Chapter 21 The End of an Era II

I assume you like this fanfic if you have been reading up to this point. It would be a massive help to me if you could share this fanfic to increase the visibility of this story. I give my thanks to everyone who has found this story interesting.

BTW the 33rd floor I mentioned in the previous chapter is the 33rd floor underground.

Kevin and Hua ascend the stairs in no time and reach the control room where Mei and the operation control staff are located. The room is a huge room with holograms that shows each of the base's sector. Some are highlighted in red, which means fighting is occurring right at this moment. Some are highlighted in blue, which is either the sector is clear or that it has been cleared. But there are also some sectors highlighted in black, a lost sector. The sector has been destroyed or lost, either being completely blocked and destroyed or the fighting is lost and the soldiers sent there died. The 33rd floor is that being the epicenter of the awakening, the entire floor is black. It seems that any floor below the 15th has all been blacked out. There is some fighting on the 12th, 8th, and 5th floor, but overall it seems that the situation is under control in the base.

For the soldiers currently fighting, happiness is everywhere. They had just received the news that the 12th Herrscher have been subdued and were thrilled that humanity survived another Herrscher. But unbeknownst to them, the situation in the control room is full of despair and regret. The Herrscher at the last moment manages to hack into the organization's missile silos and launch every single warhead onto the remaining few cities that humans still live in. Yet that is not all.

Kevin entered the Control room with Hua behind him, trying to look for his girlfriend who has managed to contain the Herrscher. In his mind, Mei probably uses some trap for which the Herrscher falls. Kevin is proud of her, even if humanity's last cities have been razed to the ground, at least the Herrscher threat had been eliminated and the remaining humans scattered about in the world, including the ones in this case, can rebuild the civilization that has been lost.

Mei is sitting in front of a glass container with her assistants looking at a black box inside the container.

"Mei, I heard the Herrscher has been subdued, good work" Kevin said as he walks closer to Mei

"Yes, the Herrscher is inside this box specially designed to contain honkai energy. More importantly, have you heard about our missile getting hacked?" Mei turned her head towards him and said.

"Hua already told me. It is regrettable but we can rebuild, and humanity is still not lost." Kevin said as he arrived in front of Mei. "Anyways, I'm glad you are safe" Kevin Hugged Mei.

Usually, Mei will be embarrassed when he does these kinds of PDAs, but not today. Mei hugged him back and buried her face in his chest. Through that, Kevin knows that the destruction of those cities has dealt a lot of regret and pain to his girlfriend.

"*cough, I am sorry to interrupt, but have anyone of you seen Liana? I didn't see her anywhere." Hua interrupted.

"I send her to the safe room on the surface, she should be there waiting" Kevin break the hug and turned to one of Mei's assistants. "Could you contact the surface and asked Liana to come down here?"

The assistant immediately contacted the surface to let them tell Liana to come down to the control room.

"We don't know where Ms. Liana is right now. At first, she had arrived and had been assigned a space in the safe room but when we check there just now, she was not there. The people around there said that she has gone out and looked like heading toward the east exit." The person on the surface said.

"So you don't know where she went? You are supposed to take care of her in the safe room" Kevin angrily replied as he pushed the assistant away from the communicator.

"I'm sorry Mr. Kevin, we are flooded with wounded people that our staff is already stretched thin. We will try and create a search party to search for her"

"I will join in searching for her" Kevin said as he cut the transmission and slams his hand on the desk nearby in frustration.

"Kevin, calm down, I am sure Liana has her reason to go out, and you can't blame the one on the surface, they already had their hands full," Hua said to calm Kevin down. "I will join you in searching for her"

"Kevin, Hua is right, I'm sure Liana knows what she is doing, she is not a kid," Mei said. "I would want to join you in searching for her but I can't leave this room, I need to stay in control of the situation."

"*sigh, you both are right. Let's go Hua, quickly" Kevin said as he runs toward the door.

"Hua, make sure he doesn't get too angry at anyone," Mei said to Hua who nodded before bolting for the door that Kevin had exited from.

"Dr. Mei, you don't tell them?" One of the assistants said after the two had left.

"No, they still need to find Liana, I can't let them feel worried for me if I were to tell them my condition, anyway how is the infection?" Mei asked

"The condition is not good. Due to the close proximity, you are to the 12th Herrscher at the time of your capturing her, add the fact that you have a weak honkai resistance, which makes your infection a very serious situation." The assistant said.

