I'm Not a Flame-Chaser

Of course, all of this was temporary. Lin and Yan Luo both knew that they could not truly stand on the same side, even if Lin wanted to lend her a hand at that time, and even if Yan Luo was indeed tempted and hesitant.

"Not here yet?" Yan Luo after once again shattering all the incoming imaginary creations into pieces.

"Two kilometers to go."

Lin himself didn't know how he accurately reported the remaining distance, even though he clearly couldn't hear the voice calling him.

"We still haven't found Rita..." Kiana couldn't be of much help along the way. She wasn't allowed by Lin to use the powers of the Herrscher of the Void, so she could only hide behind Lin and watch them deal with the enemy.

"There are more rifts ahead, and the further we go, the greater the variables become."

Yan Luo frowned; she felt something was off, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Zero has also disappeared since he arrived here, but Yan Luo believes that with his abilities, nothing could have happened to him. In fact, Zero might not have even fallen into a trap. Of course, she still hopes that he will just die in an accident.

Even if he usually dislikes Zero, he must know something about the current situation. It's quite a headache to encounter this kind of situation when he's not around.

The group arrived at the rift, but this time, unlike before, they could no longer see the scenery inside. It was pitch black, like a world where light had completely disappeared.

"... Should we go further?" Yan Luo looked at Lin, who was deep in thought.

"I'll go in."

After thinking for a moment, Lin decided to go in alone.

"If the Imaginary Singularity is about to close, then take them out."

"You seem to have misunderstood something," Yan Luo said coldly. "I'm not their babysitter, I have no obligation to look after them, and anything related to you is probably also related to me, so I'll be going in too."

"Hehe, now that you've all gone in, you can't leave me here, can you?" Kiana scratched the back of her head sheepishly and smiled at Lin.

Seeing those around her facing unknown dangers alone, Kiana can no longer do it.

"... My opinion doesn't seem to matter." Night Owl sighed. He wanted to leave, but with his abilities, finding the Imaginary Singularity alone was just wishful thinking.

Once their opinions were aligned again, the four of them stepped into the rift and were swallowed by the endless darkness.

"Squeak... Save me..."

Malice from the bottom of the world is always silent, yet it can be incredibly powerful.

No one knows how the disaster broke out, but before anyone realized it, the land was already scorched, monsters roamed, and in the dark end, not a single ray of light could shine down.

"Here it is..."

Lin opened his eyes and realized that he had come to a new place, full of ruins and Honkai Beast Honkai zombie, which looked like Honkai outbreak.

Back to our Intrinsic World? No.

Lin's body passed through the swirling sand and dust; the environment here was not real, but merely an illusion.

He looked around and found Night Owl standing not far away, looking dazed. He walked up to him, and Night Owl turned around when he heard the sound, his expression quite puzzling.

"Why... why are you here..."

"..."

Hearing his barely audible mutterings, Lin calmly asked, "Do you know where this is?"

Night Owl swallowed hard, his gaze lingering on the familiar place that held the deepest memories in his heart.

The cracked walls crumbled piece by piece, and endless sandstorms and the roars of monsters formed the only main theme under this sky—death.

"This is Manila. Two years ago, in 2015, the Manila Honkai occurred."

So it really was a Honkai? But Lin felt it wasn't that simple. How could they have seen Honkai disaster scene that had nothing to do with them for no reason?

So his gaze fell on the owl's forlorn eyes.

"... What do you have to do with the Manila Honkai?"

Upon hearing this, Night Owl made no attempt to hide anything. He looked up and met Lin's gaze, giving a bitter smile, "I am one of the survivors of the Manila Honkai. This Honkai not only caused severe damage to my body, but also resulted in the complete Honkai of my family."

So that's how it is. After the Manila Honkai, Night Owl had to find a way to survive due to the corruption of the Honkai, and it was during this time that World Serpent found him.

"Sigh, you don't need to pity me." Night Owl smiled helplessly as Lin turned away. "The Manila Honkai didn't leave me with only painful memories."

"What's the meaning?"

"Hmm... how should I put it..."

"Save..."

The two men simultaneously heard a faint cry for help coming from under the rubble not far away. They turned to look and saw a crack covered by a load-bearing wall. They exchanged a glance, ran over, and arrived at the crack.

However, they couldn't interact with this illusion, whether it was a figment of their consciousness or a simulated projection, so they couldn't move the load-bearing wall. But Night Owl found the place very familiar. After a few seconds of stunned silence, he murmured, "Could it be..."

Lin crouched down and looked into the crack in the load-bearing wall, and then he was also taken aback.

He looked up and met the owl's gaze.

"It seems it really was me." Night Owl exhaled a breath of stale air, a faint gloom covering his face. "Back then, I was trapped here, all alone, with no one responding to me, not even light could penetrate. I heard my own voice and the roars of the Honkai Beast hovering above my head, and I thought I was going to die like this."

"But..."

"Rustle..."

Footsteps sounded behind me.

The "Rebirth" of the Sky: Chapter Twenty-One - The Past Must Be Relived

"Uncle... Uncle..."

"..."

"Uncle, please don't cry anymore."

"..."

Memories are like tree roots piercing the brain; even if the Giant Tree is cut down, those deep roots still prickle every nerve at all times.

Her chestnut hair was tucked under a playful beret, and a blue-purple shawl fluttered in the wind over her white Valkyrie Armor. Her pink pupils nervously scanned the ruins.

This is...

Lin's memory and the scene before him blurred for a moment. After he came to his senses, he remembered something and turned to look at Night Owl.

He was holding the necklace, looking nostalgically at the girl walking towards him.

So that's how it is.

