Ice and Snow, Hunger, Madness, and Blessings

He knew all this, and even more, but none of it would help Fang Jie cross the snowfield.

Back in the icy wilderness, he spat out a mouthful of black blood that froze into ice before it hit the ground.

The skin all over his body seemed cracked, with purple-black crystals spreading across it like interwoven circuits.

Because he had not escaped immediately, the Great Eruption that broke out in Chang Kong City had overwhelmed his resistance with excessive Honkai energy, eroding his body from the outside in.

So—

"I'm back."

His tone was rather... bitter.

Upon the pure white earth stood a negligible blotch of color: a crude shelter buried beneath wind and snow. Rather than relying on it to withstand the winter, it was better to say he relied on the Domain Anchor standing there.

A product of the Trailblazing power, proof that the Nameless had once visited this planet.

Fang Jie clenched his chattering teeth, forcibly suppressing his fear of the snowfield, and reached out toward it.

It did not light up as it would upon activation. It remained silent, simply existing there. Yet with his touch, Fang Jie drew in pure, unrestrained Path energy.

Like rain nourishing the earth.

The cracks across his skin gradually melted away beneath the wash of this greater energy, just as Fang Jie's formerly isolated resistance had been overwhelmed by the energy inside him.

The pain of Honkai corrosion gradually receded, and the pain of cold returned to declare its presence. He slowly climbed to his feet and looked around. No Fragmentum monsters wandered nearby, but things still felt terrible.

Truly terrible.

The last time he had experienced something this terrible was when he had first landed in this snowfield. He had rolled over in bed to look for a charging cable, then blinked and plunged into the snow, trapped in bewilderment with nowhere to run.

Alone, with life and death hanging in the balance.

His life was like a candle flame in the wind.

It had come suddenly, like a dream. All he could see was pale frozen earth swallowing every living thing, no other color in sight. Even a cry for help would be strangled by the frosty wind.

He did not know why he was about to die, nor why he was still alive.

It had been so terrible that he instinctively avoided it. Even while suffering Honkai energy corrosion, he had refused to return there, fearing even a single trip to replenish Imaginary energy.

But in the end...

"I can't survive. I'm going to die... but I want to live."

A lingering fear—or perhaps a trauma response—erupted when he faced a similar disaster again, making him tremble uncontrollably.

Something's moving!!

Amid the howling wind and snow, he sensed something, and his breathing stopped dead.

He deliberately slowed his breathing to an extreme, to the point where he was practically no longer breathing at all. His heartbeat dropped to a level nearly indistinguishable from that of a corpse. His blood flow, metabolism, body temperature, and every other physiological function fell to levels even more absurdly low than those of reptiles. It was a state of suspended death even more extreme than hibernation.

An incredible technique beyond human imagination!

It was more appropriate to regard him as an inanimate object. At least in the eyes of Fragmentum monsters, he was as much a piece of "background scenery" as the high-rises, the ground, or the trash cans.

Their instinct to kill life first did not mean they spared such objects from destruction, but neither did they actively target any particular thing.

Even the Legion of Destruction probably would not.

As long as he did not block their path, hinder them, or expose himself before an intelligent individual, they could coexist peacefully.

That was why Fang Jie was so hard to kill. At first, it had merely been an accidental discovery when he was nearly frozen to death but stubbornly refused to die. Back then, he had trekked and crawled through the snow, passing wandering monsters as he headed toward the only different color amid the endless white. His survival instincts had nearly shut down his ability to think, until he finally touched the Domain Anchor...

Perfectly suited for this!

He could even move freely in this state. Watching the direction of the snowstorm, he spotted a passing Fragmentum Elementum—the lowest-level monster in the game, yet a terror that ordinary people in reality would die the instant they dared touch it.

Fortunately, as always, the monster did not notice him and left the area.

Once again, he had survived.

But Fang Jie did not like this at all, especially when something so similar had just happened before his eyes—a sudden disaster that was impossible to resist...

How could a human being ever adapt to walking along the edge of death?

Slowly withdrawing his hand, he found that the Path energy within him had been replenished. At least, he could no longer expand that upper limit. Perhaps he needed to truly blaze some trails.

As for the Honkai...

After being washed by Path energy, its corrosion had been forcibly halted. But that did not mean nothing had happened. The Path energy of Trailblaze gave Fang Jie a passively strengthened body, not purification.

Thus, the Honkai coexisted within him, like ordinary people who could survive in the Honkai world. It had even merged into the energy inside Fang Jie.

Feeling it carefully, he shuddered.

"Crackle!"

