"Silence."
The beautiful girl, Raiden Mei, addicted to her role-playing game of teaching, waved her pointer, and the classroom fell quiet again.
She cleared her throat. "Kiana."
"Huh?"
Kiana scratched the back of her head. "I wasn't talking nonsense, Mei..."
Her pouting expression screamed 'aggrieved, pitiful, and helpless,' leaving Mei not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
"I simply considered that reviewing the old to learn the new would help you remember this part of history better, so I chose to ask you questions for you to answer."
"Oh, then go ahead and ask, Mei."
Kiana had always believed that humanities subjects like history were unnecessary to learn. Why did St. Freya offer this course? Could studying literature defeat zombies? Could debating scripture kill mid-to-large-sized Honkai Beasts dozens of meters tall?
With that time, she'd rather go train at Mount Taixuan and enrich her combat methods!
Sensing her stubborn mindset, Fuli whispered a reminder, "Don't forget, not everyone is like you and me."
Ultimately, there would be those who failed the exams and couldn't become active Valkyries. One of the reasons St. Freya offered such courses was to ensure these students had somewhere to go after graduation.
Great waves wash away the sand to reveal the gold, and while gold is indeed dazzling, as educators, they couldn't just let the mediocre gravel fend for itself.
"Besides, Mei looks really good right now, doesn't she?"
"Mmh, mmh."
"A certain big white cat said before, right? One should love learning as much as one loves beauty (lust)."
"Hmph, fine."
Under Fuli's repeated coaxing, Kiana forced herself to perk up.
However, seeing the way she kept stealing glances at the boy's focused profile like a thieving cat, one had to wonder if her definition of 'beauty/lust' was male or female.
Or perhaps both counted?
"Very good."
The slender pointer in Mei's hand tapped the screen projected in the void, making a sound as if striking a solid object.
"The collective faith of humanity combined with the Honkai energy permeating the planet's atmosphere has a significant probability of birthing a godhead over time. Having just experienced the Third Eruption, you and I must keep this firmly in mind."
Recalling the supreme dominance of the Herrscher of Thunder earlier, Fuli and Kiana nodded like chickens pecking at grain.
'Also, I think Celestial Emperor Mode Mei looks super beautiful!'
Reading this surface thought, Mei noted it down, deciding to get more clothes in a similar style later.
'But mainly, it's because Mei is wearing it that it looks good. Anyone else wouldn't have the aura to pull off that divine outfit.'
Unable to suppress the upward curve of her lips, the girl simply turned around, her high ponytail drawing a perfect arc in the air.
"According to this theory, as a religious faith famous throughout history, Schicksal should indeed have its own godhead."
"But the fact is, despite being the world's largest organization with nearly one-third of the global population as followers, possessing the Vatican, Orthodoxy, Puritanism, and many other branches, Schicksal itself has not been able to catalyze even a single godhead."
"Not only that, in the nearly two thousand years since its establishment, Schicksal has instead been acting as the vanguard for eradicating gods."
Mei paused, then said, "This can be clearly understood from the expansion history of the Christian faith."
Kiana, who had staged a version of "Where are we going, Dad?" across half the Eurasian continent and encountered many heretics, deeply agreed. "Only recognizing that one unique true God in the universe, and labeling everything else as demons. Or simply claiming your god is an angel under the Lord's command, sending a bunch of believers to find ways to erase, assimilate, and absorb them."
Mei nodded. "Because of this extreme anti-god characteristic, many people believe that the original intention of establishing Schicksal was as a tool used by the Pioneers of the Previous Era, who secretly guard human civilization, to suppress anomalies like godheads."
This was the first time Fuli had heard this theory. "Evidence?"
"Indirect evidence is that when Schicksal was first established, it possessed an exaggerated number of Divine Keys: Black Abyss White Flower, Judgment of Shamash, Void Archives, and Oath of Judah. These things were all held by the Pioneers of the Previous Era. If they didn't want it, who in that ignorant and backward age could forcibly take them from their hands?"
