Endurance

Looking back, Angela realized that the uneasy feeling had come from the very Herrscher she had been searching for. The Herrscher was now flying rapidly toward her.

Angela stopped caring whether she had been marked. She turned and ran, gathering her strength as she began teleporting with practiced ease.

However, just as the flames meant to teleport her had spread across her body and she was about to leave, they seemed to be blown apart. They detached from Angela, drifted to the ground, and vanished in an instant.

Angela felt the threat of death in terror. Her only means of escape had failed, so she could only summon her courage, gather her strength once more, and use the Herrscher of Rock's authority in an attempt to restrain her movements. Then she would conceal the Herrscher of Flame's energy and try to launch a surprise attack.

It was a beautiful plan, but reality was cruel. When the Herrscher of Constraint charged over, the strength Angela had gathered immediately dispersed. At first, she could still use a few quick techniques, but once the Herrscher was only a few dozen meters away, Angela could no longer gather any strength at all.

"What! This can't..."

Angela frantically tried to gather her strength several times, but she could not succeed. Just then, she felt a gust of wind blow past her and immediately raised her head. The Herrscher had appeared before her at some unknown point and was now staring straight into her eyes.

Before Angela's mind could even react, she felt a powerful force slam into her abdomen. A terrifying shock wave then spread outward from her, shaking the stones off the ground and sending sand flying as Angela crashed directly into the ruins.

When the dust cleared, Angela lay in the ruins covered in blood. Her lower leg had also been pierced through by a piece of rebar that had come from who knew where, and she had completely lost her strength.

The Herrscher came before Angela, reached out with one hand, grabbed her by the throat, and lifted her up.

Angela's eyes were half-open as she weakly struck at the hand, but it had no effect. She could only gradually feel herself...

At that moment, Angela was filled with despair. She could only close her eyes and wait for death to arrive.

Smack—the screen went dark.

Huang Hao punched the black barrier, panting heavily. His face had turned bright red from holding his breath.

"Honkai! I * you***, you!"

Huang Hao cursed at the top of his lungs in the empty space, unleashing his strength. But there was nothing here except endless silence and his own echo... and himself?

When he turned his head, "Huang Hao," who had always played chess with him, appeared.

"What are you doing here?"

"To persuade you."

"What the ** is there to persuade me about? The things you cherish are being destroyed right before your eyes. Do you really feel good about that?"

"I do."

"You!"

Those few words felt like punches against cotton, leaving Huang Hao incredibly frustrated. Yet some inexplicable force calmed him down. Helplessly, he slumped onto the ground—or rather, into the air—and pointed at "Huang Hao," signaling for him to explain.

"Before all this, my heart was nothing more than a drifting speck. All of this has never been important. What matters isn't everything, but rather..."

"Get to the point!"

Seeing how impatient Huang Hao was, the man helplessly shook his head and continued, "You saw it just now. It clearly didn't originally contain that kind of power, but the closer it got to her, the less it could use that power. Isn't that strange?"

Huang Hao silently nodded, indicating that he wanted to hear more.

But the other man turned his head and said, "Wouldn't you agree? This kind of aiding the enemy is disgusting."

Huang Hao asked, "Who are you talking about?"

At that moment, that familiar voice appeared again—the voice belonging to Honkai. "You finally showed up."

He slowly emerged from the darkness. Huang Hao discovered that he, too, looked exactly like him.

Huang Hao asked, "What the hell is going on?"

The calm Huang Hao said, "The reflection of a dead person. A heart that belongs to oneself. You are yourself."

The Huang Hao belonging to Honkai said, "You're calm, and you're good at reasoning, but none of that is useful. Everything has already become the past, and we are the past as well. We should be in this cycle, experiencing all of it."

"Wait, let me sort this out. You're saying you're my heart?"

The man nodded.

"And you're the Honkai Will?"

The man smiled.

"What does that mean?"

Huang Hao nearly broke down. He pointed at the two of them and cursed, "One of you says you're my heart, yet you ran out here. The other says you're the Honkai Will, yet you look exactly like me. So why can't I leave? An'er is still outside!"

He then attacked them as if he had gone mad, but it had no effect. His attacks passed straight through them.

The calm man said, "Everything I said is true. It's just that he is the Honkai Consciousness, but he isn't only that."

Upon hearing those words, Huang Hao felt a strange sensation that gradually calmed him. He stopped attacking and quietly listened to the man continue.

"He may have been awakened by the power of the Herrscher of Flame that time. It may also have been the Herrscher of Rock. But when he awakened isn't important. What matters is that he isn't Honkai either. He only wants to use a mistake to redeem a sinner from the past."

After he finished, the other man retorted, "Hmph. Perhaps you can't distinguish me from the Honkai Consciousness, and you don't understand me either. With that kind of power, we can plunge the entire world into a cycle. Even destruction would merely be a new beginning. When that time comes, people will still be happy and won't feel any of this. Wouldn't that be better?"

Just as Huang Hao racked his brains thinking, the two suddenly looked at him and said in unison, "The question is, what do you think?"

Huang Hao listened, and he had completely calmed down. He said coldly, "I can't understand it, and I don't need to. Perhaps neither of you did anything wrong, or perhaps neither of you is innocent. But I don't want to think about this anymore. What we need now is an ending."

At that moment, one of them slowly began to disappear. Huang Hao's tone also grew calmer and calmer. Clearly, the calmest one was the first to vanish.

"Looks like you've made your choice," the Huang Hao belonging to Honkai said.

"Yeah. Perhaps I can figure out what you want to do right now. This is absolute rationality."