Past Wounds
On a small island.
Sue and Seele walked along a road overgrown with weeds.
"I should still thank you for coming to assist me," Su said. "It was because of the special nature of the Stigmata on your body that I was able to discover this 'Crosspoint' boundary bubble and... prepare for it."
"'Splitter' World Bubble... I heard you briefly mention it before we came. It's because someone in our World Order made a decision at a certain moment that was different from reality, and then the World Bubble appeared, right?" Seele asked. "So, who is the person in this World Bubble Order who made a different choice, and whose choice had an impact large enough to create a World Bubble?"
Su paused for a moment, then looked ahead with a complicated expression and said, "That person... is right in front of us the Present."
"Um?"
Seele followed Sue's gaze and looked incredulously at the person not far away, saying, "Kosma? It's him? What choice did he make?"
"Although this quantum bubble was only recently formed within the Sea of Quantum, if we're talking about when the 'split point' occurred, it should be the Eighth Law event," Su said. "Furthermore, this quantum bubble is not very stable at the moment, and it can't exist for very long. You can also clearly see that this quantum bubble is very small, and its range is limited to this island. After we finish observing this place, we need to evacuate as soon as possible."
"And the living people on this island... are the Kosma, right?" Seele said, arms crossed. "You said the 'Crosspoint' occurred during the Eighth Law incident, which means it happened around the time of Disaster's incident... The Kosma of this world chose to run away?"
"That's right." Su nodded. "He didn't choose to merge with Vishnu again, and therefore failed to save Disaster. In the end... after Disaster's sacrifice, he chose to leave the Fire Moth and exile himself to this island. That's the story of this World Bubble."
"So Kosma is still quite important, huh? Just the fact that he chose to run away is enough to create a bubble in the universe." Seele shrugged and said, "Could this be considered as barely fulfilling his wish to become Heroes? After all, a choice made by Heroes in a story can often affect the course of the entire story."
Su sighed softly, her expression complicated, and said, "Yes... every choice Heroes makes can affect the course of the story."
Kosma's escape was enough to create a "shard of discrepancy" in the original world, which fell into the Sea of Quantum. So... what about Maple and Elysia, who have played a crucial role in the past and the Present? Did they never hesitate, never even consider changing their choices?
And Lilith too...
In theory, the choices these three people made at crucial moments could all produce "shards of divergence," but in reality, there were no "shards of divergence" related to them in the Sea of Quantum.
Or is it that their unique status as the Origin and the "Finality" prevents the Sea of Quantum from replicating their reflections? This is not impossible. Although Feng's identity as the "Finality" is still in doubt, the probability is actually quite high.
Sue was highly focused, his thoughts racing. Some time ago, he had discovered a Seventh Law event, a "fragment of a dot" born from a choice made by the Seventh Law, Uriel. But just as he was about to observe it, the bubble of this fragment annihilated. And all the energy of this bubble did not "flow back" to the Sea of Quantum after its annihilation, but was absorbed by something.
The moment Su was about to investigate the direction where the energy had disappeared, alarm bells went off in his mind, and at the same time, a very familiar sense of oppression spread from the direction where the energy had gone...
It's Vita, it must be her.
Upon sensing the danger, Su immediately distanced her thoughts from the bubble, even taking detours to leave behind distracting messages so that Vita could not confirm her whereabouts.
This was almost entirely his subconscious reaction.
But then, he suddenly had a very risky idea: if Vita was indeed Sea of Quantum, and if it was she who absorbed the energy after annihilating these "shards of fragments," then wouldn't that mean she could provide the answer he was seeking?
After all, as an "observer" of the Sea of Quantum, probably no one knows better than Vita whether the intrinsic world has been altered, and Su can use this to confirm the connection between Maple's power and the Finality, the Imaginary Tree, and the Sea of Quantum.
But... negotiating with Vita requires courage. Although Zhu Yufeng thought Vita wasn't that Evil when discussing Vita, Su remained wary. After all, hundreds of millions of years had passed; even a normal person would have gone mad by now, let alone...
Su didn't really believe Zhu Yufeng's understanding of "good and evil"... Just look at the kind of people he was surrounded by in his past life, and how he could tolerate the "evil" of all the Fallen Angel. Such a Feng's views and understanding of good and evil might indeed be somewhat different from her own.
Anyway, if Su had known in his previous life that Lilith Zhu Yufeng such an Evil person, he would have chosen to eliminate this scum of Lilith beforehand for the sake of humanity, or place her in a place where she could not access more power and information, thereby curbing the spread of her evil.
But as for Zhu Yufeng... we all know what he really did and what the result was. There was no major trouble. In the end, the Fallen Angel calmly faced their deaths as Heroes, and without exception, they all chose to pave the way for his ascension to godhood with their own lives.
If it were someone else, they probably wouldn't be able to bring all the Fallen Angel under their command and suppress their "evil."
After all, the condition for bearing all the evil of this world can also be that the evil of the person bearing it has already transcended the realm of evil.
Lucifer's arrogance transcends the world; his arrogance even makes fate yield.
Zhu Yufeng's attitude was very clear after he revealed his identity as a transmigrator to everyone. He only wanted to save the people he cared about, and for this he was even willing to plunder the happiness of others. In his eyes, what others were like was irrelevant to him, and he didn't care.
He wasn't always like this, or rather, his true nature shouldn't be like this. Elysia confirmed this. Zhu Yufeng's personality was indeed similar to Kevin's at first, but compared to Kevin, he habitually kept a certain distance from others, and...
"His grades in chemistry were always much better than Kevin's, although his physical abilities weren't as strong as Kevin's at that time."
