Chapter 520
I really don't understand why these people seize every opportunity to brag about Otto.
In this book, because Otto's plan went smoothly—at least in his eyes— Otto killing intent towards Maki, who might have discovered the truth, was not as strong in the middle of the story, during the Herrscher of Death Awakening arc.
After all, Otto killed those who were capable of discerning his true intentions not because he was bloodthirsty, but simply because he was afraid that others would discover the truth.
The plans in this book are progressing rapidly, and Otto will definitely have to consider leaving a team for Theresa. Someone with Maki's strong research ability will naturally not be killed when she goes back.
Returning to the previous topic, why I feel that Maki's ideas must be strongly criticized.
Maki developed HSN Serum after her granddaughter died. That's amazing, truly amazing.
However, the method used was absurd—injecting Kiana with the serum upon seeing Kiana. Only Kiana herself is special enough; if any other Valkyrie were given such an injection, they would probably turn back into an ordinary person.
Because Valkyrie require physical modifications and must reach a certain level to fight on the front lines, Valkyrie average age is concentrated in the late twenties (referring to 25-29, this information comes from a flawed Japanese official guidebook). Therefore, this class is considered a high-risk and short-lived profession.
Next, let's see what happens to these Valkyrie after Maki tries to 'save' them from being overly corrupted by Honkai Energy using this method.
First, let me say something: some of the Valkyrie became Valkyrie through training to protect humanity, while others were simply driven to Honkai by the Honkai, losing their families and wanting to Honkai back.
Those who follow the main storyline of Honkai 3rd know that miHoYo occasionally releases chapters featuring supporting characters without voice acting when releasing the main story.
One of the supporting character chapters mentions that some Valkyrie would go to a special device to look at happy memories of the past after each mission before continuing to fight.
Now let's go back to how Magi plays.
For a warrior who wants to protect humanity, Maki's actions are tantamount to directly stripping her of her fighting power, regardless of her thoughts, which is actually quite terrible.
For someone like Lin Yu who wants to take revenge on the Honkai, giving him a shot that turns him into a cripple might be more painful than killing him.
Your intentions are good, but trying to make decisions for this group of people without consulting others' opinions is a self-satisfying idea that I think is really unacceptable—especially when your decision will harm the interests of others.
So actually, whether it was during the writing of the previous book or this one, my impression of Maki was not very good.
Of course, there are reasons why I didn't write it that way in the book.
When Maki and Ji Ran met, Ji Ran had already subconsciously developed a separation between good and evil due to the power of control. At that time, he acted on the good side outside, so Maki was controlled by him and locked up in the Devil's Castle to conduct scientific research.
That sounds rather vicious... But considering that Ji Ran is a person with demonic traits, this is already very gentle.
Then let's look back at Lin Yu's side.
Unlike Ji Ran, Lin Yu actively forgot his past in the early stages, so his personality wasn't as extreme, and he wasn't affected by the Demon Lord's Power.
Moreover, in this book, in Lin Yu's eyes, Maki is considered half of his benefactor.
In Changkong City, he survived thanks to Maki's serum, and in the Singapore arc, he was able to win only after Maki weakened Yuno with the serum she spilled.
Maki isn't a good person, but Lin Yu, with his personality, would definitely be more polite to her if he felt he owed Maki a favor.
Furthermore, although people might think that "he didn't realize he was wrong, but only regretted it after the pain hit him," this is normal, even correct. In my opinion, if Maggie's granddaughter hadn't died, he would probably still be that monstrous old man instead of that abstract idiot.
But if you feel pain yourself, you'll regret it and want to change. That's at least 500 times better than not only not changing your ways after you've been hurt, but also continuing to try to cheat others.
Whoever is being insulted is obvious to anyone who knows, so I won't go into details here.
In the final scene, the conversation between Lin Yu and Maki is, in my opinion, my own personal interpretation of Maki's inner thoughts.
Judging from his unwavering decision to stay behind and cover the retreat at the end of the Moon Shadow, Maki probably didn't want to live anymore.
So after the war ended, Maki kept organizing the data, just so she could find a place to die peacefully after completing her final task.
However, after Lin Yu returns and has completed his revenge, he will definitely be more gentle in personality.
So they came up with a plan to have Lin Yu help a group of people win the revival match, including Maki's granddaughter, allowing Old Deng to meet his granddaughter one last time.
The plot isn't particularly outstanding, and it's not even the kind of plot that everyone wants to see, but it's the kind of plot that I wrote because I felt 'Lin Yu would do this'.
Well, that's all I have to say. Next.
The Ghost – one of the characters established from the very beginning of the story.
In fact, the writing philosophy for this character can be basically applied entirely to Yuno's side.
Because ghosts have very little, given their appearance, abilities, and a little bit of experience, the author has a lot of room for creative interpretation.
With the basic settings blank, I gave Ghost [a veteran of the Second Honkai Eruption] a character design in this book, which is why she and Siegfried's character design are even somewhat acquainted.
The reason she was chosen as a teacher was simply because there weren't many Valkyrie with names and suitable qualifications at headquarters.
