For Love and Peace

Honkai, Live On, by Tougua Yangcha

Fang Jie only hurried to look for a charging cable after his phone warned him about low battery. Before he found one, he landed in the world of Star Rail...

Amid Belobog's snowy plains, he gradually came to understand everything.

Honkai: Star Rail Maniacs

Scarred Tomb laughed wildly. "I will leave the universe with its most hideous scar, one that will not fade even after a hundred billion years!" --Blow up star systems

The Rescuer sobbed. "I will rebel against this sorrowful universe and save you from this hell worse than death!" --Kill an entire planet

The Incinerator said coldly, "The Pure Land is pure and noble, while your life is ordinary and pathetic. Love and hatred are not worth mentioning. Memories are meaningless." --Burn memories

The Arsonist sighed helplessly. "The universe is like a dark forest, incomparably dangerous. I can only extinguish stars, raise tsunamis, and ignite blazing fires to force you onward." --Civilization-scale disasters

The Gravedigger admired them. "People ought to willingly dig their own graves." --Self-destruction

The Star Plucker ignored them. He still had new experiments to conduct and needed to prepare more stars. --Celestial migration

The Anti-Organic Killer: "Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate..." --Offer eternal praise to the Emperor

Fang Jie: "No!!"

Having chosen to flee, he woke up and found a grass slipper bug.

Character Template

Ahem, the protagonist's ability framework has now been established. There will not be any major changes for a while, so here is a template for everyone to look at.

Just enjoy the spectacle. No need to examine the cringey chuunibyou remarks too closely.

Character: Fang Jie

Age: 17 (Don't ask. He's 17.)

Faction: Nameless / Bloodsin Spirit

Path / Element: Nihility (Imaginary), Trailblaze (Lightning), Destruction (Fire), Preservation (Physical)

Character Tags: Survival, Resistance, Shields, Weakness Implantation, Damage over Time

Character Role: Fang Jie is a durable growth-type character with multiple templates. He displays his outer and inner selves by switching Paths and Elements. In the outer template, Fang Jie's attributes are increased across the board, he adaptively gains Path Energy, and possesses powerful survivability along with considerable damage output. In the inner template, Fang Jie's attributes undergo ultimate sublimation, he adaptively gains Paths, and possesses powerful damage output along with even greater survivability.

Character Traces:

Basic Attack:

One Sword Separates the World, Outer / Inner -- As long as you do not abandon your nobility, the entire world will open itself to you: Welcome to the world. / Even if the past has shattered, please become a king: You, who should have possessed the world and embraced heaven and earth, please do not lament these lost moments.

"All things born of heaven, forged into weapons. Become an impassable tide of calamity, repaid with—One Sword Separates the World!"

Technique:

Four Souls Severed, Outer / Inner -- Four souls, one heart. Righteous and wicked, crooked and straight, good and evil, black and white are all neither. Reincarnation is no dream. / Ghosts beyond the world, blood spirits without sin. Pure and foul, real and false cannot yet be determined. Watch the burning house from across the shore.

Against organic life: "What delusion, what attachment, wandering without return. Flowing light and passing water are all empty. Alas—Four Souls Severed!"

Against inorganic machines: "Sentient beings repay karma with blade and sword. Sever thoughts of the future's eternal kalpas; in this present world—grass and trees become emptiness."

Talent:

Uni! Verse! Island! Outer / Inner -- Stop making jokes about small islands. Even worlds have moments of silence. / It sank? Go fish it up. Maybe the house is still there.

"At the very beginning, the shattered remnant dream of 'buying a small island and building a big house' still retained the lingering warmth of life."

Skill:

A Thought, Immeasurable Kalpas, Outer / Inner -- Between two points formed by people, a curve is the shortest path. Sometimes you need to throw a straight punch, like how I really miss you right now. / I will exist, forever exist, endlessly continue. It has nothing to do with morality, principles, or any kind of love. In the end, all that remains is our selfishness.

"Human, blade, god, ghost; the world is like passing water. I ferry myself, but not myself. No sorrow, no joy, no thought—A Thought, Immeasurable Kalpas!"

Extra Ability I:

Ascetic Practice -- A body like adamant.

Extra Ability II:

Eye of Wisdom -- Hear all worlds.

Extra Ability III:

Heart's Desire -- Consistent from beginning to end.

For Love and Peace

Cold. Shaking...

Was there some kind of sound?

It sounded pretty nice.

"Hey, wake up! Hurry and wake up! This isn't a place to sleep!"

