I'm Not a Flame-Chaser

Jiu sat down opposite the man who was leisurely drinking coffee with a cold face, her disguised dark eyes staring at him without moving, looking slightly terrifying.

The man seemed unconcerned by his gaze, smiled as he put down his coffee, and said to Jiu in a gentle voice, "Aren't you going to drink? I really like the atmosphere and the coffee at this coffee shop. I always come here for a cup after work, read a book for a while, or work on some documents. It's very pleasant."

"..." Jiu didn't understand the other party's purpose. He raised his eyebrows, not touching the coffee that he didn't know if it had been laced with anything, and said coldly, "Who are you?"

"Me? Haha, just a nobody. Like I told you, I work for a small company, and my salary is barely enough to support myself. My hobbies are reading and fishing. The books, songs, and movies I like are all mainstream. There are at least eight hundred or a thousand people like me in this city." The man slowly sipped his coffee and smiled at Jiu, whose brows were furrowing more and more. "Compared to you 'extraordinary' beings, I'm really too ordinary."

"You're not a member of Schicksal?"

"Of course not, didn't I just say that? I'm just an ordinary person."

Jiu Ning looked at the man's calm and smiling face, and could not see any trace of lying. Moreover, Jiu Ning could also tell that the man's movements did not seem to be those of a professionally trained person.

"Then how did you know about Schicksal's movements? And how could you pinpoint my location?"

The man chuckled and said, "Of course, it's because there are members of Schicksal among 'us'."

"...you?"

At that moment, all the surrounding sounds stopped instantly, and everything became completely quiet.

Everyone in the coffee shop simultaneously revealed eerie smiles as they looked at Jiu, who was now on guard in the corner.

The man in front of them also smiled, and everyone said in unison—

"Allow me to reintroduce myself, 'we' are the Herrscher of Domination."

Lin walked into the equipment research institute and immediately saw a red-haired female doctor tinkering with the Jizo Mitama.

Wearing full protective gear, she dared not touch the Jizo Mitama directly. When Rin was asleep, anyone who held the Jizo Mitama except for Lin would be corrupted. The Herrscher of Erosion's terrifying ability would turn any human who grasped it into a mindless zombie controlled by it.

"Oh, you're back?"

Despite her seemingly unpretentious nature, Tesla didn't appear distant towards Lin, whom she had only known for a short time. After dismissing the researchers working around her, she took off her protective gear and walked up to Lin: "How's it going? The Anti-Entropy equipment is working well, isn't it? It's not inferior to your Fire-Chasing Moths, is it?"

"... It's not bad, but the information integration in the helmet is too simplistic."

"Oh? I did not install the information filtering function as you said."

"Remove the system analysis of environmental information."

"You really are a bit..."

While Lin was talking to Tesla, Lin caught a glimpse of a figure flashing past the doorway out of the corner of his eye, and his heart sank.

The "Reversal" of Coral: The Déjà vu of Chapter Two

"Sniff... puff..."

Lin closed his eyes and tried to back away, but there was a wall behind him, and he had nowhere to escape. He was pressed against the wall, and a warm but not gentle breath moved around his neck. The slight chill when he inhaled made his hair stand on end.

The girl's half-closed, jewel-like blood-red eyes seemed to be about to pierce through the skin. She buried her head between Lin's shoulder and neck, took a deep breath, and gently bit down on his neck, leaving a small tooth mark.

"That's enough," Lin murmured sullenly.

"Are you teaching me how to do things? Why should I stop?" The girl's wicked smile was deeply etched into Lin's eyes. She grabbed Lin's neck and whispered in his ear, "By the way, how about trying it on Kiana too? Isn't my tongue much more delicious than Kiana's? Or, let everyone see your true colors..."

"..."

Lin Mo opened his eyes and stared at her without saying a word. She smiled and moved closer to Lin's lips, but this time he neither closed his eyes nor looked away. He just stared at her intently.

"... Tch, boring."

The smile on Seele's face disappeared, she turned her face away, gave him one last look, and then turned away coldly.

Having narrowly escaped death, Lin covered the bite mark on her neck and slowly slid down the wall.

From that day on, this would happen once or twice a day. Whenever he was in the Anti-Entropy Salt Lake Base, Seele could pop out from all sorts of places and do some terrifying things right under everyone's noses.

Does he truly accept his identity as a Soul and Herrscher deep down...?

This is not a problem that can be solved with words. Perhaps one day Seele will lose interest in him or calm down. But before that, we don't know if he will become desensitized to this morally tormenting matter first.

"Huh? What are you doing sitting here?"

At this moment, a voice that sounded young but had a mature tone rang out from the side. Lin turned his head and looked over, and he suddenly didn't know how to express his feelings.

