Extra: What She Bore

"I'm sorry, Sakura. I was the first to arrive, but in the end... I still failed to protect Ling..." Zhu Yufeng gently placed the Black Box in Sakura's hands. "I'm sorry..."

Sakura accepted the Black Box with a dim expression and softly called her sister's name. She was still immersed in the pain of losing her only family, so much so that even with her keen senses, she failed to notice Zhu Yufeng's face growing paler and paler.

Zhu Yufeng looked at Sakura and felt the pain throughout his body gradually fade away. No, it should have been said that he was gradually losing sensation... The strength in his body was vanishing as well. Something within him seemed to be trying to break free of its restraints, only to be suppressed by another force. His pupils slowly lost focus. With the corners of his lips slightly raised, he murmured, "At least this time... I saved you... Fate, it seems I won by half a move this time..."

With that, the man who had never fallen and never shown anyone his weakness collapsed heavily to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. The exposed parts of his arms began undergoing a horrifying transformation. Honkai Beast carapace grew from his arms like scales, while crimson lines began appearing on his face.

Sakura suddenly snapped awake. "Feng?! Feng, what's wrong?!"

When Kevin rushed over and saw this, he did not have time to ask Sakura what had happened. He grabbed Zhu Yufeng, supported him, and ran straight toward Mobius's laboratory. Sakura glanced down at the Black Box in her hands before immediately following.

"Mei! Can you hear me?" Kevin activated his communicator. "Something happened to Feng! I'm taking him to Mobius's laboratory now. Have you finished dealing with things over there?"

At that moment, Mei was listening to others report the destruction caused by the Twelfth Herrscher Incident. Every human settlement had been wiped out, but before that, Zhu Yufeng had seemingly anticipated it and selected one hundred thousand human elites to enter Fire Moth's underground shelters.

Mei calmly assessed the situation and ultimately concluded that humanity had not yet been completely defeated. These one hundred thousand people would carry humanity's final hope.

But Kevin's tone carried a far greater emotional fluctuation than usual. That meant Zhu Yufeng's condition was likely extremely dire. He was the strongest Fusion Warrior. Whether she considered it emotionally or rationally, nothing could happen to him...

With that thought, Mei said to another person, "I understand the general situation. You will be responsible for comforting the remaining humans. I need to confirm another matter of higher priority first."

The person she named nodded, indicating that they would complete the task.

Mei made several more brief arrangements before hurrying toward Mobius's laboratory without pause. She knew that it held Fire Moth's most comprehensive data and facilities regarding Fusion Warriors. Mobius had also always been Zhu Yufeng's collaborator, so Kevin taking him there was not a problem.

After taking only a few steps, Mei's heart suddenly convulsed with intense pain. She had no choice but to stop, gritting her teeth as she pressed a hand to her chest and took several breaths to recover.

As expected, this body is nearly at its limit too, isn't it? Mei smiled bitterly to herself. She had borne almost all of Fire Moth's affairs alone after the Tenth Herrscher Incident, and wearing the Key of Blank during that incident had severely ravaged her body.

She understood clearly that the excessive Honkai Energy corrosion and exhaustion had left her body beyond saving. The only reason she could still stand was because of the effects of the medicine she and Mobius had researched together...

After a brief rest, Mei once again headed toward Mobius's laboratory as though nothing had happened.

She did not have much time left, but Kevin had a long, long life ahead of him. She had to find a way. She had to make Kevin find his own path after she was gone. Su was indeed Kevin's closest friend, but if Kevin became stubborn, Su might not be able to stop him. Therefore, nothing could happen to Feng...

The distance from the command room to Mobius's laboratory was not far. Mei had deliberately arranged it that way when she took over Fire Moth's leadership, both to conceal her body, which was already on the verge of collapse, and to facilitate timely communication with Mobius—or prepare for the possibility that something might suddenly happen to her.

Yet despite the short distance, Mei could only walk slowly. Her body could no longer support running.