Mei actually knows how bad the infection is going, it is her own body after all. She feels a dull pain in her limbs and her vision is starting to worsen. She feels tired and weak and tried her hardest to not show it in front of Kevin and Hua, to make them not worry.

"Judging from the spread, it will reach fatal levels tomorrow, so we need to give you anti-honkai serum right this second" The assistant takes out a serum of blue liquid that is used to stop the infection from progressing and inject Mei with it.

Suddenly, the alarm is blaring that a huge honkai explosion had been detected near the base. When Mei and her crew check on the alarm, what they found was alarming. The huge honkai explosion has exceeded the limit of their sensors thus making them not sound the alarm earlier. A graph showed that from about 5 minutes ago, the graph spiked to the maximum level and stayed there until just recently. The Honkai explosion's energy should have dissipated enough that the sensors can now pick up the readings and issued a warning.

5 minutes late. Mei doesn't know what happen in those 5 minutes but one thing is for sure, it is not a welcomed sight. Mei checked the readings and charts as people scrambled around inside the control room trying to find where the explosion is and what causes it with their tools and honkai radars, Hodars (HOnkai Distance And Ranging).

They have pinpointed the location of the explosion as somewhere in the east of the base 10 km from the gate. What is more alarming is that the huge explosion, caused the surrounding region to be filled with honkai energy which cause some of it to manifest into honkai beasts which are currently heading toward the base.

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"Kevin, Mei has told us that a horde of Honkai beasts is heading towards the base, we should prioritize it first" Hua said to Kevin

"No, Liana is more important" Kevin insisted in trying to find Liana

"Look, I know that you care a lot for your sister, but the base is in serious danger. About half of our soldiers are killed or wounded with a quarter taking care of them, we only have a quarter of the soldiers that can fight. We need to deal with the beast first." Hua insisted. "Also, the horde is coming from the east, where Liana is last seen, we can kill two birds with one stone"

"Fine, we'll deal with the beast" Kevin said as he runs toward the east alongside the flamechasers, including Hua

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On the moon, with a throne erected from moon dust, sits a very beautiful figure wearing a purple dress with golden markings. The girl, the Herrscher of The End is looking at Earth with disdain.

"Honestly, I would have destroyed these pests already, but I'm bored. At least let me fight them once and then let's eradicate them." The Herrscher said to no one and starts humming a tune. The tune is the nursery [Ring Around the Roses] but something to it makes it a bit creepy. (A/N: If you played plague inc. and heard the girl singing, I imagine it like that. Every time I hear the song when I am playing, it scares me)

"Hmm, what should I use? a meteor shower that will bombard the planet to oblivion? a wave of Honkai energy dispersed into the atmosphere so that everyone will die slowly as the honkai corrupts their bodies? a miniature black hole that seeks out flesh and blood? a ray of an ultra-high powered beam of pure honkai energy that will penetrate the crust and mantle of the planet, hit the core, and cause the core to destabilize and explode carrying the planet with it? Aahhh! so many choices but only one world, what should I choose?" The girl thought out loud as her finger is on her face in a thinking pose, granted the thought is disturbing, to say the least.

The girl has moved to the moon after her awakening. She is unsatisfied with the amount of honkai energy she had when she awakened, thus needed to go here to absorb more. The Moon has denser honkai energy than the Earth and has been a recharge hub for Herrscher that could go here.

The girl watched closely as her vessel's brother and his friends eliminated the honkai beast near that base.

"I guess I should make myself known to them. They should at least put up a decent fight, right? It will help me get over boredom while I recharge my honkai energy"

A purple spear with a golden tip materialized in her hand. She emitted a beam of golden light directed at the base.

The beam made contact with the ground right next to the safe room. The base is still bustling with activity with the wounded laying around getting treated by the medical personnel. All of them stood no chance as the beam vaporized the concrete causing a sudden and extreme expansion of the materials hit by the beam and exploded. The expanded air due to the heat of the beam and the expansion of the material gasses moves faster than the speed of sound as it creates a shockwave. The ground buckles as the explosions cause a crater to form while the shockwave keeps getting bigger, throwing the soldiers in the air. Some died from the massive shockwave hitting their body, causing internal hemorrhage, and bleeding to death from the inside. Others died by getting flown into buildings or debris. No matter what the way of dying is, all personnel that is on the surface of the base perished.

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Mei is sitting still on the command panel with people rushing about here and there. Kevin and Hua have just finished the honkai beast horde that is moving towards the base about a couple of kilometers east. They still haven't returned yet, and she hope that they would not search for Liana for too long since the base is still on high alert and need every man it can get.

