One blink. Then another.
It was hard to describe the experience.
Just like when the truck had first brought him into this world, he hadn't even felt pain—
His nerves had probably been completely destroyed in an instant.
It was the same now.
When Jiang Cheng opened his eyes again, the things flooding his vision had changed from golden waves of rippling wheat fields to a crush of buildings so dense they blotted out the sky.
The buildings spread upward, downward, and in every direction. Beneath the bright daytime sky, colorful neon lights were already flickering faintly—a sleepless city unlike anything but a modern society could produce, one the sun couldn't even suppress.
"A-Cheng~?"
His fingertips were still touching that softness.
Jiang Cheng lowered his head.
The girl gazed up at him, her eyes sparkling with the dazzling neon lights.
"Is this the place where we can get stronger quickly?" Cyrene's voice rose slightly with excitement. She was thrilled by a world unlike anything she'd ever read about, even in books.
"It's so prosperous! Even the great cities and city-states under the Titans mentioned in books must not have this many people or buildings!"
...Not necessarily.
Ancient Greece didn't have the means to build like this, but Amphoreus, where gods existed, might. It had cities in the sky and even a rainbow bridge, so skyscrapers weren't out of the question.
"If you like it, we can look around more when we have time. For now, we've got something important to do."
"Mm-hmm~"
Cyrene naturally took his hand. Her skin felt smoother than the finest silk, as if the slightest lapse in his grip would let her slip through his fingers, never to be held again.
But he never needed to hold her tightly.
"Cyrene, activate the Oronis Prayer. Hide the traces of our arrival."
Jiang Cheng glanced at the crowd around them, peering into the currents stirring beneath the calm. The sudden appearance of him and Cyrene had already caused a commotion.
Some people were fleeing; others were surrounding them with their phones raised.
If they didn't conceal themselves at once, wait another minute and their faces would instantly become a hot topic online.
The moment she heard his request, Cyrene cast aside her boneless softness and sprang into action. She raised the hand he wasn't holding—
"Draw back the curtain of time, and stir the ripples of the past."
"Cover the passage of time here—"
"Let time stand still in this place."
As her soft yet resolute voice left her lips, something utterly unscientific appeared before them.
Light? Glazed Realm? Gossamer?
For a moment, those were the things it brought to mind.
Yet it was something entirely different in essence: a misty Glazed Realm that seemed to gather all the qualities of the three at once.
The next moment, the mist spread out around them, swallowing the entire block in an instant—
The memories of their presence were forgotten.
And so, they were left like duckweed without roots.
Jiang Cheng ran toward the end of the street. Cyrene took his hand and ran alongside him, her pure-white skirt and purple coat unfurling freely in the wind like flowers.
They needed to get clear of the most dangerous area, avoid the most eyes, and make full use of their greatest advantage—stealth.
They ducked into a dead end at once and slipped into the shadows.
Meanwhile, his thoughts never stopped. He weighed the powers he might be able to access in this world:
Fusion surgery, artificial Stigmata, innate Stigmata, mechanical modifications, Herrscherization, Divine Keys.
—Not enough.
Even if he piled all of them on, it still wouldn't be enough to stand against Laigushi, let alone the Iron Curtain.
But...he couldn't just refuse to fight.
His peripheral vision caught the girl beside him, curiously studying a promotional poster pasted to the inner wall.
—Cyrene.
She would never, ever accept giving up on saving the world and fleeing Amphoreus. That would be a completely irresponsible, cowardly, despicable choice.
Perhaps he could choose to stay in this world. He could even refuse to open the door and force Cyrene to stay here with him.
But the result would surely be a falling-out, perhaps even—
No. There was no perhaps.
They'd just have to take things one step at a time.
In any case, the simplest and most promising way to stand against the Iron Curtain was to rely on Jizo Mitama. At least it could give them some hope. But there was a time limit on how to obtain it, and they needed resistance to Honkai Energy to qualify.
The prerequisite for Yae Sakura's appearance was a large amount of Honkai Energy, enough to awaken her from her slumber once more.
He looked at the purple pattern spreading from the tip of his little finger.
"—!"
At this rate, he could probably last more than a day without any help.
Strange.
Would such low levels of Honkai Energy really not kill even someone like him, with no resistance at all?
Jiang Cheng didn't dwell on it. Getting resistance to Honkai Energy with Cyrene's help wouldn't be difficult. The key was how to acquire powerful abilities as quickly and completely as possible without missing the time-limited instance.
"Cyrene."
"Mm?"
"Could I trouble you to open it a few more times?"
Cyrene puffed out her cheeks, round as a hamster that had accidentally stored too many nuts.
"I told you—"
She enunciated each word.
"Don't. Use. The. Word. Trouble!"
She raised a slender, pale finger in front of him, her lips jutting out as if she could hang an oil pot from them. "We've been living together for so, so long!"
"Acting all distant on purpose—"
"—is absolutely, absolutely not allowed~!"
"...Open it a few more times for me."
He paused. "My most, most, most important friend."
"Of. Course~!"
Cyrene brought her hands together before her chest with a clap. Her eyes and brows curved gently, like a crescent moon.
With mist the color of Glazed Realm at his feet,
Jiang Cheng ran toward the most luxurious, most elegant building, where the traffic flowed slowest and smoothest.
—And went straight inside.
—Then.
"Raiden Mei, do you want to know the truth about the world?"
Raiden Mei, do you want to know the truth about the world?
Finding Raiden Mei wasn't difficult. All he had to do was follow the hostile looks in the crowd, and he could find her as easily as a trash can—
Just like the purple hair before his eyes.
It was as smooth as a stream in the woods—clear and cool, as if it would slip through his fingers if he cupped it in his hands.
Her standard-issue sailor uniform couldn't hide her figure, already more developed than those of her peers, or her slender waist.
A delicate branch bearing a bountiful fruit.
—That was the most apt description.
Her only flaw, perhaps, was her eyes.
Indifferent, world-weary, utterly numb and devoid of light, like a lamp that had gone out.
—Though to some people, that wouldn't count as a flaw.
Raiden Mei.
Jiang Cheng silently repeated the name, meeting her faded gaze as he got straight to the point.
"Hello."
"Do you want to know the truth about the world?"
—Not a classmate.
Raiden Mei immediately came to that conclusion.
So...had the people outside school grown so impatient with bullying her after class that they had to come into the school to do it, too?
"Miss Raiden Mei."
His voice was steady, betraying no trace of nervousness.
"There's something suspicious about your father's financial fraud case. It conceals a truth you don't know."
"If you're curious about it—"
"Or if you resent the way things are now—"
"Come with me. I'll show you the shadow hidden beneath the world, the Inner World you've yet to learn about, but have already been drawn into without realizing it."
He turned and walked toward the shadows.
He didn't look back or check whether she followed. The pink-haired girl naturally walked beside him.
...Resentment?
She couldn't hear any.
Having lived in a hellish environment for so long, Raiden Mei could immediately tell what emotions people with malicious intent toward her were feeling.
Even when they pretended to save her in order to raise her hopes and then savor the moment they crushed them, they spoke with mockery.
The naked hatred in their eyes was impossible to hide.
—But she couldn't see any.
She couldn't find any trace of that emotion in his eyes. The pink-haired girl beside him was the same—
Filled with suspicion, Raiden Mei stepped forward.
Thud, thud, thud—!
The sound of her steps against the ground wasn't the soft rustle of feet brushing against grass. Instead, it sounded as if she were stepping on some kind of glazed object.
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