Seeing that he'd finally convinced Otto, Lucius looked at Nicholas and produced the plan he'd prepared in advance.
Although the script had changed, now that Nicholas had been corrected back onto the right track, the script could continue advancing.
"Old geezer, I've sensed your ambition and felt your domineering spirit!"
"I've prepared a strategy guide for you. Study it carefully and you'll surely gain something."
Then Lucius handed him a document.
Under Fenghuang Down's interference, Nicholas ignored the puzzle of where he'd produced the item from and accepted the document from Lucius's hand.
It clearly read: Fire Moth Organizational Framework Reform Plan.
Nicholas flipped through it and found most of the framework wasn't much different from now—for instance, establishing branches in various global regions, forming super soldiers codenamed Valkyries.
What he found strange were only two points.
"Why change the name to Schicksal? I think Fire Moth is a perfectly good name."
"Old geezer, haven't you noticed? Although Fire Moth sounds tragic and heroic, it's truly too inauspicious. There's always that moth-to-flame, we're-doomed feeling."
"Comparatively, Schicksal sounds much more pleasant to the ear."
Of course, these were all nonsense. The real situation was just skinning Fire Moth as Schicksal to fool the system and extract rewards from this silly system.
After having a relatively reasonable explanation, the slight compromise that arose in Nicholas's heart was magnified. He quickly expressed resolute agreement.
"Then why change Fire Moth's Elders to Bishops and add an Archbishop position?"
"Of course to demonstrate your authority! If you don't become Archbishop, how will you assemble your forces?"
"True." Nicholas nodded, expressing agreement.
This entire conversation was like a joke. Lucius also wanted to laugh, but unfortunately, to create Schicksal, no matter how absurd, he had to continue.
"Since you have no objections, then old geezer, do you have any methods to completely control Fire Moth?"
Hearing about his most skilled domain of power struggles, Nicholas's face immediately showed confidence.
"Of course. Ambition requires worldly wisdom to support it, and your father just happens to possess that!"
"Oh? What will you do?" Lucius was quite interested in his so-called worldly wisdom.
"I've decided to send all my children out for marriage alliances. With my nearly hundred children, I can definitely bring massive support."
"Unfortunately, most of these descendants are sons—I only had them for convenient body selection. If only I'd known, I should have had more daughters."
Hearing his so-called worldly wisdom, Lucius gradually fell silent.
"That Francis next door only has one daughter. His close relatives are just some guy called Siegfried. You already have a betrothal with his daughter. After he dies, kill off his relatives, and his family fortune becomes ours."
"Hehe, living long has its benefits. I have enough time to wait for old rivals to die before seizing their fortunes."
Hearing his proud tone, Lucius rushed before him and knocked him down with a slap.
"I thought you had some worldly wisdom. Never expected you to be a worldly dog donkey!"
He'd come to speedrun Schicksal, not watch this dog donkey play Habsburg simulator.
Of course, the most important reason was insufficient time. According to this dog donkey's plan, by the time he completed it, Finality would have cleansed the earth countless times.
"Stop messing with your children. Listen to my plan."
"First, you need to push Fire Moth to publicly reveal Honkai's existence."
Facts proved humans were highly adaptable creatures.
Nicholas now no longer felt angry about taking slaps from his "son," even feeling quite moved.
Through Lucius's deep teachings, he realized being hit was his son correcting his mistakes, helping him improve.
Hitting is affection, scolding is love—it must be so!
But after Lucius spoke, Nicholas was still extremely surprised.
"Publicly reveal Honkai's existence? Won't that cause massive panic in global society?"
"Of course."
Lucius didn't deny it, instead continuing: "So the second step is to exaggerate Honkai's terror, further amplifying this panic."
Hearing this, Nicholas's expression changed.
"That will cause tremendous upheaval. Fire Moth's other Elders won't agree."
"Thus, there's the critically important third step."
Lucius produced another document and tossed it to Nicholas.
The cover read:
[First Phase Stigmata Genetic Engineering Vaccine Feasibility Plan (Revised Edition)] (crossed out)
[Anti-Honkai Vaccine Inoculation Project (Phase One)]
Nicholas recognized all the individual words, but together they challenged his common sense.
