Honkai Double Transmigration, Taking Xilian to Honkai Impact 3rd

If I were truly born with a divine oracle.

Then...

Please, let me grow into someone worthy of that prophecy!

She raised her right hand toward the front, the young girl finally ceasing her evasion as she stared straight at the iron legion—

"Draw back the curtain of time, stir the ripples of the past."

A god capable of vying with the blazing sun in the heavens should never be limited to mere power such as this!

If the past could be summoned, then, what if all of my strength were poured into it?

Could I, perhaps, reject them—

----Completely. Entirely. Denied----

Exerting every ounce of effort, sparing no cost! Even if it meant losing myself, losing my soul, it did not matter!

Squeezing out everything within her, as if her self, her memories, her existence, and her very being were being consumed like a candle, the delicate girl was gradually drained of her color.

White, pink, blue...

However.

As she burned to the final thread, like the last flicker of a candle's wick—

It stopped.

It could not burn, it could not ignite.

That which seemed to be stained pink, a crystalline condensation, was so fundamentally noble that it could not be consumed—not even by a single iota!

In theory, perpetual motion machines do not exist in this world; energy in the universe is absolutely conserved, and the operation of any object must be predicated on the consumption of another.

Yet, the manifestation appearing before her eyes trampled such laws underfoot without a moment's hesitation.

Burning, yet refusing to be consumed; instead, it was as if some mechanism had been triggered.

The colors that had been exhausted transformed into the candle itself, fueling the flame. In a way that defied all understanding, as if time were flowing backward, she was gradually dyed back to her original state, allowing her faded skin and hair to reclaim their pure beauty.

And then.

--The Great Fantasy Ritual unfolds here!

As if to overturn the entire world, a sweet, clear, pink mist manifested.

Xing intended to wave her hand once more to command the Titan Legion, to crush the other's struggle and persistence along with the mist.

But for the first time, no matter how she issued orders or called out, she received no response.

She turned her head, her heterochromatic pupils shrinking sharply.

--Sealed.

Though such a term might seem strange, the surrounding Titan Mechs had indeed been sealed.

Wrapped in pink crystals.

Perhaps one could call it trapped, or use another word. But the moment Xing saw this scene, she felt it from the bottom of her heart, naturally and instinctively—

--Sealing.

As if something precious were being temporarily locked away to be preserved for a long time.

And more importantly.

Those crystals were still spreading, growing, and sprouting branches. They constructed an abstract model of a tree.

Just as she had perceived before, even though the sprouting branches were strange and the whole structure was bizarre, she subconsciously referred to the entity as a tree.

"What on earth are you playing at?"

"I just wanted to let everyone exist for a little while longer."

She clasped her hands behind her back, her slender fingertips twisting together restlessly. Her body leaned forward slightly like a willow branch swayed by a spring breeze, and the sapphire pendant on her chest traced a graceful arc. Her small head tilted playfully to the right, her right eye closing gently, casting delicate shadows of long lashes onto her cheek.

Though she could not understand why she felt as if she had sacrificed nothing, her previously restless heart suddenly calmed, and her worry for A-Cheng was smoothed away.

It seemed as if she had already done everything she was meant to do.

29. Witness my fury! (Revised)

"What is the meaning of this attitude? Closing your eyes for no reason, talking to yourself for no reason, becoming stronger for no reason—do you think this is a stage play?!"

Xing could not tolerate this. She maneuvered the Titan Mech beneath her to bypass the spreading crystals and clenched her fist to charge forward, but before she could do so—

The tips of her toes, too, turned into pink crystals.

The crystallization, spreading from the ends of her hair, was swifter than anything that had sealed the mechs before.

"Do you think that by doing this, that boy will survive?"

"You..."

"..."

"Doubt, worry—there's no need for those anymore," Xilian said, her pale, onion-white fingertips gently closing together. "I have always trusted A-Cheng the most, you know?"

"There is no need to worry anymore; A-Cheng has already resolved everything—that is what the depths of my heart are telling me. The only thing left to think about... is revenge!"

"Besides, A-Cheng is no fool!"

"Of course you're a fool, barging into my hunting ground so self-righteously, thinking you could just escape."

"Even if you were to kneel and surrender now, it would be useless. Once that member of the Kaslana family exhausts her stamina, you will die at the hands of my excellent daughter—"

"At the hands of Bronya, thereby triggering the Third Great Honkai and laying the foundation for my victory. From this day on, history will be rewritten."

