“The Portal Cataclysm? Salome mentioned that to me as well.” Shirley’s brows furrowed.
“Indeed. On the ‘Boundary Break’ day, which marked the end of the Golden Age, thousands of uncontrolled spatial rifts, ranging from mere tens of centimeters to hundreds of meters in length, erupted across the globe within a single day. Tens of thousands of otherworldly monsters swarmed through these fissures, the vast majority of them being those very parasites,” Helios explained. “After that initial catastrophe, dozens, sometimes hundreds, of new rifts continued to appear worldwide every day, allowing the parasites to infest millions of unfortunate individuals across the planet. Crucially, as the hosts retained a degree of their original knowledge and skills, the parasites effortlessly seized control of human military equipment, rapidly spreading like wildfire.”
“That sounds just like the Flood storyline from ‘Halo’,” Shirley murmured under her breath. “What happened next?”
Faced with such an unprecedented disaster, governments worldwide found themselves utterly helpless, incapable of countering these highly random and unpredictable assaults. Before the parasite-controlled armies could even launch a full-scale offensive, societies crumbled amidst widespread panic and economic collapse. Fortunately, merely half a year after the catastrophe struck, the Global Innovation Alliance successfully developed isolation field generators capable of preventing spatial rifts, thereby preserving a few safe zones across the world.
“Let me guess: the Alliance then conveniently replaced the old nations, becoming the rulers of the areas not overrun by the parasites?” Shirley continued. “From that perspective, this whole affair appears to have been most advantageous for the Alliance, almost as if they orchestrated it themselves…”
“Of course not! Although malicious rumors persist to this day, claiming the Global Innovation Alliance deliberately misused spatial teleportation technology, thereby causing the catastrophe, such assertions are utterly false. The Alliance’s original intention was to explore other worlds through the development of stable, reliable ‘Threshold Gate’ technology. Moreover, its current assumption of governing power is merely a temporary measure adopted during a state of emergency,” Helios declared, thumping his chest plate with one hand. “In truth, investigations indicate that the disaster was most likely caused by an explosive attack on the spatial technology laboratories of the time, perpetrated by ‘The Happiness Front,’ a terrorist organization vehemently opposed to scientific and technological advancement.”
“What became of these people?”
“Following the Portal Cataclysm, they, along with various other terrorist organizations and criminal syndicates, formed the ‘Freedom Army’ to wage war against the Alliance. In response, the Alliance rebranded itself as the Human Revival Council, vowing to end the catastrophe and ensure humanity’s civilization would once again see the light of day,” Helios declared, clenching his fist and sweeping it through the air before his chest. “Over the ensuing three decades, the Council has relentlessly fought against the parasitic threat while also contending with these terrorists, a struggle that has proven anything but easy. Consequently, we were compelled to attempt the creation of super-soldiers and unique human individuals capable of wielding powers from the ‘Realm of Severed Sorrow’… and the ultimate culmination of that research is your ‘daughters.’”
“Uh…”
“Miss Shirley, you previously mentioned losing consciousness after Salome forcibly kissed you. That was when she employed the fundamental ability shared by all your daughters: comprehensive physical enhancement,” Helios explained. “You modified their salivary glands, introducing a unique symbiotic viral gland. All your daughters can, through the exchange of bodily fluids, transfer these symbiotic retroviruses, carrying portions of their genes, into other individuals, resulting in a temporary enhancement of physical functions… though occasional adverse reactions do occur.”
“That sounds a bit… odd,” Shirley remarked. “Do they do that often?”
“Certainly not. This temporary enhancement ability comes with strict limitations; the symbiotic retroviruses produced within a month can empower fewer than ten individuals at most. Furthermore, the effects dissipate within several months as the enhanced individual’s metabolism runs its course,” Helios clarified. “I suspect Salome utilized this ability on you because she didn’t wish for you to die too easily… which would deny her the pleasure of slowly tormenting you.”
“I thought as much.” Shirley nodded.
“While to people of the past, such an enhancement might have seemed like a magical, transcendent power, in truth, it represents merely the most insignificant fraction of your daughters’ true capabilities,” Helios continued. “As the pinnacle of our ingenuity, they possess not only astonishing skill, strength, and fighting spirit, but each also boasts unique ultimate moves and extraordinary talents! For instance, Salome’s ‘Spatial Rifts’ and Cassandra’s ‘Precognitive Fragments,’ which you’ve already witnessed, are fundamentally the result of guiding the immense power of the Realm of Severed Sorrow through their flesh and blood. And yet, they are far from the strongest.”
Shirley swallowed hard. She recalled Salome mentioning that neither she nor Cassandra specialized in combat. Just how formidable the other daughters could be was utterly beyond her imagination.
“Naturally, the primary value of your daughters lies in their role as genetic templates, intended for the mass production of specialized warriors capable of partially wielding the power of the Realm of Severed Sorrow—this was the ‘Saintess Project.’ Prior to this, while Dr. Aelion’s ‘X-Strike Force,’ created through extensive drug injections and mechanical prosthetics for volunteers, proved somewhat effective, they still fell short in actual combat,” Helios admitted, spreading his hands. “Our expectation was that once we could assemble a large-scale ‘Saintess’ assault team, we would be able to effectively counter the incursions of otherworldly parasites.”