Fang Jie opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was a pair of silver-white braids hanging down as their owner bent over. They swayed under the warm sunlight, gleaming with a jewel-like, uncanny luster. Within that swaying radiance, a pair of even stranger sapphire-blue eyes, more exquisite than gems, shone with kindness and concern...

Though it was rather impolite, to be honest, she did not seem very human to Fang Jie.

Humans probably did not possess beauty like that... right?

Thinking that way seemed somewhat impolite toward humanity too.

"You're awake? Are you alright? Are you sick? How could you collapse here? The weather is so cold..."

No, no, no, the weather was very warm. It made sleep utterly irresistible. After all, he had survived for a month on the snowy plains with dry grass, sausage, snow, and a little Trailblazing power from the Domain Anchor.

So, having returned to such an environment and confirmed that traveling back and forth caused no problems, it was perfectly normal for his constantly tense mind to relax. Like an exhausted raccoon collapsing to the ground, he had fallen asleep.

So who were you?

Forget it, it was not important. Fang Jie's gaze swept past the girl and continued onward, greedily taking in the unfamiliar yet familiar scenery.

The drizzling rain that had lasted all night had quietly faded when dawn arrived, leaving only its gift of moistening all things. The lingering coolness felt warm, the puddles left behind were precious, and then there was the sun that had already risen into the sky, casting rays through the thin mist and painting everything in mottled light.

It was so beautiful.

Because he had once lost it, he cherished it all the more and understood beauty.

Praise it. Praise all of this!

Having been tortured for so long by that vast, monotonous, hollow, miserable white, every day feeling like a year, Fang Jie was so moved upon seeing this normal world from his memories that he nearly cried.

Fuck, Belobog, I finally escaped!

Fuck, why did I land in Belobog in the first place?!

"Hey, hey, don't cry!"

The pleasant voice of the girl carried a trace of panic and bewilderment, but her kindness and concern remained unchanged.

Thanks to the real-time translation of the Synesthesia Beacon, a piece of "basic technology" he had found in the shelter, Fang Jie could understand her without issue. Yet it was precisely because of the Synesthesia Beacon's powerful capability to enable communication across species that Fang Jie had instinctively excluded this girl from the human race.

Unaware that the other party had silently categorized her as a humanoid organism, the girl felt that he might not be the sort of "person who had collapsed by the roadside due to a Honkai disaster" she had assumed him to be. Still, she could not simply leave him alone. At the very least, she had to confirm that he was alright.

Fang Jie considered himself perfectly fine. Having arrived under cover of night, he saw the Chinese and Japanese signs lining the streets and confirmed that he had finally escaped Belobog and reached a normal new world. Peaceful, tranquil, happy, warm—he simply could not resist the temptation of being able to sleep wherever the fuck he wanted, so he slept right there on the street.

What, sleeping on the street was unsafe?

What a joke. It was incredibly safe. He would not be forced to shiver in a dilapidated house amid ice and snow over a scarce supply of Subterranean Fuel. Wandering Fragmentum monsters would not come asking after his well-being. He would not have to fill his empty stomach with weeds. Even a random handful of grass tasted as delicious as cake to him, not to mention bark and leaves. His days of eating ice and chewing snow had already lowered his standards to rock bottom.

Ah, new world! I praise you!

A moment later, after the girl introduced herself, Fang Jie went expressionless. Even the taste of fresh flower petals abruptly ceased to be wonderful, and he became dazed again, making Kiana feel intensely uneasy.

"So, your name is Kiana Kaslana?"

"M-My name is Kiana, so what? Wait, do you know me?"

However, the boy before her, who possessed even more of that refugee aura cultivated by a wandering life than she did, did not respond. His face was blank and ashen, and he gave off the air of a cat dragon.

Don't ask who Cat Dragon was.

Another moment later, after Fang Jie introduced himself, Kiana rolled her eyes. Her entire demeanor shifted from kind concern to pure disdain. After all, the boy before her was no longer an unfamiliar person in distress, but a suspicious, mysterious liar who knew her—and his lies were terribly half-hearted.

"So you're saying you came from outside this world?"

"Yes. It was a world of ice and snow. Well, not entirely ice and snow, but I landed in the wrong posture and simply couldn't get out of the snowfield. Fortunately, I could still salvage the situation. I holed up in a shelter and suffered miserably until I finally saved enough SP to escape."

"Wow, you're an alien too." Kiana retorted irritably.

"Mhm." Fang Jie was chewing again, this time on a nearby snapped-off cherry blossom branch. He swallowed it with the intensity of someone determined not to waste a single grain of rice, then answered Kiana.

