All the Dreams, All the Light

Himeko shook her head and chuckled softly. In the bitter corners of her mouth lay a sense of weariness towards the truth that had once remained undiscovered.

"Unfortunately, I wasn't that brave. I genuinely considered their words for two whole months and sincerely felt that they were right. I'm just an ordinary person with no talent in combat. Schicksal doesn't lack talent. Even if I joined, what good would it do? Could I really find the truth? And would the truth I found be fabricated by someone else?"

"I once heard a very interesting saying: a soldier who has just entered the battlefield will think that he will never die, but such an illusion will disappear after the first injury."

She strained to lift Lin, who was more than half a head taller than her, and murmured.

"I was shot before I even went to the battlefield, so in a sense I'm grateful to be told that I'm not really compatible with Stigmata and Honkai Energy."

"But in the end, as you can see, I still went to the battlefield."

Lin listened silently to Himeko's words. He looked up and saw a petite, silver-haired figure walking towards him with her hands in her pockets. He secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he looked at the red-haired girl with a serene expression, who was no longer as unrestrained as when she was drinking. He really couldn't imagine that she was a highly accomplished academic student. If she hadn't joined Schicksal, she would probably be an intellectual scholar who liked to drink coffee.

"The night before I joined, I thought about many things over and over. I thought about my father taking me to the Tianwen when I was a child to look up at the mesmerizing starry sky, and I also thought about how I might die under the claws of Honkai Beast in the future, without even leaving behind a complete corpse."

"Even from the current perspective, completing her studies and living a normal life is still the more correct choice, but... I think this is the path that Mugentou Himeko will choose."

Lin was stunned for a moment, remembering what the blond man had said.

"I did what Otto Apocalypse was supposed to do."

He sighed like a poet lamenting the plight of the people.

"No matter where it leads, even if it's like a firefly drawn to a flame, what's wrong with risking everything for an accident whose investigation is unclear?"

"... No, that won't happen."

After listening to Himeko's self-deprecating remarks, Lin took a deep breath of the blood that made his chest ache, and murmured, "You will sacrifice yourself for others in the future."

"Someone like me? To die for someone else? Hahaha, Lin, I didn't know you were so good at telling jokes."

"..."

"Then, this great prophet who can see the future, could you tell me, for whom will I die in the future?"

"Your student."

"Oh? So I'll be a teacher in the future." Himeko couldn't help but chuckle as she patted the head of the man who looked younger than her, who seemed like a little brother to her. "I'll remember your prophecy. Actually, I'm quite afraid of death. Although dying in battle isn't anything to be surprised about, if I really encounter the situation you described, I'll definitely turn around and run away."

The moon had already walked about a hundred meters away. Himeko raised her hand and waved to the moon, indicating that Lin was not in much danger—even though he looked like he was about to die at any moment.

Himeko nervously whispered in Lin's ear, "Speaking of which, you and this little girl..."

You've misunderstood.

"I haven't said anything yet."

"Your tone says it all."

"Wow, you're quite knowledgeable. Looking at you, you certainly shouldn't lack for girls. Are you perhaps a master at picking up girls?"

A master of seduction? Are Rita and Delta on the Hyperion considered seduction? Even if they are beautiful flowers, Lin has no intention of picking them. Of course, it's more likely that they would be the ones to confiscate his tools of seduction before he does.

After reuniting with the moon, take her back to the Hyperion. She doesn't belong anywhere, and we can't let Otto have any more opportunities to exploit her.

But Otto's final words were like a bomb pressing on his heart, pulsating uneasy.

"Hey! Herrscher girl! Come help me up..."

"Smack!"

Scalding hot.

Cold.

The blood splattered high into the air, drawing a beautiful yet cruel arc in the sky.

He fell backward, silently watching the red-haired girl who had pushed him away, her body pierced by a slender little hand.

"Someone like me? To die for someone else? Hahaha, Lin, I didn't know you were so good at telling jokes."

"Tick-tock".

Blood rain fell.

Chapter Sixty-Five: All Dreams, All Light

Sight is a magical sense. It is the first medium through which humans come into contact with the world and the most convenient way to observe it. It is no exaggeration to say that without sight, the world would lose its form.

A vibrant and colorful world unfolds before our eyes, and to be able to witness all this beauty is a blessing from God.

But when you see that unreachable end, is it really... happiness?

"Splash."

The flames flickered, and in the darkness of the night, even a bright flame was nothing more than an insignificant little fire, which was gently blown away by the wind under the starless night sky.

"Tick-tock".

Lin couldn't describe what he was seeing. He had seen countless bizarre phenomena in other World Bubble and data, but none of them could compare to what he was seeing now. It was as if this was a game world, and everything in front of him was a cruel joke played on the players by the game developers.

"Puff..."

The red-haired girl's hands hung limply at her sides, and in her rose-colored eyes was reflected the bloodless, tearless silver-haired monster.

My face probably looks terrible now.