"Damn, Liana why do you cause us headaches now of all times" Mei grumbled as she ready a syringe and stab it into her thighs.

It is a honkai-suppressing drug. Her situation is getting worst by the minute as the corruption is slowly but surely consuming her.

Like all other humans, Mei is afraid of death. But to her, saving humanity and the lives of her loved ones take precedence. She knew she will not live long even if she were to rest now, as her body has no notable honkai resistance, so she decided to keep working and managing the base.

As she is doing that, she is also writing a letter to Kevin and Liana, just in case she can't live long enough to see them again.

"Ma'am, the baby boy has been extracted from the incubation tube. It is healthy and a bit overweight but no life-threatening problem has been detected." One of her assistants said. Mei stood up immediately and rush to the incubation room to see the baby. Her baby.

As she enters the room, a cry is heard as a nurse is holding the baby. Other nurses in the room also are busy supporting the needs of the nurse that holds the baby.

After Mei entered, the nurses gave the baby to her and left the room.

Mei looked at the small boy's big eyes staring curiously at her. The baby is giggling and squirming, seemingly understanding that this person is his mother. Mei felt a tug on her chest, looking at the small figure. She had heard that a mother will have a sort of emotional connection to her child, but now after experiencing it firsthand, she knows that it is the truth.

This child is actually a Tube baby made from Kevin's Sperm and Mei's Ovum cells. Mei decided to have this baby after Kevin's transformation into a mantis, prohibiting him to touch directly with other humans unless they want to die of freezing, naturally, that also involves intercourse. 

Mei hasn't told Kevin about the baby yet but circumstances change.

"Little baby, I'm your mother" Mei said looking into the baby's eyes while playing with the baby's hands.

'I wish I could have seen Kevin's face when I told him about the baby, how he would be surprised and confused at first, and then showing compassion to the baby. I wish I could have seen my baby grow up and become somebody useful to society. I wish I could have seen my baby get married and have a child of his own. Sadly, it seems that fate is against me.' Mei thought as she continues to play with the giggling baby.

"Baby, mommy needs to go now, your daddy and his sister will take care of you. Make sure to follow their instructions ok? don't be a rebellious child to them. Here, you would look great in this when you grow up later." Mei said as she put a white wool scarf near the baby. She had knit this by hand ever since the day her Ovum is fertilized. She originally plans to knit wool baby clothes, but her knitting skills left a lot to be desired thus she settles on making a scarf and thought that her child will use it once he had grown up. The scarf is plain, except for one detail, an engraving on the edge of the scarf, a small word. Kaslana, Kevin's family name.

A tear drops from her eyes, as she looked at the scarf laying beside the still giggling baby. Gradually the teardrops change into a stream of tears as Mei failed to control her emotion. The sadness of not being able to see her son's life is too much for her. She knows all too well that she is dying, more quickly than she had hoped.

Her eyes are starting to lose their vision and Mei knows, black and purple lines are present all over her body. At most, Mei reckon she still has 1 day left before she had to leave this world and left the people she cared for, to go on a journey far far away, the destination unknown.

Before losing all her self-composure, she moves out of the room in a hurry and instructed the nurses to take care of her child and protect him, with their own lives. As she was saying that, a boom erupted and shaking the base to its core as alarm blazed about signaling a massive honkai attack has just occurred.

At that time, Mei switch to work mode and immediately try to get a hang of the situation and found that the base's surface, where all the injured and most of the medical personnel are, have been vaporized into oblivion. The sands around the base have been turned into quartz as the heat and pressure of the impact causes them to have phase-changed. 

The control team has deduced that the attack has come from the moon, and detected a massive concentration of honkai energy there, signaling a Herrscher is present. Mei decided to divert Kevin and Hua from their SAR mission for Liana. She also diverts the other flamechasers that survived the attack by virtue of being outside the base, from their respective mission of cleaning up the residual honkai near the base. She move all of them and mobilized them to the moon with the task of eliminating the Herrscher Threat.

At that moment Mei and everyone knew, this could be their last fight, the one that will make or break the hopes of humanity's survival.

The third part of the chapter will be next. I don't know much about motherly intuition, so I write the part the best I understand. I'm kind of lazy in making a story for each of the flamechasers, so I just bundle them up in one big [eliminate the remaining honkai threat] mission. A bit of a shorter chapter than usual since I am hit by a sudden onslaught of Laziness that negatively affect my ability to write a coherent story thus explaining my recent break from posting a new chapter. I hope that you will all understand my predicament.