Correct or Not (4.7k)

As it spoke, the enraged monster struggled to its feet. The purplish-red patterns across its body surged wildly, repairing its battered flesh at a speed visible to the naked eye. At the same time, the Honkai energy radiating from within it began climbing steadily!

Sensing the change in the total amount of Honkai energy, Xu Ziling furrowed his brows. The next moment, he hurled the empty pistol in his hand at the monster's head, then swiftly charged forward and lashed out with a merciless whip kick!

This was the first time since crossing over that Xu Ziling had used his physical strength without holding anything back... and the results were just as impressive.

"Gah... ngh!"

Xu Ziling moved faster than the pistol he had thrown. When his sweeping kick struck the monster's bloated, massive torso, a crisp, resounding crack of breaking bones rang out. Before the monster could scream, the pistol Xu Ziling had thrown came flying into its face. It hit with pinpoint accuracy, smashing straight into the monster's mouth and leaving it unable to make a sound!

The Honkai energy emanating from the monster before him had already surpassed imagination. Therefore, Xu Ziling did not pull back and tighten his formation after landing a successful blow to prevent a counterattack. Instead, he adopted a more aggressive and violent fighting style, seeking only to deplete the monster's total Honkai energy as much as possible in the shortest time.

After taking Xu Ziling's full-force attack, the monster felt as though the meridians and bones throughout its body had shattered in an instant. The unimaginable pain nearly sent it crashing to the ground.

But in the very next moment, the purplish-red patterns across the monster's body burst into brilliance. The monster, which had been in excruciating pain only a second earlier, suddenly felt a powerful force sweep through its body, rapidly soothing all its wounds.

Seeing this, Xu Ziling once again punched the monster's lower jaw without holding back. Amid a violent sonic boom and the sound of cracking bones, his punch nearly sent the hideous monster's head flying. If not for the eerie purple patterns desperately holding its body together, Xu Ziling would already have succeeded.

After enduring two attacks from Xu Ziling, the monster, its entire body drenched in purple blood, bizarrely and horrifically grinned. It had discovered that it was practically blessed by the heavens... No! It was a god! Indeed, it was a god! A god had healed all its wounds, leaving it unable to feel even the slightest pain. The power surging through its body was boundless, and the fury and resentment in its eyes were more frenzied than ever!!

"Roar!!"

The monster let out a howl. One terrifying tentacle after another emerged from the chest that Xu Ziling's kick had smashed into a mass of mangled flesh. Taking advantage of the surprise, they wrapped around Xu Ziling's waist and flung him away. Excitedly, it shouted,

"Look!... Look! You can't beat me! I'm powerful! I'm right! 'God' has healed all my pain! I'm the agent of god! I'm your savior! I'm the only 'right' person in this world!!!"

Caught off guard by the tentacles growing from the monster's chest, Xu Ziling was wrapped up and hurled away. He took the impact head-on, but his body belonged to a Pillar Man who could survive Serpent drawing several liters of blood from him and still leap around full of energy. Enduring this impact was no problem at all.

As for the monster, its already distorted and enormous face still wore that gray-white mask. Clearly, however, the human mask could no longer conceal its ugly, sinister features. As it spoke, it was still chewing up the pistol Xu Ziling had smashed into it moments ago. Metal fragments sliced through its flesh, and purple blood dripped from its mouth, soaking its bloated, massive body and tattered clothing and making the entire scene even more bizarre.

Watching this, Xu Ziling clicked his tongue. Recalling how he had punched the monster's head off only for those hideous Honkai energy patterns to forcibly stick it back on, Xu Ziling knew he could not drag this battle out any longer. The amount of Honkai energy contained within the monster had completely exceeded what a normal Honkai Beast should possess.

"Tch... Honkai energy... What a nuisance..."

"I'm not a monster... I'm not a monster... Hahaha! I'm right! I'm the savior! I'm right! Hahaha!!"

The monster continued howling frantically, and it looked ready to charge at Xu Ziling again.

Listening to the monster's excited shouting, Xu Ziling seemed to understand something. He soon came up with a plan—a plan that could make the creature's own Honkai energy become ineffective. But to carry it out, he first had to restrain the beast's movements.

And so...

"BOOM!!!!!!"

An unprecedented tremor rang through the alley. Many nearby residents abruptly awoke from their dreams, while the monster's body, which had just been repaired, once again turned into a puddle of mangled flesh.

But the purplish-red Honkai energy patterns were still surging higher. Clearly, this was not the end.

