At that very moment.
[Ding——]
Su Yu's fingers, tapping away at the keyboard, abruptly froze.
It wasn't because of the System's notification chime.
Deep in his mind, that consciousness which had stayed silent all this while suddenly rippled with a violent surge.
"Jilin..."
That voice was very faint, like a bubble rising from the deep, deep bottom of the water, carrying a sigh that had crossed a long stretch of time.
"It really is... such a distant name now."
Su Yu said nothing, only silently stilled the movements of his hands.
Through the Spiritual Link, it was as if he saw a yellowed scroll slowly unfurling before his eyes.
It was a morning when the land of Shenzhou was still in the age of tribes.
No high-rise buildings, no neon lights.
Only unbroken green mountains, and curling mist and clouds.
He saw that maiden astride a warhorse, a golden longsword in hand, charging valiantly and dashingly into the horde of beasts.
He saw two twin sisters who looked exactly alike yet were forever bickering and squabbling—they were the "ancestors" of the people of Shenzhou, Nuwa and Fuxi, and also the prototypes of Fuxi and Nuwa.
"Back then... everyone was still here."
In Fenghuang's voice seeped an indescribable loneliness.
"Nuwa always loved making those strange dolls, and Fuxi was always quietly cleaning up the messes she left behind. And Jilin... she was always the one charging out at the very front."
"We thought that as long as we worked hand in hand, we could keep that civilization going. We taught humans to farm, to weave, to make pottery... wanting to pass on the fire-seed of the previous civilization to them, ever so carefully."
The scene shifted abruptly.
The once-peaceful mountains and rivers were torn apart by a colossal beast whose bulk blotted out the sky and the sun.
A Judgment-class Honkai Beast—Chiyou.
"But... sometimes, the flame called civilization burns too bright, and instead draws out the monsters lurking in the Abyss."
Fenghuang's voice grew a little hoarse.
"At that time... I happened to be away on a mission. By the time I sensed that immense Honkai energy and rushed back with all my might..."
The scene shattered.
All that remained was a deathly-still sea, and old friends who could never again answer her calls.
"Everything... was already over."
The voice in his mind cut off abruptly, sinking back into silence.
Only an emotion called sorrow remained, washing over Su Yu's heart like a tide.
Su Yu drew a deep breath, his fingers lightly rubbing the edge of the keyboard.
He knew that this was a pain that would forever dwell in Fu Hua's heart.
That immortal who had guarded Shenzhou for thousands of years had, in truth, always lived in the loneliness of having lost her companions.
"Su Yu? What's wrong?"
Kiana's voice pulled him back to reality.
She was tilting her head, looking at the dazed Su Yu with a puzzled expression.
"It's—it's nothing."
Su Yu shook his head, pressed down that heavy emotion, and put on a relaxed smile once more.
"I was just thinking... this thing called history really does carry a lot of weight. So what happened next? Where did Bronya take you?"
Seeing that Su Yu was fine, Kiana didn't dwell on it and carried on her tale with great enthusiasm.
"After that, the scene shifted, and we arrived in 14th-century Europe!"
Her tone dropped a little lower, as if mimicking that oppressive medieval atmosphere.
"At that time, the Honkai appeared again. And it had become stronger and more cunning than before."
"Although by then the Schicksal organization had already been established, and there was even a dedicated order of knights to fight the Honkai, and they'd even unearthed holy relics to use as weapons against the Honkai Beasts—but..."
Kiana furrowed her brow.
"Humans still had no way to wipe out those monsters completely. All they could do was beat them until they lost their combat ability, then lock them up underground beneath Schicksal Headquarters, like prisoners."
"At the time I was still thinking, hadn't humanity already gained the upper hand? The order of knights was so powerful, beating the Honkai Beasts back step by step."
"But right after that..."
Kiana shivered.
"The Honkai changed. It was no longer a monster you could see and touch—it became a kind of... invisible reaper."
