In Short: It's Probably Going to Hurt

"Restraint... tragedy..."

Elysia pressed her forehead, and it took her a while to calm her somewhat violent breathing.

"Why... why would I dream about this..." She glanced at the digital clock on her bedside table. It was still the middle of the night, and she couldn't very well run to someone's room to check on them or offer some comfort...

After all... having such a nightmare, even if it's in the past, you can't bring yourself to talk about it...

The tragic incident involving restraint is something that she and Zhu Yufeng tacitly avoid mentioning to this day. Neither of them wants to bring it up. For Elysia, it means that their relationship can never return to its past beginning. For Zhu Yufeng, it means that he almost gave up everything, and in the end, only his obsession remained to support him.

A person never truly meets another person again, and from then on, all emotions become impossible to convey. A person is completely deprived of the right to sleep, and from then on, they have to endure pain that is unbearable for ordinary people every day.

In the beginning, she did have this nightmare. In the period right after her rebirth, she would dream about the tragic events of the restraints almost every night, or about the final banquet, and no matter how long she waited, he would not come.

She had almost completely calmed down and felt that she could have a new beginning. However, after learning that Lilith was also a reborn person, she had the same nightmare again that night.

It wasn't until Zhu Yufeng confessed his true identity to her at the amusement park that their relationship began to steadily improve, and she hadn't had such a nightmare in a long time.

Even after the Seventh Herrscher Incident, and witnessing Himiko's inability to change her fate, although she worried that she and Kaede would ultimately be unable to overcome the bondage tragedy, and even more worried that... he would end her fate in the Finality battle... but that was only a brief moment of hesitation.

She still believed that they could change their fate from the previous life this time. She hoped that he could save her fate, and she also believed that she could save his fate.

This was their first promise after their rebirth, a promise they both had to keep.

The changes in the Seventh Herrscher Incident were indeed unexpected, but according to Mobius's speculation, the essence was still the same as in the previous life. After all, no one would have thought that the real Seventh Herrscher was Uriel, let alone that Uriel would use the Imaginary Path to implant the Herrscher Core and transform Himiko right under everyone's noses.

Therefore, the Seventh Herrscher Incident did not have as great an impact on Elysia as it did on Kosma.

"Is it because...this Eighth Herrscher is born in a completely different way than we know it..." Elysia murmured to herself, "But...even if this can be called a correction of fate, Disaster was saved, wasn't she? What...am I still worried about..."

After Aponia officially Fire Moth, Elysia asked Aponia about Zhu Yufeng. Aponia simply lowered her eyelids and said, "In the last life, as far as I could see, he was already bound by the threads of fate, but... in this life, I can no longer see the fate of others... I'm sorry, Elysia, I cannot answer your question."

Based on Elysia's understanding of Aponia, she certainly didn't lie to herself, but perhaps chose to conceal something...

Is something being hidden...?

Although Aponia's concealment didn't garner much attention from Elysia at the time, or perhaps she chose not to believe it again, after all, even though Feng was already bound by the threads of fate, hadn't he changed the fates of others in his previous life? This time, everyone was no longer bound by fate, so why couldn't everyone go together to save him?

The reason I had such a nightmare this time, even though I didn't pay much attention to Aponia's words at the time, actually still planted a thorn in my heart...

Elysia felt her mind becoming a little unclear, and drowsiness gradually began to creep in.

"As long as Michael is still like SEELE, possessing the Herrscher Core and the physical body of Herrscher, then there is a way... to restrain the tragedy. We can definitely overcome it, we definitely... can." Elysia seemed to be talking to herself, yet also to someone who was not present at the moment.

Worrying too much now is pointless. Besides scaring yourself, what can you change?

Thinking this, Elysia lay down on the bed again, slowly closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep once more.

"Here it is..."

When Elysia opened her eyes again, she saw a sky full of twinkling stars, and the surrounding scenery was...

"[The Last Banquet] Back then?" Elysia looked around at the scene. Just like in the dream of the tragic restraint, apart from Lilith and Zhu Yufeng, Michael appeared as a stone statue. And here, it was the same.

Aponia appears as a statue in the form of a praying figure, while the Vill-V statue is showing off its new invention to itself and other guests. The Eden statue holds an unfinished musical score, and the Kevin statue sheds tears that are, in a physical sense, ice crystals.

Just as I remember, he... still didn't come...

Elysia looked at the surrounding scene and decorations, and then at the fireworks she had made and already set off. She had so hoped that he would keep their promise and fulfill the agreement they had made, but she was also so clear that he would not come.

She simply refused to believe it, so until Kevin arrived with his invitation, she repeatedly asked the other guests if he was likely to come.

"What's wrong with me... First the tragedy of the Restraint, then the [Final Banquet]..." Elysia muttered to herself with a bitter smile, "Am I... just going to live in fear of Kaede leaving...?"

She looked up again at the increasingly dreamlike sky, where the clouds had coalesced into the shape of a moth chasing a flame, just like before...

She remembered that she had once been a moth, and that she had been looking forward to the last birthday gift that Zhu Yufeng would give her. That time, she also found him in a dream, so... does this mean that she can now Fire Moth and see what Feng was doing back then?

Having made up her mind, she looked at the red crystal flower lying quietly where she had stood when she left. After thinking for a moment, she walked over and placed a pink crystal flower next to the red one.

Then, the dream environment changed according to her thoughts, and in an instant, she was drawn to the Fire Moth.

