The Fire-Chasing Herrscher Who Destroyed the World

"Hey, girl, girl?"

"Well……"

At first, the girl was still surrounded by hazy light, as if there was an extremely fine net surrounding her eyes, but a net is a net after all, and it cannot block all the light, so there is still Some light particles pushed inward tenaciously through the gaps in the net, and finally landed on her closed eyelids.

"Well……"

People often say that because there is light, there is darkness. This is probably derived from a kind of dialectical thinking, and at the same time it is the best explanation of dialectics. Such a sentence suddenly appeared in the girl's heart, as if at a time that she cared about very much. , someone once said this to her, but she couldn't remember when, let alone who said it.

"Girl? Girl?"

But it didn't seem to matter if she couldn't remember. What she was thinking about just now was not a question that needed to be viewed dialectically, but -

When a person can feel light in a dream, she is only one step away from waking up.

Although the sounds around her reached her ears like thick and cold water through a layer of water, that in itself meant that she could sense it, just like now.

"Hehehe, the girl finally woke up? It was later than usual today, so she slept a lot. The sun was shining on her butt!"

When Hua opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a strange yet familiar ceiling.

After all, this kind of... ceiling with no decoration except for a layer of white paint cannot be said to be seen everywhere in this world, it can only be said to be everywhere. It will make people feel familiar but also have an unreal strangeness. , it seems not difficult to understand, right?

Hua pursed her chapped lips. She seemed to have been asleep for a long time, but she did not feel the satisfaction and relaxation that rest should bring. On the contrary, the long sleep seemed to consume more energy, so that now she only felt To a deeper level of exhaustion.

"Is this what it feels like to sleep in?"

Her eyelids opened and closed repeatedly, as if she would fall asleep again in the next moment.

She vaguely felt that her fatigue should not be caused by oversleeping, but it seemed that she had never slept in in her memory, and naturally she did not know whether sleeping in would cause such a result, so then The strangeness of doubt gradually ceased to exist.

Moreover, just when her mind was blank, a calloused hand covered the top of her head and gently combed her hair.

"Well, although I have always advised you not to get up and practice boxing like those boys day after day, but if you continue to sleep like this, it will be noon."

"Uh... um... ah!"

Hua almost jumped out of bed.

She glanced at her father, who was sitting by the bed with a wry smile. He noticed her gaze and slightly adjusted the position of his face so that their eyes could touch each other in the indescribable void.

Why did my eyes suddenly feel a little sour? I just felt that... I had been waiting for this moment to look at each other for many years, and it seemed that this might be the last time that I and my father would look at each other...

She quickly shook her head like a rattle, as if to drive such dangerous thoughts out of her mind immediately.

Naturally, her father could not understand what she was thinking. He patted Hua's head again and said softly:

"Okay, the rest time in the morning exercise class is almost over, and I have to go back to teach them. You can give yourself a holiday today and have a good rest. After all, my apprentices have rest days every week. , but my own daughter doesn’t have it, how can it be outrageous?”

Hua glanced at the electronic alarm clock beside the bed:

【9:59】

In fact, the break time has passed for several minutes, but for her senior brothers and junior brothers, I'm afraid this is not a bad thing.

After her father left, she sat alone on the bed for a long time.

"strangeness……"

After waking up, she discovered that she did not have any physiological reaction that a normal person should have after waking up from a dream.

It seems that all metabolism does not exist in her body.

Of course, it's also possible that it just exists in another way.

She herself didn't seem to be very surprised, or in other words, she accepted this anomaly naturally, even though this phenomenon would normally make an ordinary person panic.

She rolled out of bed and did not look for slippers. Instead, she let her feet step on the cold and smooth floor and slowly walked to the bedside with an unprecedented laziness.

The window opened to the training ground, and when she cast her gaze down, she happened to see her group of senior brothers and junior brothers lamenting as they walked out of the shadow of the building. Amid her father's admonitions, they sweated again in the beautiful sunshine.

She glanced twice, then put her hands in front of herself.

It was indeed a pair of hands that were very different from those of other girls. Not to mention the palms were covered with rough calluses, and the skin on the back of the hands, especially the knuckles, was broken, revealing blue-purple flesh, which looked terrifying.

But this is the mark left by boxing practice. It cannot be forgotten or erased, right? Hua——the girl asked herself.

"However, these memories cannot be said to be painful, nor can they be said to be deeply missed. What do they really mean to me?"

She pressed the window gently with her hand, and then slid it aside.