"The Black Death."
Su Yu softly uttered the word.
In the worldview of the Honkai, anything that had to do with calamity could be traced back to the Honkai.
"Right! That's the one!"
Kiana nodded vigorously.
"In just six short years, twenty-five million people died... nearly emptying out all of Europe."
"The streets were full of corpses—that feeling of despair... Bronya said that people back then even guessed whether the Honkai had gained intelligence and was deliberately toying with humanity."
At this point, Kiana let out a sigh, a trace of compassion showing in her eyes.
"Watching those people die helplessly, my heart ached terribly at the time. I had power, and yet in that virtual world, there was nothing I could do."
"But!"
Her tone took a sudden turn, growing excited as if she'd discovered a new continent.
"Just when I was feeling down, I suddenly spotted something super familiar on a street corner!"
Kiana gestured out the shape of a giant cross.
"A golden, enormous cross! And it was carved all over with those intricate patterns!"
"I called it out right away—isn't that Theresa's Oath of Judah?!"
Su Yu smiled.
Judah, the ultimate cheat of the Valkyries, Theresa's true body.
"In the heat of the moment, I instinctively wanted to reach out and touch it, to see if it was as heavy as Theresa's."
Kiana stuck out her tongue.
"And the moment my hand touched that cross, it suddenly lit up! And it even gave off this beep-beep-beep mechanical sound!"
She cleared her throat, imitating a System's electronic voice:
"[Kaslana family DNA profile detected... hidden record initiating...]"
"I was totally stunned! Before I could even figure out what it meant, the whole world suddenly turned upside down!"
Kiana waved her arms, describing that head-spinning sensation.
"The floor became the ceiling, the sky became the Abyss! And I just dropped straight down!"
"Waaaah——help! Why does this lousy System come with free-fall too?! Is it trying to splatter this young lady to death?!"
She griped even as she reminisced, yet her face wore a smile.
"I was screaming with my eyes shut, thinking I'm done for, I'm done for, I'm definitely going to splat into a meat patty this time. This wasn't Bronya tutoring me—this was straight-up murdering her own husband... pah, murdering her teammate!"
Su Yu couldn't help but laugh.
This really did fit Kiana's style—no matter what crisis she ran into, she'd fire off a round of snark first.
"But..."
Kiana blinked, her expression turning a little dreamy.
"The strange thing was, the pain I'd expected never came."
"Instead... it was like landing on a ball of cotton, or like being caught steadily by someone."
She paused for a moment, her cheeks flushing faintly.
"When I carefully opened my eyes..."
"I saw a face."
"White hair, blue eyes, as deep as the ocean."
Kiana drew a deep breath, as though that scene were right before her eyes this very moment.
"It was Kallen Kaslana."
"She was... my ancestor, once the strongest S-rank Valkyrie of Schicksal."
"She didn't look to be in good shape at the time," Kiana recalled. "Thick chains were wound around her, her arm was still bleeding, her clothes were in tatters, and her face was covered in dust."
"But..."
"Even in such a sorry state... she still looked so holy."
"Like an angel still glowing even in the depths of hell."
"Come to think of it... that virtual reality really was strange."
Kiana hugged her knees, chin resting on the cushion, her brow slightly furrowed, as if pondering a riddle that had troubled her for a long time.
"It was just a data space, yet I could touch the people inside, could even talk with them. That feeling... it was too real, nothing at all like a program set up in advance."
Of course it was real.
It was the handiwork of Otto Apocalypse.
"Anyway, after I met Sister Kallen, I learned she was on her way being escorted to the dungeon. So I thought, my savior was going to be locked up? That just won't do—I had to repay her kindness—"
But soon Kiana's expression twisted a little, and she sucked in a cold breath as if her tooth ached.
"And then everything went black—I got knocked out cold just like that!"
"Only later did I find out that the person escorting Kallen was actually Kallen's own martial arts teacher!"