However, what she didn't know was that after she left, the scene of the "Final Banquet" didn't disappear; only some subtle changes occurred. A stone statue of her appeared where she had placed the crystal jewels, holding two crystal jewels in its palms and looking up at the dreamlike sky. After that, another person who shouldn't have been there—the only person invited—arrived at the scene.

"Is this... the site of the [Final Banquet]?" Zhu Yufeng looked around at the surroundings. How did he come to have this memory? He hadn't even come here. Moreover, the description of the [Final Banquet] in the Elysian Realm didn't include any scenes or CGs, just a background image...

Zhu Yufeng looked up. Yes, the sky did indeed look like the background image... but how did he know, or rather, how did he recreate that scene? This scene didn't look like the amusement park in the Elysian Realm ...

He then looked at the four stone statues standing silently there, his gaze finally settling on the statue of Kevin. He stepped forward, looked Kevin up and down, and then said, "I never imagined you would cry like this... Although it's quite shocking that ice crystals are flowing from the statue..."

Furthermore, Kevin's clothes were far from completely undamaged; according to the person involved, he was given a very, very serious beating by Elysia...

The root cause of all this is myself...

"I still have to be a little more lenient with you in the future, Kevin ..." Zhu Yufeng said with a wry smile. Whether in the previous life or now, Kevin ultimately bore the brunt of everything.

After saying this, his expression almost vanished instantly. He looked at the stone statue he had spotted the moment he arrived, the Elysia stone statue.

He reached the stone statue and saw the crimson and pink crystal jewels held by Elysia. He had heard Elysia mention the origin of the crimson crystal jewel; after all, crimson was the color of his Flame-Chasers inscription and the emblem of the Fallen Angel Squad. Elysia had originally intended to give him the crystal jewel, but in the end, she chose to take it with her. Because at that time, she was indeed close to despair, believing he would never accept anything from her again. Even when Eden gave him the crystal jewel as a final gift, it was almost like forcing him to accept it...

"Before that, I had already forced you to make a choice once, so how could I... do it a second time..."

That's what Elysia said.

As for this pink crystal...

Zhu Yufeng lowered his eyes and thought for a moment. No matter how he thought about it, pink could only be related to Elysia herself. But why was there a crystal here that Elysia had never mentioned to him? As for Elysia holding both crystals in her hands, that was understandable, provided that he understood correctly.

Suddenly, Zhu Yufeng had a strange premonition that compelled him to touch the pink crystal. After hesitating for a moment, he decided to trust his intuition. After all, he had wandered around the Fire Moth base a few times before, and then, based on his premonition, he wanted to come here to take a look...

So he reached out and touched the pink crystal flower, and a memory entered his mind.

"Hmm... Is this really okay?" The girl sat in front of the dressing table, looking at herself in the mirror. "I am indeed very pretty... but what will Feng think? I should ask Eden later..."

What he saw in the girl's eyes was trepidation and anticipation... Yes, she had so eagerly awaited his arrival...

"Oh, right, if Feng comes..." A pink crystal flower appeared in the girl's hand, the same one he had seen earlier, "I could..."

Tell him that I was unable to give him an answer at that time.

This was the girl's thought; she didn't say it aloud, but Zhu Yufeng, as the reader of this memory, was still able to know it.

The girl fell silent, staring quietly at the pink crystal in her hand. After a long time, Zhu Yufeng saw that crimson covered the pink, and the crystal transformed into the crimson shape she had seen.

Pink represents my feelings... but he probably won't accept them anymore... The distance between us is such that there's no chance for us to get any closer...

So, in the end, it was changed to red? Zhu Yufeng looked at the girl in front of him. He wanted to tell her that he had received her feelings, but the scene in front of him was ultimately just a remnant of the past. No matter what he did, he could only watch her grieve alone, remembering how she felt back then.

"It all began, the tragedy began... it all stemmed from the different choices we made when trying to prevent this catastrophe." Zhu Yufeng lowered his eyes. "We could all understand each other's choices, but in the end, we still stuck to our own beliefs... but no matter who succeeded in the end, the outcome wouldn't have changed. The first option resulted in the annihilation of all the Fusion Warrior except for the Fourteen Schicksal, while the second option would have preserved the Fusion Warrior force, but would have destroyed the entire human society, which was already on the verge of collapse... neither option could have prevented the destruction of civilization..."

On the other side.

Elysia looked at the badge held in Zhu Yufeng's stone statue and said softly, "Even back then, you were still willing to wear the badge for me back then... It's really... Why did we end up like this back then..."

We were once so close, but in the end, we became unreachable and never saw each other again...

The stone statue stood by the window of the Mobius Laboratory, gazing at the distant sky, which was also the direction of the location where she had held the "Final Banquet." This made Elysia somewhat emotional. Zhu Yufeng would never tell her these things, just as she had never told him that before preparing the crimson crystal, the first thing she had prepared was actually a pink crystal.

In the end, because he simply didn't have the courage, and because he didn't think he was qualified to give away this crystal gem, he changed it to crimson...

Before she found him here, she saw the dress he had prepared for her but hadn't given her in his dorm room. The dress was neatly folded and placed in an exquisitely packaged pink box. By touching it, she realized that after he hesitated for a long time outside her door and ultimately didn't give her the dress, he had considered having Kevin or Eden deliver it for him, so he specifically went to find a pink gift box.

But... in the end, he still gave up...

"But at least... this time, we still have a chance, and our story won't end like this," Elysia said softly.

Suddenly, the surrounding environment changed once again, turning into a desolate battlefield filled with swords and spears.

"Could this be...?"

"The Finality... battle?"