The dry, frigid air suddenly snapped with a massive burst of static. A flash of purple-black lightning pierced through the drifting snowflakes, vaporizing them in midair.

Seeing this, Fang Jie did not know how to describe his feelings. Still, he could not help continuing to mobilize the energy inside him. At last, he could release it beyond his body instead of merely receiving passive enhancement.

"Crackle!"

Another bolt of lightning.

"What was this supposed to be?"

He kept crackling away with endless enthusiasm. It was not that he thought Path energy was bad. Mainly, it felt like a thirsty man stranded at sea suddenly encountering a torrential downpour. Countless drops of fresh water fell around him, yet all he could do was open his mouth and catch the tiniest bit to wet his throat.

And after wetting his throat, naturally, he wanted something to eat.

Honkai energy could be eaten!

He instinctively used that description to explain the phenomenon. It was easy enough to accept. There were so many examples of people gaining abilities after being baptized by Honkai energy; he could just consider himself lucky as well.

Whether that thought was right or wrong did not matter. What mattered was reinforcing that understanding so he could convince himself to accept it.

Just as he had convinced himself to accept Path energy, to accept the common sense of this world and this galaxy.

It was easy to convince himself. Even in his original reality, everyone knew that the little broken planet revolved around and rotated on its axis around the sun, creating the changing seasons, night, and day. But from another perspective, the sun was dragging the little broken planet through the universe at a speed of 790,000 kilometers per hour.

He could already imagine Pluto, left behind, screaming itself hoarse: "Wait for me! Wait for me! I didn't get on! I didn't get on!"

In short, energy existed in the universe. Even if cosmic energy was not present everywhere, when the sun carried the little broken planet into a region rich in cosmic energy, all life on the planet would be nourished by it. Then a new kind of common sense would emerge.

Path energy was that kind of common sense, something Fang Jie had accepted completely, body and mind.

Then what about Honkai?

"I admit I was a little disgusted by it before, and I still am. This power is too dangerous. I need to study it properly."

Stopping his crackle-crackle-crackling, Fang Jie touched the Domain Anchor again to replenish what he had spent.

The influx of Path energy dispelled his fatigue and healed his injuries, while also allowing him to happily accept this new power.

There was nothing to doubt. Didn't Welt still make black holes after coming to Star Rail? Honkai energy and Path energy were both energy, after all. The former simply came with disasters, was less friendly, and might even reduce someone to ashes on contact.

But hadn't he survived?

Perhaps absorbing Honkai energy alone would leave someone like a shipwreck victim at sea, dying faster the more seawater they drank. But he also had Path energy, which could provide fresh water without end. Seawater could then replenish salt and minerals. Even if it was poisonous... humans had been eating poisonous salt all along, hadn't they?

No longer doubting himself or worrying that he lacked Stigmata and was not a MANTIS, Fang Jie realized that if even Honkai energy at Great Eruption concentrations could not directly kill him, then the Honkai world's appeal had suddenly soared.

After all, this was Belobog.

The future held promise. There was still hope. The road ahead was broad... while the Anti-Matter Legion lay at their doorstep, and the Fragmentum corrosion spreading from the Stellaron was about to extinguish the last embers of civilization.

He hated the snowfield. He hated it intensely. Without hesitation, he activated the "Kiana Sortie" in his mind—no, in his perception—once more.

It was as though he had touched an enormous cosmic energy field. In his speculation, in his self-suggestion and self-persuasion, space within that energy field would distort, wormholes would open, and two planets unimaginably far apart could briefly come into contact. Perhaps, after a wormhole opened, parallel worlds could even be discovered.

And he had connected to a wormhole. With sufficient energy, he could open it. Though it would only last briefly, that brief moment was enough to travel to the world at the other end.

He had not known where the other end led before, but now it was perfectly clear.

—Chang Kong City!

It was spring.

Not far from Chiyu Academy, Fang Jie, who had suddenly vanished and suddenly reappeared, stood beside the shattered wall of a storefront and withdrew his gaze from the direction of the sun.

"I'm back."

Immersed in an energy field with a Great Eruption concentration exceeding 1000 honkai watts, he restored the protection provided by the Path energy within him while slowly absorbing Honkai energy.

And he saw rivers of blood.

"This is Honkai."

You must remember: this was poisoned wine.

Compared to the snowfield of Belobog, where all he needed was to survive alone, this was Honkai—a city being consumed by Honkai. When the settings he knew were displayed before his eyes in such a bloody, brutal fashion, it was impossible for his soul not to be shaken.

During a Great Eruption, people with no Honkai resistance were reduced to ashes in an instant. Those with resistance below that of a B-Rank Valkyrie would basically become Death Troopers within half an hour.