Kiana indignantly shook her fist, though to Su Yu the gesture carried a hint of bluster.
"Aiya, what could I do! After all, a master who could train a powerhouse like Kallen had to be one of those reclusive old monsters!"
She forced an excuse to cover for herself, her cheeks slightly red.
"I just... got careless that time! Right, I got careless and didn't dodge! Otherwise I definitely could've traded a few blows with him. Getting knocked out is a perfectly normal thing, right? It absolutely wasn't that I'm too weak!"
Holding back his laughter, Su Yu typed into the document: [Kiana Kaslana: Got careless and didn't dodge]
"And then?" he asked.
"Then I got locked up in the cell together with Kallen."
Kiana sighed, her mood sinking.
"I asked her why she'd been captured."
"She said... she'd stolen something very important from Schicksal. If that thing wasn't taken away, it would bring about a massive catastrophe."
"Even though I didn't know what it was, looking into her eyes... I knew she had to be a good person."
"People of the Kaslana family don't do bad things. I figured she must have had her reasons."
Su Yu looked at her.
Even across five hundred years, even across the distance between life and death, this resonance and trust within the bloodline remained so clear.
"And then the next morning, I was let out."
Kiana's words took a sudden turn, her expression growing odd, as if holding back a laugh.
"The guard said my mother had come to bail me out."
"Your mother?" Su Yu obligingly put on a surprised expression.
"Yeah! I was baffled too, but the moment I walked out the door—guess who I saw?"
Kiana took a deep breath, looking as though she'd seen a ghost.
"I saw Bronya!"
"That little squirt! She was actually wearing this kind of... super gorgeous lace Lolita dress! And holding up a little lace parasol too!"
"She just stood there, only this tiny bit tall—not even as high as the guard's belt!"
Kiana imitated how Bronya had looked then, putting on a straight face and speaking in a flat, monotone, wooden-reading tone:
"What a naughty child. Mama was worried sick."
"Pfft—"
Su Yu couldn't hold it in, and nearly spat out the water he'd just sipped into his mouth.
The mental image was just too vivid.
That expressionless little loli, straight-faced, calling herself "Mama"—that kind of enormous gap-moe was downright cheating.
"I totally fell apart on the spot, okay?!" Kiana said, her face the picture of collapse. "That loli-mama move just completely broke my brain! What kind of super generation-jump is that?! I even forgot to snark about where she'd gotten that outfit!"
The atmosphere in the living room lightened a bit because of this little episode.
But that lightness didn't last long.
The smile on Kiana's face slowly faded.
"After being rescued... I really wanted to know what became of Kallen afterward. So Bronya pulled up Schicksal's database archives for me."
Su Yu reined in his smile.
He knew the main event was coming.
"Kallen Kaslana, born in 1453. She was the twenty-ninth head of the Kaslana family, the eldest daughter of Francis. And also the most outstanding warrior of that era."
Kiana recited the words from those archives, her voice dry and rasping.
"She slew countless Honkai Beasts and was the pride of Schicksal. To honor her, Schicksal even forged for her that Divine Key—the Oath of Judah."
"But... in 1477, everything changed."
Kiana paused for a moment.
"She stole a Honkai energy crystal from a Schicksal Research Institute—that is, that box. Carrying it, she fled to a place in the Far East called Yae Village."
"There, she met a girl, Yae Sakura."
"She... fell in love with that pseudo-Herrscher eroded by Honkai energy."
Su Yu's fingers hovered over the keyboard, not striking it.
The room was so quiet that only Kiana's somewhat heavy breathing could be heard.
"Later... the pseudo-Herrscher vanished together with the crystal. The gravely wounded Kallen was captured and taken back by Schicksal's intelligence forces."
"At the council meeting at headquarters, everyone accused her of betraying humanity, of consorting with monsters."
Kiana lifted her head, an indescribable sorrow in her eyes.