As she neared Mobius's laboratory, Mei ran into Elysia, who seemed to have hurried over. The first thing Elysia said upon seeing her was, "Mei, how is Feng now? I heard from Sakura that something happened to him!"

Mei estimated the time since she had received Kevin's message. She remembered that when the Twelfth Herrscher Incident broke out, she had assigned Elysia to suppress the large number of Honkai Beasts that had broken into Fire Moth's base. Even after the Twelfth Herrscher was sealed, the invading Honkai Beasts had not been fully cleared out. Elysia clearly would not have left them unattended. In other words, had Elysia rushed here at top speed the moment she received the news?

"I just arrived too. I don't know the details yet." Mei adjusted her glasses. "But when Kevin notified me, his voice was unusually..."

Before she could finish, Elysia hurried into Mobius's laboratory. Mei froze for a moment. She had never seen Elysia like this before. Feng must truly hold a very important place in her heart. But... regarding that matter, Feng probably found it difficult to forgive Elysia. Otherwise, he would not have refused to see her even once until now.

After letting out a soft sigh, Mei entered Mobius's laboratory as well.

The moment she stepped inside, she heard something slam heavily onto the floor. Mobius snarled, "Honkai Jamming Bullets... They actually dared... They actually used Honkai Energy Jamming Bullets!"

Honkai Energy Jamming Bullets?

Mei froze upon hearing the term, then her expression became extremely grave. She knew that weapon. It had been jointly developed by herself, Mobius, and Vill-V. Its original purpose had been to suppress Qianjie whenever he risked going berserk. Later, they discovered that it had a particularly powerful effect against Fusion Warriors—especially Fusion Warriors like Kevin and Feng, who had undergone the Chimera Project. Honkai Energy Jamming Bullets could cause the Hypervariable Factors in their bodies to repel one another, eventually leading to bodily collapse.

But that required the Honkai Energy Jamming Bullet to hit them and enter their bodies. Besides, hadn't she ordered those things destroyed?

Someone had secretly hoarded Honkai Energy Jamming Bullets...

She should have anticipated it. After the Tenth Herrscher Incident, trust between people had nearly collapsed. Many already harbored hostility toward Fusion Warriors. She had not expected it to happen at a time like this...

"Honkai Energy Jamming Bullets? What are those?" Kevin was confused, but seeing Mobius's furious, visibly panicked expression, he understood that this situation was likely extremely troublesome.

He lowered his head again to look at Zhu Yufeng, who lay amid a pile of instruments with numerous tubes inserted into his body. His hand no longer resembled a human hand, and it was still changing constantly. Kevin saw the features of various Emperor-class and End-of-Law Honkai Beasts he or Zhu Yufeng had killed in the past appear one after another, only to vanish again.

Mobius shot Kevin a vicious glare before lowering her head and continuing to adjust the instruments.

Helpless, Kevin could only turn to Mei for an answer. Mei was silent for a moment before saying, "Simply put, this weapon was designed specifically against Fusion Warriors. It can suppress or even destroy your ability to control Honkai Energy and... cause the Hypervariable Factors inside your bodies to repel one another."

Kevin and Sakura's pupils contracted, while Elysia urgently asked, "Then what happens in the end?"

Mei said quietly, "Bodily collapse..."

"But wasn't this thing destroyed long ago?" Vill-V's voice rang out.

"It was my failure." Mei decided to take the blame.

With a bang, Qianjie kicked the laboratory door open. "How's that guy doing? Is he still alive?"

"Enough!" Mobius suddenly erupted in fury. "Qianjie, if you don't know how to speak, then shut your mouth!"

"Huh?" Qianjie walked over to Mobius and was about to say something when an icy chill swept over from behind him, followed by Kevin's voice. "The situation is extremely urgent right now. You should calm down too, Qianjie."

Mobius coldly swept her gaze over everyone present, then said, "Everyone except Mei and Vill-V, get out!"