The Second Great Eruption, the most dangerous disaster in the history of the current civilization, had completely covered Siberia within three hours through the accelerated spread of excessive Honkai energy alone, without even considering the direct destruction caused by the Herrscher of the Void or Honkai Beasts. It could have covered the Earth within 117 hours, bringing civilization to ruin.

The Third Great Eruption currently unfolding would not reach that scale, but Chang Kong City was already dead.

A city had been destroyed before his eyes in this manner...

It was spring. Though there was a late cold snap, though thunderclouds covered the sky and blotted out the sun, Fang Jie, having stepped out of the snowfield, should not have felt cold. It was still warm. Yet his entire body was taut as if frozen by a bone-chilling cold, because deep in his heart, he felt... cold.

Whatever joy he had felt vanished completely. He harshly exhaled a breath of foul air, feeling a sense of kinship with the fallen.

But in a sense, that was a luxury too.

No one in Chang Kong City was more luxurious than him now. There were those who wanted to live but could not, Herrschers who wanted to die but could not, and even more lives struggling to survive, lives extinguished unknowingly, and lives mutating unknowingly. Yet he could stand apart from it all.

Fang Jie stared deeply, deeply at everything before him, committing it to memory.

"I'm only trying to survive too!"

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P.S. The contract has been signed, so everyone can follow the story without worry! Please bookmark it and vote! (?o?o)??

As one of the notable private schools in the Far East Region, Chiyu Academy in Chang Kong City was considered an elite academy in the public eye. Naturally, the surrounding area was filled with upscale residential communities. All kinds of facilities and buildings occupied a vast tract of land, divided into separate districts like a small town, and together formed the central area of this Great Eruption.

Thus, not only had multiple Death Troopers been born here—enough that even the minimum B-Rank Valkyrie standard required for battlefield deployment would need to deal with them—but massive Honkai Beasts that only A-Rank Valkyries dared claim they could reliably defeat were constantly emerging and ravaging the city.

"That's good news. At least they're all lower-tier Honkai Beasts. There are just a few too many of them."

He had personally witnessed the terrifying sight of a monster as tall as a ten-story building, roughly block-shaped, charging at high speed. And that had merely been a relatively weak Chariot-class among the numerous lower-tier Honkai Beasts... Damn Chariot-class! What had it eaten to grow that big? Ten or twenty meters would have been one thing, but this thing was over thirty meters tall!

Fang Jie had no doubt that one such Honkai Beast could wipe out Paradis Island.

Having only just gained a little "electric discharge" ability, he held his breath and searched the city ruins with clear eyes for useful tools—something for self-defense, a weapon even more powerful than a railgun that could break through a Honkai Beast's defenses.

The requirements were a little high, but Honkai Beasts over ten meters tall were just that damn tough!

As for those under ten meters...

For example, a group of Death Troopers wandered amid the city ruins, nightmares for survivors who had endured the Great Eruption's corrosion.

That was why Fang Jie's ability to move through the ruins was a luxury. No one in Chang Kong City was more luxurious than him now. There were those who wanted to live but could not, Herrschers who wanted to die but could not, and even more lives extinguished unknowingly and lives mutating unknowingly. Yet he could quietly remain to one side, as though removed from it all.

"Swish, swish, swish!"

Multiple Death Troopers approached. Their wandering was a hunt for the traces of survivors.

They were so ugly. Nothing like the clean character models in the game. They had grotesque human forms coated in death, triggering the uncanny valley effect to the fullest.

"Roar!"

A Honkai Beast as enormous as a high-rise, though only five or six stories tall, charged forward with a roar. It flattened a building and pursued the trail of living humans detected by Assault-class units circling low over the city, through the collapsing steel and concrete.

This was also a Chariot-class. It was not as tiny and cute as the "chariots" humans built without relying on Honkai. Visually, it was a moving fortress. While evoking fear of gigantic creatures, it carried out destruction more efficiently than any bulldozer.

Even if it had to flatten an entire street and sweep up a group of Death Troopers in the process, it would kill one human with ruthless efficiency!

Fang Jie was within that affected area too.

A faint purple-black spark flashed, and he leaped high into the air. With several bounds, his greatly enhanced body rushed past the Honkai Beast's side through a safe gap just wide enough to pass through.

The distance between them was incredibly close, yet they remained clearly separated.

Amid the sound of collapse, he escaped danger without the slightest surprise. Just as monsters corrupted by the Fragmentum would not prioritize destroying a trash can, neither would Honkai Beasts.