"But Kallen... she stood at the dock and said to everyone: 'That girl who became a Herrscher is innocent. And what's more... I have already fallen in love with that girl.'"
"Those big shots all thought she'd gone mad. She was Schicksal's Saint, the strongest Valkyrie—how could she fall in love with a Herrscher?"
"The final verdict... was death by hanging."
"Not long after, she died. To protect civilians, she died beneath the claws of a Honkai Beast."
Having finished, Kiana seemed drained of all strength, slumping limply into the sofa.
She stared at some point in the void, her gaze hollow.
"Su Yu..."
After a long while, she finally spoke softly, her voice hoarse.
"After I finished reading those archives, my whole mind was filled with one thought... is falling in love with a Herrscher really wrong?"
"Herrschers... are human too."
"Their hearts were just twisted by Honkai energy—they weren't born monsters. Like Wendy, she only wanted to walk again..."
Kiana gave a self-mocking smile, one uglier than crying.
"Back then, my heart was filled with nothing but Mei."
"I thought that as long as I was there, as long as I grew strong enough, that bastard Herrscher wouldn't be able to hurt Mei. I could protect Mei just like Kallen protected Yae Sakura."
"But..."
She lowered her head, looking at her own hands.
Those hands had once been stained with countless drops of blood.
"I overlooked one very important thing."
"The one who loves a Herrscher can be a human—like Kallen, like the me of the past."
"But it absolutely cannot be... another Herrscher who can't even control her own power."
She pointed at her own chest.
There, though the core of the Herrscher of the Void lay dormant, it still ticked like a time bomb, reminding her at every moment—she was a monster.
"If I had to do it all over, if I had to face the same question..."
Kiana raised her head, looking at Su Yu, an almost despairing plea in her eyes.
She wanted to get an answer from Su Yu—or rather, a judgment.
"I think... even though I'd still feel that loving a Herrscher isn't wrong."
"But... for me, being a Herrscher, to be loved by someone—that very thing itself... is wrong, isn't it?"
"Because I'll hurt them. Like that box, I'll bring calamity to the people around me—like Teacher Himeko..."
Her voice choked up, and she couldn't go on.
This was the knot in her heart.
It was also the root of why, even in this peaceful world, she still lived so cautiously, not daring to reach for happiness.
She felt she was a mistake.
A mistake that shouldn't be loved, that shouldn't exist.
Su Yu looked at her.
Looked at this foolish girl, battered all over, who was still desperately heaping all the blame onto herself.
He didn't directly answer right or wrong.
In this damned world, many things simply had no black-and-white answer to begin with.
"Kiana."
Su Yu suddenly spoke.
His voice was very calm, yet it carried a force that pierced straight into the heart.
"Do you think Teacher Himeko loved you?"
That name was like a jolt of electricity, striking Kiana in an instant.
She froze, her body trembling slightly, her eyes full of helpless confusion.
"I..."
"Falling in love with a Herrscher may, for that world, indeed have been a mistake."
Su Yu cut her off, his tone turning serious.
"In that world, which regarded the Honkai as its absolute mortal enemy, it truly was a monstrous heresy."
He rose to his feet, walked over in front of Kiana, and crouched down so his gaze was level with hers.
"But, Kiana."
"Many things can't be judged by simple right and wrong. Some things in this world... simply cannot be measured by right or wrong."
Su Yu reached out and gently took Kiana's ice-cold hands.
"I believe that even if it were all to happen again."
"Even if Teacher Himeko knew you were a Herrscher, knew you would lose control, knew that battle might cost her her life."
"She would still choose to take your hand."
Su Yu's gaze was firm, looking straight into Kiana's trembling eyes.
"Even if you think it was wrong."
"Even if that whole world thinks it was wrong."
"She would still make an enemy of the entire world for your sake. To teach you one final lesson, to tell you—live on."
"Do you think..."
Su Yu asked softly.
"that this is a mistake?"
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