Honkai: Man(Sludge) From Future

Even the ancestor himself had never imagined such a bizarre world-saving method as stealing cores from parallel worlds.

It was like the British deciding to raise taxes on their colonies to save their domestic market.

Never mind how the people in the colonies were living; wasn't the British Empire becoming more and more powerful? Using humanity itself as a resource to be mined, thereby stimulating Honkai outbreaks in parallel worlds, and then plundering their Herrscher Cores.

The first things that popped into Kevin's mind were several methods for exploiting the common people of parallel worlds.

This was a true liberation of thought!

After living for fifty thousand years, the old man's eyes were finally opened by his descendants. He was almost led down the path of a great villain by Noldrei.

He'd been a hero for so long that he had forgotten how to be a colonizer.

Still, it was a method his descendants had come up with to solve the Honkai problem. You couldn't say it was completely without merit; it did have a sliver of a practical, theoretical basis.

Durandal, however, still had a conscience. She had an instinct that Noldrei was truly capable of such a thing, but she didn't want to lose this potential path to defeating the Honkai.

And so, the forthright hero, for once, offered some 'gentle persuasion.' "Isn't this a bit much? We only need to snatch the Herrschers. Why do we need to forcibly accelerate the collapse of other parallel civilizations? Their civilizations will eventually encounter later Herrschers sooner or later anyway. We can just come back and grab them then. Or we could just find a world where the Herrscher of Finality has already appeared, couldn't we?"

Bronya felt that everyone had gone mad. This group didn't seem to have ever considered the possibility of not being able to defeat the Honkai.

Then again, the Honkai in their world had been silent for over a year. If no new Herrschers appeared for them to use, Academy City would have no new genetic information to feed on.

The great serpent ancestor was, for a moment, left on the sidelines.

His only comfort was that the women of the Kaslana family still had some sense of justice. At least they didn't immediately label the people of parallel worlds as a human resource mine. From this, it seemed the people of this era could still be saved.

But Noldrei's next words made the ancestor's jaw drop.

"What are you on about, Durandal? North America has already killed off most of its natives, and humanity didn't seem to have any protective measures or proactive attitudes then. Why the change of heart now that we're talking about parallel worlds? Be honest, did your ancestors secretly participate in colonial rule? Are you planning to put on a show and wave the great banner of the moral high ground at me later?"

That was a hard question to answer. After all, the Kaslana family was a major clan in the past. It was only normal that some of them would have taken ships to pioneer North America.

It wasn't as if any of the major European or American family names were completely clean. After all, many of them had used black slaves, and the old Schicksal had even organized a cannon fodder army composed of black soldiers.

For a moment, Durandal felt a pang of guilt. The thought that her ancestors carried such a heavy sin seemed to strip her of any right to stop Noldrei from acting against the people of a parallel world.

But this wasn't a matter of who was right or wrong. It was simply the light of humanity within her that made it impossible for Durandal to commit such an act.

Killing Herrschers was fine, but harming people... Durandal couldn't bring herself to be so ruthless.

"I'm not entirely sure if my ancestors killed natives, but I think it's highly likely they did."

The great serpent ancestor was floored by his descendant's words. So his own descendants might have already done similar work in the past? Weren't the Kaslanas supposed to be the sword against the Honkai? Why was the first cut aimed at humanity?

Durandal had no idea that her two casual sentences had just pinned an unknown crime on her ancestors.

Durandal hesitated for a moment, then added, "Even if they didn't kill natives, they probably bought a skull or two. However, it is recorded that the Kaslana ancestors did use black slaves and maids."

This wasn't something Durandal made up; Otto knew all about it.

Otto even knew the dirty and disgusting history of power struggles among the three great families. The Kaslanas, the holy sword against the Honkai? In the Overseer's eyes, besides Kallen, who was pure, the rest were all bullshit.

The ancestor, though a bit stunned, could accept this. After all, societal development depended on productivity and production relations. It was acceptable for the Kaslanas to have been feudal slave owners for a time. How else could they have accumulated the wealth needed to train their bodies to better fight the Honkai if not by exploiting slaves?

This point didn't bother the ancestor much. He had lived for fifty thousand years; what kind of depraved humans hadn't he seen?

He was just momentarily shocked by this high-level strategy of using people from parallel worlds as a mine for Honkai Cores. It had short-circuited his thinking.

"No way, our ancestors were that awesome?"

Kiana, of course, knew nothing of the Kaslanas' glorious past, let alone how many servants the saint Kallen's great feudal family had. Little Kiana could only lament that she was truly a test-tube baby, fated never to enjoy such good things.

But it didn't matter. Wasn't she about to start enjoying them now?

"Bronya doesn't think that's something to be proud of, does she?" Little Bronya still had some conscience. At least she knew feudal slave owners weren't good people.

"Oh, come on. Anyway, there's no need for us to be so extreme right now. It's just... I'm a Valkyrie who fights the Honkai. You can't ask me to fight humans, can you?"

Durandal's own words sounded weak even to her.

To her surprise, Noldrei fell silent for two seconds, then looked at her curiously and asked, "Let's say Kiana wasn't saved by me back then, and she accidentally became a Herrscher because of the core. And then Otto ordered you to kill her and hand her over for his experiments. Would you do it, or not?"

"I, well... how could I... hss..."

Durandal was so flustered that tears were about to well up in her eyes. It seemed she really had no way to refute that possibility. After all, under those circumstances, she might have actually done that to her sister.

Noldrei had found her bug. He had instantly demolished Durandal's moral high ground.

Even Kiana looked at her in shock, never expecting Durandal to be that kind of sister.

"But I... I didn't know then, did I? I didn't know the truth about my identity and Kiana's. If I had known... I might not have listened to the Overseer."

Durandal's defense was feeble.

Bronya looked at her, speechless. "So you're saying if you know it's your own family, you're prepared to use a double standard?"

"That's not what I meant." Durandal explained anxiously, her debating skills on par with Kiana's. Truly sisters.

"Then what do you mean, sister? Why don't you explain it?" Kiana was also starting to find Durandal unreliable. This sister's stance seemed a little shaky.

The ancestor had been watching for a long time without getting a word in. He watched as the two Kaslana girls, who still had some humanity left, started arguing among themselves.

Is this the art of a leader's control? How terrifying.