had never been a Herrscher like Ren, who used humanity itself to fight against the established order.
"Hahaha, truly impressive," Otto said, not with anger at being tricked, but with growing excitement. "Only a man like you can allow me to finally see Kallen again!"
Since the Theater of Domination was a decoy, the army of mechs beneath Linburg City was likely not intended for a direct confrontation with Schicksal either. Though not a single shot had been fired between them, it was clear that in this first clash of public opinion and grand strategy, Schicksal had been thoroughly outmaneuvered by Ren.
"Your goal... it's still her, isn't it?"
Otto had known from the beginning that he and Ren were two of a kind. He had provoked Ren not out of a desire for enmity, but to increase his bargaining chips for their eventual negotiation. And although he had lost this initial exchange, the value of his own chips remained unchanged.
"Continuing the siege on Linburg City is pointless. The priority now is to maintain stability in the other nations."
Understanding this, Otto decisively ordered a retreat. No matter how many Valkyries he had, they couldn't breach the Theater's shield in a short amount of time. More importantly, Otto knew that the Theater wasn't waiting for him. It was waiting for Kiana.
...
As Schicksal's airships beat a hasty retreat, a lone figure once again set foot in the now-abandoned city, unnoticed by all.
Only a few days had passed, but the once-bustling Linburg City was now a ghost town, all its residents evacuated. A girl in a hooded cloak looked up at the Theater of Domination hanging in the sky like a castle, a flash of sorrow in her eyes.
"Ren, wait for me."
With Schicksal's main forces gone, the streets were clear of patrolling Valkyrie squads. Kiana pulled down her hood and made her way through the streets and alleys.
Since leaving Linburg City days ago, she had been relentlessly researching everything related to Ren. The girl who never usually cracked a book had devoured nearly all the Previous Era's records on the Herrscher of Domination, trying to understand everything about him. But aside from learning that the Herrscher was incredibly destructive, she found little else.
It wasn't until the great silence began and the posts on the Obsidian Concord forum surfaced that she finally understood what Ren meant by the prayers of the desperate.
"The will of a thousand (Legion) doesn't represent the will of a thousand people, but the convergence of a thousand different ideologies."
An idea born of desperation is bound to be desperate. An idea born of pain will also be painful. And when pain and desperation converge, the result will be total annihilation.
Mei had said it before: she saw a self-destructive tendency in Ren. And for Ren, who shouldered the wishes of the Herrscher of Domination, the ending seemed all but certain.
"But I won't accept that ending!"
And so, Kiana had regrouped and returned to Linburg City. She had to stop Ren. She had to stop the story from reaching an imperfect conclusion.
"Wait for me. I'll find you again soon."
Whispering softly, Kiana climbed the tallest building in Linburg City, the one closest to the Theater of Domination. She ripped the cord from her cloak, and in the next second, the cloak transformed into a cape, snapping in the cold winter wind.
A faint flame from the Herrscher of Flamescion ignited, then was clenched in her fist. In a burst of explosive fire, Kiana transformed. She raised her greatsword high, its blade pointed directly at the Theater of Domination.