"I..." Elysia wanted to say something, but ultimately said nothing. She was the first to leave. Sakura glanced at Zhu Yufeng and followed Elysia out. Kevin looked at Qianjie, while Qianjie looked at Zhu Yufeng. After a moment of silence, he gave a cold snort and left as well, with Kevin following close behind.

The four stood outside the door Qianjie had already kicked apart. Though they could see what was happening inside, they tacitly chose not to look, and all remained silent.

The other Flame-Chasers arrived one after another afterward. Seeing the situation, they also chose to stand outside the door in silence.

After an agonizing stretch of time, Mei emerged from inside. Everyone turned to look at her. Mei first glanced back into the laboratory, then said gravely, "His condition has stabilized for now. At the very least, Feng's bodily collapse has been contained. But... none of us can be certain what will happen next."

"What... does that mean?" Elysia asked first.

"Feng's body is in worse condition than I imagined. No, it is worse than I could ever have imagined. Judging by the data, his body is already riddled with damage. The fact that he could stand before you all was a miracle. This was not something that happened overnight. It is more like... the accumulated side effects of all those Hypervariable Factors over time. The Honkai Energy Jamming Bullet was merely the trigger that caused everything to collapse." Mei sighed. "Mobius understands these matters better than I do, so Mobius will take charge of his treatment from here on. And if we don't consider whether he wakes up, Feng's chance of survival is no greater than 1%."

"So even if Brother Yu Feng survives, he might never wake up?" Pardo asked.

Mei merely looked into the laboratory without speaking.

"Accumulated side effects?" Elysia froze, then said in confusion, "But... Feng never showed any side effects at all."

"For the specifics, ask Mobius. I truly have not seen anything in any report about Feng's side effects. The only explanation is that Mobius deliberately concealed everything." Mei said.

The moment she finished speaking, Mobius emerged from the laboratory with a gloomy face. She swept her gaze across everyone present. Only when her eyes fell on Griseo did they soften. She said gently, "Griseo, why are you here too?"

"Kosma said Brother Yu Feng was in trouble, so I came." Griseo said. "Will Brother Yu Feng leave like Daddy and the others did?"

Mobius shot Kosma a glare. Kosma lowered his head without speaking, and Griseo explained, "It isn't Kosma's fault. I wanted to come myself."

"It's all right. Yu Feng won't leave. All right, Griseo, this is adult business now. Go paint for a while. Maybe by the time you finish your painting, Yu Feng will have woken up." Mobius spoke gently, then looked at Aponia. "Take her to the studio, Aponia."

Kosma looked as though he wanted to say something but stopped himself. In the end, he merely sighed and chose silence. Aponia was silent for a moment before walking over to Griseo and extending her hand. "Come, Griseo."

Griseo nodded obediently, took Aponia's hand, and left with her.

After watching Griseo disappear from sight, Elysia finally spoke after a long while. "So, Mobius, about Feng's side effects..."

"Heh..." Mobius first let out a cold laugh. Her gloomy gaze passed over everyone present one by one before she said mockingly, "Side effects? So you still remember that Hypervariable Surgery originally had side effects. I thought that as long as Feng never said anything, you would never know."

"What the hell are you trying to say?!" Qianjie's temper did not tolerate Mobius's sarcastic insinuations. If Kevin and Elysia had not been here, and if the person lying in the laboratory did not still need Mobius, he would have punched Mobius so hard she would have regressed a year.

"What am I trying to say? I'm saying, what use are any of you?!" Mobius's tone became sharp. "Starting with you, Kevin!"

Kevin froze. Why was he the first one being blasted this time?

But as Feng's closest friend, he had not even known that Feng had side effects... Yes, it truly was his failure.