This wasn't a particularly profound problem; Lin understood why Night Owl was so obsessed with the necklace around the girl's neck simply by looking at it.

"Anna ..."

The owl softly called out to the lingering shadows of the past, but how could something from a different world possibly respond to him?

A girl with long chestnut hair arrived in front of the load-bearing wall. She heard a faint cry for help coming from below, her expression changed, and she immediately squatted down and pushed the load-bearing wall aside.

"I haven't told you about this in detail, but I have mentioned it." Night Owl held the necklace and gently swayed it in front of him. In the arc of the blue moon, there was a girl who was struggling to save survivors under the rubble. "She gave me a second life, so I am willing to do anything for her."

"..."

Everything...

Lin saw the shadows of some people in Night Owl.

Overly pure emotions can lead to extremes, and this kind of thing happens repeatedly in front of Lin.

"But before that, I need to figure out how to survive first. Only by living can I do more things, right?"

Night Owl smiled at Lin. Ever since he learned that he was Lin, he was much more at ease with Lin. At least the Lin he knew was a trustworthy senior.

"... I have a question for you."

Anna reached out to the man who was dying in the ruins, stretching her hand out as far as she could, like a beam of light descending from the bottomless abyss, turning into a spider silk and falling in front of the man.

Lin stared at the image symbolizing the rebirth of Night Owl, his tone so cold it surprised even himself. "The reason you can't forget her is because she saved you, right?"

"Yes, what's wrong?"

"...nothing."

Lin didn't say much about it. He didn't know if it was right or wrong to place all his hopes on the person who saved him. They had only met once, and Night Owl probably didn't really know Anna's character.

Lin had experienced something like having longing as one's only emotion.

He couldn't judge whether this feeling was good or bad, but just as there had been someone who had never truly understood Lin, the current Night Owl also failed to see this Valkyrie named Anna from a normal perspective.

Blind worship is the beginning of the collapse of reason.

But he had no right to comment on Night Owl's opinion, nor was this the time to discuss it; the immediate priority was to figure out what had happened after entering the rift.

Just as Lin was about to continue searching the vicinity, he suddenly stopped.

"Finally, we've arrived here."

"————"

The indistinct calls were now crystal clear.

The sound came from Lin's own mouth.

Where am I?

Kiana snapped out of her dizziness and, as soon as she stood up, she saw Yan Luo standing not far away, stroking his chin and deep in thought.

"You're awake?" Yan Luo turned around and casually asked Kiana, who had stood up. "It seems this rift is somewhere closer to the Imaginary Tree."

"What... wait, where did Lin go?"

Kiana looked around but couldn't find Lin or Night Owl. She then asked Yan Luo, who had put his hand down, with a puzzled expression.

"In this space, he is likely very close, but we just can't see him."

The girl in the cheongsam raised an eyebrow at Kiana, who was half a head taller than her. "The Imaginary Tree can observe different times in different worlds. Without Second Divine Key, the closer you get to the Imaginary Tree, the easier it is to get lost in different times. Moreover, this is not the Imaginary Tree. The chaotic flow of time can easily lead to people in the same space being unable to see people from another time period."

Yan Luo's description was simple and clear, and even Kiana, who had no concept of the Imaginary Tree, understood it. "Wait, so it's possible that Lin is right here, either a second before or a second after us, but we can't reach him?"

"It's not that exaggerated. This isn't Achilles' paradox, where a mere second's difference means we can't meet. Besides, it's only possible in the time that follows us, so there should be at least a half-hour interval." Yan Luo sighed at Kiana's statement. Lin used to always date knowledgeable girls, so why is he now dating girls who always seem to intentionally or unintentionally exude silliness?

"So what do we do next?"

"... We can only wait, or look around here."

Nearby?

Kiana surveyed her surroundings under Yan Luo's indifferent expression and found the place to be completely unfamiliar.

The Chinese characters for "Shenzhou" on the damaged billboard in the distance made Kiana realize that they were now in a city in Shenzhou. The devastated ruins and the loitering Honkai zombie in the distance were signs of the Honkai outbreak.

Yan Luo quietly closed his eyes at the distant yet familiar scene before him.

"This is... Shenzhou," Kiana murmured.

"To be precise, it was Shenzhou Canghai City 50,000 years ago, during the Third Honkai War outbreak."

"The third time?"

The Third Honkai War of the current civilization was a turning point for Kiana and her friends, and Changkong City was destroyed by the Third Honkai War.

Fifty thousand years ago... Shenzhou... Isn't this the Class President...?

Just as Kiana was recalling the past that Fu Hua had mentioned, two people ran past them. She was stunned when she saw one of them, but Yan Luo did not open his eyes and just expressionlessly let the two rush past.

"Forest?"

Kiana immediately chased after the familiar figure, and Yan Luo did not stop her. However, as Kiana passed by her, Yama opened her Prismatic Eyes and looked at the sky shrouded in gloom.

In her world, there was no darkness; the sunlight would always generously and boldly pierce through the clouds and fall upon her.

It landed on countless tombstones.

"Forest!"

Kiana's shouts did not stop the two people in front of her. She gritted her teeth and tried her best to keep up. Fortunately, she had recovered a lot. When the two stopped in front of an alley, she quickened her pace and came to their side.

She looked up, panting, and saw Lin, wearing sunglasses and a mask, staring intently into the alleyway. She turned to look, and then froze.

The gray-haired girl's clothes were tattered and torn. She raised her face, which was covered in dust, and stared blankly at the man who was walking towards her.

The "Rebirth" of the Sky: Chapter Twenty-Two - The Undying Spirit

"Lin, what did you just say?"