After flipping through the document, he finally confirmed this actually described a vaccine that could enhance Honkai energy resistance.
As everyone knew, Honkai energy was an extremely terrifying energy.
If Honkai resistance was insufficient, being swept by excessive Honkai energy would instantly turn one to ash. Those with slightly more resistance could retain their form as Zombies. Only those one-in-ten-thousand lucky ones possessed sufficiently strong resistance.
But now, the vaccine in this document could greatly enhance Honkai resistance.
Moreover, this was only the Phase One project.
According to the author, as long as all five vaccine phases were completed, humans could form complete "antibodies" internally, thereby becoming completely immune to Honkai energy erosion.
Nicholas instinctively didn't believe it, but after seeing the project author's name, he felt relieved. Because the author's name was: Mobius.
As a fellow Fire Moth Elder, he naturally knew this genius's abilities and knew she couldn't possibly commit academic fraud.
In other words, the vaccine described in this document was most likely real.
After seeing this document, Nicholas understood "Otto's" purpose.
"First publicly reveal Honkai's existence, then provoke people's fear of Honkai. At that point I play the 'vaccine' card and can harvest unimaginable prestige."
Not just prestige.
Under Great Honkai, all beings were equal. Even for big shots like them, infection with excessive Honkai energy meant death.
Those old geezers like himself equally feared Great Honkai's lethality.
Lucius observed Nicholas's expression.
The so-called anti-Honkai vaccine was of course real, just that it wasn't simply a vaccine. Essentially it was some basic stigmata gene fragments.
After he showed Mobius the complete stigmata genes, this green snake's progress was alarming. If Lucius hadn't given warnings, she could probably create complete stigmata genes within three years.
But at the current timeline, these stigmata fragments could only enhance some Honkai resistance.
Promoting them as vaccines had no problems. And this was essentially paving the way for the future Stigmata Project...
"With such great merit, your prestige will soar. Then finding any random reason to push an agenda—changing Fire Moth's name won't be difficult."
Lucius felt that with such a trump card in hand, plus his secret assistance, even if Nicholas was utterly useless, he could still rally quite a few people.
Changing Fire Moth's name—wasn't that effortless?
"With this in hand, the steps to the highest position are clearly visible." Nicholas couldn't help sighing with emotion.
"In that case, begin your struggle!"
Lucius clenched his fist to encourage him while also adding another dose of Fenghuang Down.
Then he left without looking back.
"Otto, where are you going? Father needs your wisdom!"
Lucius waved his hand.
"I'm going next door to visit and chat with my 'father-in-law.' I imagine he should provide you some help."
Nicholas naturally knew who lived next door.
"You're going to find that dog Francis?"
"Don't waste your effort. Although his impression of you shouldn't be bad, he can't possibly help me. He'd love to kill me."
Hearing this, Lucius stopped, asking with some curiosity: "Since your relationship is so poor, why do the two families have a betrothal?"
"Hehe... That was set by me and his father, old Francis, in my previous life—to seize his family fortune."
"Because Father commanded it, Francis couldn't refuse. He could only select you, the least threatening to his daughter, for the marriage alliance."
"Of course, he's probably also planning to have you marry in after I die. But that's just wishful thinking..."
But Lucius had already left.
The reason he wanted to meet Kallen's father was naturally still for establishing Schicksal. After all, three families supported Schicksal.
Although he could bluff, the appearance still needed setting up.
Besides this, there was another matter—creating Theresa.
Strictly speaking, he hadn't discovered an individual suspected to be Theresa's counterpart in pre-civilization.
But if he relaxed the conditions somewhat, there actually was a way.
What were Theresa's constituent conditions?
Kallen's genes and Vishnu's super mutation factor forming a stable body, consciousness belonging to Theresa born from that body, and the most important and unique identifier... Otto's granddaughter status.
Meeting these conditions, he might actually try hand-crafting a Theresa.
And these conditions—he could actually fulfill them.
However, Lucius thought of another problem.
This problem wasn't Theresa, but Kallen.
