the Unsolvable Herrscher of Constraint

Kevin called himself "selfish." He was not a savior in the traditional sense.

Kevin had been pushed into that role by everyone in the Previous Civilization...

But without question, he was a true hero!

If Su Nian remembered the timeline correctly, this should have been after the Twelfth Honkai ended.

Sakura had died, and humanity's last three cities had also been destroyed. Kevin had once mocked himself.

He said he had never given up because he had never persisted in the first place.

He said he did not care what Honkai was or what would become of humanity...

He also said he had not joined Moth of the Fire to save the world or protect peace.

He called himself selfish and believed he was a hopeless piece of trash...

Others could stop, could fall behind, because the responsibilities they carried were not heavy enough. But Kevin could not.

He bore the Insignia of the Savior—the savior of humanity, guardian of civilization's spark, humanity's greatest warrior...

He had been given far too much.

And then there was that sentence:

"We will definitely defeat the Honkai, Kevin."

That was where Kevin's charisma lay. He was such a vivid, admirable person.

Su Nian pulled his thoughts back.

Information about the Previous Civilization came from the manga, fragmented details revealed in The Past's Paradise, and the main story. It was indeed easy to overthink things while sorting it all out.

Mei insisted that they could not let the remaining Herrschers escape.

"Kevin, we both know that you cannot do this right now, so give Tears of Heaven to me for the time being."

"...Time is running out. Only by bringing the Herrscher of Flames' power back into this world can we possibly eradicate the Tenth Herrscher completely."

"And there is something I have always wanted to tell you... This is the best opportunity."

Kevin tried to stop her, but Mei insisted again and again. If they missed this chance, they would never have another one.

Mei picked up Tears of Heaven, and the Blank Key instantly connected to the Herrscher of Flames core within it.

Mei's final strike completely unleashed the Herrscher of Flames core. In just five seconds, it wiped out every remaining Herrscher.

Even when the cleanup forces arrived to clear the battlefield, the crimson flames reflected in Kevin's eyes had yet to fade. The splendor of that strike was beyond words.

"Is this what you wanted to tell me, Mei?"

"Yes, Kevin."

If Mei could do it, then Kevin could certainly do it too.

Kevin could even do better than her, far surpassing the limits of the Blank Key.

But to do that, Kevin had to understand exactly what he was fighting for.

But... for him... that was too difficult.

The Tenth Herrscher had been completely eliminated here. Mei had been right.

Letting a tiger return to the mountain was equivalent to courting death.

Over four months, Moth of the Fire found a total of one thousand individual Tenth Herrschers. Thus, the Tenth Herrscher was also known as the Thousand-Man Herrscher.

This incident gave Moth of the Fire one thousand Herrscher cores.

That really was an enormous pile of experience points—one thousand Herrscher cores.

Later, they developed a Transcendent Mutation Factor serum with a relatively higher success rate, increasing the number of Flame Chasers in Moth of the Fire.

They reached their peak. Even Li Yunlong would have sighed that he had never fought such a well-funded battle in his life.

But what a pity.

They had worked so hard to build up their reserves.

Then came the Binding Tragedy. They had not even had time to put all those Flame Chasers to proper use, nor had they fully cleared the areas where Honkai had erupted and secured more resources...

The next Herrscher appeared too quickly, and its abilities countered them severely.

They were all wiped out! Only thirteen Flame Chasers remained.

After this incident, Moth of the Fire could not even maintain its unit structure. They could only disperse among various armed squads until new combat power filled the gaps.

And there was one more... To restore hope and defeat the Honkai in the future, she chose to sacrifice herself.

By the time they went to the Moon later, there truly was no one left.

Su Nian let out a long breath... He had finally finished progressing through the Tenth Herrscher portion.

But before writing about the Herrscher of Constraint, he still needed to explain where those Herrscher cores went and show the situation of the Flame Chasers.

From Kevin's perspective, these matters had nothing to do with him.

But for the events to come, they were very necessary.

In the Binding Tragedy, most people had not died at the Herrscher's hands. They had been caught in Kevin's indiscriminate attack alongside the Herrscher, all for the sake of victory...

That had been the best solution at the time.

Next came the Eleventh Honkai.

There was no time to mourn my vacation. Enter college student Dehua, staying home to look after his niece.

I'm dead.

Chapter 30, the Unsolvable Herrscher of Constraint

The Thousand-Man Herrscher storyline was over. Although Su Nian had indeed written that the damage they caused was no less than that of the earlier Herrschers, in terms of sheer presence...

The title of weakest Herrscher seemed well deserved.

Although they had indeed had a chance to run, Mei was not only ruthless toward others—she was ruthless toward herself too.

Against an opponent like that, the Thousand-Man Herrscher had met its nemesis.

No one knew who the strongest Herrscher was, but the weakest had already been decided. If they held a grand Herrscher tournament, it probably would not survive three minutes.

Mei: You really kicked an iron plate when you ran into me!

I am merely a researcher. If you do not let me conduct research, I also know a little about the Blank Key and anti-Honkai weapons.

Huh, Kevin did not know what he was fighting for? He had always been fighting the Honkai.

Judge him by his actions, not his heart. Kevin might not have known what he wanted to do, but even while lost and uncertain of the road ahead, everything he did was real work.