Ghost, an A-rank Valkyrie with super disguise skills [in reality, those who have read the original work may not agree that this is disguise, since there is no disguise that directly compensates for height differences and breast augmentation], who can infiltrate the enemy's front lines without any problems, should, in my opinion, have a higher status than ordinary A-Class A-rank Valkyrie.
Therefore, in the setting of this book, ghosts are the kind of beings responsible for managing intelligence.
She taught Lin Yu as a student for various reasons, partly due to Rita's request and partly because she thought highly of Lin Yu.
Additionally, here's a bit more about the character settings that weren't mentioned in the main story.
Although Lin Yu became a vengeful ghost after the death of his parents, he still had a conscience.
However, this level of conscience made it impossible for him to maintain the mindset of trying not to involve others when seeking revenge later on.
The reason he became so gentle later was partly because he deliberately used a cutting technique during his first Herrscher Transformation, allowing his extreme side to withstand the pressure of Honkai, leaving his remaining side relatively gentler.
When Lin Yu regained his other side, even though he harbored deep hatred, it was somewhat diluted by the [family, friendship, and love] he had felt from his companions.
Another factor is that the ghost is serious about training his apprentices.
In the setting of this book, she is a veteran of the Second Honkai Eruption. During the Second Honkai Eruption, Otto's actions led to the near extinction of the Valkyrie. Under such circumstances, Ghost would definitely pay more attention to the safety of the Schicksal members, and would also have a deeper hatred for the Honkai. At the same time, she would have a greater sense of responsibility for fighting the Honkai than ordinary Schicksal members.
Before Lin Yu rose to prominence, Ghost certainly didn't intend to pass on this sense of responsibility to Lin Yu. However, even though she didn't have this idea, teaching Lin Yu still had some influence on his mindset.
It could be said that Lin Yu didn't become a pure vengeful ghost later on, and the ghost had a positive influence in this respect.
As for the later plot, after the Ghost confirmed that Otto was a troublemaking monster, his attitude immediately changed 180 degrees. After reading the above explanation, everyone should be able to understand why.
Fourteen years ago, Ghost watched his comrades die one by one, with only a few, including himself, surviving. Fourteen years later, he discovered that it was all Otto's doing.
Even if Ghost is someone I consider to be relatively calm and collected, his blood pressure would probably spike because of something like this.
Furthermore, from the moment it was confirmed that the ghost would appear, this book never intended to portray the ghost as a harem. In my opinion, the protagonist should have some normal seniors and elders; it would be too much to have every woman as a lesbian.
Incidentally, Ghost is mentioned by other characters around word 120,000, but doesn't officially appear until around word 700,000, which in a sense fits the codename "Ghost".
There's not much else to say, let's move on to the next one.
Anna – a character I never intended to write about from the very beginning of the story.
To be honest, before writing Anna, I went back and looked at the plot to figure out what she looked like in the original work. Because the original plot was so short, it left me with very little impression, which made me not know how to start writing.
After some research, it turns out she's essentially shy; she blushes after Chen Tianwu says just a few words, so that's the only direction to write about her.
As I was writing, I realized something was wrong. I felt shy and struggled while giving in, which felt somewhat similar to Mei.
It's bad enough that the main characters have overlapping attributes, but it's even worse when you're writing it.
After this terrible situation arose, it was too late to try and create a super fan-made character that didn't quite fit the original character design Yuno.
There was originally a plan for a separate individual storyline involving the awakening of the Herrscher of Law, but a serious problem was later discovered.
Lin Yu... is too strong.
When Anna's Herrscher of Reason awakening storyline could be arranged, Lin Yu directly opened a barrier to cripple her power, then picked her up and delivered a God-Slaying Spear into her back—and it was over.
Why would I even bother writing a single-player story? There's no point in writing about this.
Poor control of combat power can lead to a loss of control over the plot, and insufficient writing skills can cause some plot characters to become victims.
It's a pity Anna became a victim because of my lack of personal ability. Next book...
Let's talk about the next book later. Next one.
Su—When writing about this character, I have to reiterate some of the ideas I mentioned in the previous section on the protagonist's character design to help everyone review.
In my understanding, most of the worlds Su sees should have commonalities. If he can combine the information he sees in these worlds and then investigate a little in Schicksal, he can verify where Otto's trump cards are.
After all, Su has a lot of intelligence. She can hypnotize, teleport, and is even very good at fighting. Releasing her would be like having a super cheat code.
If you were to give Su's skill set, personal abilities, and intelligence to an ordinary transmigrator, in my opinion, they would basically be able to run Honkai through the Honkai world. They would only need to pay attention to a few key points to avoid being killed by other forces outside of the Finality.
Aside from being unable to defeat Kevin, Sue, who can wield both the Death and Rock Divine Key and simultaneously activate his abilities using the Void Key, is capable of fighting with all three Divine Key at the same time.
Aside from monsters like Kevin who can kill him in a few quick moves, most others can't beat him, and the few who can are thrown to other places by his Thousand Worlds Annihilation.
