"...The Belobog aerial carrier battle group is conducting joint multinational military exercises in the Sea of Whales..."
Using the excuse that he would be moving out in a few days to finally get rid of that annoying, brother-complex-ridden landlady, Fuli closed the door and leaned his back against it.
He switched off his phone, which was still playing the morning news, and slowly slid down to sit on the floor, his expression complex.
For humanity, the experience of death is inherently a pseudo-proposition.
The truly dead have no chance to describe what death feels like to the living. Even the most renowned medical experts throughout history, when asked such questions, would be as tongue-tied as Confucius was when debating the distance of the sun with two children.
Fuli was different. He could thump his chest and tell people, "Nobody knows death better than me."
For him, having just returned from the grave, the moment he closed his eyes, everything he experienced before dying would replay in his mind like a video on loop:
The Theater of Domination, filled with an ominous, dark purple aura. The visceral, inhuman shrieks of puppets rising and falling. Blasphemous chanting disguised as benevolent charity and tender care, bewitching and inducing the weak-willed to commit errors they would regret for the rest of their lives.
Pitch-black pus flowed across the ground. The rabble hanging high in the filthy sky manipulated vicious, toxic threads crafted from all manner of heresy and immorality. They howled, eroded, and surged toward the white-haired girl who stood teetering with a broken crimson greatsword in hand, determined to dye her in the colors of the Honkai.
And then, the Everlasting Flames that tore through the endless night and despair. The magnificent blue cross-star eyes revealing intense reluctance and deep apology. And the agonizing pain of a greatsword piercing his chest and flames searing his heart.
"Well, we won in the end."
Fuli, his memory cutting off there, opened his bloodshot eyes. Resting the back of his hand against his forehead, he let out a laugh filled with complex emotions that were hard to describe.
"Back to three years ago, huh..."
His tone was hard to pin down, but relief was the dominant emotion.
Assuming this wasn't a "brain in a vat" scenario or some super-scale illusion, Fuli, who had sacrificed himself during the Tenth Honkai Eruption, had indeed been reborn into his 2014 self.
Thinking carefully, before he died, he had managed to break through past A-rank, reaching the critical threshold just a step away from the legendary S-rank. Even if someone wanted to cast a massive illusion on him, the chances of him not being able to see through it were very low.
It wasn't that no one had the ability, but rather that there was no need to waste the resources.
He was just a scrub who spent two and a half years of hard work just to reach that threshold. He didn't have the key to some treasury of forbidden knowledge in his head. Why would an S-rank powerhouse go to such lengths to mess with him? Were they that bored or just had nothing better to do?
As for being sent back from the future by some big shot capable of reversing the entire timeline... Uhh, setting aside whether he had even met such a high-potential individual in his previous run, maybe he should reconsider the "brain in a vat" or "super-scale illusion" possibilities?
"Whatever the case, it was a good death."
Habits formed during his time as a mercenary kicked in. Lost in thought, Fuli instinctively reached for his waist, only realizing when he grasped empty air that the two gleaming longswords were no longer hanging there.
He refocused his dilated pupils and looked around the environment—familiar yet strange.
A tiny room, barely over ten square meters. No separate living room or bedroom. Even washing up and using the toilet required going to the communal water room at the end of the hall.
The rooms from 202 onwards were all like this. Next door, Room 201, was a rare unit with its own bathroom and high-quality renovation. Unfortunately, Fuli, who had the chance to move in there back then, had taken it upon himself to yield it to the white-haired girl who lived there now.
The big boy recalled this part and twitched his lips, pacing over to the desk by the window.
The cheap wooden desk, scavenged from a secondhand market, gave off an unpleasant smell. The old laptop sitting on it was buzzing loudly.
On the seventeen-inch LCD screen was an unsaved WPS file, only half-edited—symbolizing the tragic reality of its flop of an owner falling asleep halfway through drafting last night.
Fuli opened his palm, clenched it tight, then released it.
Feeling the emptiness inside his body, he mused silently:
Sub-optimal health, malnutrition, mental imbalance, and the lingering fatigue from working part-time jobs while in school. It seems this rebirth didn't bring back anything other than my memories.
As if God deliberately wanted to slap him in the face, the moment he finished that thought, a flat voice with a hint of childishness rang out in the regressor's mind.
[Detected Holder has awakened Meta-Morph Factor. Key of Domination Unit 0017 initiating self-startup.]
[Scanning Holder's current status...]
[Given Holder's current combat power level is excessively low, in accordance with Article 171 of the "Fire Moth MANTIS Management Regulations," loading Terminal Aide Personal Assistance Module—]
[Does Holder grant permission for onboard AI Prometheus to read memories?]
Fuli didn't agree immediately. Instead, he asked, "Is it mandatory?"
[According to regulations, the Holder of the Key of Domination possesses the authority to deny Prometheus's proposal.]
Just testing the waters, but to think I can actually negotiate...
"Then don't read them for now."
[Warning: Inability to read memories will result in Prometheus being unable to provide rationalized suggestions tailored to the Holder. Confirm?]
"Asking for a friend: If you purely scan the body and not the memories, can you still make rationalized suggestions?"
[...Feasible.]
"Then let's go with that."
[Understood. Loading remaining modules—]
Fuli's current mood was a mix of joy and worry. The joy came from the fact that, at this level, it likely wouldn't be one of those tyrannical systems that bullied its host or killed them off for failing a mission.
The worry was that this "Terminal Aide System" was likely just a beta version, unable to skyrocket him to success like in those mindless power-fantasy novels on Faloo.
LMAO. Sure, starting off invincible in a novel does kill most of the fun.
But if you translate that to reality, who wouldn't want to be invincible while everyone else struggles?
While Fuli was pondering, Key of Domination Unit 0017 finished loading the remaining modules.
[Terminal Aide Module load complete. Prometheus 0017 is dedicated to your service.]
As the voice faded, an emotionless, cute girl formed of pale blue light appeared on Fuli's retina.
She wore a short gray trench coat blending military and cyberpunk styles, with a nylon skirt. Her hair was styled in twin-tail spiral drills secured by metal clips behind her head.
Her limb joints were segmented like a puppet's. Her face was a blur; the only distinct features were her inorganic eyes emitting a crimson glow.
—Wait a second, this design? Bronya?
Seeming to notice Fuli's confusion, the girl calling herself Prometheus explained: [The AI's model references an individual relatively familiar within the Host's interpersonal relationships. To avoid causing the Host cognitive dissonance, the facial features have been blurred.]
"Interpersonal relationships?"
[Prometheus did not violate regulations to read the Host's memories. The assessment of the Host's interpersonal relationships relied primarily on environmental data recorded internally by the Key of Domination.]
They say talking to smart people is comfortable. Fuli had merely raised his inflection, and the little AI had already read the subtext in his words.