A Promise Spanning Hundreds of Millions of Years

Zhu Yufeng looked at Vita, and for some reason, he felt an instinctive hostility towards her. He could sense that Vita had a similar energy fluctuation to that of Vita Herrscher, but it was only similar, because the Honkai Energy flowing in her body came from the Quantum Sea.

Relying on the energy of the Quantum Sea to fight against the Honkai, the Herrscher of the Quantum Sea were ultimately born.

This is not impossible. After all, everything in the Imaginary Tree and the Quantum Sea has its reflection. If the conditions are right, it is not impossible for Herrscher of the Quantum Sea to be born. However, so far, apart from Vita, who is suspected to be the Herrscher of the Quantum Sea, the Fire Moth has no evidence to prove that a Herrscher exists in the Quantum Sea.

Furthermore, the Quantum Sea gave birth to the Herrscher, which has nothing to do with the Intrinsic World, right?

"It's been a long time, Lucifer... But for you, this 'long time' might just be a few seconds, right?" Vita walked over, and the very peculiar-looking monster behind her made a threatening gesture towards Zhu Yufeng. Vita glanced at it, and it immediately became obedient and stopped making any moves.

Zhu Yufeng crossed his arms and looked at Vita. A cube surrounding him warned him the Present Vita was in danger.

Zhu Yufeng ignored it. Although his body instinctively felt hostile, he didn't need to take action unless Vita also felt hostile. He wanted to know more about this Venusian civilization.

After Vita walked up to him, Zhu Yufeng asked, "In this world, are you the Present living person left?"

How could that be?

Vita smiled and gracefully walked past Zhu Yufeng. Zhu Yufeng followed her figure and looked up to see Vita with her arms outstretched, smiling as she said to him, "Look, isn't everyone here?"

Are you referring to those mechs? All here?

Zhu Yufeng didn't speak. Based on his observation and perception just now, those mechs were not the kind of people he knew who used mechanical prosthetics to replace some of their organs. Rather, they were more like constructed beings that seemed to possess thought, albeit a chaotic one.

Both of them fell silent, except for the man holding the condenser tube who continued shouting at the ant-like mech not far away, "Haha, the 124th time! No matter how many times, you are destined to be destroyed! Hahaha... Gaa..."

It seems the language system is malfunctioning; the mecha's voice has become completely static.

Zhu Yufeng looked at Vita. Vita still had a smile on her face, but she narrowed her eyes. Although she looked more gentle than when she greeted him before, however...

"A person's eyes can easily reflect their inner thoughts. After all, people often say that the eyes don't lie." Lilith once told herself this. "So, I've practiced this for a long time."

Lilith is indeed capable of playing along with the situation with her eyes wide open. After all, she is the witch who deceived the world, and she learned how to disguise herself from a young age and eventually succeeded.

Compared to others, Vita seems to be a student who doesn't know how to play the game.

The cube beside her started spinning, reminding Zhu Yufeng Vita the Present was indeed harboring murderous intent, even though it wasn't directed at her.

"Oh dear, he's always like this, saying all sorts of nonsensical things." Vita shrugged, seemingly exasperated. "I still have to fix his language module later, but until then, it's probably better if he's quieter."

As he spoke, the mecha fell completely silent, stopping and remaining motionless. Zhu Yufeng sensed it and found that the mecha still possessed consciousness, but it was as if someone had pressed the pause button.

Su's words resurfaced in my mind once again.

"That woman is wicked; she has taken control of all the spiritual thoughts in the world."

It does match Su's description, but... there's still an indescribable strangeness about this place.

The cube around him began to flash continuously, and finally conveyed an important message to Zhu Yufeng: everything Zhu Yufeng the Present seeing was a simulated scene based on some kind of system, and those thoughts were similar to a kind of digital life.

Digital lives? Flesh and blood, mechanical ascension? Did this civilization end up like this? Or did Vita use some special means to turn all of humanity into digital lives in order to fight against the Corrosion Herrscher? That doesn't make sense either; digital lives are just easy prey in front of the Corrosion Herrscher.

Suddenly, Vita reached out and grabbed Zhu Yufeng's hand, leading him deeper into the residential area. "Come on, come on. The last time you appeared, I only showed you the research institute. You probably haven't seen much of the world outside the institute, have you? Today, I also want to check on the working conditions of the institute's staff."

This woman is definitely up to no good; she exudes a repulsive aura. I suggest killing her directly to prevent future trouble.

Zhu Yufeng's eye twitched. He glanced at the cube beside him and thought, "Are you even human? You're annoying, aren't you?" And told it to shut up.

The cube followed along, looking pitiful. It was clearly trying to help someone, but this woman seemed dangerous to everyone.

Zhu Yufeng certainly knew that the cube analysis was correct, and that the Imaginary Herrscher and the Quantum Herrscher were indeed theoretically irreconcilable, but... compared to the danger, he had a feeling that Vita urgently wanted to say something.

