If I really was born with an oracle's gift...
Then...
Please let me grow into someone worthy of the prophecy!
She raised her right hand toward the army of steel. The girl, no longer trying to dodge, stared straight ahead—
"Draw back the curtain of time and stir the ripples of the past."
A god powerful enough to vie with the blazing sun in the sky absolutely shouldn't be limited to this!
If she could summon the forms of the past, then what if she poured every last bit of her strength into it?
Could she make them—
—REJECT THEM ALL—
Give it everything she had, no matter the cost! Even if she lost herself, even if her soul slipped away, it didn't matter!
She squeezed every last thing out of herself, burning through her self, her memories, her existence, everything she had, as if she were a candle burning down to nothing. The frail girl's colors began to drain away.
White, pink, blue...
And yet.
When the flame had burned down to its very last sliver, like the candle's final bit of wick—
It stopped.
It couldn't burn. It couldn't be lit.
It was as if something had been dyed pink, a crystalline substance of the highest nature, something too exalted to be consumed—not even by the tiniest fraction!
In theory, perpetual motion didn't exist in this world. Energy was absolutely conserved throughout the universe, and the workings of anything had to come at the cost of something else.
But what appeared before their eyes now trampled that law underfoot without hesitation.
It burned, yet no matter what, it couldn't be consumed. Instead, it seemed to trigger some kind of mechanism.
The colors that had been utterly exhausted became the candle feeding the flame itself. In a way no one could comprehend, as if time were flowing backward, they gradually returned, restoring the faded color to her skin and hair and bringing back that pure beauty.
Then.
—THE GREAT FANTASY RITUAL UNFOLDS!
As if it meant to overturn the entire world, a sweet, clear, pink mist appeared.
Xing had meant to wave her hand again and control the Titan Legion, blasting her opponent's desperate struggle to pieces along with the mist.
But this time, no matter how she issued commands or called out, she got no response.
She turned around, her mismatched eyes contracting.
—They were sealed away.
Calling it that might have sounded strange, but the Titan Mechs around her really had been sealed away.
They were encased in pink crystal.
She could just as well have called them trapped, or used some other word. But at the mere sight of it, Xing instinctively and naturally thought of—
—Being sealed away.
As if some precious thing had been temporarily sealed up so it could be stored and preserved for a long time.
More importantly—
The crystals were still spreading, growing, sending out branches. They formed an abstract model of a tree.
Just as she had sensed before, even though the branches that sprouted looked strange and the whole thing was misshapen, she still found herself calling the whole structure a tree.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"I just wanted everyone to stay around a little longer."
She clasped her hands behind her back, her slender fingertips nervously intertwining at her waist. Her body tilted forward slightly like a willow branch brushed by the spring breeze, and the sapphire pendant on her chest traced an elegant arc. She playfully tilted her little head to the right, closing her right eye as her long lashes cast a delicate shadow across her cheek.
She couldn't understand why it felt as though she hadn't given anything up, yet the unease in her heart had suddenly settled, and her worry for A-Cheng had faded away.
It seemed she'd already done everything she needed to do.
29. Witness My Fury! (Revised)
"What's with that attitude? You close your eyes for no reason, talk to yourself for no reason, and get stronger for no reason. Do you think this is some kind of stage play?!"
Xing couldn't stand it anymore. She maneuvered the Titan Mech beneath her around the encroaching crystals and clenched her fist, ready to charge forward. But before she could—
Her toes turned into pink crystal too.
The crystallization spreading from the tips of her hair was even faster than it had been with any of the mechs sealed away earlier.
"You think that'll let that boy survive?"
"You—"
"..."
"Doubts, worries—none of that is necessary anymore," Cyrene said, gently bringing her lily-white fingertips together. "I've always believed in A-Cheng the most, you know~?"
"There's nothing left to worry about. A-Cheng has already taken care of everything—that's what I feel deep down. All I need to think about now... is revenge!"
"Besides, A-Cheng isn't an idiot!"
"Of course you're an idiot. You blundered into my hunting ground, convinced you could get out."
"Even if you got down on your knees and surrendered now, it wouldn't matter. Once that Kaslana ran out of strength, you'd die at the hands of my excellent daughter—"
"Bronya. Then the Third Great Honkai would erupt, laying the cornerstone of my victory. From this day forward, history would be rewritten."