Still, it bought Xu Ziling some time. Seizing the opportunity, Xu Ziling quickly rose and charged forward. After kicking the monster's body, which had swollen to a height of five meters, onto the ground, he stomped heavily on it. At the same time, he thrust out his right hand. With a tearing sound, he ripped the monster's entire right arm off.

Xu Ziling immediately slapped the right arm, which had been heavily corroded by Honkai energy and had become hideous and terrifying, straight across the monster's face. He said:

"Come on. You keep saying you aren't a monster, and you keep saying you're right... Then take a good look for yourself. The blood staining your hands is hideous, but it's also terribly real... And this came off your own body. Look at it and think carefully. Up to now, how much blood like this have your hands been stained with? Then answer me once more... Are you right?"

After Xu Ziling asked, "Are you right?" the monster, which had been frenzied only a moment ago, instantly became flustered. Its shattered mouth produced garbled sounds:

"I'm right... I'm right!! Why are you questioning me too?! I really am right!!! And this hand... Impossible... Impossible!! How could this be my flesh?! My body shouldn't look like this!!"

The monster howled and roared. Then, as if it had thought of something, it began tearing frantically at its own face and shouted,

"I know... It must be this ugly skin and flesh on my face, right?! Right?!! But I really only had an illness! I wasn't like this before! I wasn't!!!"

"But you clearly said that the 'god' you heard had healed all your pain."

Xu Ziling seized upon the loophole in the monster's words and pressed it step by step:

"If all your pain has already been healed by 'god,' then why do you still have such ugly skin? I'm not denying you, but the facts seem to have already proven that you... truly have embarked on a wrong path with no way back. Now lower your head and look at your own body. Look carefully at just how much blood you've stained yourself with."

Hearing this, the monster instinctively lowered its head. Then its pupils suddenly contracted.

The appearance in its memories had long since vanished. In its place was the image of a terrifying, horribly twisted beast covered in dangerous purplish-red patterns, with countless tentacles, three eyes, and six pairs of crab-like pincers!

"No... No! I'm not like this! I'm clearly the only 'right' person, the 'correct' person! How could my body have become like this?!!!"

The monster howled frantically as it began tearing at its own skin and flesh. Without pause, it shouted,

"I shouldn't be like this... This isn't my flesh! It isn't! It isn't!!! I'm 'right'!!!"

Hearing this, Xu Ziling nodded. It seemed his earlier guess had been correct. This monster indeed possessed an extremely deep obsession with the question of whether it was "right or wrong." And judging from its madness and the steadily rising Honkai energy around it... this guy might truly have obtained a Herrscher template!

The creature was completely insane, but it seemed its madness had not lasted long. Although it frantically tore at its own flesh, trying to prove that it was not this monster and was instead the person who was right by escaping this ugly body, it could never tear for long before attacking Xu Ziling, who was standing on top of it.

Whenever that happened, Xu Ziling struck without hesitation, shattering the creature's delusions with a punch and using absolute strength to plunge it back into self-doubt over whether it was "right or wrong."

As the monster's frantic self-mutilation combined with Xu Ziling's nonstop follow-up blows, its vitality rapidly drained away. Yet whenever it was about to die, the Honkai energy within it would quickly replenish it. Amid this twisted, tearing, chaotic sensation, the monster's thoughts grew increasingly deranged, and its consciousness increasingly hazy.

In a daze, amid its rapidly fading life, it seemed to see its past—

"Senior, you know about this, right? Professor Huang clearly stole my research results! I don't understand. Why do all the seniors and juniors know about it, yet not a single person is willing to stand by me?! Senior, we've lived together in the same shared apartment for so long. You're my only hope now..."

"W... what... If Professor Huang falls, everyone in our year, including you and me, will be implicated. We might even be unable to graduate. E... everyone has gotten through things this way for so many years...? But I really can't stand watching him use something that belonged to me to apply for a project in his own name!!!"

"Ah... S... senior... Why are even you, the person I respected most, hitting me...? Just wait... I'll prove through my actions that I wasn't wrong."

"That Professor Huang who stole my work has fallen... But why is everyone looking at me like that?! I don't think I did anything wrong! I did this so countless people in the future could avoid suffering! Why, why is everyone distancing themselves from me?! Senior, why are you too..."

"It hurts... It hurts so much I can hardly imagine it... I never imagined being beaten up by a group would hurt this much... But he was the senior I admired most. Should I call the police...?"