Mei walked to Fuli's side and bent her willow-like waist, seemingly unintentionally. Seeing the boy avert his gaze, unable to handle it, she spoke briskly, "As for direct evidence, the ancestor of the Apocalypse family was named Gautama Siddhartha."
Seeing the white-haired dumpling looking confused, Fuli helpfully reminded her, "The one who slapped the Monkey King under the Five Elements Mountain."
"The Tathagata Buddha? Isn't that a novel?"
Kiana could still distinguish between reality and fiction.
"The Tathagata Buddha is a fictional character, but Shakyamuni existed in history."
Kiana blinked. "Does that mean Auntie is also a descendant of the Buddha?"
An image floated into the girl's mind:
Theresa, sitting cross-legged on a twelve-grade golden lotus, eyes closed, body radiating Buddhist light. One finger pointing to the sky, one to the ground, shouting in a low voice, 'Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one!', while the cross-shaped Oath of Judah watched the fun from the side.
Leaving aside whether that was cursed or not.
"So Auntie never got married because she believes in Buddhism," Kiana muttered to herself.
"No, no, no, it has nothing to do with believing in religion."
Fuli quickly reached out, disrupting the girl's fantasy. "Besides, the only true, purebred Apocalypse descendant left today is the current Overseer, Otto. The other purebloods have disappeared in the long river of time; Theresa was adopted."
Schicksal officially promoted Theresa as the [reincarnation of Saint Kallen from five hundred years ago]. Hah, anyone who believed that news was an idiot.
"Oh."
Kiana scratched her head.
Mei continued, "Leaving aside those messy scriptural records, this Lord of Buddhism did indeed have a real teacher. It was precisely this teacher's guidance that allowed him to embark on the path of becoming an Enlightened One, eventually achieving enlightenment under the Bodhi tree."
"This teacher is honored in Buddhism as Mahamayuri, the Peacock Wisdom King, and his true name was Su."
" The wisest among the Pioneers, the 7th Flame-Chaser bearing the title of [Bodhi], Su."
The plain name seemed to possess a special magic. The ticking of the clock sounded exceptionally clear in the silence; even breathing became gentle, afraid to disturb the tranquility.
It wasn't until the sound of rain tapping against the window rang out that Fuli summarized, "So this Mr. Su asked the descendants of his disciple to go to Europe to establish Schicksal to prune the wildly growing godheads. He also used some method to suppress the faith of Christianity, preventing the omniscient and omnipotent Lord of Hosts from being born."
"To name it with a more academic term, it would be a Faith Center Conversion Device."
Mei, possessing the memory bank of Sakra (Indra), looked distant. "To this day, buried deep within the lowest level of Schicksal HQ, 'He' continues to play his role, suppressing the monsters and demons that should have run rampant in the Current Era."
'He?'
Fuli paused, sensing something wrong, and was about to ask for details.
"Of course, that's all ancient history now."
Mei didn't seem to want to discuss this further. "After Otto Apocalypse overthrew the rule of the old Schicksal in 1491 AD, he embarked on a series of religious reforms. Not only did he move the headquarters of the new Schicksal to a floating island, but he also completed a nominal separation from the major churches."
In reality, the churches remained subordinate branches of Schicksal, governed by the Council of Elders, one of the three major factions.
"Next, we will focus on Schicksal's combat deployment and power configuration five hundred years ago, when Kallen Kaslana was still alive."
Hearing this, even though he thought he would just hit and run and wouldn't confront these people at all, Fuli still stared intently at the beautiful girl's opening and closing cherry lips.
Kiana, equally intrigued by the pre-class story, was the same. An afternoon passed just like that.
In the evening, after dinner, Bronya brought a gray Homu sleeping cap-style virtual dive device.
"Since I have to team up with Alice to monitor Schicksal's checks on the database, Bronya can't dive with Big Bro."