She's the kind of person who's okay with whatever you say, or she's okay with nothing at all, as long as you listen to her.

Vita held his hand tightly, as if she was afraid he would disappear in the next second. Speaking of which, isn't this Finality Cocoon simulation a little too realistic?

It gave him the feeling of having a real conversation with Vita.

How is that possible? This is hundreds of millions of years ago, on Venus.

In conclusion, from a human perspective, the Venusian civilization may indeed have been destroyed, with only Vita remaining as a survivor. For some unknown reason, Vita possessed the power of the Quantum Sea, possibly due to some factor, such as her contact with a device that extracted Quantum Sea energy when the civilization was destroyed.

Then, the Present this world, Vita, after an unknown amount of time, rebuilt a fictional world.

She pretends everyone is dead, but in reality, she's the only living person left. Moreover, the "people" here aren't normal either; they seem to have difficulty communicating.

Therefore, for Vita, he was the first living person she had seen after an unknown period of time.

So that's why I'm afraid of disappearing... Is that right?

Zhu Yufeng was dragged by Vita to visit a doctor whose name he couldn't remember at all. The doctor inexplicably summoned a bunch of monsters to attack him. Too lazy to linger there, Zhu Yufeng snapped his fingers, and the summoned Honkai Beast was instantly burned by flames.

Vita looked at Zhu Yufeng and her gaze shifted. She nodded thoughtfully, then pulled Zhu Yufeng toward the next area.

From beginning to end, she held onto Zhu Yufeng's hand tightly and never let go.

Zhu Yufeng: "..."

Is it possible that even if you don't let go, you can't stop me from leaving when it's time for me to?

But he didn't choose to speak out. Perhaps this is the instinctive action of the last living person in the world when seeing another living person. He didn't want to continue being alone and was afraid that he would go crazy from loneliness sooner or later.

If things had turned out this way, there wouldn't be a single living person left in this world besides Vita. No wonder she tried to invade Su's mind and then possess her... Perhaps Su's understanding is a bit off; it's not that she controls the minds of everyone in the world, but rather that these minds are simply a bunch of data...

Furthermore, these ideas all seem to be somewhat hostile towards Vita. For example, the one who said he wanted to conduct some kind of experiment to get Vita's cooperation resulted in a bunch of Honkai Beast attacking Vita.

At the same time, these ideas all convey the same message: destruction is inevitable.

Another strange point is that even though the cube itself said that the appearance of this world and the mechs inside are simulated by some kind of system, the Honkai Beast still actually appeared.

That's really strange...

Zhu Yufeng followed Vita to the last "member" position.

Zhu Yufeng stared at the trash can in front of him and fell silent. At least the person he had met before was a mecha, so how did this person turn into an intelligent trash can? If everything here was under Vita's control, then it could only be said that this appearance... was somewhat related to personal grudges.

Sure enough, the last thing "Yuan" said was sarcastic, "Heh... After all this time, you've finally managed to simulate a human form? Good heavens, look who this is. When did you have a crush on Yuan?"

"I am so Mara, this is not just data, but a real person," Vita said with a smile.

"Humans? Are there any other people in this world besides you?" Mara said sarcastically. "You've turned everyone into this inhuman, ghostly the Present. Oh no, we weren't human to begin with. Ha... You're just running away, running away from the true face of this world now..."

Vita's smile vanished in an instant, and she became expressionless.

Zhu Yufeng remained an observer throughout their conversation. He had his own questions, but he was simply waiting for Vita to speak for herself.

He coldly observed the schemes devised by "Dr. Mara," which led him to learn about something called the "Spiritual Consciousness System." This system was likely the one that stored all of humanity's thought data and then, under Vita's control, reconstructed the current world. Mara forced Vita to dismantle the virtual world in order to capture her.

A desolate world appeared before Zhu Yufeng.

After resolving the issue with Mara, the two stood on a high ground.

"Actually, I really dislike seeing this planet become like this," Vita said.

"This is the truth." Zhu Yufeng, who hadn't said much until now, spoke up. "You... encountered the digital life form [Abyss], right?"

"Yes, we used the Spiritual Consciousness System to connect everyone's thoughts together, but no one expected that such an enemy would appear in the end." Vita's voice was no longer light. "In the end, I decided to completely connect the Spiritual Consciousness System with the [Sea] and use the power of the [Sea] to destroy it. I succeeded. Our world was also destroyed."

Zhu Yufeng remained silent. So, this civilization wasn't cleansed by the Finality, and it ended after the Corrosion? Or was the Finality cleansing merely a means to recreate the civilization? Venus had already made it possible for another civilization to be born, which is why the Finality didn't occur.

"Everyone died in the impact of the [Sea], but fortunately, I survived because of the [Sea]. Unfortunately, I was the only one who survived." Vita continued, "After I woke up, I discovered that, for some unknown reason, the Spiritual Consciousness System had preserved everyone's thought data."