Cocolia continued to mock and boast, spilling out the plan she had prepared for so long, bit by bit.

This was perhaps the common failing of a villain; after preparing for so long, how could one resist showing it off?

But Jiang Cheng didn't care. He simply swayed his arm, which was more than half-rotted and completely useless, muttering to himself.

"Why didn't I think of it?" he murmured, as if talking to himself—

"Why didn't I realize it?"

"I shouldn't have any Honkai Energy resistance at all!"

Watching Jiang Cheng speak incomprehensible words like a fool, Cocolia's gaze faltered for a brief moment.

"Have you gone mad, you wretch?"

"How could there be anyone in this world without Honkai Energy resistance? You aren't trying to say you're worse than a stray dog on the side of the road, are you?"

"—That's right."

He nodded, admitting it.

The widespread Honkai Energy resistance appeared to have been created by Dr. Mei of the Previous Era before her death.

In reality, the catastrophe of the Honkai had cycled countless times on this planet, and people had long since gained a degree of resistance due to being forced to coexist with it.

It was equivalent to the evolution of a species.

Hundreds of millions of years of evolution.

—And as someone with absolutely no Honkai Energy resistance, someone who didn't even possess the level of resistance found in a national football team's worth of talent—

Even staying in the place with the weakest concentration of Honkai Energy in this world, he would likely drop dead very quickly.

So then.

"—Why?"

"Why am I... not dead?!"

Jiang Cheng gently closed his eyes, sensing the endless darkness in his vision as he tried to find the answer.

—The world was an absolute blockade.

The commonality between Omphalos and Earth was their strict sealing of Imaginary Energy.

In either place, life could never touch true Imaginary Energy; they could only perceive other forms of matter and energy that had been converted from it.

But while the blockades appeared identical, they were fundamentally different.

The latter was a seal in the absolute sense. The Aeon of Mars was capable of disrupting the three phases of time, and in the crossover story, the Remembrancer even speculated that an Aeon existed there.

The Cocoon of Finality integrated Quantum and Imaginary energy, ensuring that life within its domain could never touch pure Imaginary energy.

Omphalos, however, could essentially be touched by Imaginary energy.

As long as an Aeon cast their gaze upon it.

And the gaze of an Aeon, as described in the story, had always corresponded directly to one thing—

Ascension.

"System."

He issued a command to the deepest part of his heart.

"Open a portal beside me. Display the portal in an incomplete state; do not let my entire body arrive immediately."

[This command carries extreme risk.]

"Kiana took bullets with her body to protect me, and Raiden Mei was forced to such an extent that she refused to transform into a Herrscher just to avoid involving me..."

"Am I the only one who pays nothing? Am I the only one standing on the sidelines? Am I the only one who can pull away at any time?"

"Isn't that—just too unfair?!"

[Acknowledged.]

Jiang Cheng could clearly feel a distortion—a distortion of the air, a distortion of the patterns—appearing beside him.

It was as if a meat grinder had been turned to its maximum setting; the mere sensation made the hair on his body stand on end, his body convulsed instinctively, and his legs felt as if all their strength were being drained away.

A fear that seeped into his very marrow emanated from the depths of his heart.

His genetic warnings blared, frantically transmitting the command to leave, leave, leave immediately.

--Refused.

--Refused.

But he raised his shoulder, raised his left arm, and forcibly shoved his left hand into the distortion.

Snap-snap-snap-snap-snap-snap-snap—

It was as if countless twisted, impure, and incomprehensible things were mixed and layered together, overlapping, colliding, and tearing at each other in a supernatural fashion.

His nerve endings, already nearly completely ruined by the Erosion, were awakened, shredded, and ignited in their final moments of life.

[Warning: Host is making contact with a space-time distortion. Please open a portal, or the host's body will be pulverized.]

A stern alert sounded in his ear—yet Jiang Cheng acted as if he had not heard the warning at all.

He ignored the warnings from his body and his brain.

He simply raised his head and looked at the screen.

Cocolia frowned; she could not comprehend this scene at all, nor could she see anything, save for the patches of blood blooming from beneath his left shoulder.

"Has the Honkai Energy worsened?"

"Heh. The vitality of a bug is, as expected, pathetic."

He ignored the taunts still echoing in his ears, the sparks flying from the ongoing clash in the distance, and Raiden Mei, who continued to fight back despite her injuries.

It was as if he had stepped into a realm of selflessness, reaching beyond the mirror and the moon, casting everything else behind him.