Chapter 518
After being successfully led astray by Lin Yu, her thoughts changed from "I want that stinking dog Cocolia dead" to "If I'm going to die, I'll take revenge first."
Of course, after spending more time with other people, Yuno's desire for redemption led to some subtle changes in her thinking.
What started as simple revenge has become a desire to "kill more Honkai Beast and save more people, and it's a good thing to atone for one's sins a little."
Based on the above, Yuno's character is intelligent and perceptive. She will do everything she should for revenge while maintaining her basic human decency.
Actually, some readers should have noticed by Yuno I was using a weaker version of Lin Yu's character design in my writing.
Because they share similar inner thoughts, she is, in a sense, the person who understands Lin Yu the most.
The reason she found it easy to write was not only because she was a blank slate, but also because she could simply modify the actual Lin Yu and apply it to Yuno.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to briefly share my thoughts on the vengeful ghost character design.
In my eyes, a person who becomes a demon for revenge is not someone who shouts "revenge, revenge, revenge!" to be considered a qualified vengeful demon.
Driven by revenge, he would risk everything, even transforming himself into a demon.
If you're even willing to be a demon, then you'll definitely have to do your best in everything else.
Take Yuno as an example. After being successfully led astray by Lin Yu, she worked hard to get along with her companions, Study Hard various anti- Honkai knowledge of St. Freya, did her best to climb up the ranks when she needed to go on missions, worked hard to improve her abilities in her spare time, and even took every opportunity to find seniors like Ghost to exchange experiences and learn skills.
In my opinion, this is what a qualified vengeful ghost should do—ignoring basic tasks and advancement missions, all he does is shout for revenge...
Unless you can get revenge by punching them directly, it seems pretty stupid to me.
Cocolia is definitely not the kind of revenge target that can be killed simply by fighting.
Even someone as abstract as her has the title of "Anti-Entropy fox," Cocolia is still very careful about her own safety when necessary [for example, letting Bronya retrieve the Herrscher of Thunder instead of going herself].
To find such a person, one must have sufficient access to high-level resources and intelligence in order to find an opportunity to send her away.
As for the character's role in the story, it's more like a lubricant.
If Lin Yu's role in the story is that of a leader who unites everyone around him, then Yuno is the vice-captain who helps Lin Yu resolve minor interpersonal conflicts [after all, the vengeful duo are pushed to the limit, which makes them relatively quick-witted among the younger generation].
As for why the vice-captain and the captain ended up together...
Hmm, that's a profound question.
The plot mentions that her favorability rating has been stuck at around 70 purely because she is forcibly suppressing it; otherwise, it would have reached 100 long ago.
In Yuno's personal view, the Herrscher of Poison who killed her mother and caused so many people does not deserve to have love. That's why she hopes that more people will embrace Lin Yu while trying to restrain herself from getting too close to Lin Yi.
The atmosphere has gotten to this point; if I said Yuno wasn't in the harem, I'd be killed.
However, due to Yuno's own circumstances, her romantic storyline must end after the finale.
Yae Sakura – There's really no need to talk about her.
Both the previous book and this book are minor roles among minor roles.
On the one hand, I wasn't very interested, and on the other hand, I felt there wasn't much to write about her storyline, so after obtaining the Stigmata, Yae Sakura's appearances were almost nonexistent.
A role with absolutely no romantic subplot, maybe the next one.
Rin – Initially, her role was similar to Yae Sakura's.
In the previous book, because Ji Ran made a cameo appearance as the God of War of Shili Slope, when he met Ling, Ling posed basically no threat to him. So at that time, I wrote Ling as a comedic character and a lackey.
However, this book is different. In the early stages, Lin Yu is not as scary Ji Ran, so Ling is certainly not frightened by him.
Given Ling's still unyielding personality, one cannot expect her to readily submit to an enemy who might retaliate.
Furthermore, because Lin Yu harbors resentment and doesn't have the same good temper Theresa, the approach of directly abandoning hatred and attempting to reform him is simply not feasible.
For the reasons mentioned above, Ling's 'nine-tailed' character setting actually makes it easier for her to develop a storyline with Lin Yu.
The romance storyline just inexplicably appeared while I was writing, which is quite surprising.
As for the Elysian Realm chapter, I think everyone should criticize it to some extent, because in my opinion, the Elysian Realm chapter was definitely not well written.
There are many reasons why it wasn't written well.
On the one hand, I considered Lin Yu's personality and felt that, given his strength, as an efficiency enthusiast, his priority when entering to capture people would definitely be efficiency.
Expecting him to open up to the Flame-Chasers did in the original Mei... he doesn't have that kind of patience.
In this situation, besides following the plot, we also need to create some entertainment value. We'll talk about entertainment value in the plot analysis section; here, we'll mainly discuss Rin.
