Just a Symbol / An Operation

"I think it's fine."

"There's really no problem. The only problem is with us, these cold-hearted people." Elysia's smile held a hint of complexity. "Little Seven, you must become a gentle person, a gentle person like Lin..."

Chapter Fifty-Two is merely a symbol.

"Doctor Lin, are you ready?"

He stood by the window, gazing at the horizon, but could not see any birds in flight.

The sky is just a boring, empty expanse.

It seemed as if it could collapse at any moment amidst thunder.

The waiter asked him, who was standing still, and after hearing his question, he sighed softly, "I'm just a high school student, not a PhD, and I don't have a PhD."

"But your published theory of Honkai Energy deconstruction is already enough to make you the highest achiever in the field of science."

"..."

Here we go again; everyone does it.

He knew that these people were genuinely praising him, believing that he was capable of researching Honkai Energy deconstruction, which would greatly benefit humanity, at his age, but he didn't want to hear these meaningless compliments.

They even put him on a show at this global conference of elites to run for the so-called opinion leader of the Meteor's Demise.

He didn't want to live up to other people's expectations because he never believed he could do what they hoped for.

Soon it was his turn to give a speech, but he hadn't prepared a script and just wanted to give a few words and leave the stage empty-handed.

Ironically, others who noticed he hadn't prepared a script assumed he had memorized it, and his casual demeanor was interpreted as confidence, saying he truly lived up to his reputation as Lin, the author of the Honkai Energy structure theory.

He could only manage a bitter smile.

"I understand, please let me have some peace and quiet."

He dismissed the waiter and stood in the empty room.

After a while, there was a knock on the door. He was getting impatient and went to open it. "I didn't say..."

He was halfway through his sentence when he saw that the person standing outside the door wasn't a waiter, but...

A girl with long pink hair.

"Can I come in?" Her smile was bright, but her face looked much more haggard.

The First Herrscher descended upon Changkong City, and then almost the entire Far East was reduced to ashes in a thunderous roar. After leaving the Far East, it ravaged the region for a full month, wiping out three-tenths of humanity from the earth.

Among them, the first batch of victims, namely Changkong City, was where he and the pink-haired girl lived. On that day, all of the pink-haired girl's family members perished, and he and the girl were the only survivors in the entire Changkong City. While waiting for rescue, he discovered Honkai Energy.

At this moment, the pink-haired girl seemed to have emerged from the grief of losing her family and was showing her former smile again.

The pink-haired girl who lost everything now lives with him, and this time, she came along too.

"Are you troubled?" The pink-haired girl walked into the room, stood on tiptoe, reached out and gently stroked his head, smiling as gently as possible.

"If they had seen through me from the beginning, I probably wouldn't be so troubled." In front of the pink-haired girl, he dropped his pretense and sat helplessly on the edge of the bed, chuckling to himself. "Now I have to go to them and tell them that I'm actually useless, just a guy who hasn't even graduated from high school."

"But haven't you done this many times before..."

"That's different."

He interrupted the girl, saying with frustration, "I'm just... I'm just doing extremely rigid and conservative things in my area of expertise. It's like the knowledge in high school is just for answering questions. I'm just doing the same thing in another area. I can't possibly pretend to be a savior when the apocalypse comes. I'm just like everyone else, hoping that someone else will play that role."

"I told you, don't... give me expectations, that will only disappoint you."

He lowered his head even further, as if trying to bury it in the ground, never to look at anything in front of him again.

If all of humanity places its hopes on the same person, then that person must respond.

But he knew he couldn't do it; there are no protagonists in this world, and even if there were, it wouldn't be him.

He was just a coward who, when the Herrscher descended, only dared to protect the girl he liked and hide in a corner, not daring to go out to save anyone, and praying every day for rescue to come.

"Then let's run away."

"Huh?"

The pink-haired girl's gentle voice made him lift his head, and he stared blankly at her as her smile gradually faded.

"In that case, run away. Go to that place, give them a quick excuse, and then go somewhere no one can find you," the pink-haired girl said solemnly. "No one has the right to demand that you take on any responsibility; you belong only to yourself."

"..."

After his initial shock, he fell silent.

Should we run away?

That's what he actually thought from the very beginning.

"And what about you? After I run away, will you look down on me like I said before?"

"No, because you saved me in that thunderous apocalypse." She smiled gently, showing all her tenderness. "You have long been my savior."

"..."

He seemed to hear something inside him collapsing.

He often questioned himself: Could he really shoulder that responsibility? Could he really meet everyone's expectations? Could he really defeat that terrifying monster?

To this day, he still doesn't know the answer.

But perhaps that's just how humans are.

Even if the future is uncertain and fate is unknown, I will still keep going.

"Doctor Lin, it's time. Are you ready?"

There was a knock on the door.

At that moment, he no longer felt panicked or wanted to escape; instead, he calmed down.

"I always thought that the word 'savior' would only exist in fictional works. It was a unique title that represented someone who saved humanity from dire straits."

He stood up.

"But now it seems that perhaps the savior is just a symbol. I may not be able to become a real savior, but I think I can still try to become a symbol."

The pink-haired girl stood up, straightened his tie, and looked at him with a big smile.

"Young fiancé, you look just like you're proposing to me right now."