That was normal too. He had still been a student before this, so it was difficult for his mindset to transform completely so quickly.

But the audience's attention was not solely on mocking the Thousand-Man Herrscher or discussing the plot.

Su Nian had written a tiny bit about the interactions between Mei and Kevin.

The long-awaited romance plot had finally made progress again.

Although Su Nian had established Mei and Kevin's romantic relationship from the very beginning, there had been so little text that it barely felt real.

Now there was a little more, though not much.

But as everyone knew, there was a type of person in this world called a Kexuejia, specializing in shipping sweet couples. With so little food from Su Nian, this felt like New Year's to them.

Their level of surprise... was no less than that of the Fu Chefs when they learned that Fu Hua's man-made Honkai would get armor.

You can see their feelings from the details. It has been so long since we had a romance that was not artificial industrial sweetener.

Mei would rather force herself than force Kevin. Ship it! So sweet!

It has to be a happy ending! My own life can be miserable, but the CP I ship cannot be!!

I would do anything for the CP I ship.

These poor shippers did not yet know that in the Honkai world, heterosexual couples always suffered the most.

Kevin and Mei had been separated across the Sea of Quanta for fifty thousand years. Otto spent his entire life creating a timeline where Kallen existed. The Captain could only watch Guanxing die countless times while being powerless to save her...

Not a single one got a happy ending where they reunited and got married!

He had a conscience, but not much of one.

If Su Nian could see these comments, he would surely be in a great mood.

He would soon get to lead people astray. How could he not be excited?

Su Nian brought up his setting collection, "Divine Key Section," and added the setting for the Tenth Divine Key at the top.

Tenth Divine Key, Key of a Thousand, Key of Domination

A mass-produced Divine Key: a golden sword possessing the strongest power of "domination." It needed to be activated. When stimulated by a Flame Chaser or resonating with its user, it would alter its form according to that user.

After that came the matter of Moth of the Fire suddenly gaining quite a few Flame-Chasers.

Old Mi always liked to retcon things. At first, the Herrscher of Constraint was said to have been slain by Kevin alone, but later it became that many Flame Chasers had been sacrificed, and Kevin created the final strike that killed it.

But the second setting was clearly much more reasonable.

The Previous Civilization's foundation was there. There had to be some reason why it fell short in one aspect. Flame Chasers might have had a low success rate, but one had to understand that with a sufficiently enormous base number, even a small probability would ultimately produce a terrifying figure.

MiHoYo had also established that Flame Chasers could increase their odds by choosing Honkai Beasts with higher compatibility, so the probability was no longer merely infinitely close to zero.

If a certain group made up less than 0.01% of a population, but that population numbered one hundred million, there would still be tens of thousands of them.

Su Nian once again wrote a bit of foreshadowing into Kevin's character card.

With the Key of a Thousand and the newly developed "metamorphosis" serum, the number of Flame Chasers in Moth of the Fire surged. For a time, their combat power reached its peak.

The Tragedy of Constraint was undoubtedly one of the most important turning points in the Previous Civilization-related storyline.

It was a tragedy, an insignificant victory piled atop the corpses of Flame Chasers.

And this incident involved many Flame-Chasers. Even copying the story was difficult, making Su Nian's scalp tingle.

Chijie, Hua, Su, Mobius, Elysia, Kevin... and Vill-V, whom Mobius had dragged back.

Writing the Tragedy of Constraint was rather difficult. There were too many characters this time, and the arc was simply too long.

The available information was also extremely fragmented, and there was much that remained unknown.

Based on the known information, the time when the Tragedy of Constraint began was unclear. Fortunately, Su Nian had never written specific dates from the beginning and had only followed the timeline.

But this Honkai still had a landmark event.

That landmark event was precisely—Chijie fell.

The Eleventh Honkai: the Herrscher of Constraint descended.

From the moment of its birth, the Herrscher deployed a barrier with a radius of one hundred kilometers, and the barrier could continuously expand outward.

Within the barrier, all Honkai Energy would be nullified, while other forms of energy would also be weakened to varying degrees.

Any weapon using electronic systems could not function within the barrier.

A Herrscher that fought with Honkai Energy and a barrier created with Honkai Energy could actually render Honkai Energy within the barrier ineffective.

Ridiculous! It was far too specifically targeted!

It was like... building a house out of water underwater, only for there to be no water inside the house.

And other forms of energy were weakened as well. This characteristic directly eliminated the possibility of assassinating it from outside.

Even technological weapons such as nuclear bombs would probably not harm the Herrscher. Trying to kill it from beyond the barrier was virtually impossible.

It was an almost unsolvable ability. More terrifyingly, living beings that entered it would also die rapidly.

Ordinary humans would lose the voltage of their bioelectricity within the barrier and die quickly. Flame Chasers implanted with Honkai Beast DNA would suffer chaotic bodily functions and die within a minute.

For Flame Chasers, who were half Honkai Beast, suddenly losing Honkai Energy meant only one outcome: sudden death.

Against such a Herrscher, the Previous Civilization had almost no chance of victory.

Their primary method of fighting the Honkai was Flame Chasers.

Even if they were not Flame Chasers, they could not possibly accomplish that.