A Person in Honkai, But Integrated Strategies Activated

"Hey, I haven't even done anything yet, how did you end up like this?"

Chijie frowned, retracting his imposing aura and flames, and asked impatiently.

Although Chijie wore a mask, the mixture of confusion and anxiety on his face at this moment made Flame Willow inexplicably want to laugh.

She could now understand why some people enjoyed watching those stories about lifelong regrets.

Flame Willow opened her mouth and let out an extremely weak sound: "Isn't it normal to burn your all and end up like this?"

Chijie was stunned. The girl's answer struck him as absurd, making him wonder if he had misheard.

"Burn everything? Why?"

"I said... I want you to take back your contempt..."

Struggling to utter these words, Flame Willow felt her vision blur. The world around her seemed to dissolve into static, and her body swayed before she collapsed powerlessly.

Just then, a blurry pink figure burst into her sight.

"Xia Ling!"

Elysia's eyes overflowed with anxiety and worry. She had even forgotten that Xia Ling had told her to use the codename "Reed Grass" when in the Elysian Realm, lest Gray Serpent find out and potentially link it to Xia Ling's true form.

However, Elysia clearly couldn't afford to worry about such things now. The rapidly weakening aura of Flame Willow was all too familiar to her. When she had been a boss in the Elysian Realm trials, she had wanted to teach Flame Willow a lesson multiple times, telling her not to casually use skills that burned her own life force. But now, it seemed her intentions hadn't been conveyed effectively.

Crystalline light immediately appeared on Elysia's hands, and pink crystals began to spread from all over Flame Willow's body, attempting to seal her within the crystals to temporarily sustain her ebbing life.

But she was clearly a little too late. Cracks had already begun to appear on Flame Willow's body, a precursor to shattering.

"Huh... Did I... see Elysia..."

"That's nice... to be able to see Elysia one last time... It's not a wasted trip..."

With a series of shattering sounds, Flame Willow's form completely dissolved into a burst of sparkling fragments. Due to the activation effect, even these fragments quickly dissipated into nothingness.

In Elysia's arms, only a brilliant golden crystal flower, the same color as her flames, remained.

At the same time, what tightened Elysia's heart further was that with Flame Willow's death, she found she could no longer contact that wisp of consciousness within the Elysian Realm trial.

Elysia had witnessed the power of the system. Logically, as long as Xia Ling was fine, the system shouldn't have had any problems. But now...

"Xia Ling..."

As a tear fell onto the crystal flower, Vill-V and Chijie, standing nearby, finally realized the gravity of the situation.

[Huff... It's finally over.]

Sensing that Flame Willow's life signals had vanished, the system finally breathed a sigh of relief.

She quickly withdrew all system-related data from the Elysian Realm. Although she didn't know what had happened, whether Flame Willow had survived for five minutes and been sent back or had died, the trial was considered over.

There was just one thing that struck her as odd: Vill-V, who had repeatedly clashed with her in the Elysian Realm before, had inexplicably gone silent now, showing no intention of pursuing her.

But none of that mattered. The trial was over, and she had plenty of time to slowly optimize the system and fix this loophole.

As she issued a series of commands, the system's self-check procedures were initiated one by one.

[Closing Elysian Realm trial module.]

[Activating system self-check mode, activating historical record self-check mode, activating antivirus program.]

[Generating self-check report...]

Of course, while performing the self-check, she also remembered to send Xia Ling and Highmore back to the system space and issued a system notification.

[Detected one of the host individuals: Flame Shadow Reed Grass has died. Do you wish to spend sixty Originium Ingots or fifteen Hope to revive?]

"Revive, revive, system, hurry up." In the system space, Xia Ling was already impatient. She added, "Remember to use Hope."

With a flash of light, Flame Willow's figure appeared in the system space.

She opened her eyes in a daze and looked at her surroundings: "So this is what it feels like to die in reality... It's quite different, isn't it."

"Never mind, let's not dwell on that." Flame Willow quickly put the matter aside and looked excitedly at Xia Ling and Highmore: "Hey, hey, did you see? I think I saw Elysia before I died, a real Elysia!"

"Yes... it was indeed Elysia herself, but..." Recalling the genuine sadness on Elysia's face before Flame Willow's death, 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?" Flame Willow's face showed confusion.

"Elysia's expression before you died was almost the same as Mei's before she shattered..."

"Although we don't quite understand what's going on," Xia Ling cast a malicious glance at the system's screen, which was pretending to be dead, "we can ask the person in question."

[Wait, wait, host, please show mercy!]

The system, startled, "whooshed" to the other side, trembling: "Host, listen to my explanation, I've been working fine for a year, who knew I'd be discovered at this time!"

"Working fine for a year?"

Highmore's voice came from the side. She expressionlessly held up the report she had just generated: "Then explain to me what's going on here."

Everyone's gaze turned to the report in Highmore's hand. The first paragraph delivered a bombshell.

[Detected signs of intrusion in the system's self-developed application—Elysian Realm trial module; Data source individual: Elysia; First intrusion time: August 2014.]

"..." x4

Sensing three gazes that treated it like trash, the system fell into a daze.

[No, really? August 2014? Wasn't that when I first opened the Elysian Realm trial? What the—?!]

"Don't rush, there's more you need to worry about."

Highmore silently flipped past a few lines of recorded data, revealing the content on the second page.

