"..."
Lin Wei looked expressionlessly at the incomparably beautiful face before him. After a moment, he said softly,
"I think I now understand why Kalpas has such a volatile temper."
If he remembered correctly, the earliest Kalpas was honest and well-behaved, unable to even utter a curse word, completely unlike his current irritable state, where he looked like he wanted to kick every trash can he passed. This overly strong contrast was truly lamentable.
"Oh, why is that?"
Aponia also seemed very interested in this, though her expression remained as indifferent and distant as ever.
"I remember he seemed to have spent a considerable amount of time with you, right?"
Lin Wei said with a blank face.
"After all, honestly speaking, even I would be driven mad by you if I had to listen to you talk like that every day for a long time."
Are those even words a human should say?
It was only because Lin Wei's composure was relatively good. If it were Kalpas's temper, he probably would have bluntly said something like "I wish I could tear apart that enviably beautiful mouth of yours" just now...
"I merely choose to state what I see truthfully—Look, you have clearly been resisting meeting me, yet now you have still arrived before me as foreseen."
Aponia remained unhurried, speaking gently, making Lin Wei feel a wave of discomfort, as if his small sarcastic remark just now had been ignored. Her voice was filled with a compassion that sounded like sorrow.
"Ah... just like everyone I have ever met. Though they once launched a resolute resistance against their fate with the courage of a moth to a flame, they often end up utterly defeated, succumbing to their destiny, becoming pessimistic and dejected; even, breeding despair..."
"Pessimistic, dejected, even despairing? You're clearly talking about yourself, Aponia—From these words of yours, which seem to pity all living beings, I don't feel the slightest sense of peace that can soothe the heart. Instead, I hear a soul yearning for redemption, wailing pitifully."
Lin Wei looked with some pity at this stunningly beautiful woman, still imprisoned behind iron bars, and said in a calm tone,
"'Succumbing to fate'? Perhaps. But I prefer to call it 'accepting reality'—Perhaps it truly is as you say, that meeting you here is destined for both of us. But when I find I have reasons I absolutely must come, then I don't mind accepting this 'arrangement of fate'."
"Oh, is that so?"
Aponia said softly, as if questioning, or perhaps just murmuring to herself.
"Of course."
Lin Wei replied, still calm.
"If one refuses the voice of one's heart out of aversion, stubbornly 'rejecting fate's arrangement' even knowing it might be wrong... Heh, that's merely self-deceiving evasion, having lost even the courage to face it directly—that is true 'submission,' isn't it?"
If life is a destined battle, the moment you turn to flee, you have already utterly failed...
"So that's how it is?"
Aponia chuckled softly, though the faint smile was far from enough to melt the eternal indifference on her face.
"You see, this is what I meant by: 'slightly different'..."
"..."
Lin Wei frowned, feeling this woman was truly incorrigible.
"So, you were trying to save me just now? Ah, what a noble soul! No wonder..."
Aponia's indifferent eyes were deep and hollow, a quality that no curve of her lips could change in the slightest.
"No wonder, even though you are clearly not the one I have been waiting for, you have still brought such immense change to the Elysian Realm—Perhaps, this is another kind of fate that I failed to foresee?"
She had thought she was waiting for a Herrscher—a Herrscher who carried a will similar to Elysia's, capable of inheriting her ideals. She never expected to welcome such an unforeseen visitor.
He was clearly pitifully weak; even the weakest Honkai Zombie, freshly crawled from its grave, could kill him effortlessly.
Yet he was also astonishingly strong; even Flame-Chasers who had experienced an era of mountains of corpses and seas of blood could not ignore his radiant soul.
He was just the most ordinary of humans, yet he could make even the terrifying Herrscher who once destroyed an entire civilization bow before him.
He was clearly just one of the masses manipulated by the threads of fate, yet on a stage that shouldn't have belonged to him, he danced a magnificent dance that no one could ignore.
What a pity...
"Even such a brilliant soul must walk that predetermined path?"
Aponia thought with a sigh.
"The noble burn themselves out, illuminating the path to the other shore for the vile with their kindling..."
She detested such tragedies. She hated this tragic world. She gazed indifferently at every tragic soul in this tragic world, firmly committing all the world's brilliance and ugliness to her heart.
Then, she wanted to change it all.
She wanted to make the vile noble, and the noble not have to burn themselves out.
She wanted to send care to the weak, and crown the strong.
She wanted pure hearts to be cherished, and despairing souls to find redemption.
...
She wanted to do so much, yet she also wanted to do so little.
She just wanted to smooth away all the sorrow in this world, to make this tragic world a little less tragic.
But when she exhausted all her strength, she sorrowfully discovered that she too was just one of them.
Even, she had long been laden with sin for it, reduced to the most vile, the most despised one...
And now, seeing another person seemingly wanting to do something similar, her heart couldn't help but feel even more sorrowful, and she wanted even more to stop him from treading this wrong path.
"Another kind of fate..."
Lin Wei mulled over this simple phrase, his heart constricted by the pessimism almost soaking through it. He couldn't help but sigh.
"Aponia, since it's a future even you failed to foresee, do you still regard it as 'fate' even now, rather than a future that has already changed?"
"Ah, what admirable courage..."
Aponia sighed, her voice tinged with sorrow.
"What a pity. No matter what changes occur, the threads of fate still bind you and me tightly within them—just as, even with the appearance of this unforeseen future, I was still able to foresee your arrival today."
"..."
Compared to Su, Aponia is indeed far more beyond saving, Lin Wei couldn't help but think.