"You are the leader of these so-called Fourteen Schicksal. You are the Hero everyone expects. But what did you ultimately accomplish? When the Twelfth Herrscher Incident broke out, where were you? What were you doing? Playing the Hero, wiping out Honkai Beasts and saving humanity, right? Well done. You saved everyone except Yu Feng."

Kevin remained silent. He really had been clearing the Honkai Beasts that had invaded Fire Moth's interior, and he had trusted Zhu Yufeng to handle this matter... But Mobius was clearly furious right now, and he was indeed somewhat at fault, so he chose to remain silent.

Mobius continued, "Didn't you want to know about his side effects? Fine, I'll tell you. Every moment, he has endured pain like flames burning him from the inside out! It had existed ever since he underwent Hypervariable Surgery! How could he possibly have had no side effects? What did you all take him for? In the beginning, his Honkai Energy resistance was even lower than Kevin's. Even Kevin had side effects, so why wouldn't he?! You never even considered it. Of course... because he never said anything and never showed it, you never thought to."

Elysia's pupils contracted. She recalled seeing Zhu Yufeng after his surgery. He had worn a blank expression and joked that his side effect was forgetting how to smile... If that had been his side effect at the time, then he had been...

"Every night that was ordinary and uneventful to you was a sleepless night for him... I originally developed medicine that could suppress it, but that side effect kept worsening as he continued fusing with Honkai Beasts. After the Eleventh Herrscher Incident... the medicine completely stopped working on him. From then on, he never had a single day of rest!" Mobius looked at Elysia. "And you, Elysia... You are the cause of all this!"

"I..." Elysia wanted to say something, but... The Tragedy of Binding, the complete annihilation of Fallen Angel—it could indeed be said that it all began because of her...

"He joined Fire Moth because of you. He became a Fusion Warrior because of you. And in the end, the reason he nearly lost everything was still you." Mobius glanced at the others again. After a pause, she said weakly, "He was always like this. He always fought desperately for humanity. To save civilization from sinking, he shouldered everything he never should have had to bear. But... what did he get in return? What did he receive? Suspicion, slander, and now people trying to kill him. How did he ever wrong humanity? What did he do wrong?"

"Then why didn't he tell us?" Kevin could not help asking.

Weren't they friends? Why had Feng hidden even this from everyone? He could have at least told Kevin. What was there that brothers could not share?

"Because he thought it wasn't important. Because he didn't care!" Mobius said mockingly. "He said you were the chosen Hero, that there was no need for you to waste your energy on something like this for him. He thought that compared to humanity's survival, instead of letting me spend time dealing with his side effects, I should spend more time researching Honkai! Yes... I actually... believed his nonsense too..."

"Hahaha... Hahahahaha..." Qianjie suddenly burst into wild laughter. "Not bad, not bad! I'll settle this bastard's score with him when he wakes up! Before that, those pieces of trash... have finally proven to me that they... deserve to be... ground into ashes!"

With that, Qianjie activated his Deliverance and charged out.

"Not good! Go stop Qianjie, Kevin!" Dr. Mei's expression changed as she looked at Kevin. Kevin merely stood at the laboratory entrance without moving.

"Dr. Mei... how much hope is there that he can be healed?" Sakura asked.

"Ah..." Dr. Mei let out a long sigh. "To be honest, Feng's condition is extremely terrible right now. He forcibly fused the Hypervariable Factors of nearly every Honkai Beast above Emperor-class, and the Honkai Energy Jamming Bullet shattered the balance in his body. I'm afraid..."

She did not continue.

Sakura closed her eyes and said, "He never fought back. Even after being attacked, he held on and brought Ling back with me..."

Then she took a deep breath, put on Poison Pupa's mask, and left as well. No one knew what she intended to do—or perhaps everyone knew.

Mei looked somewhat worried as she turned to Elysia. Elysia stood at the door, staring at the situation inside, and murmured, "I didn't know. I didn't know any of this... I was clearly always watching him... Yet in the end, I still knew nothing..."

All right, Elysia was no help either.

