Otto remembered Kallen wishing he could be a knight who protected her; five hundred years later, he truly burned himself out of existence

"Not cliché at all," Kallen said earnestly. "Because this is a story about protection. The knight protects the princess, the princess protects the kingdom, and they each protect something precious in their own way."

She turned to look at Otto, her smile growing even brighter.

"Otto, how wonderful it would be if one day you could become a knight who protected others."

The young Otto froze for a moment, then shook his head.

"I don't want to be a knight," he said. "A knight has to protect everyone, but I only want to protect one person."

"Who?"

"You."

Kallen smiled, her smile like a rose in full bloom, breathtakingly beautiful in the sunlight.

"Then I'll wait for Otto to come and protect me."

The image froze on that smile.

Before the Light Screen, everyone fell silent.

"This is a memory from their youth," Chang Gongwei said. "Before Honkai, before war, before death."

"Kallen's smile was so beautiful back then," Ning Rongrong murmured.

"Otto was still an innocent boy back then, too," Lei Xiang said. "When he said he would protect Kallen, it was only a playful remark. But who could have imagined that five hundred years later, he would truly do it?"

The scene cut back to the Imaginary Battlefield.

Otto knelt on the ground, but that sunlike smile was reflected in his eyes. Kallen's youthful smile pierced the darkness of his consciousness like a ray of light, illuminating his dying soul.

"Kallen..." His voice was still weak, but a certain resolve had entered it. "You said a knight had to protect what was precious."

"But I failed to protect you."

"Five hundred years ago, I watched you die and could do nothing."

"But now..."

He clenched his fist, and the shattered divine spark reassembled in his hand. Those fragments