"Hmm? Was it... afraid? What happened outside?" Enoshia, hidden inside its brain, suddenly sensed the drastic change in its emotions.
"Hmm... Should I try looking at things from the other direction, starting from the end? If I want to help everyone else, I'll have to keep up with their progress."
Before long, she had finished watching the memories from the moment everyone awoke from their dreams up to the present.
"I knew Sirin was bad, but I didn't expect her to be this bad. That fight was painfully embarrassing. Once this battle is over, I'll have to find a way to give her some proper remedial training."
Although its body had been destroyed repeatedly by Sirin, she had not truly harmed its brain. Besides, Enoshia had not merged with it—she had merely possessed it. No matter how the situation outside changed, as long as Wang did not truly die, she remained as immovable as a mountain.
"The reason it fled, and the reason it's afraid now, isn't that the sudden surge of energy might blow it apart. It's because it saw... Divine Fire Judgment in its greatsword form?"
Following this memory backward, Enoshia finally found the source of its fear.
It had just arrived on Earth. When it opened its eyes, everything around it was snow-white.
The sky was vast and the earth immense, but food came first. To the Huilizoo, changing planets was no different from changing cafeterias.
However, just as it was feasting, that man appeared. His hair was as white as the snow beneath his feet, and his eyes were as blue as the sky. Apart from the strangely shaped greatsword in his hand, he seemed to have nothing special about him.
"Oh, fresh food." Wang thought this as it activated its ability, intending to plunge the man before it into an utterly realistic illusion before swallowing him, just as it had always done. It paid no attention whatsoever to this diminutive life-form.
As the black mist spread, the man successfully fell into a dream. But... in the blink of an eye, he woke up. There was only one explanation for this phenomenon: after entering the dream, he had realized that he was dreaming and immediately killed the person he most wanted to see, without the slightest hesitation.
Now it was Wang's turn to break into a cold sweat. Even so, it remained certain that this life-form, less than two meters tall, could not do anything to it.
Yet in the next moment, Wang understood just how foolish that thought had been. The man merely swung the greatsword in his hand casually, and a terrifying heat spread throughout its body. Then its head was cut off.
Although it could not die, the fear in its heart made it utterly unwilling to devour the greatsword's attacks.
No—it simply had no time to devour them. Every time it mustered its courage and tried to swallow that power, the greatsword's slash had already cut its body apart once more, pulverizing it. Precisely because it could not die, the battle... no, the one-sided execution, changed from beheading into an endless lingering death.
After being cut apart and pierced through tens of thousands of times, that man used a truly unforgettable method to carve himself and that greatsword firmly into its heart. Perhaps infected by its fear, Chi, who had remained connected all this time, voluntarily left the link. Wang understood that in front of him, it was the food.
After grinding it into dust tens of thousands of times, the man realized that although it was nowhere near his opponent, he also could not kill it. Thus, in this desolate place, he chose a patch of land, froze it, and threw it deep underground. If it had not happened to suddenly master the abilities to control ice and snow and manipulate gravity, it would probably have remained there forever, until the end of time.
"Damn, it ran into Ancestor Kevin right away—the kind of person who could cut down Herrschers as easily as chopping vegetables. Its luck was truly terrible. But even Ancestor Kevin couldn't break the Abundance Miracle and could only seal it underground. So how did Sirin manage it? Could she really have relied on sheer strength to work a miracle?"
There was no direct answer to this question in Wang's memories, but Enoshia still found a clue from the scattered traces.
Wang awoke from its long slumber and was surprised to discover that something seemed to have changed it. Apart from gaining the ability to control gravity, ice, and snow, it had inexplicably developed an urge to destroy and annihilate, in addition to its desire to eat.
"Hmm... Since it became a Herrscher, it must have been changed by the Cocoon. Honkai Impact 3rd and Honkai: Star Rail are both worlds within the same Tree of Imaginary Sea cosmology, and the energy they use essentially originates from the Imaginary energy within the Imaginary Tree... Since the world of Honkai Impact 3rd, located at the extremity of the Imaginary Tree, is wrapped in the Cocoon of the End, its original Imaginary energy was converted into Honkai Energy. So, fundamentally speaking, Honkai Energy and the energy used by Pathwalkers are the same kind of thing."
"So can I understand it this way? The Paths of Honkai: Star Rail and the Cocoon have similar effects to a certain extent. Both are energy-conversion devices capable of transforming Imaginary energy into another kind of energy that conforms to their own Rules. For example, the Rule of Abundance is to process Imaginary energy into energy with terrifying regenerative power. And those who are said to have embarked upon the Path of Abundance are simply people capable of using Imaginary energy processed by Abundance."
"Based on the above hypothesis, we can deduce one fact: since Wang's terrifying regenerative ability originates from the Path of Abundance, that means this power must not conform to the Cocoon's Rules. But the entire Earth is certainly the Cocoon's territory, so... during its long time underground, was the Cocoon able to disrupt the Rules of Abundance to a certain extent? Did it cause regeneration to change from theoretically infinite to finite?"
When two different kinds of energy collided, which one influenced the other ultimately depended on their relative strength. Although every Aeon could influence the entire universe while the Cocoon could influence only the Solar System, Wang had been beaten down by Kevin from start to finish. No matter how one looked at it, the Cocoon could not possibly be on the same level.
Although all of this was merely conjecture, it at least provided a reasonable explanation for Wang's escape. What it truly feared was that everyone wielding Divine Fire Judgment possessed Kevin's strength, because even with a Herrscher's authority, it could then be killed completely.
Unfortunately, Ancestor Kevin had been the strongest in the Previous Civilization and remained the ceiling of combat power in the current civilization until his death. Although Siegfried's strength as a wielder of Divine Fire Judgment was indeed second only to Kevin, the gap between first and second was enormous. Even if Siegfried were given a Herrscher Core, he would still be far from Kevin's equal.
"Hmm, it looks like we've achieved a preliminary victory. Hopefully, I'll be of some use in the decisive battle ahead."
While Enoshia examined its information and tried to find a weakness, the Corruption Power affected its nerves like termites gnawing through wood. Faced with an enemy whose combat power certainly surpassed hers but who lacked an overwhelming qualitative advantage, Enoshia was extremely cautious. She hoped to influence or even alter its consciousness imperceptibly, thereby affecting the course of the battle.
However, since Wang came from Honkai: Star Rail, Enoshia could not help thinking a little further.
"If a self-aware virus like me entered the Simulated Universe, what would happen?"
Before you continue