Mei could only look toward Su. Su sighed softly, nodded to Mei, and said, "I'll contact Aponia. Hua, come with me."

Hua, who had remained silent and inconspicuous all this time, nodded and left with Su.

"Yeah, why..." Pardo said quietly. "Brother Yu Feng never owed this world anything. So why did it end... like this for him..."

Kosma glanced at Mobius. After a long silence, he said only one thing. "...I'll go stop Qianjie."

Then he left as well.

At that moment, within Zhu Yufeng's consciousness.

Lilith stood opposite him.

They were discussing everything Zhu Yufeng had experienced in his life thus far.

"Are you satisfied with an ending like this?" Lilith looked at Zhu Yufeng with half-lidded eyes. "You could have killed those people, yet you chose to take the Honkai Energy Jamming Bullet head-on."

"Children... are this world's treasures. I may not be a good person, but..." Zhu Yufeng gave a bitter smile. "At that moment, I suddenly wanted to try protecting her longing for the beauty of this world."

"But in the end, she despaired of the world because you were injured." Lilith said mercilessly. "And you were the mastermind who allowed all of this to happen."

Zhu Yufeng fell silent. After a long while, he said self-mockingly, "So I was deceiving myself too... How strange. I had planned everything from the beginning, yet I was the one who changed my mind in the end... Maybe I really am tired. Maybe I want to let everything go and sleep forever."

"Don't you think the reason you have fought all this time is ridiculous?" Lilith asked. "You are not even from this world. You owe this world nothing, yet you ultimately risked everything for it."

Zhu Yufeng remained silent.

"I know, it was for Elysia. It was to change the fate of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers. But have you ever thought about yourself? You could have found a way to survive into the next era, met Kiana and the others, and lived comfortably by relying on your identity as a pioneer and a transmigrator. Yet you still chose this road to death." Lilith continued.

"I've never regretted it." Zhu Yufeng finally spoke. "Besides, I believe there must have been a reason I came to this world and appeared in this era... Since I came, I had to do something, didn't I?"

"Heh... You think you're a Hero?"

"I'm not. I never was." Zhu Yufeng denied it. "I don't care about whether this world survives, but they should have had better lives."

"And what about you? Haven't you thought about yourself?"

Zhu Yufeng closed his eyes and considered it before saying, "I did think about it, but I soon realized it was meaningless. Because I met Nahamah, I also saw this world's extravagance and decadence. But after the initial interest faded, everything became dull. I was never someone from this world. At this point, all I have left is obsession."

"Boring." Lilith judged.

"Actually, there's something I want to tell you too. I only understood it after you left." Zhu Yufeng finally smiled. "Although you always wanted to kill me at first... I still want to say that I never regretted meeting you."

Lilith froze.

This space of consciousness began to shatter.

"Looks like I'm about to wake up." Zhu Yufeng raised his head. "We... should meet again soon... Forget it. It would be better if we never met again. Don't run into me in the next life."

Lilith watched him in silence until the world collapsed.

Zhu Yufeng opened his eyes. Beside him stood Mobius, whose face was exhausted but whose eyes held unconcealable delight. He then looked up at the laboratory ceiling.

Had he really developed feelings for Lilith? Otherwise, why would he dream of her?

That could not have been the real Lilith. He had never told anyone that he was a transmigrator.

"Do you know you almost died?!" Mobius scolded.

"Mm." He nodded calmly. "As long as I'm alive now, that's enough."

The corner of Mobius's eye twitched. She gritted her teeth, wanting to say something, but ultimately sighed and said nothing.

Within Zhu Yufeng's consciousness.

"If I hadn't covered for you and suppressed those Hypervariable Factors, you would have reincarnated with me already. Mobius wouldn't even have had a chance to save you." Lilith muttered as she casually smashed a Honkai Beast apart with one hand. "Ah, reincarnating together doesn't seem too bad... Forget it. It was only a matter of time anyway..."