Oncoming was the warm south wind. Perhaps this wind also caressed the emerald green grasslands of Bohemia, caressed the white snow of Siberia, caressed the yellow and dim sea at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, and finally managed to hold her temples. Hair - She inexplicably recalled the last sentence in the third paragraph of the first chapter of a novel someone had hidden under his desk.

"Alas! Alas!"

The person behind him sighed twice to show the depression in his heart.

"Hua, I really admire you. It turns out that practicing boxing is so hard... Not to mention these trainings, just getting up so early every day will kill me!"

In an instant, Hua's body was no longer leaning on the bedroom window, but on the railing on the top floor of the school dormitory.

The exact same sunlight pierced every pore of the skin in a way that was invisible to the naked eye, giving her a pinprick-like touch. But at the same time, the warm morning breeze also caressed her from the distant horizon, fluffing her up. Her hair was gently lifted up and dragged further away - for a moment, she couldn't tell whether it was her long hair or her own mood that was being carried far away.

She cleared her mind, and her body naturally acted exactly as she remembered.

She turned around, wiped the sweat from her forehead, stroked the hair stuck to her forehead to both sides, and then said with a sense of helplessness and an indescribable feeling:

"Actually... I haven't practiced boxing for a long time since I came to school. There is too little private space here, and there are no corresponding stakes. I just can't adjust my biological clock for a while. Sometimes I just stay here in a daze after getting up until class time, and sometimes I just Go to the playground and run for a while. Anyway, I haven’t practiced boxing for a long time..."

"I haven't practiced boxing for a long time" - the girl repeated it twice. It seemed that practicing boxing was a very unethical act. If discovered by her companions, it would cause indescribable consequences.

But looking back now...it's really full of the childishness of girlhood...

"Oh? Really? But your boxing skills last night were really good - so cool! Alas, if I hadn't been unable to get out of bed and endured hardship, I would have really wanted to learn boxing skills from you."

"You...are you serious?"

"Huh? Why do you have such an expression?"

"Don't you think... girls shouldn't practice boxing?"

"Huh? Huh? Huh?"

Carol expressed doubts three times in a row. She spread her hands and couldn't understand at all... She couldn't understand why she thought this way.

"Please! Why do you have such an idea? If I had a choice, I would also like... huh! He's handsome and can protect the people around him. Wouldn't it be good to learn boxing?"

"..."

"So, is there any boxing technique that can be mastered without hard work? Can you teach it to me? Next time I encounter that kind of monster, I will also show it how to open the sky with one inch of strength!"

"No."

"Ah - so heartless! Isn't there a magical skill in the novel that can be practiced just by meditating? Just like the sister who can control pink crystals yesterday?"

"You also said it was in the novel..."

"But didn't that sister really use her superpowers?"

"I don't know that either..."

"snort--"

Hua gently uttered a syllable, and all the memories began to flow faster.

She did not need to deliberately recall a certain memory in this way, because due to the side effects of the operation, all of it was deeply imprinted in her mind and could not be forgotten.

But...who is it?

Yes, despite the initial confusion, Hua is now extremely clear-headed, especially since the creator of the illusion did not try to hide the fact that "this is an illusion" at all.

Her initial judgment of the attack was the same as that of Velvet and Mei - this kind of spiritual attack must be the aftermath of the battle, the battle between the Tenth Herrscher and Himihu, the battle between Aponia and the Tenth Herrscher, the battle between the two Choose one.

But is it really so?

Since it is the so-called aftermath, it must be a type of attack. Which spiritually aware fusion warrior would go to great lengths to make others fall into "memories" during a battle?

Based on Hua's understanding of the spiritually aware fusion warriors around him, it would be difficult for them to play any role when facing Honkai Beasts. After all, Honkai Beasts do not usually have human-like thinking.

And when they attack conscious targets, such as the Herrscher, or humans themselves, they will certainly not use their power in such a cumbersome and meaningless way.

What they did was to interfere with the opponent's spirit and then give it a knife, that's all.

Forcing the other person into memories is more like a method of confinement, or maybe a...

I can't be so sure. Doesn't the Eighth Herrscher like this kind of attack?

But one thing is certain, Hua did not feel the murderous intention.

Killing intent cannot be hidden, especially in the space of consciousness.

So how do you break this?

Hua looked at the railing in front of her. Just as she was about to make a move, she felt her hand being grabbed——

"Hehe! Let's go. I heard that the school's milk tea shop is opening a big promotion. The ice cream is only one yuan each. Yesterday I went there and it was sold out. It's rare that you called me out so early today. I must not miss it."

