I'm Not a Flame-Chaser

"Bang!"

The Kitsune's body slammed heavily onto the ground. Lin put down his knife and rushed into the fire. The moment he touched the flames, they clung to his body and began to erode it.

Lin didn't care about this. He moved through the blood-like flames and reached out to grab the girl who had fallen from the separated body of the Kitsune.

"Bell!"

The world turned pure white once again.

"Rin, would you help me?"

"... I'm willing, Brother Lin, as long as it's for my sister and other living people."

"Perhaps you will be sealed away in the future, living in eternal solitude within the core. This is your own choice. Think it through before you decide."

"No, I believe that my sister and Brother Lin will find me."

The girl's smile vanished into the darkness.

Lin opened his eyes and found himself back at the shrine in Yae Village. He stared blankly at the cherry-haired girl who turned around not far away. On her face was the same smile as it had been 50,000 years ago.

"Brother Lin, I knew you would find me."

"..."

No matter how much time has passed, no matter where she is, Ling has always believed.

"...Sorry to have kept you waiting." Lin took a deep breath, then stepped forward, gazing at the girl before him who resembled but was not quite the same as before. "Is this just a scene you recreated?"

"Yes, the real Yae Village ceased to exist five hundred years ago."

Ling's eyes dimmed, her fox ears drooped, and she whispered to Lin, "Because I lost myself, I was infected by hatred, which eventually corrupted my eldest sister and caused this tragedy."

Five hundred years ago, the container that sealed the bell ended up in Yae Village for some reason. It was picked up by Yae Sakura. The bell in the container forgot itself under the erosion of loneliness over a long period of time, and eventually infected Yae Sakura, turning her into Pseudo-Herrscher. Yae Village was destroyed.

"But Yae Village didn't completely disappear." Rin raised her head and said to Lin seriously, "My elder sister's consciousness is still alive in the Stigmata Space. There is another Yae Village there. She purified me and helped me find myself again. Then I used the power of the Stigmata to make the core into the Divine Key and projected my consciousness into the outside world."

So, Lin is actually inside a Divine Key now?

"I originally wanted the host of the Stigmata to take the Divine Key with him, but something seems to have gone wrong along the way."

Ling scratched her head sheepishly and gave a dry laugh.

"The host of that Stigmata didn't notice me and abandoned me. I remember falling from a warship and landing in an area with extremely high Honkai Energy concentration. Then, what happened after Brother Lin came in happened. The resentment that wasn't completely purified formed 'Yae Rin' and wanted to devour me as well."

So that's what happened...

After hearing the whole story, Lin stroked his chin thoughtfully. He hadn't expected so many things to have happened to Ling.

"By the way, Brother Lin, what's with that Honkai Beast that came with you?"

"..."

Ling's initially touched and warm gaze turned somewhat suspicious. She was fully aware of what was happening in the consciousness space and had naturally seen how Lin saved Bella.

"She was... an accident." Lin originally wanted to explain, but the process seemed too complicated, so he simplified it to one sentence. "She was a special Honkai Beast. She originally possessed Pseudo-Core, the ability to think, and the ability to transform into human form. Now that the core has been shattered, she can no longer become human in reality."

"Oh~ so Brother Lin has a taste for this. No wonder he was interested in Sister's fox ears."

Ling's sarcastic tone left Lin Mo speechless for a few seconds.

"What will you do next?" Lin changed the subject, asking Ling, since she had now completely stored her consciousness in the Herrscher Core and had no physical body.

"Of course I'll stay here from now on, hehe. Anyway, Brother Lin has already found me, so I won't be bored anymore."

Rin didn't seem to care about her inability to move freely, and smiled nonchalantly, making Lin realize that she might have changed quite a bit in her interactions with the Miko she called "elder sister."

"Alright, Brother Lin, you should go out now. You're in an area with a high concentration of Honkai Energy, and you're in danger at any moment."

Ling took a step back, waved to Lin, and her fair smile bloomed like a flower.

"Brother Lin, you promised that you would let me see my sister again."

"... Yes, I remember."

The Journey Begins in the Sky: Chapter Sixty-Six - Hello, Changkong City

The world was shattered and reassembled. The bright sky over Yae Village dissipated, and a gloomy atmosphere enveloped the man lying there. His eyelids trembled slightly, and then his dark eyes returned to this world as his eyelids were drawn back up.