"Moreover, no matter how the 'process' changes, its outcome is always as destined, never having changed."
Aponia calmly and slowly stated a terrifying fact.
"This Elysian Realm will still, as I have seen before, turn into a lifeless, silent ruin on a day in the not-too-distant future, just like the era we once experienced..."
"...Is that so? That sounds like a truly sad thing. But the more you say that, the more I feel that some of the things I want to do are right."
Lin Wei fell silent for a moment, then said seriously,
"Since destruction is inevitable, then why can't 'destruction' itself become the impetus for 'rebirth'?"
If he could successfully lead the Flame-Chasers out of the Elysian Realm, then so what if this place was truly destroyed? The truly important things here—whether Elysia or the other Flame-Chasers—only those thirteen vibrant and unique (probably) souls were what truly mattered about this Elysian Realm.
"Perhaps, the one who will 'destroy the Elysian Realm' in the future might actually be me?"
Lin Wei thought silently.
After all, if all the Sims who form the cornerstone of the Elysian Realm are taken away, won't this place naturally collapse?
"Ah, so there are such romantic ideas? How cute~"
Aponia chuckled softly, her voice of lament still unhurried.
"What a pity, that is something utterly impossible..."
Then, she slowly closed her eyes, gently clasping her beautiful white hands before her chest, and chanted softly in a tone like prayer,
"Before me, no creation existed in the world;
If there is anything eternal and indestructible, then it is sinking within my body..."
"..."
Hearing this aria, which seemed completely unrelated to their current conversation, Lin Wei couldn't help but shake his head and complain,
"Aponia, you really are as treacherous as ever!"
Her "body"—doesn't that refer to this Elysian Realm?
Only in her "body" can things be eternal and indestructible, no creation can exist in the world...
Could the meaning be any more obvious?
This was clearly a Discipline Aponia had set for herself, or rather, for this Elysian Realm!
Using Discipline to firmly bind all Sims, including herself, within the Elysian Realm, completely cutting off all other paths—this was indeed something only Aponia could do...
Damn it, I actually guessed right before!
Lin Wei couldn't help but complain inwardly. No wonder even Su couldn't stand Aponia and repeatedly tried to persuade her.
But unfortunately, if she could be persuaded, she wouldn't be Aponia!
"Ah, in the past ages, I have long grown accustomed to all sorts of attacks and accusations being heaped upon me. Yet I merely wish to protect these scarred souls, allowing them to find peace and tranquility in this pure land..."
Aponia said, as if lamenting.
"Even if the future of destruction is inevitable, at least before arriving at this sorrowful future, I hope they can enjoy these fifty thousand long years of peaceful time, enjoy this tranquil paradise that was longed for but unattainable in past ages..."
"...Even more treacherous."
Lin Wei thought silently, but he was helpless against it. Because no matter how simple something seemed, when a variable of fifty thousand years was added to it, unpredictable changes would occur.
Aponia was overly pessimistic about human nature, to the extent that even these companions who had experienced so many life-and-death trials together, Aponia had never truly trusted them completely.
She cared about everyone; she wanted to protect the deepest secret belonging to Elysia, which was guarded by everyone together in the depths of the Elysian Realm.
But she didn't believe that after fifty thousand years of vast changes, these companions she cherished so much wouldn't transform into something she couldn't even imagine.
She worried that the future of destruction she foresaw would be due to self-destruction among companions who had once shared life and death, because of diverging ideals, because of irreconcilable conflicts accumulated over the years—everyone here knew clearly that, except for a very few, most harbored some form of aversion or even hostility towards one or several Flame-Chasers.
And this was a result Aponia absolutely did not want to see...
Thus, after the complete fall of the past civilization, when all survivors fell into the deepest slumber, this woman did not do what she was supposed to do. Instead, she single-mindedly, in a manner close to suicide, completely merged herself with the Elysian Realm...
From then on, unknown to everyone, "Aponia" was both a Flame-Chaser in the Elysian Realm and the possessor of its highest authority.
For fifty thousand years, she subtly constrained everything in the Elysian Realm, repeatedly interfering, irresistibly, with "changes" that shouldn't exist, to the point where even Su, also a maintainer of order in the Elysian Realm, found it somewhat unbearable...
Admittedly, Aponia might bear inescapable responsibility for the ultimate complete destruction of the Elysian Realm.
But this Elysian Realm was able to span fifty thousand years of vast changes, and the Sims residing within it, after fifty thousand years of unceasing wakefulness, were still no different from their selves fifty thousand years ago—even the Kevin here seemed younger and more vibrant than his real self in reality.
For all these reasons, it was hard to say that this wasn't Aponia's achievement.
Just like the sins she committed in the Previous Era, which ultimately led to her civilization's downfall, yet before that moment of judgment arrived, she had genuinely and truly helped humanity, gradually falling into despair, maintain at least a minimum of fighting spirit and hope...
It was both her sin and her merit; this very moment, just like that past moment.
Lin Wei thought that even if it were another time and space, even if she had a third chance to choose, she would probably still do something similar without hesitation.
This was Aponia's character, and also the choice she would inevitably make.
"Ah, indeed, nothing can be hidden from your eyes..."
Aponia finished her chant. Her slowly opening eyes were still indifferent, her voice still unhurried as she said,
"Even content that did not exist in the 'story' you glimpsed, you can still deduce it from the subtle details—"
Unconsciously, her originally gentle voice gradually took on a hint of arrogance.
"Lin Wei, you truly make me admire you more and more..."