At some point, Kevin's body had completely disintegrated, scattering like starlight.
He could no longer continue his conversation with Noldrei inside the Cocoon of Finality. His consciousness seemed to drift away to an unknown place.
There, Kevin saw the one his heart had longed for most.
It was a place of lush water and grass. Here, Kevin seemed to see all his past comrades, chatting and laughing as if they were old friends catching up.
'Is this... my dream?'
'Or is it the so-called Stigma Space?'
Years of controlling the Stigma Space had gradually made Kevin lose his sense of reality in dreams, especially since Project Stigma itself carried the unique color of a ruler.
Kevin knew clearly in his heart that the hope seen within the Honkai crisis was the future despair that Noldrei had witnessed with his own eyes.
Time and time again, humanity would ascribe beauty to its own creations, but this ascription was always just wishful thinking.
Within this cycle created by humanity's infinite possibilities, the Honkai crisis brought by the Cocoon of Finality actually seemed less painful in comparison.
Before it vanished, the Will of the Honkai had shown Kevin many, many things.
In the future, humanity would even develop deeper doubts. They wouldn't understand why, even with such immense productive capacity, with such just and equal relationships between people, with human practice erupting into such massive productivity—why, even then, new forms of suffering would be born. The motion of real life would dissolve in the face of this immense productivity.
That future was one that even the Cocoon of Finality, with all its wisdom, could not break through.
It had been mercilessly strangled on its throne by the new world Noldrei constructed.
Perhaps Kevin should ponder this problem. Perhaps Kevin shouldn't.
But for him, a dead man, none of it had any meaning anymore.
In this new world, the only thing Kevin could possess was one last...
"You... seem to have a lot you want to say to me. Was the journey fighting Finality too tiring?"
Was the MEI before him the real MEI?
For Kevin, that no longer seemed so important. Right now, he needed to spend some time alone with her.
Kevin shook his head and replied, "No, the ones who were tired were the others."
He knew, of course, what Noldrei had done, and he was well aware of the sacrifices Schicksal and Anti-Entropy had made in the Current Era. Apart from the two crucial existences of Elysia and Prometheus, and the relics and Divine Keys they left behind, most of the Previous Era's other plans had been abandoned.
If anyone was tired, it was certainly the latecomers of the Current Era.
Kevin had failed to create a plan that transcended the scope of what MEI had devised. His main contributions were maintaining the continuation of civilization, awakening and preserving the power of the Kaslanas, and finally, cooperating with Prometheus to complete the usurpation of Finality's authority.
"It seems a lot has happened that I don't know about."
Mei looked at Kevin, her face also bearing a smile of having let everything go. Even at the moment of her sacrifice, she had still believed in her hero.
"By the way, I have a question for you. Someone told me that the Might of An-Utu was a gift from you. Is that true?"
Kevin couldn't contain his curiosity and asked the question.
"A gift? What gift? Rather, you are the gift that belongs to me. So, we placed all our trust in you as our final gift... You've worked hard all this time."
Mei didn't say it outright, nor did she consider that weapon any kind of gift.
"Is that so?" Kevin was genuinely happy for once. "That guy was wrong after all. I thought he was really someone who never made a mistake."
"And who is 'he'? Did he say anything to you?" Mei asked him about the story that came after.
"A hero of the new human civilization. Though, he always insists he's no hero, just someone protecting his own power as a ruler. He also claims that every new hope will become the new despair of the next era. He's a very difficult person to describe."
That was Noldrei in Kevin's eyes, even though he had borrowed the form of a Kaslana.
Mei smiled and reached out to touch Kevin's clothes, straightening his appearance.
"He must be a very capable person, then," she said with a gentle smile. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to come before all of us with such a relaxed heart."
Kevin glanced back. His long-dead comrades stood not far away, waiting for him.
"I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm truly relaxed right now."
Kevin didn't know what his true feelings were.
But he knew that this time, there were no more heavy responsibilities weighing on his shoulders.
"Humanity advanced so quickly, as if they were in a rush. It left me standing there, completely caught off guard."
Kevin complained about the troubles he had encountered.
He was supposed to be the one passing on hope to the next generation, but the people of the Current Era ran so fast they came back to tell him that this 'hope' was a bit too much, that humanity was even beginning to feel pained by it.
One second they were considering building hot air balloons to see the sky, and the next, they'd built rockets that shot up like fireworks.
The humans who had taken to the skies were already complaining that there were too many flying machines, that they were getting in the way, forcing them to enact extremely strict rules and regulations.
Even if Kevin wanted to find someone to reason with, he wouldn't know who to look for.
"If you had been by my side then, I definitely wouldn't have been left without even a chance to argue back."
Kevin sighed dramatically, his complaints about the 'evils' the Current Era had done to him flowing endlessly.
By normal standards, the Previous Era had actually gone further, but unfortunately, they had missed a crucial opportunity.
But the Current Era was defined by its chaotic, abstract, Brownian-motion-like liftoff. By the time Kevin returned, it was too late to even reorganize World Serpent.
Mei didn't say anything, just listened to Kevin's complaints.
Only after he had finished did she speak. "So, have we all become old relics left behind by the times? That's rather unexpected... In that case, they must have enough power to calmly face any dangers from the sky, right?"
"The Sky People? They're not much of a danger anymore."
Kevin reckoned the Sky People had better not show up. The moment they did, they'd get a taste of what a master angler could do.
"Then tell me about the interesting things and people of the Current Era, won't you?"
Mei didn't care what Kevin was talking about. Just hearing his voice was enough to make her happy.
She took his hand and led him, step by step, toward their old friends.
"I also met someone similar to you, probably a descendant with Kaslana blood. But she likes to turn into a little horse and sunbathe on the grass, and she prefers doing housework."
"Turn into a little horse? There are people like that?" Mei played along.
"There are a lot of interesting people there. That guy even complained to me that Elysia talks so much she's annoying. Su is like an old grandpa, not very interesting to talk to. Hua lost her memories, but she hasn't had too hard a time."
"Sakura's sister is living well."
"Griseo is still around, too."
"Most of the warriors who fought the Honkai have retired and returned to work in society."
"Humanity is still using new Honkai ore crystals."
"They captured a strange alien slave owner."
"They even took care of Venus."
"But the new humans there are often troubled, too."
"Troubled by how humanity is getting stronger and stronger, how their organizations are becoming more and more united, and how their struggles are always so endless."
"There are even people who worry about living too long and want to actively shorten their lifespans, thinking that living for one or two hundred years is enough, that living too long might lead to emptiness."
"Time is so long, and some are afraid they'll lose control of themselves, becoming different from the person they remember being."
"The new humans are a bunch of people who are surprisingly fragile in some ways, and they love to worry about nothing."
"It's wonderful, isn't it..."
"Mei, I really want to take you to see that world."