After all, he had seen three of these faces in the Quantum Sea.

However, it is clear that this Theresa is quite different from the three she knows. Her personality is somewhere between Stargazer and moon-gazing; she is neither particularly mature nor particularly naive. She claims to be Kiana's aunt and is a close friend of Kiana's mother from the same generation, but she gives the impression that she is Kiana's sister.

Theresa is curious about this new acquaintance who is from the same era as Fu Hua. He is mysterious all the time and is rarely seen. However, Kiana said that he has helped her a lot and is a kind person despite his cold appearance.

"... It's nothing." Lin stood up, pulled at his collar to cover the obvious mark on his neck, and silently turned to leave.

"Wait a minute," Theresa called out to him, smiling politely. "We haven't really talked much, have we? I'd like to talk to you about Kiana."

Lin didn't want to talk about it at all.

He's experiencing some stress now and doesn't want to see familiar faces anymore; facing them face-to-face would put him under immense pressure.

But he still nodded heavily.

"Kiana has suffered a lot. I'm really grateful that you helped her from the beginning instead of hurting her."

Theresa and Lin walked side by side by the lake. To be precise, they weren't exactly side by side, since Theresa was much smaller than Lin. They looked more like an older brother with his little sister.

The young Nun stood with her hands behind her back, gazing at the azure lake with a look of reminiscence in her eyes. She sighed for the girl who had suffered so much, "And then there's you. I've heard a lot from Kiana and Fu Hua. Although Fu Hua already surprised me enough, it still feels magical to see people from an era ten thousand years ago appearing one after another."

Lin sensed something was off. He hadn't been that gentle with Kiana initially. Although the special training had given her some control over her abilities, Kiana's impression of him wasn't very good during that time.

He immediately guessed Kiana's little scheme. To her, Theresa was indeed an elder, and his true actions might not give Theresa a good first impression of him. She would probably embellish it to a great extent, for example, saying that Lin was just strictly disciplining her instead of beating her half to death...

"Theresa! What are you doing here! Aren't you going to play with us? We want to play hide-and-seek with Bella."

A particularly energetic girl's voice rang out from behind, and two girls, one in pink and one in blue, ran over hand in hand, chattering around Theresa.

Theresa, who was pretending to be an adult elder in front of Lin, blushed slightly and coughed, saying, "No, you guys go have fun."

"Oh, okay... Hey, you're the one who came with Sister Bronya that day."

As I said before, Lin really didn't want to see anyone Déjà vu of him. The horns and tails of the two cute girls in front of him reminded him of a pseudo-emotionless battle maniac in the Quantum Sea. Fortunately, they were similar in appearance but had very different personalities.

Rozaliya and Lilia gazed curiously at the man who was even taller than their leader; the mask he wore made them want to find out more.

These two are the most like children in the real sense that Lin has ever seen; they fit the definition of a child even better than the Herrscher of Reason.

After lingering for a while, the two walked away, their voices, which were not hushed at all, reaching Lin and Theresa's ears. "Lilia, why doesn't Theresa play with us?"

"Hmm... Rozaliya, it's best not to ask about this. It's their private matter."

Theresa coughed again. "Ahem... Anyway, as you can see, I also work part-time as their teacher. This is my job. If I have the opportunity to return to the St. Freya Academy in the future, I hope you can be a teacher there. After all, you taught Kiana, Fu Hua was once your teammate. You should have a lot of experience in this area."

"I'll consider it." Lin nodded, neither agreeing nor refusing.

"And also..."

Theresa hesitated for a moment, then said, "I have some questions I'd like to ask about your past as the Herrscher of Binding."

"..."

It seems that Fu Hua told Theresa that this was nothing to hide, but was there something special about telling Theresa that she was specifically telling her?

"Ah, don't worry, it's nothing that will make things difficult for you. I'm not as interested in studying Herrscher as my grandfather was." Theresa saw that Lin didn't speak and assumed he was wary, so she quickly said, "To be honest, I possess the Eleventh Divine Key, the Oath of Judas. This weapon is closely related to you, so what I want to ask is also related to it."

The Oath of Judas.

Lin never expected to hear the name of this Divine Key again.

"I heard before that the Phoenix has the ability to unleash potential and change form. Does the Oath of Judas have a similar ability?"

Theresa looked at Lin with a hint of anticipation, and after a few seconds of contemplation, Lin slowly said, "Let me take a look first."

The Coral's "Reversal": Chapter Three - Do you know how many uses Judah had?

Lin and Theresa returned to the Anti-Entropy base. They hadn't walked far when Lin saw Kiana. Theresa was about to greet her when Lin stopped her.

