E.T. Studio / Moth

"Perhaps I'll disappoint you. I am Domination, not a Thousand."

The Lamb would not abandon lives that wished to live. This time, he would take the initiative to pull someone into the Theater of Domination.

The black-and-white mark on Jian Yun's forearm, as she stood ready to jump from the building, faintly emerged and gradually began to glow. Then she heard that voice.

[Welcome to the Theater of Domination.]

"Is that you?" Her body had completely slipped out of her control, yet Jian Yun showed no reaction. By now, she had largely given up her desire to live and had withdrawn her consciousness into a corner. Yet that familiar voice pulled her back from despair. "You didn't abandon me. You came back for me?"

"..."

He said nothing. Su Jue could be said to be personally responsible for Jian Yun's current state, and he did not want to repeat his mistakes. At a time like this, the best course was not to let her develop any unnecessary thoughts.

Even so, he could clearly sense Jian Yun's lost will to survive slowly returning. After discovering that Su Jue controlled her body, she simply gave up control altogether and handed every movement over to the Herrscher.

Trapped deep in a mire, she had always longed for someone to pull her out. That had been true before the disaster, and it remained true after she fell into despair.

She had never hated Su Jue himself. What she resented was her own helplessness, and the fact that no one had reached out a hand when she had been at her most desperate.

"I heard that when people die, they see the ghostly messengers who come to take their lives. Looks like I can still hear his voice before I die..."

Tortured by loneliness and darkness for far too long, Jian Yun muttered almost without pause. Su Jue did not find it annoying. It was a form of self-rescue for those who had fallen into despair. He had once been the same.

Pulling back the curtains, Su Jue looked at the high-rises outside. Nearly a week had passed since the Honkai outbreak. During that time, the incident had practically taken Shenzhou's internet by storm. Sky City officials had finally noticed the safety hazards in the outskirts, resettling all the victims and relocating them to new residential areas.

Unfortunately, Jian Yun's family had been denied resettlement compensation on the grounds that Jian Yun was still alive. They had only been relocated. Post-disaster trauma continued to torment everyone, and while everyone else licked their wounds together, Jian Yun's family became social outcasts.

When you lacked the courage to face others, the Thousand would give you courage.

When you lacked the strength to break free from the mire, the Thousand would give you strength.

Pushing open the bedroom door, Su Jue noticed Jian Zheng, who had been babbling drunken nonsense, looking toward her. Perhaps knowing his daughter might have heard what he said, he raised a hand to explain. But Su Jue ignored him and walked straight out.

The moment the door opened, a neighbor resettled on the same floor spotted her and shot her a malicious glare. Su Jue looked back at him and flashed a broad smile.

"Good afternoon."

"Little bitch, your classmates are all dead and you still have the nerve to smile!" The neighbor across from her was clearly provoked by that smile and cursed under his breath.

"But I survived. You can say I was lucky, or call me a jinx, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm alive and well. I survived the disaster, so why can't I smile?"

"..."

"Can I smile? Everyone else is dead." Jian Yun's voice sounded in her mind. It was her own body, yet it had made a choice she would not even dare think of. This feeling... was so strange.

When everyone wanted you dead, the best choice was to live better than all of them.

"They're just failures barely surviving in the mud. They lack the courage to fight reality, so they can only direct their malice at innocent people weaker than themselves." As if possessed, Su Jue patiently explained it to her. She went downstairs alone. Nearly everyone in the building cast venomous looks at her, and some even deliberately cursed loud enough for Su Jue to hear.

But so what? Living had always meant living for yourself.

"Since the balance has already been broken, why not try drawing a line between yourself and them?"

"But my family is just ordinary people." Perhaps Su Jue's control of Jian Yun's body had shown her an entirely different way of living, and she was gradually infected by that confidence. Still, she remained doubtful.

"But they are not you. You are independent. You are autonomous. You don't need to care about other people's stares or worry about what they think."

"I saved your life. You don't need to live for them."

"So it really was you?"

"..."

For the past week, Jian Yun had spent most of her time locked in her room. Later, she had even become afraid of light itself. Prolonged hunger and mental exhaustion had nearly destroyed her body. What Su Jue needed to do was help her return to a normal life—and live it better.

One day later.

Jian Yun had grown used to Su Jue's control, but when she saw where she had arrived, her soul still trembled.

Victims' Resettlement Cemetery.

