Otto and Su Qing'an's Conversation

Su Qing'an sat by the wooden bridge, the sun in his eyes gradually sinking and extinguishing, and like the embers frozen, the golden light on the lake also disappeared. The ripples spread by the wind were like fine threads, disordered into tangled circles like a story in a book.

Dusk will gradually be enveloped by the veil of night...

He gazed at the scene and murmured softly:

"Dusk has fallen."

The brain conjured up jarring images, and the heart inexplicably throbbed with excruciating pain. As if in a hallucination, it felt as if a cold, sharp object was piercing through the chest.

The ethereal pain is far removed from the nerves, yet it serves as a warning to the soul.

All of this is an unusual state that cannot be explained by intuition.

Even the Artificial Stigmata were stirred by this, a burning, stinging pain creeping up the boy's back, like insects and snakes crawling through his meridians, causing a violent rejection reaction in his body.

The erosion caused by Honkai Energy is becoming increasingly severe.

So, perhaps it's not so bad that I didn't say it.

He looked up at the distant mountains, as if tracing the last rays of sunlight before it completely set.

The boy whispered:

Is it an implication?

"No. If it's gotten to this point, it's already an explicit indication."

"Are you telling me I'm going to die?"

"Artificial Stigmata? No, that can't be the reason. If it's only this level, it's nothing."

As soon as he finished speaking, the suddenly surging [momentum] condensed the Soul Essence into one place, domineeringly suppressing the unnatural erosion of the Artificial Stigmata back to a normal erosion rate.

Su Qing'an gently stroked the unusually prominent veins on his arm and murmured:

"It's something else, but why are you telling me?"

The next second.

"---!"

Accompanied by the same ringtone as before, the communicator on the boy's body was automatically connected.

Su Qing'an fell silent. Although there was no reason, he suddenly understood that perhaps this was the source of the gods' foresight of his own death.

If I had hung up now, perhaps none of this would have happened.

In the end, however, the boy chose to let the other end of the communicator start a conversation.

"... This should be our first conversation, Mr. Su."

"Let me introduce myself. I am Otto Apocalypse, the Archbishop of Schicksal."

"Yes, he's also your school principal's grandfather."

Su Qing'an said softly:

"I know you, Your Lord Bishop."

"Is what you wanted to talk to me about related to the Honkai that Hua went to rescue?"

Otto chuckled:

"As you've heard, Mr. Su."

"Due to some special reasons, coastal cities in that region of Shenzhou are now experiencing Honkai fluctuations."

"But it's alright, please don't worry, it's just that level of Honkai. My old friend... well, the Hua you mentioned. If it's her, it can be resolved quickly."

Su Qing'an said upon hearing this:

"Soon? That's good."

"You came to see me because of that special reason, right?"

The man opposite him said without any attempt to hide his true feelings:

"An ancient ruin has awakened beside the seas of Shenzhou, and it is suspected that there are natural Stigmata inside."

The boy smiled and asked:

Did Headmaster Theresa and the others go? They should know by now.

Otto paused for a moment, then said:

"That's strange, Mr. Su. You don't seem surprised at all."

"Having been troubled by Artificial Stigmata for so long, you should know the potential consequences of using an additional natural Stigmata as a sample. Even if not for others, you yourself would be pleasantly surprised by it."

Su Qing'an said softly:

"Surprised? Maybe, but for some reason I always feel like once I go in, I won't be able to come back."

"Sometimes I feel that many things are predetermined. But other times, I scoff at that view."

"Now it seems that both possibilities make some sense."

Otto said with certainty:

"You will go, Mr. Su."

He seemed to see again the boy in that video, who had died countless times but indifferently chose to continue his cultivation.

Such a person would never stop moving forward just because they feel a sense of destiny.

Even if psychological tests show a certain degree of self-destructive tendency, it doesn't mean he will easily succumb to fate.

