"Hey, I haven't even made a move yet. How did you end up like this?"
Chijie frowned, retracted his pressure and flames, and asked impatiently.
Although Chijie wore a mask, the mingled confusion and irritation emanating from him made Flame Willow inexplicably want to laugh.
She could somewhat understand why some people enjoyed those stories about lifelong regrets.
Flame Willow opened her mouth and let out an extremely weak voice. "Isn't this the normal outcome of burning up everything you have?"
Chijie froze for a moment. The girl's answer struck him as somewhat absurd, and he even wondered if he had misheard her.
"Burning up everything? Why?"
"I said... I wanted you to take back your contempt..."
As she struggled to say those words, Flame Willow's vision blurred. The world before her seemed to turn into television static. Her body swayed before collapsing limply.
At that moment, a blurry pink figure rushed into her field of vision.
"Xia Ling!"
Elysia's eyes overflowed with anxiety and concern. She had even forgotten Xia Ling's reminder that, in the Elysian Realm, Flame Willow was supposed to be called by her codename, "Reed Grass." Otherwise, if Gray Serpent found out, he might connect her to Xia Ling's real body.
But Elysia clearly had no mind for that now. The rapidly weakening aura around Flame Willow was far too familiar to her. Back when she had acted as a boss in the Elysian Realm trial, she had repeatedly wanted to teach Flame Willow a lesson and stop her from casually using skills that burned herself away. Yet now, it seemed her intentions had clearly failed to get across.
A crystalline light immediately appeared in Elysia's hand. Pink crystals spread over Flame Willow's body, trying to seal her inside crystal and temporarily preserve the life that was continuously slipping away.
But she had clearly arrived too late. Cracks had already begun appearing across Flame Willow's body—the precursor to shattering.
"Eh... did I... see Elysia..."
"That's wonderful... I actually got to see Elysia... so this trip... wasn't in vain..."
With a faint cracking sound, Flame Willow's figure completely turned into a burst of glittering fragments. Because of the activation effect, even those fragments swiftly dissipated into nothingness.
In Elysia's arms, only a brilliant golden crystal flower remained, the same color as Flame Willow's flames.
At the same time, what made Elysia's heart tighten even further was that, with Flame Willow's death, she discovered she could no longer contact that strand of consciousness within the Elysian Realm trial.
Elysia had witnessed the system's power. Logically speaking, as long as Xia Ling was fine, that system could not possibly have malfunctioned. Yet now...
"Xia Ling..."
As a tear fell onto the crystal flower, Vill-V and Chijie beside her finally realized the severity of the situation.
Whew... it's finally over.
Feeling Flame Willow's life signal disappear, the system finally breathed a sigh of relief.
She hurriedly withdrew all system-related data from the Elysian Realm. Though she did not know what had happened, whether Flame Willow lasted five minutes and was sent back or died, it could both be considered the end of the trial.
One thing did strike her as strange, though. For some reason, Vill-V, who had repeatedly clashed with her in the Elysian Realm before, had gone silent this time, with no intention of pursuing her at all.
But none of that mattered. The trial was over, and she had plenty of time to slowly optimize the system and patch this vulnerability.
As she issued command after command, the system's self-check procedures were activated one by one.
Shutting down Elysian Realm trial module.
Initiating system self-check mode, historical record self-check mode, and antivirus program.
Generating self-check report...
Of course, while running the self-check, she did not forget to send Xia Ling and Highmore back to the system space and issue a system notification.
Detected that one host individual, Flame Shadow Reed Grass, has died. Consume sixty Originium Ingots or fifteen Hope to revive?
"Revive her, revive her! System, hurry up." In the system space, Xia Ling was already impatient. She did not forget to add, "Remember to use Hope."
With a flash of light, Flame Willow's figure appeared in the system space.
She opened her eyes in confusion and looked around. "So this is what dying in reality feels like... It really is a little different."
"Forget it, forget it, let's not talk about that first." Flame Willow quickly put the matter out of her mind and excitedly looked at Xia Ling and Highmore. "Hey, hey, did you see that? I think I saw Elysia before I died! The real, living Elysia!"
"Yeah... it really was Elysia herself, but..." Thinking of Elysia's utterly genuine grief before Flame Willow died, Xia Ling's mouth twitched. "Things might be a little different from what we thought..."
Chapter 52: We Will Meet Again (4.5k)
"Different? What do you mean?" A puzzled look appeared on Flame Willow's face.
"Elysia's expression before you died was almost the same as Mei's when the cat was about to shatter..."
"Though we don't really know what happened either." Xia Ling cast an ill-intentioned look toward the system screen playing dead nearby. "We can ask the culprit."
W-wait, Host, please show mercy first!
The system shot to the other side with a whoosh, trembling. "Host, listen to my explanation! I've been using it perfectly fine for a whole year. Who knew it would get discovered at a time like this?!"
"Perfectly fine for a year?"
Highmore's voice came from the side. Expressionless, she raised the report that had just been generated. "Then explain this to me."
Everyone's gaze fell upon the report in Highmore's hand. The very first section was already a devastating revelation.
Detected signs of intrusion in system-developed application—Elysian Realm trial module. Data source individual: Elysia. Initial intrusion time: August 2014.
"..." ×4
Feeling the three gazes looking at her like she was useless, the system fell into a daze.
N-no? August 2014? Wasn't that when I first opened the Elysian Realm trial? Σ(OдO|||)ノノ
"Don't panic yet. There's more for you to panic about."
Highmore silently flipped past several lines of data records, revealing the contents of the second page.
