As the whole world returned to normal, everything before Siegfried's eyes began moving again. Watching the people coming and going in the store, Siegfried rubbed his head.
"Was that... a nightmare? Looks like the pressure from work has been too much..." Siegfried rubbed the back of his head and returned to where the two of them had been picking out clothes. Sirin had already changed into a long red dress.
"How does this look?" Seeing her smug expression, Cecilia smiled so widely that her eyes narrowed.
"Beautiful. As expected of my daughter—you look good in anything. We're buying this one too... Darling, you're here. What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"
Cecilia had noticed something was wrong with her husband at once.
"I'm fine." Siegfried forced a smile.
"You've been under a lot of pressure lately, haven't you? Don't push yourself." As she spoke, Cecilia held the drink she had halfway finished to his lips. Siegfried took a sip through the straw, and the cool taste instantly swept away his mental fatigue.
The three of them arrived in front of a pet store. A ginger cat by the entrance caught Sirin's attention. It crouched motionlessly on a circular platform. Even when people came over to pet it, it didn't mind at all, instead looking as though it was enjoying itself.
As it happened, when Sirin arrived at the pet store, the person petting the cat in front of her quickly lost interest and left. The fat ginger cat met Sirin's gaze and meowed at her.
"Sirin, it's very well-behaved. Would you like to try petting it?" Cecilia saw through Sirin's thoughts and beckoned to her.
Sirin's cheeks grew slightly warm. She took tiny steps toward the fat ginger cat, then ran her long-suppressed little hand over its body. The silky texture immediately captivated her, while also awakening memories from her past.
She remembered that something had once felt just like this beneath her hand.
"Bella... It's... Bella..."
Those two words flashed through Sirin's mind, and memories of her instantly surged into her thoughts—not Benares, but the real Bella.
"I... I'm Bella." On the first day she arrived at Babylon Tower, the gray-haired girl had taken the initiative to reach out to Sirin, a sweet smile on her face.
"H-hello, I'm Sirin." Faced with this unfamiliar girl who was about her age, Sirin hesitated for a moment before taking her hand.
"Sirin, what a lovely name. Were you brought here by people from Schicksal too?"
Looking at her harmless smile, Sirin nodded.
"Then we're friends now. I'm from Cologne. What about you?"
The two girls had hit it off from the moment they first met, chatting until they quickly became familiar with each other. At the time, however, they still had no idea what awaited them.
"Number 44." A researcher called out without expression, then dragged Bella away.
"Bella!" Sirin immediately clung to the researcher's left leg, but how could a little girl possibly stand a chance against an adult man? The researcher kicked her back with his right foot.
After scrambling to her feet, Sirin forgot the pain in her body and dashed outside as fast as she could, but the iron door had already closed. She desperately pounded on the iron bars, but all she received in return was Bella's despairing shake of the head. The researcher didn't even spare her a glance.
Just then, another researcher came over. He held a syringe filled with liquid in his right hand and a strange experimental device in his left.
"Here?"
"Here will do. It'll be easier to deal with afterward."
The first researcher nodded, then pressed Bella to the floor. The second researcher secured the strange device to Bella's body.
"No."
"Don't."
"Don't!!!"
Faced with the cries of the girl who looked no older than thirteen or fourteen, the researcher's expression did not change. He yanked Bella's arm over with his left hand, and without any other preparation, precisely drove the syringe in his left hand into her vein, then quickly injected the liquid.
Although Sirin had never attended school, she knew perfectly well that the syringe was filled with pure Honkai Energy.
"AAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Bella's shrill scream echoed throughout the entire room. Sirin turned her back, covered her ears, and crouched down. Having personally endured the entire process more than once, she knew that this was only the beginning.
"Heart rate: 113"
"xxx: 867"
Watching Bella's face twist out of shape, the researcher recorded the data without changing expression, like a cold machine.
No one knew how long had passed before the experiment ended. The researcher looked over the data he had recorded and shook his head in disappointment. "It still didn't meet the requirements. What a shame this test subject can't undergo another experiment. I'm so unlucky. Every test subject I pick is trash. Sigh, writing the report is going to be a pain..."