[After the intrusion, Elysia seemingly long-term housed her consciousness within virtual data that the system sprite named "Elysian Realm Mascot Girl".]

[The period during which she generated a large amount of thought data largely coincided with the host's activity time.]

"That's great, System," Highmore said emotionlessly, clapping her hands. "You did a good job. No wonder Elysia was so sad earlier. Turns out Elysia has been with us for a year, how could she not be sad?"

[This... how is this possible?]

The system's voice was filled with disbelief.

[Why would someone be able to transmit their consciousness mixed with data like that! And without me noticing?]

[Could it be... am I really that unreliable?]

Seeing the system already sulking in the corner, Xia Ling sighed and took the self-check report from Highmore.

"Forget it, let me sort this out and figure out what exactly happened."

Watching Elysia's lonely figure leave with the crystal flower, Vill-V opened her mouth, suddenly feeling all her apologies seemed a bit pale and weak.

Sensing Chijie's gaze from the side, Vill-V now had a strong urge to switch to another personality to take the blame.

"Tell me, Vill-V," Chijie said, suppressing his anger. "What is going on?"

"Let's wait until the others arrive before I explain..." Vill-V said dejectedly. "I can already sense several people approaching."

Just now, neither Chijie nor Elysia had concealed the energy fluctuations when they attacked.

While these things wouldn't have any impact on the data structure of the Elysian Realm, they weren't something that could be ignored.

To draw an analogy, it was like the noise of neighbors renovating next door.

Soon, Mobius, Cat Cat, and Hua, the three closest, had arrived at the scene.

Then, Kevin and Su, along with Sakura whom they encountered on the way, materialized within Chijie's domain.

"What's going on? Vill-V, are you and Chijie planning to tear down the entire Elysian Realm?"

Looking at the residual flames and Vill-V's contraptions around them, Mobius spoke with a displeased expression.

"Here... there was a strange aura just now." Su closed his eyes, sensing the residual Honkai Energy in the air, and looked somewhat uncertainly at Vill-V. "Is it related to you?"

"Everyone... I think I just caused a huge problem."

"So that's how it is. According to this report, Elysia has been with us for a whole year, and she's only missed training a few times."

Xia Ling rubbed her temples, finding it hard to believe.

"So I've been raising her myself?"

"So, all the hugging and cuddling we usually do with Elysia the Mascot Girl was actually Elysia responding to us?"

Highmore quickly grasped the key point.

"I think... that's likely the case." Xia Ling's small face flushed, clearly recalling some of her own excessive actions.

"It's fine, considering the speed at which we usually operate during training, I don't think we have any image left in Elysia's heart anyway." Flame Willow slumped onto the table, looking utterly defeated.

"But there's one thing that's strange," Xia Ling said, looking up. "If Elysia could hear our usual conversations, then why was she so sad?"

"Elysia's expression back then looked like she was about to shatter. Logically, we die quite often, so why did she react so strongly this time?"

[Um, I can explain that.]

The system, having finished its sulking in the corner, spoke up faintly.

[Elysia, as an entity within the trial Elysian Realm, has a separate communication channel with the system.]

[In other words, all she could hear were the contents of our face-to-face conversations when you entered the system space at night.]

[And I just checked all our chat logs, and found that all the resurrection-related keywords mentioned were about resurrections within the trial.]

[Including before we entered the final trial, we never explicitly mentioned that the host could be resurrected in the real world.]

"So you're saying..." Flame Willow pointed at herself. "Elysia thought I actually died?"

[Pretty much.]

"See, Elysia cares about me," Flame Willow turned and gave the other two a thumbs-up.

"As if you're not me," Xia Ling shot Flame Willow a glare, then looked at the system.

"So, is there any way to contact that data of Elysia that intruded?"

"That's right. I think I at least need to tell Elysia that I'm okay, otherwise won't Elysia be sad for a long time?"

Flame Willow agreed.

[...]

"You... you can't, can you?" Highmore narrowed her eyes, looking at the silent system.

[That, might... really not be possible.]

The system quickly explained.

[Because there's a major bug in the Elysian Realm system I designed, and it's been automatically flagged as risky software. It's been quarantined directly.]

[After all, it was originally modified from the Sami's Integrated Strategies template... Along with that, the connection interface between the Elysian Realm and the system is now sealed.]

[Perhaps, once the Elysian Realm plugin is redeveloped, we'll be able to contact Elysia?]

"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 what the heck are you talking about!" Xia Ling glared at the unreliable system.

"How about I just go offline and take them out? Directly find Raven and join World Serpent?"

"No, we only know Elysia's attitude right now, but we don't know the attitudes of the other Herrschers."

Xia Ling shook her head, rejecting the proposal.

"Look how much Elysia favored Mei back then, and yet Mei still faced so many obstacles after entering. Wouldn't it be the same for us?"

"Besides, don't forget, we also plan to go to London and get involved with the Second Divine Key."

"The purpose of this operation is to embed a spy into Schicksal. If Flame Willow reveals her hand and joins World Serpent now, the plot in London will be completely disrupted."

"We might not be able to quietly embed that spy as we envisioned. Don't forget, the key to our plan's success is for the Thousand Worlds Layered to be obtained by Schicksal, just like in the original story."

Highmore looked at the funds in the shop and sighed, "It's a shame we have to set aside enough Originium Ingots for the trip to London. We might need three or even four sets of Cipher Plates to solve the problem then."