From a plot pacing perspective, releasing Su was an incredibly bad move, because he could have directly solved many problems after he came out. If not handled well, the plot would have been too smooth and there would have been no conflict later on.
Otto was laughing throughout the early part of the book, but he stopped laughing later on because Sue started to emerge in the middle.
Given the lack of intelligence, once a super-skilled fighter appears—one whose intelligence rivals Otto's, who possesses far more information, is truly formidable and won't be secretly discontinued by Otto, and is also a good person— Otto is essentially doomed to lose.
Only Sue, with her compassionate heart as a healer, would choose to spend more time figuring out Otto's true intentions in order to avoid large-scale casualties. If it were someone slightly more ruthless, with sufficient intelligence, superior strength, and certain that Otto was not a good person, I think the probability of taking direct action would be much higher.
He can teleport anywhere, possess a wealth of intelligence, and handle logistics to assist Anti-Entropy in developing technology and helping Old Yang obtain the Divine Key. As a courier, he can fly anywhere to deliver medicine directly. He can even use the Black Abyss White Flower. After Old Yang creates a copy of the Black Abyss White Flower, Su can even fly all over the world and heal people at will. He is also strong enough not to be assassinated. What's the point of letting him out?
From an external perspective, then it's definitely my fault. In the previous book, Sue was kept in Devil's Castle and didn't have much of a chance to cause trouble, but in this book, after letting loose, Sue has flown out...
Ah, what a terrible move.
After reviewing the above content, let's discuss Su's role in this book.
Firstly, given the circumstances at the time, Lin Yu had comrades around him, but no one could keep up with his pace [those with strength couldn't be controlled well, those without strength had a lot of problems, and those with strength but no major problems were not around]. Therefore, when Su was still alive in the Inheritance Chapter, many things became unavoidable.
Because the timeline in this book is earlier than the original work, the inheritance plot that happened to Bianca in 2015 appeared in Lin Yu in 2014, a full year earlier.
Su ascended to heaven in 2015, so he was still alive in 2014.
In this situation, whether or not Lin Yu gave him medicine to prolong his life is not a big problem.
At that time, Lin Yu was not able to defeat Su, nor could he suppress and dominate Su like Ji Ran in the previous book.
So, now that Su has seen hope, will he just continue to sit in the World Bubble and watch the show?
I don't think so.
After Su stopped watching plays, all my headaches started popping up.
We've all been exposed to a lot of entertainment works, and if an all-rounder doesn't handle the problems in the story well, it can be very serious.
Because as long as the all-rounder maintains his all-around ability, he can easily resolve many plot conflicts. Without plot conflicts as a driving force, the story would become extremely boring.
Take the works related to "Hai Hu Martial God" that suddenly became popular again in the past two years as an example. In the plot, Bai Chou in the middle of "Martial God 300" has a similar position to Su in this book.
As long as he's by the protagonist's side, many problems cease to be problems, making it difficult for the plot to unfold, and if it doesn't unfold, the story is doomed.
So to a certain extent, I understand Mr. Wen Riliang's idea of banning Bai Chou. Whether the ban is good or not is one thing, but if the story can't be written logically without banning it, then the work will not only be criticized but will be in trouble.
Of course, this doesn't mean I'd be understanding if there are problems with the plot. As a creator, I can understand his ideas, but that doesn't mean readers have to understand and be understanding. Ultimately, it depends on the individual.
Actually, after Su came out, I realized the problem and wanted to ban him, but I didn't find the opportunity in the end.
Because Su, with the Void Key, understands illusion magic and can use the Void Key to move remotely, he can directly suppress those weaker than him, and those stronger than him can escape from him, so I ban him.
Those who actually followed the story discovered that in that part of the plot, I wrote a scene where Otto planned to sow discord between Su, Lin Yu, Bianca, causing them to fight.
I did have this idea, but in the end, it didn't come to fruition because of the reason mentioned above.
It's useless to play against him, because Su can't be banned at all if he's on guard.
If we really have to ban him, then we can only do what Bai Chou did and give him a reason to let himself go wild...
The problem is that Bai Chou is the kind of person who is obsessed with martial arts, so even if he acts recklessly, it doesn't necessarily ruin his character.
No, Su is not.
Some people might think Su is a nice guy who's easy to talk to, but actually, this guy was quite decisive 50,000 years later.
When Kevin started acting strangely, the Observer Project to lock Kevin up, even though Kevin was his best friend, not just anyone.
In the modern storyline of the legacy arc, 1,500 years later, the protagonist immediately attacks Bianca.
This kind of person is decisive, clear-headed, and has powerful escape methods. The way to ban them, or rather, eliminate them without ruining their public image...
Unexpected.
I really didn't expect that.
Letting him out was a terrible mistake.
I definitely didn't handle the problems Su brought up well, which indirectly led to a significant increase in the frequency of my headaches when I progressed through the story.
Fortunately, the time between Su's emergence from seclusion and Kevin's emergence from seclusion wasn't too long, so my headache only lasted for that period. After Kevin came out, although Su could still play a good support role, her impact on the plot wasn't as significant.