"ah……"

Hua opened her mouth slightly, looked at the railing behind her, and then at the expectant girl in front of her. She was caught in a dilemma for a moment.

She knew that the Carol in front of her was just a reflection of her memory. Perhaps this reflection would create a world further away than time itself. In that world, Hua and Carol were just like her current consciousness. Like this, holding hands...

But for her, mapping is still mapping, just like a shadow is a shadow after all. Geometry can replace the space inside a circle with the space outside the circle through inversion, but shadows and people cannot be reversed.

But despite this, despite this, it is still so... difficult to make a decision if I want to say no, if I want to face all the realities.

She had heard Kevin and Sakura describe this feeling. Obviously, as a bystander at that time, she could never understand this hesitation, until now.

She clearly knew that everything in front of her was false, but she still lacked the courage to break it all.

It was as if countless hands were grabbing her trouser legs, hugging her body, and whispering softly in her ears:

"That's it... things outside will always be solved, just like every time before. They, Mikael, will solve all problems. You just need to enjoy the phantom of happiness woven by a memory here, and wait until Wake up again and it’s all over.”

"What? You are not willing to give in? What is there to be unwilling to do? Could it be that if you wake up now, you will have the power to defeat the Tenth Herrscher? It is not difficult for Himihu to delay for thirty minutes, so why bother?"

"Even if you must wake up and demonstrate some kind of self-awareness and self-power, why not wait a little longer? Don't you want to know what kind of future the weaver of this illusion will show you? You don't want to wait for all the fate. On the day of change, maybe in this illusion, the third collapse will not happen. Don't you want to see what kind of happiness you should get? "

"..."

Hua had countless ways to refute every rhetoric, but she pursed her lips tightly and did not speak.

"Words are always feeble."

Someone once said this to her.

But she felt that she should put it another way - "Words coming from one's own mouth are always pale and powerless."

But... but...

As if he felt her struggle and hesitation, a sigh sounded from all directions.

"What's wrong, Hua? Are you feeling unwell and don't want to eat ice cream?"

Carol asked confused.

Hua's response was a shaky breath.

"No……"

Hua didn't seem to be talking to her.

"If...if it's like what you said, the Third Collapse didn't happen, at least it didn't happen around me. My father and Carol will live well...but is this all I want? Or Say, is this what you think I want?”

"What are you talking about, silly boy?"

Himihu looked at her with a half-smile, stretched out his hand, and wanted to rub her head.

But Hua didn't make any move. She stared in front of her with a slightly compassionate look, so Himihu's movements stopped, and there was no one there anymore, only an empty space that made people feel scared at the first glance. .

Hua knew that the hole did not appear just now, but... had always existed here.

It's still the same person he once told her -

"There was once a myth that all human beings originated from the same mother body, and this mother body was the only god. When creating human beings, this mother body had two choices. One was to give its offspring [the fruit of life] ], one is to give his offspring the [Fruit of Wisdom]. The former can contain the ultimate physical power, the latter can contain the absolute height of the spirit. Finally, he bestows the Fruit of Wisdom.

"As a result, human beings have wisdom that far exceeds that of other creatures. According to philosophers, this is called consciousness, which is different from biological consciousness. It is a kind of thinking about oneself and the world. However, human beings also You are not born thinking about this.

"Human beings are really fragile creatures. According to the mother's conception, she should have given birth to an offspring, not an ethnic group. However, because she did not give the [Fruit of Life], the human body is extremely fragile and fragile. It cannot even appear as a complete individual, and can only divide itself into countless parts.

"Correspondingly, human beings have a spiritual world comparable to the mother body. The overly large spiritual world and the small physical body. Therefore, under this mismatch, human beings' hearts inevitably appear. Hollow.

“If we keep staring at this void, human beings will realize their smallness, fragility, and insignificance, and then lose all hope of living.

“So what do people have to fill that hole with to really feel [alive]…

"The only thing that can fill this void is [others]. Human beings are one, but they are dispersed because of the dispersion of power. Therefore, the void in the heart must be filled by others. To be precise, it is with others. "

Many fragments suddenly appeared in Hua's hands, and she filled them one by one into the holes in front of her eyes.

Father, everyone in the town, Carol, Himihu...

One by one, they were pieced together into the most suitable position.

but……

But just as she thought, the hole has not disappeared. There is still the biggest hole in the middle that cannot be filled with fragments.

She didn't know when this specific phenomenon appeared. Maybe it was because most of the fragments she filled in corresponded to people who had passed away?