“But then an accident occurred?”
“Strictly speaking, it wasn’t an accident,” Helios corrected, shaking his head. “It was all part of Iskandar Romanov’s conspiracy. This individual was a member of our project, responsible for the genetic templates—that is, your daughters’ social education—and they called him ‘Father.’ Yet, no one ever suspected that he was, in fact, a latent saboteur. Colluding with the Freedom Army, he sowed seeds of betrayal within your daughters’ young minds, guiding them to question the noble cause of the Human Revival Council.”
Shirley bit her lip gently. She remembered Salome mentioning something about ‘Father being shot’ during their first encounter; at the time, she had dismissed it as mere petulance. But now…
“Is he dead?”
“Yes, the traitor ultimately revealed his true colors. After confronting him, you personally shot him down as he attempted to escape, subsequently consigning his body to the incinerator,” Helios recounted, a look of distinct pleasure gracing his features. “Ah, I must confess, you were truly quite… captivating then. Regrettably, however, we failed to notice that he had tampered with the most crucial part of the project: the mental inhibition system, designed as the final defense against the genetic templates’ betrayal. By the time we discovered his machinations, it was already too late.”
“Uh…”
“On that tragic day, your twelve daughters, along with three thousand five hundred ‘Saintesses’ created from their genes, suddenly launched a coordinated attack with the Freedom Army, assaulting Saint Tir City, the capital of ‘Amaterasu’s Paradise,’ and utterly destroying the Human Revival Council headquarters located there. Three-quarters of the Council members perished. Evidently, one of the genetic templates’ primary targets was you. However, you were fortunately in Britannia at the time, participating in a test for a new spatial teleportation technology, which resulted in you being unexpectedly cast into a parallel world and losing your memory. Thus, you narrowly escaped that calamity…”
“I see,” Shirley murmured. Although there was currently no way to verify the veracity of his claims, Shirley’s intuition told her that Helios’s account was likely not entirely trustworthy.
With the genetic templates and ‘Saintesses’ joining their ranks, the Freedom Army, which had previously been confined to sporadic terrorist attacks from remote wilderness areas, saw its strength rapidly surge, gaining a significant military advantage over the Council. “This is the current situation…” Helios said, snapping his fingers casually. A projection of a world map immediately appeared on the wall behind him.
On this map, the world was segmented into three colors: red, yellow, and blue. The red areas, resembling malignant lesions growing within an organic body, were irregularly scattered, occupying nearly a quarter of the landmass. Yellow predominated in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, South America, and Central North America, controlling approximately half of the world. The remaining regions were predominantly blue. However, the boundaries between these three colors were far from distinct, marked by numerous interweaving enclaves and overlapping zones.
“As you can observe, blue signifies the remaining territories controlled by the recently reorganized Human Revival Council—I, myself, am one of the seven new Senior Councilors. The red areas are territories overrun by otherworldly parasites and their hosts, most of which are exceedingly dangerous. When your school was teleported back, it landed precisely near the Red-63 Zone in western England. The remaining regions belong to the Freedom Army… or, more accurately, to the thousands of armed organizations and political factions assembled under that banner.”
“Then you… no, rather, *our* situation doesn’t look very promising, does it?”
“That is not so. While we have suffered a temporary setback, the Council, representing science, reason, progress, and justice, is destined to triumph,” Helios asserted, clenching his fist and forcefully striking the air. “Firstly, two-thirds of Earth’s operational major industrial zones remain under our control. Secondly, setting aside the perilous otherworldly parasite swarms, the Freedom Army is, in essence, a haphazard collection of organizations and groups with vastly differing ideologies and objectives, cobbled together solely to oppose the Council. Their actual combat efficiency is abysmal, and they rely entirely on Anastasia to gain any advantage over us.”
“Anastasia?”
“Yes, your eldest daughter, Genetic Template Number One, an individual created specifically for slaughter and warfare. The genes used to modify the vast majority of Saintesses originated from her,” Helios said, shaking his head, much like Emperor Honorius upon hearing that Rome—the one that clucked and ran around, of course—had been lost. “Her individual combat prowess and leadership capabilities are exceptionally outstanding; those rabble-rousers only manage to coalesce because of her. This, in turn, implies one crucial thing…”
Shirley knew what he intended to say: without Anastasia, the Freedom Army, a patchwork of hundreds of disparate organizations, would likely splinter and collapse, granting the beleaguered Human Revival Council an opportunity to turn the tide. Although she possessed no military acumen, she imagined that, following the typical villainous behavior patterns in Yurizumi’s favorite Saturday morning children’s cartoons, it would probably…
“Finally, we possess another immense advantage: you. A peerless genius, my eternal white moonlight,” Helios murmured, his hand gently caressing Shirley’s cheek. Shirley, for her part, struggled to suppress any outward sign of discomfort. “I am convinced that future history books will record your return with profound emphasis, for it will mark the turning point in global affairs… and the genesis of my, ah, no, *our* ascent to the pinnacle of glory.”
“Well said,” Shirley muttered. For some inexplicable reason, she suddenly recalled a novel she had read in another world, where a renowned ‘Beggar King’ had uttered similar words.