The Battle of The End

Su Nian was so skilled that Welt instinctively assumed this was her specialty.

No, Su Nian was not merely skilled at this genre.

The story felt utterly seamless, with psychology and writing rhythm combined to perfection.

On top of that, every character she had created was exceptionally vivid.

With all that as a foundation, every sacrifice she wrote felt entirely justified. She used the aftermath of battle to indirectly portray the cruelty of it all and the Herrschers' overwhelming strength.

The Thirteen Heroes of Fire—Welt had initially guessed that all thirteen of them were protagonists who would work together to defeat the Honkai.

Then Su Nian casually killed one of them off.

Before killing her, she even used her younger sister to torment her one last time.

Cruel! It was simply too cruel!

How much damage was that supposed to do to a siscon?

Yet Su Nian controlled the pacing of the story. She could not even see what was happening in the livestream chat, but she had already anticipated the audience's emotions.

Instead of getting criticized, Su Nian saw the audience focus all their fury on the Moth of the Fire soldiers who had disobeyed orders.

As Sakura's life faded away, she further established Sakura's character, making the audience grow fond of her.

Yet after Sakura's death, Su Nian went on to reveal the hopeless state of the civilization she had written.

But by then, the audience was no longer angry. If they put themselves in that world, all they could feel was how tiny and helpless humanity was before the Honkai.

Kevin stood upon the scorched earth, amid the ruins of a city. The environmental contrast created an overwhelming sense of powerlessness.

But none of that broke Kevin.

Instead, it made his resolve to fight the Honkai even firmer.

Though Welt did not know what Kevin's renewed determination was setting up for.

Still, if the same line appeared a second time in a different form, then it had to be extremely important.

As he dissected the story as though answering a reading-comprehension question, Welt felt nothing but shock.

What kind of stories would Su Nian bring next?

Welt did not even dare imagine it!

He had actually encountered such a godlike talent. Welt even felt that Su Nian ought to be sitting at the judges' table instead.

Though Welt worked in the industry, it was not his specialty.

It was also because everyone else at Anti-Entropy was busy.

Only he, an animation designer who was obsessed with robots, had been pushed out to serve as a judge.

Facing Su Nian's work, he felt somewhat ashamed of himself.

But it only strengthened his desire to recruit Su Nian into Anti-Entropy.

Attention, contestants. Eight hours have now passed in the competition's official creation period. Please arrange appropriate rest time for yourselves. If you need anything, contact the production team at any time.

The announcement played again. This was already the third...

No, if this was the third chime, how could eight hours have passed already?!

Su Nian abruptly looked up. Had four hours passed so quickly...?

Why had she not noticed at all?

Su Nian had been so immersed in her writing earlier that she had not even heard the third announcement.

Today's task was officially finished.

The other contestants should probably be starting to rest as well, right?

After all, contestants were different from the Donkey of the Production Team. The original owner's memories had recorded some of the "normal states of writers."

Including, but not limited to, clawing at their hair and suffering the bitterness of life—the most basic forms of pain.

Writing consumed an enormous amount of mental energy. Being able to keep writing for eight hours in a day was already impressive, but it was basically impossible to spend all eight hours creating. They had to slack off quite a bit...

Without even looking, Su Nian could guess that after eight high-pressure hours, the other contestants were probably in terrible spirits and only wanted to die.

And reality was just as Su Nian had expected. As soon as the broadcast ended, the doors to some contestants' studios opened, and they all ran out to relax and ease their discomfort.

But Su Nian's situation was different from theirs.

While resting her body, she had also been reviewing the plot. After recuperating like that, she was in incredibly good condition.

She could absolutely keep going for several more hours.

Over the past few hours, both her body and mind had been unusually delighted.

After all, whenever The Past's Paradise was mentioned, then...

The first person that came to mind was Elysia!

Why? Because the name The Past's Paradise was Elysia herself!

The English name of The Past's Paradise was Elysian Realm, meaning a realm of paradise, while Ai Li's English name was Elysia, and Ai Li's Mark was real me.

The meaning behind The Past's Paradise was True Self Elysia.

Elysia's many sweet lines made Su Nian unconsciously immerse herself in them once more.

The main storyline of The Past's Paradise was advanced together with Elysia.

As an Elysia fan, this was not a burden at all.

It was happiness!

If Su Nian had not been writing a story she liked, even loved, she would not have remembered it in such detail. She might even have found calculating the plot painful.

There was simply too much text.

But now... all right, it was time to secretly outwork the other contestants.

Su Nian stretched her wrists and looked with satisfaction at what she had written.

She walked to the computer and typed the concept of The Past's Paradise into the setting collection.