The little girl stood on her tiptoes and exhorted him earnestly, "You must control yourself when you're alone. Do not get addicted to the flowers and grass of the data world, and do not do any lewd things to those virtual characters that the audience outside would love to see."
"For example, ruthlessly ravaging Kallen right in front of Otto, or mating with Kallen right in front of Otto."
"You and I both know that with Otto's personality, he wouldn't consider the Virtual Kallen to be equal to the Real Kallen."
"But while she isn't the Real Otto's Kallen, she is the Virtual Otto's Kallen!"
"Don't worry. When it comes to male-female relations, your Big Bro has always been well-behaved and law-abiding."
Fuli pinched Bronya's cute little cheek and put the Homu sleeping cap on his head.
He had never forgotten the words of that veteran mercenary senior, not to mention the tragic experience of being ultimately humiliated by the Herrscher of Domination in the previous loop.
Before ascending to the throne of a Sequence, Fuli would absolutely not consider any kind of romantic entanglements.
"By the way."
Remembering something, he raised his hand to ask, "You guys outside shouldn't be able to see my experiences in the virtual world, right?"
"Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate. Electronic Display Screen, beholding countless Java, measuring all uncertainty..."
Bronya, who had been muttering a cyber-sutra, suddenly shouted: "Lincoln Star-toe!" [Link Start!]
"You're deliberately not answering, aren't you? I'll remember this grudge!"
In the next second, endless light swallowed Fuli's vision.
And in the second after that, the expressions of the Trio, who had grabbed their melon seeds, drinks, and popcorn, ready to watch the whole movie, changed drastically.
The reason was simple: the moment Fuli hacked into the Schicksal database, his physical body, situated right there in the room, weirdly vanished into thin air!
At the same moment, Schicksal Headquarters, hovering above the Mediterranean Sea—
Deep underground in the main island of Midgard, a peerless beauty with a tall figure opened her eyes.
Her temperament was alien and beautiful, awe-inspiring like snow.
The barefoot beauty stood peacefully in the endlessly extending darkness. Her pale purple hair hung down to her waist, and her silver dress swayed naturally. Her beautiful eyes gazed out with a calmness like still water, giving a first impression of coldness, silence, and a lack of humanity.
Question: In this world, what entity possesses the highest computational power?
Is it the human brain, formed by approximately 86 to 100 billion neurons highly interconnected to form an intricate neural network?
No.
Is it the supercomputer, known as a pillar of the nation, with a peak performance of 125 quadrillion operations per second and a sustained performance of 93 quadrillion operations per second, serving fields like military, medicine, meteorology, finance, energy, environment, and manufacturing?
No.
Or is it the era-defining optical quantum computer, which strikes at the old order with a dimensionality reduction attack, capable of calculating in 1 microsecond a complex sample that would take the world's number one supercomputer nearly 20 billion years to analyze?
No, it is none of these.
It is the [World] itself, which contains all of the above and possesses infinite possibilities.
And the Super Artificial Intelligence [Ella] was the celestial neural network assembly created by the Schicksal Research Department using every means possible. They sliced a planet-scale super-large World Bubble, combined it with magnetized Soulium, Pristine Crystals, Astral Stones, Mind Stones, and massive amounts of super-rare materials. Her very existence equated to the limit of human technology.
In terms of practical application, Ella not only oversaw the myriad affairs of Schicksal and provided necessary computing power and experimental data for millions of researchers at all levels, but she also kept the equally ranked Fermirins in check. She explored the Quantum Sea and Imaginary Space, and at critical moments, she would lend a hand to help the Valkyries on their missions overcome difficulties.
In short, three words: Guardian Deity.
Naturally, the Schicksal Central Database, which recorded history from ancient times to the present, was also managed by her.
Bronya and Alice believed they could deceive Schicksal with their exquisite hacking skills. However, leaving aside the fact that the name 'Fuli' had appeared a billion times too often recently, simply based on the fact that the weaver of the [Ella] personality was that Dr. Fu-A (Code A), she could absolutely not ignore this person who was theoretically her half-brother.