According to Lilith, Zhu Yufeng's stubbornness was actually gradually cultivated in the truly stomach-churning environment of the previous year.
However, Su didn't quite agree with Lilith's statement. He felt that Zhu Yufeng's final personality change was partly due to Lilith's deliberate manipulation. Lilith had gone to great lengths to separate Zhu Yufeng from Elysia...
Su had also asked Zhu Yufeng about his previous mindset, and Zhu Yufeng simply said, "Regarding this... you are not me after all, and some of my thoughts and ideas may differ from yours."
As an alien, Zhu Yufeng had no ties in this world. He may have had some comrades he cared about and could entrust to, but... before he Elysia Alicia's team in the Fourth Law incident, those people had already sacrificed themselves. This had a certain impact on him and became the seed of his current personality, which doesn't care about other people's opinions.
If you calculate the time, Zhu Yufeng was only a high school student when he transmigrated here. It's a time when teenagers are full of fantasies about the future. The reality of this world is often very cruel. He doesn't have the strength of Kevin, so in the beginning, he probably witnessed the death of his comrades. His habit of reducing his interactions with others afterward may have been a subconscious way of avoiding the sadness that comes with parting ways later.
Zhu Yufeng is someone who is very good at hiding his emotions. Perhaps he may have had psychological trauma from the sacrifice of his teammates during the fight against the Honkai. However, unlike Kevin, he will not be trapped in his emotions and will not have the idea of escaping or being unwilling to face reality. Instead, he will go to the other extreme and choose to reduce his interactions with other people.
In any case, the Tragedy of Binding clearly caused him psychological trauma. After that, Zhu Yufeng did not fall into depression like Kevin, but directly entered a state of obsession with Promax.
He was rescued by Elysia before the Third Law Incident, and after the Fourth Law Incident, he was transferred from the branch to the headquarters with excellent performance and joined Elysia's team. According to Elysia's memories, the branch had a very high opinion of Zhu Yufeng. In the early days of Elysia Alicia's team, apart from not being very enthusiastic about socializing, he performed normally in other aspects. At that time, he was not like now, unable to remember people's names. This is enough to prove that his indifference and "arrogance" were not innate. He was once a spirited young man.
Now? He still can't remember people's names!
"If he had never witnessed the light, why would he have chosen to fall into darkness?" Lilith commented. "It was precisely because he had witnessed heaven that he was willing to fall into hell for it."
Translation: The kindness Elysia showed him during the period between the end of the Fourth and Sixth Ritual Incidents was one of the reasons he eventually became obsessed.
All of the above are judgments Su made based on his own experience as a doctor.
Su now only regrets that she didn't meet Zhu Yufeng sooner, or rather, she didn't notice him sooner. If she had noticed earlier, she would definitely have discovered the problem and prevented him from becoming like this.
Defeating the Honkai and saving everyone has become an obsession for this guy. To make him let go of all this, it is probably only when the Honkai is completely defeated and humanity's future is worry-free. At that time, perhaps he and others can see the original Maple as she was.
Su sighed again, and was about to go forward with Seele to talk to the Kosma in the Dimensional Bubble when his expression suddenly changed drastically, and he opened his eyes wide. That familiar sense of oppression... Vita, she really came.
Suppressing the urge to escape immediately, Su quietly felt Vita's power enveloping the bubble world, while simultaneously considering her escape route with SEELE using the Thousand Worlds should negotiations break down.
Of course, when Su decided to approach Vita, he couldn't only consider one way out. Right now, Zhu Yufeng and others are keeping an eye on things in the original world, and they are ready to provide support at any time if things go wrong.
"Oh dear, who is this? Isn't this my other self from the Otherworld?" Vita's voice rang out from behind the two of them. "Oh my, this time you even brought Mr. Lucifer's Divine Key, Miss?"
"You're the Divine Key!" Seele retorted instinctively.
"So..." Su said softly the name she had learned from Vita when they first met, "Or should I call you Vita?"
"Vita ..." Vita rested her chin on one hand and said with a strange smile, "Is this the first time you've heard my name from someone else? Was it Mr. Lucifer who told you?"
Su frowned slightly. What was going on? Didn't Feng tell her that his experience with Vita was simulated by the Cocoon of Finality? Judging from Vita's words, she did seem to have that memory.
At this moment, within the intrinsic boundary.
Zhu Yufeng fell silent. Elysia and Lilith both looked at him with puzzled expressions. However, Lilith's gaze only contained the emotion of "something's interesting," while Elysia's gaze seemed to say, "After this is over, you'd better tell me the whole story honestly."
He... he wasn't wrong. He genuinely believed that was a scenario simulated by the Cocoon of Finality. Besides, the idea of time travel sounds absurd, doesn't it? Reset Spacetime is one thing, but if he could really travel through time... he would have gone back to the time of the Seventh Law incident long ago, killed Uriel first, and then saved Himiko.
Sea of Quantum, Su kept a close eye on Vita, not daring to be careless in the slightest. From Vita's words, he had confirmed that Zhu Yufeng was very likely granted the power to reset his intrinsic world directly by the Imaginary Tree. Because the Sea of Quantum was not under the control of the Imaginary Tree, it was not affected.
Now that the problem has been solved, the next step is to figure out how to escape from Vita.
Vita looked up at the sky above the Dimensional Bubble, seemingly meeting Zhu Yufeng's gaze through it. After a moment, she lowered her gaze, shrugging helplessly, and said, "Sigh, we made an appointment hundreds of millions of years ago, but the people here aren't the real ones. But... so, Mr. Lucifer really was born at the Finality of the world on Earth..."