"No matter how bleak the road ahead may seem, choosing to sit and wait for death is definitely not in your nature."

"Mr. Su, I know you better than you think."

Su Qing'an suddenly asked a question that had nothing to do with the present:

"Your Lord Bishop, did you put up those advertisements in Canghai City that day?"

Even Otto hadn't expected the boy to ask this question, which in a sense didn't fit the current art style.

It's like walking through the lobby of a bathhouse filled with suggestive lighting, past all sorts of scantily clad young women, and finally finding an old man and telling him, "You look like you have the strongest hands, give me a foot massage."

The art style is clearly off.

But Otto quickly realized what was happening and answered his question honestly:

"Yes, it's me."

Su Qing'an said even more honestly:

"I quite like Your Lord Bishop's quirky sense of humor. If you're still interested in doing this in the future, feel free to do it a few more times."

Otto was taken aback for a moment upon hearing this, then burst into laughter and said:

"Mr. Su, you are more interesting than I imagined. If you go there and come back, what does it matter if all of Europe is affected by this?"

"Schicksal has a top-notch technical team; I can definitely edit those photos into a beautiful set of wedding photos."

"If this were played on a loop around the world for ten minutes, the scene would surely be unforgettable."

Su Qing'an couldn't help but smile slightly.

He knew the other person was joking, but the images were still amusing just to imagine.

"If you do that, Hua might come looking for you."

Otto was actually quite curious.

The reason why the boy and the immortal formed a bond remains an unsolved mystery for him to this day.

Love itself may be the greatest mystery in the world, and even Otto himself was captivated by that long-lost dream.

Even today, five hundred years later, everything he does is for the purpose of returning to that dream.

Otto asked:

"Does Mr. Su like her?"

Su Qing'an answered almost without thinking:

"Like."

Otto continued to ask:

"And the reason? Is it because she's beautiful and taught you martial arts, so you gradually developed feelings for her and fell in love with her?"

Su Qing'an shook his head, his eyes filled with laughter, and said:

"Not these."

"If I must say, Your Lord Bishop..."

"I've loved her for 55,000 years."

Otto couldn't help but chuckle, and he said:

"That sounds like some cloying love confession."

The boy gazed at the tranquil lake and said, word by word:

"Perhaps it was love at first sight."

"I once read a book written by some die-hard intellectual. It said that there are 20,000 people in the world who will fall in love with you at first sight, but unfortunately, you may never meet any of them in your entire life."

Su Qing'an said seriously:

"Love at first sight isn't magic; it's destiny."

Otto frowned and said:

"You seem to like using fate to explain things, Mr. Su, but in my eyes, it's not something that's absolutely certain."

"Of course, I don't deny that using fate to describe love is a very romantic way of putting it."

The boy replied with a smile:

"Yes, Your Lord Bishop, it is just as you said."

"Fate is just a metaphor. People always like to attribute their innate limitations and inability to do anything to fate."

"But that's only because it's too weak."

"Those who are too weak can only choose the path that is not the most difficult."

Su Qing'an stood up. He stood in the middle of the distant mountains and lake, his small figure displaying an indomitable will.

He said:

"I will go; you should have expected me to go."

"So take me there, to those ruins."

Otto said:

"Rita will be there to meet you in five minutes."

"In addition to your weapon, I've also gifted you a modified suit of armor. It's not quite as good as the normal Valkyrie armor, but it's still much better than a bulletproof vest, isn't it?"

"That concludes my remarks. I look forward to the final outcome you will bring, Mr. Su."

Before hanging up the phone, Su Qing'an said one last thing:

"If I die, scatter my ashes in the sea above St. Freya Academy."

I really like it there.

With communication cut off, no one knows whether Otto heard those words.

Perhaps they heard it, perhaps they didn't.

Even if they heard it, they probably wouldn't do it.

The warning signs in his mind completely vanished, and the night breeze caressed the boy's face as if whispering something around him...