The Past's Paradise

The Past's Paradise was conceived by Elysia, funded by Eden, and technically supported by Vill-V. At the time, it was called Golden Courtyard. Later, it was given to Mobius for maintenance.

Aponia found Vill-V and merged herself into The Past's Paradise.

That was the origin of The Past's Paradise. What came next was the "meaning" of its existence.

The Past's Paradise was a palace of memories that carried the souls of the thirteen Flame-Chasers from the previous Honkai era.

In a corner of World Serpent's ritual grounds, a dim passageway wound outward, twisting and turning before leading to a massive facility buried deep underground.

Within that profound darkness, the memories of the final thirteen Flame Chasers of the Previous Civilization were sealed away.

The Past's Paradise did not actually have an exact definition. Its meaning was understood differently by every person.

To Kevin, it might have been more like a symbol—the history proving that the Flame-Chasers had once existed in this world;

To Elysia, it was a storybook recording the journey of an era and the entirety of thirteen lives;

To Chijie, it was the continuation of a war;

To Eden, it was the sediment of beautiful old days;

To Mobius, it was an extension of the Stigmata Project, a vessel for her lifelong dream and pursuit;

Recording those truths buried by history was not merely meant to warn future generations.

The Flame-Chasers also wished to pass down the glory of being Flame-Chasers.

There were many views, and there had never been a standard answer.

And the meaning Su Nian wrote now was what she believed it to be: to engrave the moments of the past.

She would tell the audience that here... lay buried the secret of the Thirteenth Herrscher of the Previous Civilization.

Chapter 39, The Battle of The End

After writing down the concept of The Past's Paradise, Su Nian shifted back to Kevin's storyline.

She typed out the content she had planned beforehand.

She intended to first give a simple introduction to the story of the Previous Civilization.

Vill-V publicly announced that Kevin had slain the Thirteenth Herrscher alone, and humanity once again saw a faint glimmer of hope.

The Thirteenth Herrscher was glossed over just like that!

Su Nian did not even tell them that Elysia had already died.

She was such a wonderful person. Back then, the line "Elysia died" had been used by Ship Ghouls to stab people in the heart more times than she could count.

Their methods included, but were not limited to, voice-message red packets, videos, and spamming that news in chat groups.

They were truly vicious ghouls!

Unlike her, who only needed to stab people deeply enough that they would never forget it.

Su Nian chose to keep this part hidden and let the audience guess for themselves.

Still, The Past's Paradise had directly told players that Elysia was dead, though it had not revealed how she died.

At the time, the causes of death for several Flame-Chasers were unknown.

At first, they only knew that at least two Flame Chasers had died on the moon.

Later, that number kept increasing until the fate of every Flame-Chaser, dead or alive, had been fully explained.

Many viewers were deeply confused by Su Nian's deliberate concealment.

The Thirteenth Herrscher just died that casually?

The Herrscher with the fastest death in history had changed hands. The Thousand-Man Herrscher was very pleased.

The Previous Civilization had already been destroyed beyond destruction. If this Herrscher appeared again, what else could she even do?

Huh? Then why not end it with the number thirteen?

Because thirteen represents bad luck, misfortune, and evil in Western culture?

Then why not say Su Nian was from Shenzhou, where the fourth and fourteenth Herrschers were unlucky too?

Everyone was looking forward to your work, yet you were playing mind games with us.

A big shot appeared in previous seasons. His writing techniques were exquisite, but all the mystery content he wrote got read ahead of time, which had a pretty bad effect on the work.

Ah, then I understand. I hate spoilers too.

My intuition tells me this is something very important.

Only after longtime viewers of the show stepped forward to explain did the other viewers barely understand Su Nian's reasoning.

Su Nian's foreshadowing!

She had been digging holes throughout the previous story, and now she had dug another one while filling one in. Who knew what it would be used for next.

The Previous Civilization ended with fourteen Herrschers.

The story began with Elysia and ended with Elysia.

Before the Herrscher of the End, the story of the Previous Civilization had effectively already ended. They did not stand even the slightest chance against The End.

But they were warriors.

Saving the world was never easy, but that was not a reason for them to give up so lightly.

Hector knew his kingdom would eventually fall, and Achilles knew he was walking toward death...

Yet both of them still stepped onto the battlefield without hesitation.

The Flame-Chasers of the Previous Civilization were the same.

Cosmo, who had originally been meant to carry out the Ark Project and leave Earth, wanted to remain and fight. Even knowing the road ahead meant certain death, he refused to be a deserter.

Pardo, the weakest of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers, had originally only wanted to live a good life, yet she too joined this battle.