The iron door opened again, and Bella was thrown inside like a piece of garbage. Sirin ignored the disgusted researcher and threw herself onto Bella like a madwoman.
"Bella, how are you? Bella, Bella." Sirin shook her for a long time, but Bella did not vent her suffering to Sirin through bitter tears as she had before. Instead, her gaze held relief, gentleness, and release.
"Bella, when do you think days like these will end?"
"Sirin, I believe that one day, we'll definitely leave this place together."
"You'd better not lie to me. If you run away by yourself when the time comes... you..." Sirin thought for a long time, but could not bring herself to say anything harsh.
"How could I? Sirin is my best friend. Why would I lie to you? How about we make a pinky promise?"
The two little girls, warming each other in the cold prison, extended their little fingers at the same time.
"Pinky promise. Cross my heart, hope to die. No breaking it."
"Bella, you said that once we left this place, you would open a flower shop beside my clothing store. That way, we could see each other every day."
Bella gazed gently at Sirin and said nothing more.
As this unforgettable memory struck her in the illusion, Sirin remembered everything.
"They're not my parents at all. My mother died a long time ago. They're just like those researchers—all of them belong to Schicksal... Everyone from Schicksal deserves to die!"
A tremendous force erupted from Sirin, sending Cecilia and Siegfried flying to the ground.
"Crash." The glass shattered. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling swung several times before crashing down toward Sirin's head. She tried to activate the Herrscher of Void's authority to teleport herself away, only to discover that she could not use her Herrscher Authority.
Cecilia quickly got to her feet, grabbed Sirin, and tackled her to the ground. The chandelier crashed onto her back.
"Don't be afraid, Sirin. No matter what happens, Mama will protect you. Ich liebe dich."
"You!" This was only the second time in many years that someone had hugged Sirin. Unlike Enoshia, Cecilia truly made Sirin feel the presence of her mother.
"She's clearly a Valkyrie of Schicksal. So why... why do I..." Two streams of hot tears ran down Sirin's face. She stopped struggling and lay peacefully in Cecilia's arms.
At that moment, a mass of black mist swept in from somewhere, gradually devouring the entire world. Until she was completely swallowed up, Cecilia always kept Sirin protected behind her.
After the entire world vanished, the three of them recovered all their memories and discovered two more people standing ahead of them: Enoshia and Welt.
"I tried using the Herrscher of Corruption's authority to infect this dreamscape. I didn't expect it to work on the first try. The Herrscher of Frost's scheme was truly vicious—she actually thought of making you share a dream." Enoshia briefly explained what she knew.
"This illusion is the Herrscher of Frost's ability? And the condition for clearing it is the death of the person we most want to see?" Siegfried's mouth fell open, his face filled with shock.
"The terrifying regenerative ability, the lifelike illusions, and the fact that it devoured a Divine Key earlier absolutely shouldn't be powers of the Herrscher of Frost. The reason remains unknown." Enoshia shook her head unwillingly.
"Wait, are you saying..."
"That's right. As a result of sharing the dream, the three people you most wanted to see were all real. Without outside interference, only one of you could survive."
Old Yang had learned that if someone died in the dream, they would also suffer brain death in reality. He had reached that conclusion in the illusion after analyzing the clues with Joyce's apparition. Just like Elysia's apparition, Joyce's apparition had ultimately chosen to erase his own existence and let Old Yang awaken.
"Fortunately, my biggest concern didn't come to pass—that the three of you would realize at the same time that this was an illusion. As someone who was awake from beginning to end, Miss Cecilia, you probably didn't realize that Mr. Siegfried and Sirin were real, did you?"
Cecilia gently shook her head. "No. I thought they were simply extraordinarily lifelike illusions."
At that moment, Sirin, who had remained silent all this time, spoke. "Why? If you knew from the beginning that I wasn't your daughter, why did you still treat me like this?"
"Sirin, Ich liebe dich. That's all."
Before you continue