"So you used this to construct the world we just saw." Zhu Yufeng looked at Vita. "I feel that you don't really like these people, but you still kept them."

If you like them, at least don't have a negative number of likes, otherwise they wouldn't appear in the form of mecha, right?

"If you're asking me why I turned them into that, my answer is, because it's fun." Vita's lips curled slightly. "They're all under my control. Even if Mara wanted to play her little tricks, how could she possibly succeed if I didn't want to?"

Zhu Yufeng glanced at his hand, which was being held by Vita.

"I now believe you are a human from the Third Planet of the future, but you're not actually a human in the full sense, are you?" Vita said, looking at Zhu Yufeng. "You... are actually an Apostle of the Abyss, right?"

"That's right, I am a Herrscher, also known as the Abyss Apostle." Zhu Yufeng admitted very readily, "However, I was once just an ordinary person."

"So, how did you destroy your Ming?" Vita said. "Or rather, by learning from our Ming's destruction methods, how are you prepared to destroy your Ming?"

"No, what happens to the Ming Dynasty has nothing to do with me," Zhu Yufeng denied. "I will not exist in the Ming Dynasty. I only want to protect the people I love and the people who love me. That's all."

"Is that all?" Vita chuckled. "Don't you think it's naive? Or are you trying to find a way to victory through our destruction?"

"Maybe," Zhu Yufeng said, looking up at the almost illusory sky above Venus. "However, we've already been defeated once."

"Humans have no chance of defeat, right?"

"Yes, we can win many times, but we can't afford to lose even once," Zhu Yufeng said. "However, our situation is a little special. Due to a certain event, time in the universe was reversed, and we had a second chance."

"That's great... So it should actually be your power function that's working, right?"

"Maybe. I still don't know how I did it. If I could start over after I die..." Zhu Yufeng thought for a moment, "Then we would have many more chances."

"Why do we have to win?" Vita asked.

"To protect the people I love," Zhu Yufeng replied. "I'm not really interested in what will happen to the Ming Dynasty. However, to protect the people I love, I must protect the Ming Dynasty, so I'll protect the Ming Dynasty as well."

Vita remained silent.

"I still don't quite understand. Since you're so annoyed by those people's confused thinking, why do you still maintain this superficial politeness?" Zhu Yufeng asked.

Vita didn't answer, but instead asked, "What, you don't like it this way?"

"I don't care." Zhu Yufeng shrugged. "You're not the kind of person I like. It doesn't matter what kind of person I like. I like her not because of what kind of person she is, but because she's the kind of person I like."

"Heh... As a Herrscher, you really are..."

Vita didn't say anything more.

After a while, Vita asked again, "You don't seem very surprised by my true appearance. Did you already guess it?"

"There's a precedent for this, right? Because of someone else's example, I think you're still a bit worse than her in terms of your current performance." Zhu Yufeng recalled the appearance of that scumbag Lilith. "However, she thinks that as long as she's by my side, it doesn't matter what, so she can usually act like a normal person."

"A two-way journey?"

"Hmm... I guess... I guess so?"

"? Didn't you decide to protect Akemi because of her?"

"If it's her... she's not even in the Ming Dynasty, she even seems to want to take matters into her own hands and watch the human civil war unfold." Zhu Yufeng twitched the corner of his mouth. "The one you're talking about is someone else."

"You also like it?"

"... Yes."

"Scumbag."

"That's right."

Vita: "..."

What a weirdo, being called a scumbag and still agreeing with it.

"How many years is it from your Ming Dynasty?"

"At least hundreds of millions of years ago, and before the birth of the civilization on the Third Planet where I am, there were other civilizations, but they were all defeated and destroyed, and then it was our turn."

"..."

"So, can you let go now?"

"You're such a jerk, do you really care about holding hands for a little while?"

Zhu Yufeng: "..."

The problem is that you haven't relaxed at all from before until now, and you're making such a confident statement.

Vita raised her head and looked up at the sky above Venus, saying, "After all, this will be the last time I hold your hand in the next billions of years."

Zhu Yufeng fell into deep thought. If his guess was correct, then did that mean that hundreds of millions of years had passed when Vita caught Su?

Zhu Yufeng's body began to become somewhat ethereal once again. Vita looked at Zhu Yufeng, seemed to think for a moment, then revealed a mysterious smile, and then kissed Zhu Yufeng on the cheek.

Zhu Yufeng: "???"

What's going on? We've only known each other for a short time! If there were a relationship system, this would be incredibly difficult!

"Let's meet again in billions of years?" Vita said with a smile.

Then she watched the silver-haired man disappear again, muttering to herself, "I wonder if this will cause you any trouble. Even if I wanted to see it, I'd have to wait until billions of years later... But I'd really like to get to know that person you mentioned..."