"Your classmates are all here. If you don't come and see them, you'll never find the courage to face them."

After verifying her identity, Su Jue entered the excessively vast cemetery. There were simply too many graves; wherever he looked, there were black-and-white photographs. Some were familiar, while others were strangers.

When Su Jue finally stopped and saw so many familiar names and faces, Jian Yun could no longer restrain her emotions and began to sob quietly.

"They are all waiting for you, but they don't want to take you with them. They want you to see them off."

With a deep sigh, Su Jue released control of her body.

"Say goodbye to them, Jian Yun."

E.T. Studio

Sometimes, living required more courage than dying. Only when you were trapped in mud could you understand how foul the mire truly was. Yet after crossing the swamp, passing through the valley, and breaking free from the black forest that devoured people whole, the sight awaiting you would be even more breathtaking.

Jian Yun looked at herself in the mirror. The heavy gloom had already faded, and her eyes gleamed brightly. She gently patted her adorable cheeks with wet hands, leaving them moist and dewy.

"Come on, Jian Yun. Be the best version of yourself."

Pushing open the bathroom door, she found the bright morning sun illuminating the entire room. Though some corners remained cloaked in darkness, Jian Yun did not care. Starting today, she would leave this place.

Her parents looked at her anxiously in the living room. Her father, Jian Zheng, had even stopped drinking and raised a hand, wanting to keep her from leaving.

But Jian Yun was completely different from how she had been two days ago. At this moment, her entire body seemed to radiate light. She began to yearn for distant places and no longer wished to remain confined to this tiny city.

"Goodbye, Mom and Dad. I'm heading out! I'll call you once I get there~"

"Xiaoyun..."

She had already dragged her luggage out the door. Facing her parents' attempts to stop her, Jian Yun gave them a brilliant smile. "I heard what you said that day. This city doesn't welcome me. Now I want to pursue a new life, so please don't try to keep me."

Bang—

The door closed. The couple looked at each other, and in the end, all that remained was a helpless sigh.

Two hours later, Jian Yun had boarded a plane to another city. Thanks to her exceptional writing skills, she had found a new job at a company called miHoYo... ah, no, E.T. Studio, where she would be responsible for game animation scripts. Thinking of sharing her experiences with everyone filled Jian Yun with heartfelt joy.

A new girl puppet had appeared in the Theater of Domination. She stood properly on the stage, bathed in cascading light. Su Jue sat alone among the audience, quietly feeling the enhancement the girl puppet brought him.

"My lifespan increased by a full two years. My combat ability didn't improve much, but the Herrscher of a Thousand's shared attributes increased quite a bit as well."

Born from humanity's most beautiful affection, then tainted by despair, and ultimately redeemed in spirit. This made the emotions attached to the puppet exceptionally intense. After being devoured by the Lamb, those intense emotions became the finest nourishment for Su Jue.

Based on the Herrscher of a Thousand's methods in the original story, the best choice would generally be to select those touched by darkness, drive them into despair, and create puppets from that despair. That way, they could produce puppets filled with hatred to cause destruction and disrupt order.

However, the things created that way would ultimately just be a rabble. They looked utterly mad, but they would shatter at the first blow.

Instead, Su Jue had stumbled into this by accident. He had only wanted to leave a contingency against Flamescion on Jian Yun, but after abandoning that plan, he decided to lend her a hand. Then the Honkai Beast attack quietly arrived.

At the time, his main consciousness had been dealing with matters on World Serpent's side. The one left at the school was merely a puppet named [Su Jue], controlled by only a fraction of his consciousness. That was why he had been seriously injured by the Honkai Beast attack in that battle. Afterward, the puppet entered a recovery state and disappeared from public view.

As a result, all of the resentment at the time was focused on Jian Yun. Su Jue's puppet vanishing also made Jian Yun feel that he had abandoned her, plunging her into despair and ultimately leading her to attempt suicide.

One wrong step led to another. Fortunately, Su Jue still had a way to make things right. He used the Wolf and Lamb mark to absorb Jian Yun's resentment, eventually forming the current puppet. (The plot was supposed to develop this way. There should have been a World Serpent interlude where he obtained the Ink Moth codename, but that felt a little disjointed, so I skipped it. Turns out I skipped too far.)

The puppet born from such complicated emotional upheaval was remarkably pure. Not only could its negative emotions be completely absorbed and turned into nourishment, but there was no need to worry about his own mind being polluted.