The two members of Anti-Entropy instinctively fell silent as they passed Kiana, then quickly walked past with their heads down, as if they would be overtaken if they were a step too late.

Kiana noticed it, of course; her expression was slightly cold, but she didn't show much disappointment.

"...Sigh." Theresa sighed slightly as she saw this scene. She had experienced what Kiana was going through. As an artificial human created from Honkai Beast cells, her existence had been feared by the other members of Schicksal. However, as the granddaughter of the Bishop of Schicksal and with her record of defeating Great Honkai Beasts many times, she had not been treated too badly.

Kiana is different. As the Herrscher of the Void, the disaster she caused was less than half a year ago, and the members of Anti-Entropy know better than anyone how terrible the Honkai disaster that swept the world was.

"Huh? Lin, Auntie, what are you two doing together?"

Kiana looked up and smiled when she saw the two of them, showing no sign of anything amiss, and quickly walked up to them.

"Let's go check on the situation of the Divine Key. Shall we come together?" Lin said before Theresa could speak.

"Okay, let's go. I was just thinking of having Dr. Tesla adjust my weapon." Kiana agreed with a smile, while Theresa looked at the two of them with slight hesitation.

Is it true that Kiana is her daughter, or is something just off...? Kiana's expression seems exactly the same as hers when she saw Siegfried...

The three of them went to the equipment room together, and as soon as they entered, they heard Tesla shouting at the top of his lungs, "Stop right there! You can't touch the hilt of the Jizo Mitama sword with your hands!"

"Oh? Lin can touch it, but I can't? It's just a sword. There are plenty of strange weapons in Shenzhou. What haven't I seen? If you won't let me touch it, I'll just have to try it!"

The Herrscher of Reason, defiant and defiant, stood before the Jizo Mitama and reached for the sword hilt, while Tesla raised his protective shield in front of him, ready to defend himself, and continued to shout at him.

But the Herrscher of Reason was not one to obey orders; she immediately grabbed the hilt of the sword!

"Smack!"

"Oh!"

The moment her slender fingers touched the hilt of the sword, the Herrscher of Reason recoiled as if electrocuted, pulling her hand back with disbelief on her face.

Two seconds later, she realized what had happened, and her pretty face flushed red with anger. She jumped up and down at the Jizo Mitama, yelling, "Hey! We're all Divine Key, you don't need to! You gave it to Lin but not to me! Ring! Ring! Can you hear me?!"

Lin shook his head at the chaotic situation and walked up to Tesla: "Where is the Oath of Judas?"

"Ah, you've come. The Oath of Judas? Put it in that inspection chamber over there... Hey! Don't touch that over there..."

"Bang!"

Having determined the location, the three found the place where Oath of Judas was kept. After opening the hatch, they found Oath of Judas inside, which Lin had not seen for 50,000 years.

No, to be precise, the Oath of Judas before him was made with the Herrscher Core of the Forest, and it was not the same cross he had used before.

The moment he got close, Lin felt a strange sensation, as if a heartbeat was emanating from the golden cross, and it was synchronized with his own heartbeat.

"Isn't this the cross for menstruation?"

Kiana hadn't seen Theresa's signature Golden Cross for a while, and instinctively reached out to touch its smooth surface, but...

"Hmm..."

Lin's expression changed slightly; he frowned and gave a soft hum.

"Hmm? What's wrong, Lin?" Kiana, who was closer to Lin, asked curiously when she heard Lin's humming.

The black-haired man shook his head. "No... you..."

"What happened?" The silver-haired girl accidentally brushed her hand across the edge of the cross.

Lin made another sound from his throat, like being tickled. "Gurgle..."

"Kiana, take your hand off Judah." Theresa noticed something and suddenly spoke up, and Kiana lowered her hand with even more confusion.

Lin did not make a sound.

Kiana reached out and touched it again.

"Gurgle..."

Kiana lowered her hand.

"..."

Kiana understood.

She glanced at Theresa and Lin with a very strange expression and said, "Lin's senses are connected to this cross?"

"It seems so. After all, there's a Herrscher over there who is Divine Key herself. I guess others will feel it when they touch her." Theresa teased, nodding at the Herrscher of Reason was still causing trouble in the equipment room.

Lin recalled that on the Hyperion, the Herrscher of Reason had transformed back into its original form the moment he picked up that brick. It seemed that the situation at the time was...

"He didn't feel anything before, so it must have been because we were close enough." Theresa crossed her arms, looked up at Lin who was deep in thought, and said, "Why don't you try it yourself?"

"Um."

Lin placed his hand on the Schicksal emblem on the cross. After receiving the Oath of Judas, Schicksal modified its appearance to a certain extent, making it instantly recognizable as belonging to Schicksal.