The Push of Tens of Millions of Lives: The Kinder Kiana Was, the More the World Pushed Her Toward Death

"But couldn't her companions see it?" Xu Sanshi suddenly asked, his voice carrying long-suppressed agitation. "She carried so many Herrscher powers. Didn't anyone tell her to stop? Didn't anyone consider that this might be Otto's scheme?"

"They did try to persuade her," Huo Yuhao said. "But they were being pushed along too. Because Honkai would not wait, their enemies would not wait, and the world would not wait. Whenever Kiana hesitated, Otto would unleash an even greater disaster. The more unwilling she was to move forward, the more people would die. So she had no choice but to go on. She had no choice but to seize those powers, to fuse with them, to become the Herrscher of Flamescion. Because only she could do it. And Otto had calculated exactly that."

"That was more vicious than putting a blade to her throat," Hai Long said gravely. "When a blade is at someone's throat, they know fear. But if you use the lives of tens of millions to drive her forward, she will only run faster. She will not look back, because the moment she does, she will see all the people she failed to save. So she can only keep running, toward the road Otto pointed out for her."

"It wasn't as though she never considered resisting," Ye Yinzhu said softly, his fingertips pressing against the strings as though he feared they might start weeping on their own. "But the price of resistance was too great. Otto would strip away her paths of retreat one layer at a time. Her friends would be trapped, her teacher would sacrifice himself, cities would fall, and the world would near destruction. Everyone she loved would become a force driving her one step further forward. In the end, even her own kindness would become