After the intrusion, Elysia appears to have long-term hosted her consciousness within virtual data named "Elysian Realm Mascot Girl" by the system spirit. The periods during which it generated large quantities of thought data largely coincide with the hosts' activity times.
"Not bad, System." Highmore clapped expressionlessly. "You really did a fine job. No wonder Elysia was so heartbroken just now. So Elysia had already been with us for an entire year. How could she not be sad?"
Th-this was impossible!
The system's voice was full of disbelief.
Why could someone mix their consciousness into data and transmit it over here?! And how did I fail to notice?
C-could it be... was I really that unreliable?
Watching the system begin to shut down in the corner, Xia Ling sighed and took the self-check report from Highmore.
"Forget it. Let me sort out what exactly happened."
Watching Elysia leave in desolation with the crystal flower, Vill-V opened her mouth, feeling that any apology she could offer would be painfully inadequate.
Feeling Chijie's gaze beside her, Vill-V now had a strong urge to switch out another personality and make her take the blame.
"Tell me, Vill-V." Chijie suppressed his anger. "What exactly is going on?"
"Let's wait until the others get here and explain it together..." Vill-V said dejectedly. "I can already sense several people's auras."
Just now, neither Chijie nor Elysia had concealed the energy fluctuations when they made their moves.
Though those things would not affect the Elysian Realm's data structure, they were not something that could simply be ignored.
To put it another way, it was like the noise of a neighbor renovating next door.
Very quickly, Mobius, the cat, and Hua—the three closest ones—arrived at the scene.
Then Kevin and Su, along with Sakura, whom they had encountered on the way, also appeared within Chijie's domain.
"What happened? Vill-V, were you and Chijie planning to tear down the entire Elysian Realm?"
Looking at the lingering flames and Vill-V's mechanisms around them, Mobius spoke with an unfriendly expression.
"There was... an unfamiliar aura here earlier." Su closed his eyes and sensed the lingering Honkai Energy in the air, looking uncertainly at Vill-V. "Was it related to you?"
"Everyone... I think I just caused a huge disaster."
"That's what happened. Judging from this report, Elysia had been accompanying us for an entire year. She had barely even missed any of our daily training sessions."
Xia Ling rubbed her temples, finding it rather unbelievable.
"So I was the one being raised all along?"
"So all that hugging and cuddling we did with the Mascot Girl Elysia was actually Elysia responding to us?"
Highmore quickly grasped the main point.
"I think... that's probably right." Xia Ling's little face reddened slightly, clearly recalling some of her own inappropriate behavior.
"It's fine. With the speed at which we drove things during training, I don't think we had any image left in Elysia's mind anyway." Flame Willow lay sprawled across the table, looking utterly lifeless.
"But one thing is really strange." Xia Ling raised her head and asked, "If Elysia could hear our usual conversations, why was she so sad?"
"Elysia's expression back then looked like she was about to shatter. We die all the time normally, so why did Elysia react so strongly this time?"
Um, I can explain that.
The system, having finished shutting down in the corner, spoke faintly.
As an existence within the Elysian Realm trial, Elysia had an independent communication channel from the system.
In other words, the only things she could hear were the conversations you had face-to-face after entering the system space at night.
Then I just searched all our chat records and found that every mention of revival was about revival within trials.
Even before entering the final trial, we never explicitly said that hosts could revive in the real world.
"So..." Flame Willow pointed at herself. "Elysia thought I really died?"
More or less.
"See? Elysia cares about me." Flame Willow turned back and gave the other two a thumbs-up.
"You say that as if you aren't me." Xia Ling rolled her eyes at Flame Willow, then looked toward the system.
"Is there any way to contact the data Elysia infiltrated with?"
"That's right. At the very least, we need to tell Elysia I'm fine, right? Otherwise, wouldn't Elysia be sad for a very long time?"
Flame Willow agreed.
"You don't... have a way, do you?" Seeing the system remain silent, Highmore narrowed her eyes.
Um, maybe... there really isn't one.
The system hurriedly explained.
Because the Elysian Realm system I designed had a major bug, it was automatically identified as risky software and directly quarantined.
After all, I had modified it based on Sami's Integrated Strategies template... As a result, the connection interface between the Elysian Realm and the system has been sealed too.
Perhaps once the Elysian Realm plugin is rebuilt, we'll be able to contact Elysia?
"So how long will it take to unseal it?" Xia Ling asked the most crucial question.
Uh... I don't know, but at least a few months.
"Then why the hell did you even bring it up?!" Xia Ling glared angrily at the unreliable system.
"How about I take her out offline? I'll go straight to Raven and join World Serpent?"
"No. Right now, we only know Elysia's attitude. We don't know how the other Flame-Chasers feel."
Xia Ling shook her head and rejected the proposal.
"Look, Elysia liked Mei so much at the time, yet Mei still faced so many obstacles after entering. Wouldn't it be the same for us?"
"And don't forget, we still plan to get involved with the Second Divine Key in London."
"The purpose of this operation is to drive a nail into Schicksal. If Flame Willow reveals herself and joins World Serpent now, the entire London storyline will be thrown into complete chaos."
"We might not be able to quietly drive that nail in like we originally planned. Don't forget, the key to our plan succeeding is that Thousand Worlds Layered must end up in Schicksal's hands, just like in the original story."
Highmore checked the funds in the shop and sighed. "Unfortunately, we need to save enough Originium Ingots for the London trip. We may need three or even four sets of Cipher Plates to solve the problem then."
Before you continue