As everyone knew, Kallen's screen time wasn't actually much. After the execution ground event was complete, she could wrap up.
But to complete this task point, he had to let Kallen truly die once—die under a Honkai Beast's blade.
If he could abandon his bottom line, he could just let Kallen die like that without paying anything else—saving time and effort. But Lucius felt he hadn't gone mad to that degree.
So Kallen had to truly die once, but after dying still had to come back to life.
Resurrection wasn't easy, but Lucius had a method to accomplish it. The only downside was money.
At least 3000 crystals + one A-rank Stigmata required.
If it were another character, doing this would be fine. After all, there was still lots of screen time ahead—counting as a valuable investment.
But Kallen was different. After dying and reviving, she'd directly wrap up with no more plot ahead.
Wouldn't the crystals he invested just go down the drain?!
Thinking of this, Lucius felt extremely unwilling. Every crystal was earned by eating Mei's cooking. Only he knew the bitterness involved.
So not a single one could be wasted!!
But how could he maximize Kallen's utility so she wouldn't be discarded after finishing the plot?
"Hey, I actually have a good idea."
...
Soon, Lucius climbed over the high wall and arrived next door at Kallen's house.
After explaining his purpose to the guards, he quickly met a white-haired, blue-eyed man who looked somewhat similar to his good brother's father Siegfried.
He looked around forty, upright posture, proper features—clearly an upstanding person.
Lucius knew this Francis also had kinship with his good brother Kiana. He even knew his good brother's old home was also nearby... inside were dark history she'd written as a child.
"Otto, why have you come here?"
Francis was somewhat surprised by "Otto's" arrival. He knew well how strong that bastard next door's control obsession was.
Regarding Francis's surprise, Lucius said nothing, only activating Fenghuang Down.
Fortunately, nothing went wrong this time. He very easily read the other's memories.
"Not a purely good person, but being able to climb to this position is normal enough."
"Mr. Francis, next I'm going to ask you several questions. You must answer truthfully without any concealment."
Francis, currently under Fenghuang Down, had vacant eyes and honestly answered: "Understood."
"Do you consider yourself a good person?"
"Not really."
"Who do you think is more important—you or your daughter?"
"Kallen is more important."
"If your daughter and your career conflict, which would you choose to preserve?"
"Kallen."
"If saving the world and your daughter conflict, what would you choose?"
"Then let the world be destroyed."
"Alright, I understand. You may wake now."
After getting answers, Lucius released Fenghuang Down's control.
The memory of just being controlled remained in his mind, making Francis alarmed.
"You're not Otto!"
"Of course."
Lucius answered frankly and lightly bowed to apologize.
"For what just happened, I apologize. So as compensation, I'll tell you about my origins and the approaching desperate ending."
"Francis, I'm from the future. I need your help."
After confirming Francis was someone who could be pulled onto the cart, Lucius chose the grand self-reveal technique.
He'd never hidden information about approaching Finality from people pulled onto the cart, because this information itself was the best united front card.
Vill-V, Eden, Mobius, Ein, Kiana, Mei... These people were all gathered by him using the reason of saving the world. Well, some among them might not be.
But that wasn't important. What mattered was the straight ball truly worked.
Then he told Francis the origins he'd made up for Kiana back then.
"...So to save the world, I need to recreate another segment of history to obtain world-saving power."
After hearing Lucius's explanation and the images of the Battle of Finality he displayed, Francis felt dazed.
"Truly... a terrible future."
He sighed and said: "What can I do?"
After confirming the information Lucius showed was real, Francis knew he had no choice.
He didn't much care whether he'd die in the catastrophe, but he couldn't let go of Kallen. She was still so young with a long life ahead. It absolutely couldn't stop because of some Herrscher of Finality.
For his daughter's future, even if the enemy was a "god" entrenched in the solar system for hundreds of millions of years, he had to charge up and fight!
"Provide some support for Nicholas reorganizing Schicksal."
"Just that?"
"Besides this, your daughter will soon face a great calamity. But rest assured, she'll be perfectly safe."
"However, after the calamity passes, I hope you can change her name."
"What name?"
"Theresa Apocalypse."
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