The connection between the deceased and the living people ended abruptly at that moment, and their connection with the living people was also severed, so their share in the hearts of the living people will never expand again...

But is it really so?

Hua actually knew the answer, but...she was a girl after all, and she didn't want to admit it, at least not to her face.

She even couldn't help but wonder whether her so-called coldness and Mikael's so-called strength were just due to a cognitive bias - even though I lost those people, I still have more important people alive and standing by my side. …

Although this is just a perverse idea, it is already very illustrative.

"Haha...hahaha..."

The blank space in front of him disappeared, and two dry laughs came from the corresponding position.

Hua hurriedly lowered his head, unwilling to look at each other.

"My main body separated a part of my consciousness to attach to you... I originally wanted to use this choice to let you grasp the awareness you should have, but I didn't expect to see this..."

Hearing his guilty explanation, Hua's lips curled up.

But after all, she didn't have the habit of telling everything with a smile. She closed her eyes as if to escape, and her chest kept rising and falling with her rapid breathing. It seemed like a long time passed before she slowly spoke:

"I probably understand... what you want to tell me."

"Really?"

The sentence structure was undoubtedly a question, but Mikael's tone was an unquestionable statement. Obviously, she was not surprised that Hua could understand what he wanted to express.

"But... I still want you to tell me. I..."

People are always more inclined to remember what others say than what they say themselves. This is what Mikael once said. At that time, Hua did not have hyperamnesia, but she still missed those... Mikael Time to instill these things in her without any reason.

"I just want you to understand what the past is, whether it's your father, whether it's Carol, whether it's people you knew who are no longer here, or people you knew who are still here, I hope you can understand The meaning of these things, because even for me, it was something that I could only understand two years ago.”

"So, you presented everything in the past in front of me, actually just to tell me something..."

Her lips opened and closed slightly, but she didn't make the slightest sound.

But Mikael knew that although she didn't make a certain choice like him or Kevin, she actually understood it.

"Human beings cannot unite as a whole because of their physical weakness, but why can every atom that makes up each person form a separate individual instead of turning into an ocean? It is because of the self, the self-restraint that makes up a All the atoms of a person fix them in this form, but what is the self?

"Hua, for you, all the past, whether it is happy memories or unbearable memories, it is these things that make you feel yourself and feel different from others. This feeling of being different from others is important to you. For some people it's a dream, but for you it's the opposite.

“That’s why the gaps in your heart are so huge, because your self is extremely thin, and if you have the choice, you would rather these gaps be filled with connections with other people.

"But by then, you will find that this is not what you want. If a person's heart is only filled with connections with others, then the layer of self that restrains her will gradually dissipate, and finally become A beast that keeps calling for love at the center of the world.

"So... Hua, rather than using me to fill your last blank, I hope you will choose to accept your own past, whether it is pain, sadness, joy... it doesn't matter, let your The past shows you step by step to reach the present, step by step to become yourself.

"Only when you feel your true self can you make the choices you really want. So don't suppress those longings, obsessions, regrets, and unwillingness to the past, because they are already a part of you. , others can’t take it away, and you can’t erase it.

"Only when one understands this, understands what one is, and understands the past that constructed oneself, can one understand the future one wants. And only by understanding the future one wants, can a person know what he is fighting for? .

"Now that you understand this, it's time to hand the key to Garuda's power into your hands. Don't worry, it is a key that suits you very well, and its core has a special meaning for you. ”

Hua pursed her lips and asked:

"You seem to have always been very confident in me, especially in me, that you can..."

"Words are feeble, Hua, I only make judgments based on your actions."

Mikael lowered his head slightly. Only God knows whether it is really what he said.

"But there are some things you didn't say before."

"Um."

Mikael admitted it openly.

"After all, some of the words I just thought about. Now that I think about it, I thought I was saying goodbye to the past, but it was actually just a false goodbye. A person's true attitude towards the past is by no means indulging in it, and it is definitely not saying goodbye. It should be a hug."

Along with her words, everything in front of Hua gradually dissipated. She opened her mouth in vain and gave a virtual squeeze in the direction of Mikael - she did feel that she was holding something.

That's a feather.

Then she knew in what form Michael was attached to her voice.

But she is also very clear that this feather, or part of the power of consciousness, is not the "key" to unlock the power of Garuda as Mikael said.

So, what is the key?

Feeling something in her heart, she raised her head slightly, ignoring the concerned gazes of Mei and Wilvi, and cast her eyes on Wilvi's two suitcases.

To be precise, it's the bigger and longer box below.