Unfortunately, she only didn't ignore him.
[Eliminate all fatal factors that could potentially cause a devastating blow to all mankind.]
Such a regulation had been written into her pseudo-neurons long before the personality of Ella was born.
With the support of computing power at the astronomical unit level, this planetary computer with a peerlessly beautiful face instantly perceived a terrifying possibility within Fuli.
Without a word, she sounded the world-ending alarm that existed only in theory. She ordered the three active S-Rank Valkyries, the Divine Power Squads, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and the seven major branches to mobilize all forces to sweep the universe. Simultaneously, she issued a command to awaken the previous generation of S-Rank Valkyries who had been sealed via the Key of Stasis, swearing to kill the calamity named Fuli on the spot at all costs!
Perhaps thinking that even this wasn't enough, Ella went so far as to utilize Fuli's current location within the virtual world to unleash a data decomposition ability against him, using her full computing power to structurally dissociate him.
It took five seconds. Through the interference of some mysterious power, she barely managed to decompose the boy's D-Rank field protective suit.
However, just as Ella was bracing herself to continue—
Tap...
Tap...
Crisp footsteps echoed in this vast, dark space set to be boundless.
"There is no need, Ella."
A blonde noble, looking completely out of place with the murderous and tense atmosphere, leisurely intruded into this domain. He held up a wine glass, the scarlet liquid swirling inside, red as blood.
"Although I don't know where that child got the news, since he wants to take a tour inside that special virtual World Bubble, how can we, as hosts, be so rude?"
The man simply canceled the still-blaring world-ending alarm, fabricating a system error as an excuse to the outside world.
Not only were his actions casual, but he also didn't ask a single question about why the AI maiden had gone to such great lengths.
"..."
Ella frowned slightly, seemingly expressing dissatisfaction with the man's behavior of letting danger ferment yet again.
In the AI maiden's eyes, if one were to list the fatal factors threatening all mankind, the person before her would definitely count as one.
"I understand, Lord Overseer."
But she still bowed, and her temporarily condensed projection dissipated into the boundless darkness.
The starlight turned into drifting dust. Otto reached out and caught a wisp of white frost.
"Personality... truly a wondrous thing."
He chuckled lightly.
When a super AI that served as the foundation of Schicksal showed signs of escaping control, a man should have decisively shut it down and restarted it, initializing and resetting this personality that privately mobilized troops and expressed dissatisfaction with him, turning it back into a blank sheet of paper that obediently followed orders.
"But doing that... wouldn't it be very boring?"
His voice echoed in the dark space, as if speaking to himself, or perhaps to some unknown existence.
As long as Ella didn't show resistance to the matter of resurrecting Kallen, Otto would happily let her develop.
After all, he had failed enough times over these five hundred years; a few more times wouldn't matter.
Because you and I both know—
BOOM!!!
The vibration of shattered space came from all directions, and a gravitational tide of planetary scale expanded and contracted!
A black and white lance, carrying an indomitable momentum, pierced through ninety-six thousand layers of spell barriers in an instant, forcefully pinning Ella, who had been forced to re-condense her form, against the wall forged from the void!
"I said, Little Li (My Husband) is my prey."
The tall, blonde, strongest Valkyrie of Schicksal strode forward, her metallic boots making a crisp sound against the ground.
"Do you—not understand human speech?"
Durandal gripped the Black Abyss White Flower that had pierced Ella's chest, her cold, snow-like eyes icy and tyrannical.
"Heh."
Watching this scene, Otto, hidden in the darkness, couldn't help but smile.
As expected. You and I both know that 'interest' is the best food for immortals.
The humid air was mixed with the smell of mold and rust. The stone slabs on the ground were covered with moss, slippery to step on. Drops of water dripped from the rock walls, making a drip-drip sound that echoed in the empty underground space.
Even though he had set foot here countless times before, the terrible environment of the dungeon still made the young Otto Apocalypse frown.
According to the old fogies in the clan, this underground prison was built personally by the creator of Schicksal.