What a useless guy. He joined Schicksal for someone he could never find and a truth he could never know, but then betrayed Schicksal for someone who had nothing to do with the truth.

Now, all for someone I've only known for a short time...

Nothing's done yet, nothing has even started...

The red-haired girl's lips trembled weakly as she pointed a finger at the silver-haired girl whose face was covered in her blood and whose eyes gleamed with an inhuman red light.

She really is...

"Bang!"

"Clap."

The black-haired man's entire face was splattered with blood, turning it bright red. He lowered his head and stared at the head of the red-haired girl, which lay before him, only the neck and above remaining. He watched as the light in her eyes slowly disappeared, her vibrant face stiffened, and the very essence of life was stripped away from her nearly lifeless body.

The darkness engulfed the fireworks that had not yet been fully lit.

Some "things," deep within the heart, compressed into a tiny point, slowly spread outwards.

Blood gradually submerged his fingers.

Lin numbly dragged his head up, and the silvery-white ghostly figure was already in front of him.

"..."

Every inch of her skin on her cold face was clearly visible in the darkness, yet it appeared hazy and blurred in Lin's eyes, as if it had been erased.

The blood cooled and clotted on his face.

What was he going to say next? Congratulations, you won. You successfully tricked me and Otto. As a high and mighty Herrscher, your wisdom is unmatched. Humans are indeed tiny insects in your eyes.

My great master, how will you torture me next? Or has the cycle ended and you can finally kill me?

Lin thought of many sarcastic remarks, which could be seen as a naive and powerless human's irony of the Herrscher's final stubbornness.

But the words stuck in his throat.

As Himeko said, what determines their actions and fate is not fate, but simply their personalities.

Lin gazed at her, looking up at the lofty "moon," just as he had envisioned when he gave her her name—

"You...you really are...different from Theresa ..."

"..."

A foul-smelling wind blew through the hair on their foreheads, revealing the "monster's" eyes to Lin.

Time stopped, not because of the appearance of the white-haired man, but simply because Lin's gaze froze in that instant.

"Human... I... hate you..."

The moonlight was hidden behind thick, dark clouds; the summer downpour was fast approaching.

Is this the look a Herrscher would have?

Lin didn't know.

But Lin remembered when he met her at the water park, and how her eyes looked the same then as they do now.

Loneliness, helplessness, and despair.

It was as if the whole world had abandoned her.

She knelt before Lin, like a collapsed statue, her small hands clutching his collar, glistening tears streaming down her pink cheeks.

She cried.

"Don't die... human..."

She gripped his sleeve tightly with her blood-stained hands, as if afraid of being abandoned. She breathed heavily and finally gave Lin a trembling, pale smile.

"I don't want to be... Theresa... I am..."

"Moon..."

"Bang!"

In front of Lin.

In the endless darkness.

Under the bright moonlight.

The girl's head slowly split open before his eyes, a method she had used to inhumanely kill him and others. The whole process was so fast that Lin Cong never saw clearly how it happened.

But this time, he saw it clearly.

All the muscles, bones, and skin were compressed to their limit in a very short time, and all the tissues turned into fine powder. Then, an expansion force was generated from the inside out, like a bomb exploding inside.

Then, it disappeared.

Whether it's the girl's life, the moonlight on the horizon, or Lin's rationality.

A headless corpse lay before him, motionless, just like the corpses of everyone she had slaughtered—a mass of flesh that no one would care about.

The man sat silently on the ground, and no sound could be heard.

He couldn't tell whether the blood on his face was his own, Otto's, or Himeko's and Tsuki's.

Everything was meaningless.

He's gone mad.

Only a world that never changes will continue to watch the man go mad.

"Judging from your expression, what happened this time?"

In the boundless, white space, a silver-haired girl holding a book leans against an unseen wall, raising her cold, Prismatic Eyes to look at the man sitting motionless on the ground.

"..."

"You're starting to resemble the old you, that disgusting idiot." The silver-haired girl closed her book, crossed her arms, and said indifferently, "Devastated? Feeling like you can't save anything?"

"..."

"Speak up! Are you mute? Why weren't you this fragile before? You were like a mangy dog, impossible to kill."

"..."

The silver-haired girl seemed to have had enough of Lin's silence and indifference. She stepped forward, grabbed his collar, and pulled his drooping head up in front of her...

His cold and calm gaze seemed familiar.

"... What are you doing?" Lin raised his eyelids, his icy gaze sweeping over the silver-haired girl.

"... It seems I was overthinking it. How could the part of you that disgusts me the most possibly change?"

"I'm thinking, where exactly did things go wrong?" Lin broke free from the silver-haired girl's hand, pinched his chin, and quickly searched his mind for all the clues. "Why did Yue also lose her mind, and why is the cycle still continuing?"

"Hmph, complicating problems before thinking about them is not a good habit. Perhaps the so-called 'reason' is just a simple 'mistake'."

Lin paused for a moment, then turned around.

But there was no one behind her; she didn't know where she had gone.