"I suddenly had a bold idea."
Elias looked at "Otto," the puppet version of himself wielding a Void Archives replica of the Judgment of Shamash as it killed a Parvati with only Chariot-class Honkai Beast strength, and murmured to himself.
He was now fully capable of parallel thought.
For example, right up until just now, he had been dating Luna and the others while simultaneously controlling the puppet to lead a squad of Valkyries in slaughtering swarms of Honkai Beasts. Neither side had been delayed in the slightest.
The evolution of a Chimera MANTIS was comprehensive. It enhanced not only the body, but the brain as well. Elias' current processing ability was fully comparable to that of a supercomputer.
Even a super AI like Prometheus.
Splitting his attention between two things was laughably easy. If anything, handling multiple streams of information at once had long since become part of Elias' everyday life.
Especially in battle. After all, he now possessed far, far, far too many abilities. Against most enemies, he could simply crush them with overwhelming force.
But if he encountered a powerful foe, Elias had to identify the most effective counter from among the hundreds of thousands of abilities he possessed and deploy it as quickly as possible.
And lately, Elias had been feeling that if it were his current self, he should be able to withstand extracting the ten thousand years of memories he had previously stored inside Fenghuang Down!
After all, now that he had evolved this far, his brain's "memory capacity" was vastly greater than it had been during the Previous Era.
And so...
Parallel thinking, combined with a massive number of puppet avatars.
If he used the two together, wouldn't his efficiency in exploring the Sea of Quanta increase dramatically?!
Elias: "Perfect. I already thought the current pace was a little slow. Although the Herrscher of Good and Evil's puppet avatars are useful, they don't seem able to absorb bubble worlds. Oh, wait. Maybe they actually can!"
He had accidentally measured his avatars by his own standards.
Elias slapped his forehead.
There was no second person in existence who could endlessly absorb bubble worlds like he could. Even Durandal couldn't do that, let alone his puppet avatars.
The reason Elias could absorb bubble worlds without limit was because of his own utterly unique and nearly impossible physique.
In fact, based on Elias' own past experiments, even the ascended Authority of the Herrscher of Rebirth couldn't create a body with the same constitution as his own.
Because that already far exceeded the maximum limit of the power of creation. One could even say... turning an entire desert-covered planet into a lush world would be easier.
As for why it was that absurd, one only needed to think about what kind of body Elias currently possessed.
The ultimate Chimera fused with hundreds of thousands of Honkai Beast genes, the Palatinus body, the vessel of Finality, and a dual Pseudo God body capable of containing both quantum power and imaginary energy at the same time.
It was outrageously overpowered in every possible sense...
Therefore, the Authority of creation could help Elias heal injuries, but it couldn't possibly create a body with the same constitution as his own.
Otherwise, Elias' million-strong puppet army wouldn't consist of puppet bodies with Emperor-class strength, but an entire army of Planet-class ultimate Chimera MANTIS bodies.
He was the one and only existence that couldn't be replicated.
A unique miracle.
A supreme existence that had surpassed the finite.
Even if Elias distributed his abilities among his puppet avatars, those avatars were still ultimately only avatars. Unlike his true body, they still had major limitations.
They couldn't endlessly fuse with huge numbers of bubble worlds the way Elias himself could.
But absorbing a single bubble world was still no problem!
Elias: "In the future, I'll send all my puppet avatars into the Sea of Quanta to explore. Each avatar will hold one bubble world, then return to me, the original body. If all of them make a round trip like that, I'll instantly gain a hundred thousand bubble worlds. That'll be amazing!"
After all, Elias currently only had a few thousand bubble worlds inside him. He hadn't even broken ten thousand yet.
This idea truly deserved to be called "extremely bold," but it was completely feasible! All he needed was a hundred thousand Holy Blade Durandals capable of helping anchor bubble worlds.
With Elias' Authority of Truth, combined with his nearly limitless Honkai energy,
he really could manufacture one hundred thousand Holy Blade Durandals!
Ai: "Whoa, Captain, you're seriously getting more and more ridiculous. How did you even think of a method like this?!"
Rosemary: "A-As expected of Captain... How am I even supposed to properly express how shocked I am?"
Luna: "Uh, I didn't really understand what you were talking about, Human, but it sounds really impressive."
After Elias explained his idea to the three of them, Rosemary and Ai, who already understood enough about bubble worlds and the Sea of Quanta, trembled all over from sheer shock. It was just too insane!!
If a certain ferryman who had painstakingly explored bubble worlds one by one ever heard about this, he might cough up blood on the spot.
"But Captain, can your brain really handle that?"
Ai asked with a worried expression.
She suddenly realized that if Elias did this, it would be equivalent to using one computer to run a hundred thousand games at the same time!
Splitting his focus between two things was easy.
But splitting it into a hundred thousand parts... wouldn't his brain explode?!
Elias laughed at that and admitted there would indeed be a problem. Even as the Herrscher of Transcendent Sentience, he couldn't split his mind a hundred thousand ways and control that many "selves" at once.