Its prototype referenced a strange structure called the Deep End. Special Soulium called Sessho-seki (Killing Stone) was carefully arranged in various hidden and visible corners, constructing a magic-forbidden barrier similar to a weakened version of the Binding Authority.
As long as one was within the barrier, any Honkai energy would dissipate the moment it left the body. It was the most suitable place in the world to imprison a Valkyrie—at least, in the eyes of 1477 AD.
Therefore, even as the wielder of the Key of Revelation (Void Archives), Otto could only barely illuminate the surrounding stone walls and the interlaced stone arches overhead with the lantern in his hand.
Mottled light and shadows formed streaks of darkness. Occasionally, one or two bats could be seen fluttering in the corners, only to be caught by a slender, soft hand reaching out from behind the bars to serve as a momentary dinner.
Otto sighed and lifted the lunch box in his hand. "Kallen, you don't need to eat that. I brought food."
Behind the jagged bars, a peerlessly beautiful woman in white clothes and white hair sat on her knees.
"Otto? When did you arrive?"
She couldn't bear to let go of the struggling bat in her hand. Instead, she turned her head away guiltily. "I... I haven't reached the point where I have to eat this thing to satisfy my hunger! And even if you bring me delicious food, I will absolutely never agree to Bishop Nicholas's excessive demands!"
"It's just fulfilling the engagement with me."
Otto couldn't help but sigh again. "You understand. As long as you don't agree, I won't touch a hair on your head no matter what. It's just a nominal gimmick."
In his memory, similar conversations had been repeated countless times.
Yet every time, he marveled at the woman's persistence.
As the world's largest anti-Honkai organization governing the entire European supernatural front, the Schicksal of the fifteenth century was supported and operated by three major families: Apocalypse was responsible for command and planning, Kaslana's warriors charged into battle, and while Schariac was inferior to the former two in those aspects, they possessed a special inheritance called the Holy Blood.
At first, the three parties coexisted happily, united against the Honkai and in eradicating heretical beliefs.
Unexpectedly, as time went on, the Schariac bloodline grew thinner by the day. Their power to manipulate Honkai energy and their ability to weaken Honkai corruption both declined significantly. The main family's elite bloodline had even reached the point where they struggled to use the family's inherited Divine Key—Black Abyss White Flower.
Schariac's voice gradually faded. Even the position of Saintess, which they had always held, fell to Kallen, born of Kaslana, in this generation.
Seeing that they were about to lose the power they had held for a millennium, in order to keep their seat in the trinity, Schariac had no choice but to choose marriage with the Apocalypse family, which symbolized wisdom, to gain support, entrusting their sovereignty to them.
To what extent was it entrusted? The surname Schariac, representing glory, could even be casually bestowed by Otto—the youngest and not particularly favored son of the Bishop—upon Eleanor, a poor girl he had saved. He even lent her the Black Abyss part of the Black Abyss White Flower to propagate Schariac's prestige within Schicksal.
It was precisely because she witnessed Schariac's pathetic state of wagging its tail and begging for pity that Kallen would rather die than accept the engagement with Otto.
She would absolutely not let Kaslana become the next Schariac, nor would she let Schicksal be completely grasped in the hands of the power-hungry Apocalypse family.
"Otto, I know you mean well."
Resisting the urge to take the lunch box from Otto's hand, the Legendary Hunger King, who hadn't eaten for seven days and seven nights, shook her head. "In your view, this is just a guise to keep Kallen Kaslana alive. Once we tide over this difficulty, you and I can definitely make a comeback and overthrow Schicksal's current rotten rule."
She smiled sarcastically. "But who ever said that what Apocalypse needs is a living daughter of the previous patriarch, possessing S-Rank Valkyrie strength and the status of Saintess?"
The reason Schicksal's pursuit troops were able to capture Kallen in the Far East and imprison her in this dark underground cage was because she had been heavily injured after a great battle with the Herrscher of Corruption, which had revived using Yae Sakura's body.