In my opinion, after Rin softened for various reasons, there needs to be a chance for her to completely resolve her inner conflicts.
And Elysian Realm is that opportunity.
After seeing her sister, even knowing that her sister is a memory entity, Rin's resentment will most likely completely dissipate once her hatred for humanity is transferred to the Honkai of the Honkai.
Therefore, based on the above reasons, I focused my attention on Rin in the Elysian Realm arc.
In the final episode, she was brought out because of Ling's special ability to quickly find out what Lin Yu was planning to do; there were no other special reasons.
The three unfortunate individuals who implemented Anti-Entropy- entropy— Tesla, Einstein, Ryoma —were essentially supporting characters.
Aside from their presence in the early part of the book, they hardly appeared in the later parts.
As for giving Red and Blue a storyline in Changkong City in the early episodes, it's simply because I felt it made more sense. In the original work, the early Anti-Entropy setting was so absurd that they didn't even appear, and in the end, they became saviors, remaining completely unmoved while organizing the stinky dog's mischief...
It's fair to say they were both incredibly unlucky, both in and out of the story.
The book emphasizes details in the early stages [of course, there are still some unnecessary emphasis on details in the later stages], so in order to make the details more reasonable, these two people absolutely cannot continue to slack off during the Third Honkai Outbreak.
There's not much to say about Ryoma; there's really nothing worth writing about.
Fu Hua – a supporting character who was never intended to be the female lead from the very beginning.
Those who have read the previous book can at least tell that I basically had no idea about immortals.
In the previous book, Fu Hua's storyline wasn't exactly scarce, but it was still quite minimal overall. When Herrscher of Sentience appeared later, half of her storyline was taken away, and there was even less of it afterward.
This also led me to initially not consider Fu Hua as the female lead when I was writing this book.
However, while writing the transitional chapters between the Escape from the Sky and the Chaos of the Nine Nether chapters, I realized a few things.
First of all, Lin Yu Ji Ran. When Ji Ran encountered Fu Hua was in a low-health state. Ji Ran was already so strong that no one except Kevin could pose a sufficient threat to him.
In this situation, Ji Ran would definitely want to eliminate certain problems with the spy sent by Otto as soon as possible to ensure that she would not be seriously betrayed later.
Of course, given that Fu Hua is both an accomplice to evil and a good person most of the time, and has even redeemed herself in some way, Ji Ran will be a little more polite to her when the situation is under control.
But Lin Yu is different.
When Lin Yu met Fu Hua, he didn't have enough power yet. In addition, Lin Yu thought he was just acting, which meant that he couldn't be strong against Fu Hua in the early stages.
Moreover, although Lin Yu did win against the Herrscher of Thunder in the early stages, compared to Ji Ran, who was already able to defeat the enhanced version of the Ji Ran of Herrscher of Thunder when he left Changkong City, Lin Yu's strength was not that high.
When the intensity isn't that high, Fu Hua can offer Lin Yu more help.
Furthermore, when Fu Hua helped Otto, I felt she must have felt guilty towards her classmates at the St. Freya Academy. Her guilt, combined with Lin Yu's Lin Yu nature (both external and internal) and his lack of strength, makes it not surprising that Fu Hua would want to secretly help Lin Yu.
Although Lin Yu was afraid of death in the early stages, his fear of death was not so great that he would forget the kindness he had received.
Regardless of what Fu Hua did help him, that's an objective fact. Under these circumstances, it was inevitable that their feelings for each other would gradually warm up.
Unlike the Demon King, who directly used his power to control Fu Hua upon meeting her, Lin Yu had ample time to cultivate a relationship with Fu Hua.
This led me to realize, as I was writing this book, that it wouldn't make sense for Fu Hua not to rise to a higher position. So what could I do...?
Let's just follow the plot. Everyone loves watching it anyway, and it's not some twisted story. The taste of immortals is indeed quite good, isn't it?
The Herrscher of Reason – a character who, like Fu Hua, was not initially intended to be written in this direction.
Actually, there's not much to say. She came out to give Fu Hua a reason to do the things she was trying to avoid doing.
Whether it's beating up Otto or saying things to Lin Yu that he dared not say, people will enjoy watching him cause some trouble when necessary.
For the reasons mentioned above, although Lin Yu addresses the Herrscher of Reason as "Master," his inner attitude is more inclined to Herrscher of Reason as a childish junior sister who needs to be coaxed.
As for whether the Herrscher of Reason noticed this, I think she's so easily fooled that she wouldn't realize these details, at least not in the short term.
Cocolia —a character that has always been difficult for me to describe.
Judging from the original plot, it cannot be said that she had no feelings for her adopted daughters. Many plot points show that Cocolia cared for and loved her adopted daughters.