"Damn it! If that bastard surnamed Huang hadn't plagiarized my idea, how could I have failed to graduate? And how could I have ended up working at a company like this?! And why are my coworkers all looking at me like that? I didn't do anything wrong! This shouldn't be happening!"

"...Forget it. I should find something to eat first. A coworker who seemed fairly kind just told me the company is holding a banquet tonight. This place doesn't seem as bad as I imagined..."

"Damn it!... Damn it!! That wasn't a team-building event at all! It was a trap, a trap!! A slaughtering trap aimed at me, the 'newcomer'!!"

"Okay... okay... Calm down. I'll do as you say. Just don't hurt my family. From now on, I'll wear a mask and work obediently at the company."

"Dad... Mom... Why are you looking at me like that too? Why... why are you distancing yourselves from me as well? I... Did I do something wrong...? No, no! I'm not wrong!! I'm not wrong!! They're the ones who are wrong!! Why can't even you understand me?! Y... you must have listened to what my coworkers said about me, right? But they're all wrong!! I'm your son! I'm the one who's right! I'm the one who's right!! Why can't you believe me? Why are you all distancing yourselves from me?!!!"

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!! Why have these purple patterns grown on my body too? What the hell are these things?!..."

"You... You acknowledge me? You think I'm right too? I... You... You're saying that I'm not the one who's wrong, but this filthy world is. We need to overturn this world. And before the new world arrives, even if I kill them... it will only be so that one day in the future, they can turn into stardust and meet me again... Is that it?"

"Ha... Hahaha... I did it... I did it!! I finally succeeded! I heard the Voice of Stars from 'the End'! Professor, senior, boss! Where are you?! I finally have the power to prove to you that I've always been right! I wasn't wrong!! I, Zhao Zhiheng, have never done anything wrong!!!"

In reality, Zhao Zhiheng had torn himself into a grotesque mess. Again and again, he tore at his present body, eventually breaking through the limit of the Honkai energy inside this monster-like form to heal him.

As his vitality continued to drain away, those memories, flashing past like scenes from a life, grew increasingly clear in Zhao Zhiheng's mind—

"Zhiheng..."

At the edge of consciousness, the couple who had collapsed beneath their child's knife, their lungs pierced and their breaths faint, held themselves up and said to their child, "We never thought you were the one who did wrong... But the 'right' and 'wrong' in this world have never been things that can be forced..."

"Dad!! Mom!!!"

Those past memories transformed into this belated voice of understanding. The monster suddenly widened its eyes, then lowered its enormous, bloated purplish-red head and looked at its own hands, which had become monstrous and were covered in purple blood. It was as if it saw the sharp knife that had once slaughtered his loved ones and torn open other people's faces.

So it wasn't that he could never be understood by others. It was simply that the people who understood him might not necessarily treat him well. They had merely possessed their own ways of understanding and caring. It was just that... he had realized it too late. At that moment, the Voice of Stars in his ears seemed to weaken slightly. The voice that had constantly echoed beside him and urged him to destroy the world quieted down. The "monster" suddenly wanted to return everything to the past, to the time when he could still live like a normal person without being discriminated against. Unfortunately... he was destined never to return.

At that same moment, when Zhao Zhiheng's desire to take revenge on humanity wavered, when he once again began yearning for the bonds of humanity, the core inside the chest of his beastlike body... shattered with a boom!

"God"... did not need a self-doubting madman as its pawn.

And time continued to pass.

Soon, the body that had supported Zhao Zhiheng as he fled across several cities and avoided police arrests countless times finally reached the end of its life under the combined blow of his frenzied self-mutilation and shattered core.

"Gah... cough... cough cough..."

Clinging to his final shred of vitality, Zhao Zhiheng glared at the sky with bloodshot eyes and spoke with difficulty:

"I, Zhao Zhiheng... have never done anything wrong... The one who's wrong... isn't... me!!"

After saying this, the monster who had been only one step away from becoming a Simulated Herrscher had exhausted the last trace of his vitality.

All that remained on the spot was a pool of Honkai flesh and blood torn into shreds, along with Zhao Zhiheng's corpse, its eyes still glaring at the sky even in death. It was a body that had died unwilling to accept its fate, and the greatest roar of fury a weak person could cry out against a filthy society.

Not far away.

Xu Ziling, who had already moved far away from the monster, silently watched this scene.

He knew nothing about Zhao Zhiheng's past, but he felt that the sound of tonight's battle had been very, very faint; yet the "voice" crying out tonight... seemed to have become exceptionally loud.