"By the way, Brother Lin, I used the core's power and the surrounding Honkai Energy reshape the Pseudo-Core that Honkai Beast. Her injuries have been healed, and she should be able to become an asset to you from now on."

The words he had spoken before leaving still echoed in his ears. Lin, still feeling a bit confused, got up from the ground. He felt something pressing down on him. Looking down, he saw a gray-haired girl lying on his stomach, fast asleep, her beautiful face filled with silence.

Having reshaped its core, it can now transform into human form again...?

He carefully moved Bella aside and turned to look at something not far away.

A long sword, its main body a deep, dark black, with a hilt and guard composed of eerie blood red and deep gold, was silently stuck in the ground not far away. It seemed inconspicuous, but after staring at it for more than a second, one felt an eerie sense that one's spirit was being drawn into it.

The Twelfth Divine Key, the Key of Erosion, Jizo Mitama.

This weapon, which was actively transformed by the Herrscher's consciousness, is the last completed Divine Key, and also the only Divine Key that is not recorded.

Lin walked up to the Jizo Mitama, reached out, and grasped the black sword that held such great significance.

The blade vibrated, and Lin's pupils dilated slightly. Then, a small creature, no bigger than three heads, appeared before him, floating in mid-air and waving at him with a grin. "Brother Lin, you've already obtained the Divine Key!"

"Bell?"

The miniature doll-like thing in front of me, resembling a bell, fluttered up and down, its little tail swaying incessantly.

"Actually, my older sister gave me a new name, Hiyori Maru, but Brother Lin, please just call me Rin." The little doll landed on Lin's shoulder. He tried to reach out and touch her, but his hand passed right through her.

"Hehe, this is just a projection of my consciousness! Only Brother Lin can see me!"

I see...

This was the first time Lin had ever seen Herrscher Core with such active consciousness. Lin nodded to Ling, and then she flew back into the Jizo Mitama. She said in Lin's mind, "Brother Lin, I'm in the Jizo Mitama. Coming out would take too much of my energy, so I won't be coming out for now."

"Um."

Lin responded softly, and then there was silence.

"Call..."

The black-haired man held the Jizo Mitama in his hand and then began to examine his current location.

As the dark clouds parted, a ray of dawn fell upon us. Lush vegetation grew on the long-abandoned houses, giving this desolate city a post-apocalyptic beauty. Looking out from the top of this high-rise building, the endless rows of buildings were submerged by water that could cover half of them.

In the waters that had flooded the city, a mixture of blue and purple, Lin saw a few aquatic creatures corrupted by Honkai Energy, deformed and grotesque, surviving in a place that didn't belong to them.

A region with a high concentration of Honkai Energy, this is...

Lin took out his phone. He couldn't use it in the consciousness space, but it should be fine in the real world...

"Um?"

No matter how Lin pressed the buttons, the phone remained unresponsive, as if it were broken.

The power's gone out? Impossible. He'd only been in the consciousness space for a few days; the power shouldn't be out.

Just as Lin was pondering whether time was out of sync with the real world, the gray-haired girl who had been sleeping on the ground suddenly opened her eyes. She rolled over and sat up, unaware that she was now in human form, and excitedly looked in a certain direction.

"Your Majesty! I can sense Your Majesty! She's nearby!"

At the same time, a small warship slowly landed in Changkong City.

Monsters hunt monsters, and life withers and dries up.

In Changkong City, a city that experienced its Third Honkai War, the biological system has collapsed over the years. Endless torrential rains fall year after year, causing the water level to rise gradually. Even Honkai Energy has been incorporated into the water, turning the city into a veritable "water city."

The roars of Honkai Beast and fell, and Changkong City had become a stage for Honkai creature, which had even formed a unique ecosystem here.

"There's no Herrscher signal around here." The woman with long, bright red twin ponytails pushed up her glasses with her mechanical arm armor. Looking at the empty detection screen on the set-up detector after excluding the purple-haired girl's signal, she couldn't help but sigh. "This city is really big. At this rate, it'll take forever to find her."

"Thank you for your hard work, Dr. Tesla."

Since leaving Sky City, the purple-haired girl's face had become even more gloomy. For her, witnessing her best friend being taken away while she was powerless to stop it was an immense blow.