As an aside, the early setting of the twins was that they stole Cocolia's potion, causing their bodies to mutate [in the manga]. Later, in the main storyline, it became that they were forced to undergo human modification due to life-threatening situations. After this retcon, Cocolia became a bit more humane.
But it's precisely this touch of humanity that makes Cocolia seem even more abstract and terrifying to me.
It's not that she didn't love the children, but it's even more terrifying that she sent them to be used in human experiments with a high probability of death, even when she loved them.
If she were just a bastard who used children as experimental subjects, she wouldn't be so terrible.
Before we get back to the book's positioning, there's something I need to say.
Before I started writing the previous book, I did some research on the Honkai storyline [I got into the series very early, but I forgot the details of the plot, so I had to review it again].
As a result, after I finished writing the first chapter and returned to the Honkai world, I was reminded by other friends in the author group during a discussion in the group that ME Company's headquarters are in Changkong City.
I choked up at that moment.
After thinking about it for a long time, I still didn't understand why Cocolia would cause a large-scale disaster in Changkong City after acquiring ME Company.
The incognito in the book suggests that this was Gray Serpent instructing Cocolia to conduct a test of the Stigmata Plan ahead of schedule, but I didn't see this part in the original story. If anyone can find the source, please tell me which chapter it is. [However, I highly suspect it's just a secondary interpretation.]
Putting aside the uncertain claim that this is part of official plot, Cocolia in causing the Honkai in Changkong City not only demonstrate her character and illegitimate child, but also make her seem rather...
Um, I remember ME Company was quite valuable, right? The Honkai you caused in Changkong City had a significant effect on ME Company as well...
Ms. Cocolia, didn't you calculate the potential profits before you took action?
Then, returning to this book, there was something I had already thought about before writing it.
In the Moon Shadow, Cocolia's stay at the Queen's Hotel demonstrates her considerable wealth. However, when we rewind to the Seele's disappearance, Cocolia Orphanage is utterly dilapidated.
If she had used even a portion of the money she spent outside to help the orphanage, the children wouldn't be living in such misery.
One more thing, don't think this is embezzlement. In the setting, Cocolia Orphanage is Anti-Entropy organization. What's wrong with making sure the members of the organization are well-fed and live a good life?
Then, considering another setting I mentioned before—that Bronya's mission in the Third Honkai Outbreak was to retrieve Raiden Mei —the problem becomes very serious.
Cocolia's storyline encompasses a range of abstract elements, including: using her adopted daughter for experiments with a high probability of death; loving her adopted daughter but being reluctant to spend money on her; seriously misjudging the Herrscher of Thunder's combat power (we still don't know how Cocolia will subdue the awakened Herrscher of Thunder); and having the title of Anti-Entropy Fox and the setting of being skilled in command, yet her storyline is largely incoherent.
In my opinion, the dissatisfaction with Cocolia stems partly from the fact that the character is genuinely disgusting, and partly from the fact that the character is truly abstract.
The wavering and indecisiveness can become a character's characteristics or even a signature if well-written [@ belt-banded killer whale], but when abstracted like this, even if we put aside good and evil, I don't think there is anything attractive about Cocolia other than her skin.
This character is completely beyond saving, so in the book I can only let her sprint towards the path of abstraction with all her might.
Of course, to put it bluntly, Cocolia is basically a character who is only used for killing, except in special circumstances [such as when the protagonist and Cocolia have a good relationship from the beginning]. Once she dies, she dies.
The main problem with her is that all her daughters think 'Mom is great,' and even the Bronya who had a falling out with her in the original story doesn't say she has any particularly bad thoughts about Cocolia.
So before killing her, some issues must be resolved, such as who killed her and how to deal with Bronya Seele.
By the time the book ended, only Bronya and Anne knew that Cocolia had died.
Although Anzu learned about this during the Dominance Herrscher arc, she certainly didn't have the chance to tell anyone after she was crippled.
In the end, only Bronya knew about this. In other words, if you handle Bronya's feelings well, other problems are not problems.
So the only option is for Cocolia to do something reckless, but Cocolia's recklessness requires certain conditions.
Given that Cocolia has genuine feelings for Bronya, you first need to push her to the brink before she'll resort to desperate measures.
Of course, everyone in this book is in a hurry, which isn't the problem. The problem is that Cocolia's actions that make Bronya anxious can't be too abrupt.
Although she is an abstract thinker, I put a lot of effort into dealing with her issues.
The original plan was for Yuno to kill her. Bronya worked so hard along the way, Cocolia hadn't been so reckless, she might have ended up like Raven and never died.
However, the flavor of Cocolia is not right if you don't act recklessly, so all I can say is that Bronya's efforts were in vain.
Raven – When I was writing this character, I really didn't expect things to turn out this way.
When I first wrote about Raven, I didn't intend to let her suffer a setback so early because she was the strongest character in the current version of World Serpent.