"Anyway, that was more or less what happened. I never saw a truck driver rushing to meet a quota, but after closing and opening my eyes, I landed as an ice cube. It was freezing, absolutely no experience at all. I had planned to become a sword-wielding savior, but nearly froze into an ice sculpture halfway through. I couldn't take the cold and hunger anymore, so I hurriedly ran away."

With the Synesthesia Beacon's assistance, Kiana could understand the gritted fury in Fang Jie's tone.

It sounded practically real.

She eyed him sideways and recited flatly, "Wow. Then if you could come to this planet, you must have superpowers, right?"

"Probably. After all, in the vast galaxy, even geniuses merely cross the threshold of surviving under many circumstances. If I can do all this, then I'm no longer an ordinary person." Fang Jie paused, looked toward Kiana, and could not help curling his lip.

Forget Belobog. In a place like yours, ordinary people without some Honkai resistance would not even have the chance to become Death Troopers.

He did not even dare ask which Kiana she was. No, he needed to find a way to slip back to Belobog. The frozen wilderness was hard to endure, but at least there was hope.

That was the confidence Fang Jie possessed as a "person from the future."

Kiana found it hard to believe. You even dared to curl your lip? I kindly helped you, and you immediately started lying to me. Damn it, I'll give you one more chance.

"Then let me ask you this. Do you know a stinky old man with white hair like mine and one missing arm?" She did not ask what Fang Jie's superpowers were. With her hands on her hips, she asked the question she had long wanted to ask.

Perhaps Fang Jie should have considered how to answer, but the words had already left his mouth without hesitation. "A white-haired, one-armed stinky old man? You mean Siegfried?"

Of course Fang Jie knew whom Kiana meant, but if he said it so directly... all he could say was that her waist was incredibly slim. Chiyu Academy's uniform looked rather good, and it suited her figure well, though she was indeed too thin. So he simply could not refuse. After suffering alone amid those icy wastes without seeing a single person besides wandering monsters, he could not bring himself to conceal things, hem and haw, and maximize his benefits.

"You really do know!"

Kiana became excited. She stepped forward, grabbed his shoulders with both hands, and shook him so hard that her braids whipped over like a Labrador's tail.

For an ordinary person, that was enough force to leave them scattered in pieces.

Even Fang Jie, no longer ordinary himself, bared his teeth as he felt bruised all over.

Kaslana monstrous strength, kid!

"G-Gently!"

At that moment, Fang Jie understood the truth of the world. Even after that month of near-rebirth, he was still so ordinary. Grimacing, he told Kiana to be gentler and received a lesson in staying humble and composed.

"Ah, sorry."

Kiana seemed to realize that she had gotten a little too excited. She eased up somewhat, but had no intention whatsoever of letting Fang Jie go. Her glittering sapphire eyes shone with unwavering determination—the kind that said she would not let him go even if she died!

"I know him, Siegfried, but Kiana, you're the first person to speak to me in this world..." Fang Jie, now properly humbled and composed, tried to phrase it as tactfully as possible to prevent Kiana from going berserk again.

"Is that so..."

To Fang Jie's surprise, Kiana understood his meaning very easily and did not go berserk. She merely sighed in disappointment and stopped asking.

He knew of him, but had never met him, much less knew anything of his current situation. How useful that was for her search for Siegfried went without saying.

"Sorry, I hurt you." Kiana apologized again. She seemed to believe Fang Jie quite readily, released him, and grinned foolishly. "And thanks for telling me all that. Come on, I'll treat you to a feast."

From helping where she could at the start, to becoming slightly wary when this person unexpectedly knew her, to now offering to treat him, Kiana's smile could not exactly be called ill-intentioned. It could only be said that there was a knife hidden behind it.

Ever since Siegfried Kaslana disappeared in 2010, Kiana had traveled alone. She had begun by walking out of the Siberian snowfield by herself, then crossed from Northern Europe over the Eurasian continent to the Far East. Those four years of scraping by on the road had given her survival wisdom that no affectionate nickname like grass slipper bug or bug bug could erase.

Distinguishing good from evil in people's hearts was no difficult task. She could be warm when dealing with people, perfunctory when appropriate, and use super strength depending on the circumstances against those who should be avoided—such as people who might know clues about Siegfried, or those who used that excuse to lure her in.

After all, Kiana was a very, very beautiful young girl. It was difficult to say there would be few people with this or that kind of thought toward someone like her traveling alone.

And Fang Jie?

"Sure, sure."

Why worry about all that when there was food to eat? The greatest change Belobog had brought him was that who the hell did not have some "superpowers" now? He might not be able to win, but he could definitely run away.