A willow planted without intent had grown into shade. Not bad at all.

As for Jian Yun herself, Su Jue naturally blurred her memories and sent her to work at his company.

With the strong support of Xiaolei, their workhorse artist, the [Thousand and Lamb] company had gained a modest reputation and produced quite a few excellent comics. Many of those comics had been pulled from Su Jue's memories. Some were original works, of course, but without an exceptional story editor, the original comics were not particularly outstanding.

With the Herrscher of a Thousand's shared abilities, Xiaolei only needed to sketch a rough outline. Then, through the tireless overtime of tool puppets, she could perfectly draw whatever she wanted. This allowed the tiny company known as [Thousand and Lamb] to sweep through nearly half the comics market with terrifying quality and output, raking in money at a frantic pace.

Now that Jian Yun had joined them, even if her talent for writing scripts was not exceptional, the Thousand Laws' enhancement would allow her to create excellent works. It was time to expand.

However, although [Thousand and Lamb] was not very famous yet, Su Jue knew he would inevitably clash with Schicksal and World Serpent in the future. Continuing to use that name would make it easy for others to uncover his identity, so he had founded a brand-new animation and game company—E.T. Studio.

As for the [Thousand and Lamb] name, it would gradually be hidden away and serve as the link connecting all his businesses. In any case, all the major people in charge were hosts of his puppets, so betrayal was impossible. He would let them cooperate with each other and gradually expand their influence.

Use "love and peace" to reform humanity?

No. Once Jian Yun began writing game scenarios and animation scripts, she would surely share the pain she had suffered with future players a hundred or even a thousand times over, providing Su Jue with hundreds or thousands of potential puppet candidates.

Just imagining that wonderful scene filled Su Jue with anticipation. If literary works could drag all the young people in the world into a vortex of resentment, how wonderful would that be?

After entrusting the two of them with such a difficult task, Su Jue turned his attention back to Sky City.

By now, more than half of Su Jue's plan had basically been realized. But he knew perfectly well that the real danger still awaited him, because the one he was about to provoke was World Serpent, which possessed Kevin, the Previous Civilization's strongest warrior.

Ink Moth

Three days earlier, the seventh underground floor of Shencheng Pharmaceuticals' trade district.

As the minutes on the electronic screen reset to zero once more, it signified that it was now nine o'clock at night. Even employees accustomed to overtime were feeling somewhat exhausted. Fortunately, it was finally time to get off work and return to the staff dormitories for a proper rest.

The office lights across the work area went out one after another. A young female assistant who had lagged behind after finishing packing her things let out a huge yawn. Her eyes were blurry with sleepiness, but she still accurately spotted her supervisor and quickly sat up straight, greeting him with a smile. "Supervisor, you're not off work yet? You've worked hard."

Hearing the assistant's voice, the supervisor in charge of trade district exports seemed startled. His body gave an unnatural shudder before immediately returning to normal.

"Uh, why are you still here so late? The company's security robots are quite reliable, but you're a young woman. You still need to be careful walking alone at night." With a stern expression, he reprimanded the assistant, half out of concern and half in criticism.

The young assistant stuck out her tongue and lowered her head in acknowledgment. Only after the supervisor left did she happily take her things and leave the office.

She had arranged to have a late-night snack with friends that evening. Though she was tired, her friend was treating her, and no matter how sleepy she was, she had to go if there was free delicious food. With that thought in mind, after taking the elevator back up to the first floor, she instinctively used the lobby glass as a mirror. She found no signs of weight gain on her face.

"Looks like I'm naturally gorgeous after all. How could a mere midnight snack make me gain weight?" She was in such a good mood that she never noticed the black shadow flashing across the glass.

On the eighth underground floor, the supervisor who had just greeted the assistant was now cursing furiously. "Damn it, why isn't she going home this late at night? Scaring the hell out of me. I'm docking her pay this month."

After silently adding the assistant to his list of grudges, the supervisor arrived at the accounting audit office on the eighth floor. At the same time, he activated the jamming device in his hand, freezing all surveillance footage in the area at several minutes earlier.

"Once I'm done with this job, I'm leaving the country. What kind of garbage company makes people sign confidentiality agreements..." Feeling overheated, he tugged at his collar and skillfully placed a decryption card against the electronic lock. With a beep, the lock opened.