"Controlling a hundred thousand avatars simultaneously is obviously impossible, but a thousand should be no problem. As for the remaining avatars, I can give them instructions and let them operate autonomously."
"Oh. Then there's no problem. Captain, you're amazing."
That would also ensure safety.
After all, exploring the Sea of Quanta was extremely dangerous. Even though Elias was terrifyingly powerful now, compared with existences on the level of the "Tree" and the "Sea," he was still insignificant.
Even if a puppet avatar was destroyed, it wouldn't affect Elias himself. When the time came, he could simply remain in the Proper World while sending the avatars to explore the dangerous Sea of Quanta.
It was basically like playing a computer game.
Elias controlled the game character, and even if the character died, the real him wouldn't suffer even the slightest injury.
And with more manpower, the probability of finding that bubble world called "Teyvat" would also increase dramatically.
Elias: "Then it's happily decided!"
Ai: "So, are we going home now?"
Elias: "Uh, well... I really do miss everyone back at the dorm, but I don't know whether they've calmed down yet. Let's explore one more bubble world, then go back and have a look."
Ai: "Understood! Then let's return to the Hyperion!"
Elias: "Wait. Not everyone is here yet. There's still one more person coming aboard."
At Elias' words, Rosemary, Ai, and Luna all froze. Their journey through this bubble world had already ended, but none of the three expected that besides Luna herself, there was actually someone else who would be boarding the Hyperion.
Not long afterward, a young Valkyrie with fiery red hair arrived at the hotel entrance carrying a suitcase.
It was none other than the younger version of Himeko from this bubble world.
Ai immediately revealed a surprised expression.
"Miss Himeko is boarding the Hyperion too?"
"That's right. I'll be counting on everyone from now on."
"Uh, what exactly happened?"
The three were confused. Just a few days ago at the burger shop, when Elias had invited them, both Himeko and Kallen had declined to come aboard.
Himeko scratched her head somewhat awkwardly.
"Actually... I've been fired from Schicksal."
"What?" x3
"I don't know the details either, but the Bishop personally issued the dismissal order. Sigh~ I have no idea when I offended that man."
"..."
Elias silently turned his head away and pretended he hadn't heard anything. To be clear, he wasn't the kind of person who would use despicable methods to force someone into accepting just because they had rejected him.
He had actually done this to help Himeko realize her dream.
The Murata Himeko of this bubble world had joined Schicksal and become a Valkyrie less than a year ago, perhaps not even half a year. Although she had already resolved herself to fight in order to protect the world, she had never actually wanted to become a Valkyrie. The only reason she joined Schicksal was to investigate the cause of her father's death.
For that purpose, Himeko dropped out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and temporarily abandoned her dream of becoming a physicist, as well as her future goal of becoming an astronaut and journeying into the stars.
If one asked how Elias knew all this,
Himeko had told him herself. Give this drunkard a little alcohol and she would spill everything. Besides, her life experiences were identical to those of Himeko in the Proper World.
Back in the Proper World, on the night Elias and Himeko confirmed their relationship, he had learned about the regret buried in the heart of Honkai Impact's most beautiful teacher. He had learned that Himeko had once regretted becoming a Valkyrie, and that deep down, she had never wanted to give up the dream of her youth.
But Murata Himeko in the Proper World could no longer turn back, because she had gone too far down the path of a Valkyrie.
Her resolve to fight for all that was beautiful had already replaced the youthful dream she once had of reaching for the sea of stars.
And now, in this bubble world, Elias had encountered Himeko when she was still young, so he wanted to help make up for that regret.
He had the "Otto" puppet fire Himeko, then found the newly unemployed Valkyrie and invited her aboard once again. Elias intended to bring this younger Himeko back to the Proper World.
Elias: "MIT exists both in the Proper World and in bubble worlds, but this place doesn't have a real sea of stars. After all, the starry sky of a bubble world is fake. So if you want to chase your dream, come to my world—the real world."
He wanted to grant this woman a different future, a different destiny.
He wanted to see what Murata Himeko would look like if she weren't a Valkyrie.
The two had already discussed it. Once they reached the Proper World, Himeko could resume her studies at MIT. After graduating, she could decide where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do.
No one would stop her. Nothing would bind her.
Even if one day she found half of a train that had fallen from the sky, repaired it herself, and eventually rode that train into the vast cosmos, that would be perfectly fine.
Because Elias had decided to give her a future of freedom.
Elias: "Though if Himeko from the Proper World found out about this, she'd definitely be jealous... But knowing her, she'd probably be even happier for her younger self."
Ai: "All right. One more crew member for the Hyperion."
Rosemary: "Please take care of us, Miss Himeko."
After that, the five of them prepared to leave. Their vacation had ended, and it was time to continue their journey.
However... Elias and the others had no idea that a crisis was already approaching.
Outside this bubble world, a certain ferryman obsessed with salvation had already set his plan in motion.