"It's not hard work, but you shouldn't push yourself too hard." Tesla glanced at Mei's gloomy face without making it obvious. "It's not your fault that Kiana was taken away. The S-rank Valkyrie of Schicksal are all very difficult to deal with."

At this point, she recalled what that smiling but ruthless maid had done to her, and she couldn't help but grit her teeth, almost blurting out a string of profanities.

She would get her revenge on that maid sooner or later for this humiliation...

"Drop--"

"Huh?"

Tesla paused for a moment as her detection device suddenly picked up a new signal. After confirming that she wasn't mistaken, she excitedly turned and shouted, "Found it! Found it! There's a new Herrscher signal nearby!"

"Where!"

Upon hearing this, Mei's expression became even more excited. They had been searching for Kiana and Himeko for the past few months without success. Not long ago, they detected the energy fluctuations of the Herrscher of the Void, and the target location turned out to be Changkong City, where Mei, Bronya, and Kiana had escaped.

Kiana returned to the place that held great significance for them, and also the place where Mei transformed into the Herrscher of Thunder.

Kiana, why did you come back here...?

The purple-haired girl and Dr. Tesla ran wildly, with Tesla constantly watching the signal on the screen, afraid that the hard-won clue would be lost again.

"It's about 50 meters behind the right corner ahead!"

Mei strode to the corner, biting her lip, her mind filled with images of Kiana possibly continuing to wander for the past few months. Now, she was finally able to find her—

"Huh?"

However, the imagined scene of reuniting with the white-haired girl did not come to pass.

"What's wrong?"

Tesla, who was a step behind Mei, ran up to her breathlessly, wiped his sweat, looked up, and was also stunned.

The signal on the screen remained unchanged, and the Herrscher emitted the signal was right before our eyes.

"Night" picked up a broken machine from the ground, examined it carefully, then slowly turned around and coldly glanced at the two stunned people not far away.

The pale white mask was the only difference in the pitch black.

He abandoned the machine, jumped onto a nearby abandoned billboard, and then disappeared in a few flashes before their eyes.

"Drop--"

The signal on the instrument disappeared.

The "Rebirth" of the Sky: Chapter One - The Missing Silver-Haired Girl

Lin would occasionally stop to see the world as it truly was.

Changkong City.

He clearly remembered the day he left Chienyu Academy and Changkong City. The sky was overcast, but not a single drop of rain fell, as if the world had held its breath and stopped crying.

That was where he began, and also where he bid farewell to ordinary life.

Perhaps when he asked Kevin that question back then, he had already decided on their reunion and confrontation fifty thousand years later.

Life is a journey, and they will eventually meet at the end.

Lin jumped onto the rooftop and looked out at the tall building, half of which was submerged by the flood and half of which was smashed. He remembered that in his time, that was the Chienyu Academy.

Unexpectedly, in the present civilization, there are still Changkong City and Chienyu Academy, and it is also the site of the Third Honkai War.

Lin didn't know what the feeling was lingering in his heart, fate? desolate? Feelings?

... Perhaps it's just that I'm getting old and have too many things to think about.

On his way back, he recalled the two people he had just met: Raiden Mei and an unfamiliar woman who looked like a crayfish. They must have come here because they had discovered Kiana's Honkai Energy fluctuations.

Now that they've come knocking, there's no reason why World Serpent and Schicksal can't find Kiana. Looks like we need to speed things up.

Lin spotted a Chariot-class Honkai Beast on the rooftop next to him. He nimbly jumped onto the roof, and the Honkai Beast charged at him as soon as it saw him.

"Bass!"

Lin drew his Jizo Mitama, its dark blade absorbing the sunlight like sharpened teeth, ready to drink blood.

As the Honkai Beast charged towards him, Lin leaped into the air and stabbed Honkai Beast sword into its body. The Jizo Mitama easily sliced through the Honkai Beast's thick skin and muscles, just like cutting tofu.

However, Lin did not destroy the core of the Honkai Beast. After inserting the Jizo Mitama into the Honkai Beast's body, he activated the Herrscher Core within the Divine Key, and the dark red Honkai Energy seeped into the Honkai Beast's body.

"Whoosh." The sword was pulled out without a drop of blood leaking out. The Honkai Energy injected into the Honkai Beast accelerated the healing of its wounds, and it was completely restored in the blink of an eye.

The recovered Honkai Beast no longer showed hostility towards Lin, but turned around and dragged its heavy body away.