But what greeted him was not company funds ready to be embezzled, but the dark muzzle of a gun.

"Oh? Good evening, Mr. Supervisor. Isn't it supposed to be after work now? I wonder why you're here?" The young woman looked at him with a smile, yet her ruby-red eyes were cold and utterly devoid of emotion.

"I was just... No, who are you people? This is Shencheng Pharmaceuticals' territory! Aren't you damned intruders afraid of our security personnel?" Though startled, the supervisor reacted quickly and immediately began questioning them in return.

"Mm-hm? Pretty clever, aren't you? But unfortunately for you, I'm the person in charge of Shencheng Pharmaceuticals." Raven removed her hood, exposing her short gray hair. Only then did the supervisor remember the personnel files he had seen in the company's HR department.

With that realization, he immediately lowered his posture. "May I ask what brings Miss Xiola to the trade district so late at night? Is there anything I can assist you with?"

"Ah, there is indeed something I need your help with. I've heard there have recently been several signs of company assets being transferred. Mr. Supervisor, do you recall anything about that?"

"Miss Xiola, isn't the word 'recall' a little inaccurate? It should be 'clues'..." The supervisor wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. The intense unease in his heart made his entire body tremble slightly.

Realizing she had indeed used the wrong word, Raven pressed her forehead apologetically. Yet the gun in her other hand did not move in the slightest. "Sorry. What I mean is, confess—do you have anything to confess?"

"No..."

"No?" Raven seemed surprised by the answer. It was hard to tell whether she was surprised that he truly had not embezzled company funds, or that he actually dared to say it. Maintaining that expression, she looked toward her two companions standing in the shadows. "Hey, Chen Tianwu, should we show him what you found?"

Chen Tianwu, holding an electronic tablet after finishing the accounts, raised his head and glanced at her. He was dissatisfied with her exaggerated acting.

The middle-aged man on the other side lowered his eyes and patiently explained, "According to my intelligence, Mr. Supervisor transferred 2.1 million, 3.2 million... through trade channels five months ago, three months ago, two months ago, and one week ago respectively."

"Enough, enough." Raven interrupted the middle-aged man's rambling and looked at the supervisor, whose face was now full of terror. "Anything you want to explain?"

"No! No! Don't kill me, don't—"

Bang—!

Blood splattered across the wall, painting a portrait belonging to the greedy.

The foul, bloody stench made Raven frown. She led the other two out of the accounting office.

"He actually dared to embezzle that much money. It's almost enough to buy my island..." Raven shut the door in annoyance and tapped the communicator on her wrist. With the parasite dealt with, the rest was no longer her concern. The body and the transferred funds could both be handled by logistics.

The middle-aged man—Su Jue's puppet controlled through the father—could not resist adding, "According to my investigation, Miss Xiola's private villa island should have cost around one hundred and thirty million..."

Before he could finish, the gun Raven had just used to kill someone was pressed against his forehead. Her expression was extremely dark. "No matter how you learned that information, I think you should shut up."

Su Jue immediately cowered and made a gesture across his mouth with his hand, indicating that he would not say anything more. Only then did Raven move the gun away and return it to its holster.

"All right. You and Chen Tianwu found seven or eight parasites for the Serpent in just five days and prevented a huge amount of unnecessary financial loss. I will report your contributions. If nothing unexpected happens, you'll soon have your own codenames." She put her hood back on, and the feathered cloak over her shoulders covered her body. "Like my codename, Raven, you can prepare a title for yourselves. If the Serpent approves of it, it will be adopted directly."

After exchanging a glance with Chen Tianwu beside him, Su Jue looked at the hallway lights and spoke softly. "Then how about Ink Moth?"

"Hm? Does it mean something?"

"Ink spilled across white paper, staining it with darkness and painting a moth that belongs to chaos. An ink moth painted on paper does not chase the flickering firelight, nor does it covet the paper's pristine whiteness. It only offers its chaos to the supreme Serpent." Su Jue lowered his posture, like a faithful believer and a seeker who had glimpsed the truth.

"I didn't think you were actually willing to devote yourself to World Serpent. Let me remind you, the Serpent has never been that kind." Noticing Su Jue's somewhat fanatical demeanor, Raven frowned. Though she was also a World Serpent operative, she held little affection for it and knew just how dark its deeds were.

Su Jue smiled but said nothing, and Raven did not try to persuade him further.