In short, they got lucky picking up the scraps.
Once Kallen was restored to her peak, with her extreme martial prowess capable of exchanging blows with the Celestial, combined with the Oath of Judah and Judgment of Shamash—two Divine Keys—who could truly stop her if she led the Kaslana clan to leave and establish their own portal?
All Bishop Nicholas wanted was for her to agree—whether nominally or substantially didn't matter.
Once Kallen agreed to fulfill the engagement with Otto, she, useless and extremely difficult to control, would definitely be killed by an assassin popping out of some dark corner. A prepared white-haired infant would immediately appear before everyone with the identity of "Kallen's posthumous child."
The subsequent development went without saying.
Silence descended again. The two, with their different thoughts, had lost the desire to communicate.
The gloomy wind in the dungeon was chilling, as if ghostly things would emerge from the darkness at any moment.
Only the loud and noisy growl from Kallen's lower abdomen under her clothes, upon smelling the aroma of food, punctuated this oppressive and deep atmosphere with a comical, off-key note.
After a long time, Otto spoke again. "Then, what if... what if you could obtain true freedom without fulfilling the engagement with me?"
Holding a mysterious pale green rune in his hand, he said with incomparable seriousness, "If it were like that, could you accept it?"
Kallen didn't immediately ask what she should do. She understood her eccentric and stubborn childhood friend too well.
"Tell me, Otto. What is the price?"
"Me."
The man pointed to himself. "I will stay here, knowing nothing, and die without a shred of pain."
"Then I refuse!"
Clean, neat, decisive. Without even a second of hesitation.
There was never a perverse logic in the world that because he likes me, I must like him. Kallen didn't like Otto; that was beyond doubt.
She didn't like his style of doing things, didn't like his disregard for human life, and didn't like his coldness and ruthlessness toward anyone other than herself. Even Otto was aware of this, occasionally mumbling things like "He did so many things she wouldn't approve of, things she wouldn't agree to."
But Kallen merely didn't like him; she didn't hate Otto.
The girl knew that everyone in this world had the right to hate Otto, except for her.
Many things, regardless of whether the process and result were good or bad—this man's original intention was entirely to help her, to fulfill that small agreement she made with him when they were young: "Great Inventor, let's go save the world!"
Because of this, Kallen would absolutely not allow Otto to sacrifice himself to save her.
She already owed him.
But Otto didn't think so.
He never thought Kallen owed him anything.
When the young him was virtually abandoned by his father due to his low Honkai adaptability, ostracized by his siblings, and could only squat alone in the yard playing with the little toys he invented, lonely and lost... it was that tiny white-haired girl who jumped onto the wall, lay there, and praised him from the bottom of her heart, saying he was really amazing, smiling foolishly and inviting him to save the world with her.
Kallen Kaslana was the meaning of Otto Apocalypse's life and his sole motivation to live. Would you consider yourself owing a favor to air, water, and food?
So.
"Even if you resist, this time, I will absolutely make you li—"
The word 'live' (or 'survive') was cut off before Otto could finish.
CLANG!
A massive noise came from inside the cage without warning, as if something had fallen from the sky and smashed straight into the ground.
"Who is it?!!"
Warrior instinct compelled Kallen to look in that direction immediately.
Otto's reaction was a beat slower than hers, but this scene, which had never appeared in the countless past loops, also compelled him to look at the source of the sound.
First, they saw two bare legs.
Then, they saw the philosophical configuration of two eggs and a sausage.
"Pah! Pervert!"
Kallen spat, her face blushing, trying to turn her head away. Yet, her instinct as a warrior compelled her to stare intently at this naked stranger.
Otto, separated from her by the bars, had a glazed look in his eyes.
He looked at the boy who had planted head-first into the earth like an onion, leaving his bare butt exposed. Subconsciously comparing the boy's size with his own, his expression instantly twisted—just like it had a few days ago when he discovered his nephew Marcel forcing the little lamb he planned to raise for food to mate.