Cocolia kept taunting him, boasting as she gradually revealed the plan she'd spent so long preparing.
It was probably a villain's bad habit. After all that preparation, how could she not show off a little?
But Jiang Cheng didn't care anymore. He just swung the arm that had already rotted away almost completely, useless now, as if speaking to himself.
"Why didn't I think of it?" he murmured, almost as if to himself—
"Why didn't I realize?"
"I shouldn't have had any resistance to Honkai Energy in the first place!"
Watching Jiang Cheng spout incomprehensible nonsense like an idiot, Cocolia looked briefly taken aback.
"Have you gone insane?"
"How could anyone in this world have no resistance to Honkai Energy? Are you saying you're worse off than a stray dog?"
"—That's right."
He nodded, admitting it.
Resistance to Honkai Energy was widespread, and it seemed to have been created by Dr. Mei of the Previous Era shortly before she died.
In reality, the Honkai disaster had cycled through this planet countless times. Humanity had long since gained some resistance to Honkai Energy out of necessity, forced to coexist with it.
It was a kind of evolution of the species.
Evolution over billions of years.
—And he had absolutely no resistance to Honkai Energy. He couldn't even manage the level of resistance you'd expect from the national soccer team.
Even in the place on this world with the lowest concentration of Honkai Energy, he'd probably die pretty quickly.
So...
"—Why?"
"Why... am I still alive?!"
Jiang Cheng gently closed his eyes, sensing the endless darkness before him as he tried to find the answer.
—The world was absolutely sealed off.
Amphoreus and Earth shared one thing in common: both were tightly sealed against Imaginary Energy.
No matter where they were, life could never touch true Imaginary Energy. It could only sense other forms of energy created when Imaginary Energy was transformed.
But although the seals seemed similar, they were completely different.
The latter was an absolute seal. Mars, the Aeon, could disrupt the three phases of time, and in the crossover story, the Remembrancer had even speculated that an Aeon existed here.
The Cocoon of Finality. It unified Quantum Energy and Imaginary Energy, and the life here could never come into contact with pure Imaginary Energy.
Amphoreus, in reality, could come into contact with Imaginary Energy.
As long as an Aeon cast its gaze upon it.
And in the story, an Aeon's gaze had always been directly associated with one thing—
Ascension.
"System."
He issued a command from the deepest part of his mind.
"Open a portal beside me. Let it appear in an incomplete state. Don't let me cross over all at once."
[This command carries extreme risk.]
"Kiana used her body to take bullets for me, protecting me. Raiden Mei was pushed to this point rather than transform into a Herrscher, all because she didn't want to hurt me..."
"And I'm the only one who gives nothing up? I'm the only one standing safely on the sidelines? I'm the only one who can walk away whenever I want?"
"Wouldn't that be—completely unfair?!"
[Affirmative.]
Jiang Cheng could clearly feel something twisting beside him—the air, the very fabric of space.
It was like standing beside a meat grinder cranked up to its highest setting. Just sensing it made every hair on his body stand on end. His body convulsed instinctively, and his legs seemed to lose all strength.
A fear that went bone-deep rose from within him.
His genes sounded the alarm, frantically sending the command: leave, leave, leave now.
—Reject.
—Reject.
But he lifted his shoulder and raised his left arm. By force, he shoved his left hand into the distortion.
Crack crack crack crack crack crack crack—
It was as if countless twisted, impure, incomprehensible things had been mixed and layered together, overlapping, colliding, and tearing into one another through supernatural means.
Nerve endings that had nearly been completely destroyed by the Erosion were roused in their final moments, torn apart, and set ablaze.
[Warning: Host is coming into contact with a space-time distortion. Open the portal, or your body will be crushed.]
The system's stern warning sounded in his ear—but Jiang Cheng acted as if he hadn't heard it at all.
He ignored the warnings from his body and brain.
He only raised his head and looked at the screen.
Cocolia frowned. She couldn't understand what she was seeing, and couldn't make anything out. All she could see was blood spreading beneath his left shoulder.
"Has the Honkai Energy gotten worse?"
"Hmph. An insect's life force really is feeble."
He ignored the taunts still ringing in his ears, the sparks flashing in the distance as they fought, and Raiden Mei, who kept getting hurt but still refused to yield.
As if he'd entered a state of selflessness, rising above the mirror's reflection and the moon on the water, he cast everything aside.
Before you continue