"... Hehe, then I hope I won't be rejected again this time."

Perhaps it was from that time on that his lover was no longer a single person or an individual.

He "should" and "must" love all of humanity. His lover is all of humanity. To protect them, he will stand before them just as he did to the pink-haired girl in the thunderous Changkong City.

Once you take that first step, there's no going back.

However, he would always recall many things, not the cheers from people when he developed various weapons and technologies to protect humanity.

Instead, on a breezy morning, he sat on the lawn, enjoying the morning breeze.

Chapter 53 An Operation

"The Wind Herrscher has been defeated. The body will be quarantined and then transported back to headquarters."

The people in the command center breathed a sigh of relief. The second battle between humanity and the Honkai ended much more easily than they had imagined, with the cost being less than one-tenth of that of the First Honkai Eruption. The terrifying Herrscher was killed by advanced Honkai Energy weapons.

Thinking of this, they couldn't help but cast admiring glances at the young man's back. He, however, showed no sign of relaxation and continued to command the post-war work with a serious expression. Only after everything was completely settled did he put down his headset and walk out of the command room with a blank expression.

He pretended not to hear the applause that rang out in the command room.

He didn't rush into the bathroom until he got back to his room, then lifted the toilet seat—

"Vomit--"

I threw up.

He leaned against the toilet, his face pale. A nauseating feeling made his throat and stomach clench. He couldn't think, he couldn't hear anything, and all he could see were distorted images.

He staggered as he tried to stand up, but...

"Vomit..."

He didn't eat today; what he vomited was all the water he drank while giving instructions.

His whole body was convulsing, and he couldn't even feel whether he was still alive.

"Lin? Lin!"

A person saw him at the toilet door and immediately rushed in, hugged him as he was convulsing violently, and gently patted his back.

"It's alright... it's all over now..."

Under her gentle words, he gradually stopped his bewitching state, and finally his eyes regained their clarity as he collapsed limply into her arms.

Pressure.

Human life and death are in his hands. He not only has to bear this pressure, but also has to make quick and decisive judgments. The indescribable oppression seems to be tearing him apart.

He savored the peace that belonged only to the two of them. After a long while, he quietly lowered his eyes and said, "... another million people have died."

The moment the Herrscher appeared, the massive Honkai it triggered resulted in an exaggerated death toll.

"You can't save everyone, it's not your fault," the pink-haired girl said, gently patting his back in comfort.

"But there were many soldiers who died too." His mouth was full of bitterness. "Their lives were taken by a complete stranger, just to kill Herrscher."

"But you still led humanity to victory."

"Victory? Herrscher are transformed humans. From the moment Herrscher appeared, it meant that people had already sacrificed themselves. And we are going to kill our former comrades... How can we talk about victory..."

He could almost hear the dying cries of those people. No... most of them didn't even have time to utter a dying cry before being torn apart by the hurricane, while he stood coldly in front of the screen, watching this scene.

At that moment, he seemed to become Herrscher, personally killing these people.

"Take a break, Lin..."

The pink-haired girl quietly embraced him, feeling the beating of his heart and his body temperature.

"No... there's still work... the Herrscher's corpse and the Herrscher Core..."

He pushed the girl away, stood up unsteadily, and walked towards the door.

The pink-haired girl reached out her hand, but couldn't stop him from leaving.

He stood in front of the operating table.

The pale operating room was the same color as the skin of the woman strapped to the operating table, with thick blue veins bulging out. The man, whose limbs were bound and mouth was gagged, struggled desperately, but to no avail under the restraints.

A terrifying cutting tool lay to the side, gleaming coldly.

But what truly terrifies women is not the dangerous tools, but his gaze.

As if gazing at an inanimate object, with eyes that show neither pity nor contempt, they impartially regard everything, including themselves.

The woman was one of his assistants. The three of them were both his students and his assistants, and they had been together for three years since they first met.

"Teacher, do we really have to do this?" Two other students, standing beside him as he was putting on protective gear, asked him, trembling as he remained calm.

He didn't stop because of the student's hesitant questions. After disinfecting the area simply and directly, he picked up the cutting knife next to him.

"Will there be any signs of the Herrscher's birth? Will the Honkai consciously select the Herrscher's host body? And will the Honkai cause the Herrscher to be born prematurely?" He coldly stared at the woman still writhing on the operating table. "The answers to these questions are very important to humanity."

"But she hasn't become Herrscher yet!"

"When she entered the ruins of the Third Honkai War, the remaining Honkai Energy gathered towards her, just like the birth of a Herrscher. However, that Honkai Energy was not enough to fully produce a Herrscher, which is why she is in this conscious form of Honkai zombie."

He said without any pity, "If there is enough Honkai Energy, or if there is another large-scale Honkai eruption, he may become Herrscher. What we need to do now is to study him and experiment to see if the Honkai will erupt into a large-scale Honkai prematurely for him."

Is this person crazy?

The students all thought the same thing.

He acted as if he had no humanity, analyzing how to dissect and study a person who still retained human consciousness, and testing whether the large-scale Honkai would break out prematurely.

If it really erupts ahead of schedule, wouldn't they be the closest people, and be instantly Honkai Energy?

"Teacher, please reconsider! There's still hope for her..."

"We're not trying to figure out how to save her."