Chapter 143

"Don't you know how to reset your memories? How come you still remember something like this?"

"I think this is very important," Fu Hua explained.

This is the last time, really.

"..."

"All right."

After a long silence, Fu Hua finally succumbed to Elysia's bright, watery eyes.

Thank you, Hua.

"Elysia, can you tell me what you plan to do with it?" Fu Hua asked.

"Hmm... it's probably something a detective would do, right?"

With this explanation, Elysia left the room to find Kevin.

Fu Hua: "... Elysia."

Elysia: "Ahem! Hua, don't mind it. Beautiful girls always have all sorts of curiosities that need to be satisfied, you can understand, right?"

Fu Hua: "I'm not talking about that. I'm referring to the fact that you used me to erase your memories."

Elysia: "Huh? Hua, you weren't usually this petty."

Not cute at all. The current Fu Hua is not cute at all. The old, honest Fu Hua was much easier to bully.

It's all because of those Valkyrie from the St. Freya Academy; they corrupted even the honest and kind-hearted Immortal Crimson Bird.

Kiana: "How dare you bully such an honest person as the class monitor, taking advantage of her periodic memory erasure!"

Theresa: "Elysia, you're bad!"

Chapter 236 Must One Lose to Gain Insight?

Elysia's silly pranks, which involved bullying Fu Hua by periodically erasing her memories and using the borrowed Fenghuang Down to prank Kevin, naturally drew condemnation from everyone.

Bronya: "Bronya remembers, Fenghuang Down doesn't work on Kevin, right?"

Kevin: "... Hmm."

Elysia: "Theoretically, that's true, but if we take advantage of Kevin's carelessness, we can still pull off a simple prank."

Fu Hua: "Why... how do you know so much?"

The Immortal Crimson Bird suspected that Elysia had used several of the sixteen Fenghuang Down she had borrowed to play pranks on Kevin.

Elysia: "Yeah, it's just a gut feeling, don't worry about it. Asking so many questions makes me shy, you know."

Naturally changing the subject, Elysia turned her attention back to the screen.

In the scene, Elysia approaches Kevin and, taking him by surprise, delivers a Fenghuang Down.

After the operation, Kevin stood there motionless, as if he were being controlled by Fenghuang Down.

Has the Fenghuang Down taken effect?

Elysia approached, talking to herself.

"Hey Kevin, even you make mistakes. Let me think, what kind of illusion should I create for you? It has to be really interesting."

"I've got it! I'll take you back to the way things were before, back to when...: before you completely turned into an ice block."

"And then, I want to hear you tell me jokes."

This is a very good situation. Elysia has already planned to save Kevin's embarrassing past and show it to Kevin in person later.

He'll be very surprised!

"Elysia, have you had enough fun?"

Kevin's sudden words caused Elysia's expression to stiffen.

"Uh, ah... this..."

After holding her breath for a while, Elysia still couldn't think of a reason to defuse this awkward situation.

The Fenghuang Down hadn't actually taken effect yet, but Kevin's quiet nature gave her the illusion that it had.

Thinking about it carefully, I'm so annoyed.

"Ahem... Kevin, we're both adults now, can you please stop playing these little tricks?"

"I'm still very busy, I have to go now."

Elysia waved her hand and left the room calmly, showing no trace of the embarrassment she had just felt.

The video ends here.

Kevin: "..."

Elysia: "Ahem! Kevin, I'm just trying to help you. You're so cold right now, using Fenghuang Down can help you rediscover the joy of your student days."

Kevin: "... There's really no need for that."

Elysia: "Kevin, you're just too cold. You were cold before, but you'll be even colder Fifty Thousand Years from now."

At the end of the day, Elysia had returned to the Death Space.

Elysia's encounter with Kevin in the Sea of Quanta allowed her to sense his state of mind.

The cold was as biting as ice and snow.

Pardofelis: "Cold? Boss Kevin is always cold, but as long as you don't get too close, it's actually quite cool."

Fu Hua: "Pardo, I don't think you mean 'cold' in the same way."

Elysia: "Pardo, let me tell you, Kevin has really changed a lot. The first time I saw him, I almost thought I had fallen into an ice cave."

Pardofelis: "Sister Elysia, it's not as exaggerated as you say."

Elysia: "Not an exaggeration, not at all."

Although after Elysia's enthusiastic persuasion (she practically dragged Kevin along and talked incessantly to him), Kevin was much better than when Elysia first met him.

But time has extinguished his emotions, and his indifferent, cold gaze has formed a hard iceberg that is not so easily melted.

Elysia: "Kevin, try to smile more. This world is so much fun. Raven even has a little island; we can organize World Serpent tour anytime."

Kevin: "..."

Raven: "?!! Hey, hey, hey, don't get me in trouble, Elysia!"

The fact that the World Serpent's executives came to her island for a trip suggests that she probably thought one Herrscher of the Void wasn't enough for her to be wary of, and that she had to bring that whole group of monsters along as well.

Pardofelis: "Yeah, Boss Kevin. If we were in a different place, the first thing I'd do after leaving the Sea of Quanta is run to Raven's Island and feast, enjoying the sea breeze and sunshine."

Pardofelis: "There are also intelligent maids there, taking meticulous care of me. Just thinking about it makes me envious."

Kevin: "..."

There's nothing you can do about it; that girl, Pardo, has always been like this, and Kevin can't do anything about it.

Theresa: "Kevin, maybe you shouldn't carry out that Shenghe Project. The thought of you causing trouble with the World Serpent after you get out is a little scary."

Even her grandfather Otto had to negotiate and deal with this kind of person, so what could Theresa possibly do?

Could she possibly lead the Valkyrie to fight Kevin?

Kevin: "This world... needs someone to make a sacrifice."

Gray Serpent: "Your will. Countless people have sacrificed themselves for the current situation. The world is not inherently beautiful; it's just that too many people are numb and unaware of it."

Theresa: "?!!"

Kiana: "Elysia, didn't you try to persuade Kevin before? It didn't seem to work."

They thought that Elysia's intervention would persuade Kevin to abandon the Stigmata Project.

Elysia: "I succeeded! Kevin agreed to extend the time for his return. As long as humanity in the Current Era cannot hold on, the Stigmata Project will remain in the planning stages."

To defeat the Honkai, World Serpent has been secretly preparing for countless years; it's impossible for them to give up so easily.

Bronya: "Isn't this the same as before?"

Raven: "There's not much difference... Well, it's none of my business anyway, I'm retired."

Raven so hard for so many years to raise money to buy a villa island, and now that she's finally laid off, what's wrong with enjoying herself a little?

Gray Serpent: "Many of us, like Jackal, believe in the Stigmata Project, what you call the Current Era people. They are not Villain; they simply have different ideologies stemming from different experiences in the same era."

Kiana: "Different ideologies? Jackal is just plain crazy, isn't she? We've seen all her experimental subjects."

Human bodies are assembled using machinery, and their bodies are soaked in chemicals.

No matter how you look at it, that kind of experiment is beyond the scope of what a normal person can accept.

Gray Serpent: "A fledgling bird only understands the difficulty of obtaining food after losing its mother; plants only understand the preciousness of morning dew after losing their water source... Does a person really have to lose something before they can have an epiphany?"

Gray Serpent: "When the edifice collapses, order crumbles, and Honkai rages across the world, perhaps then you will understand that we... were the ones who were right."

Chapter 237 What was the gift Gray Serpent gave Kevin?

It won't be difficult for humanity to gain some enlightenment and understand the significance of the Stigmata Project. For the World Serpent, there will only be one thing to give up.

Time.

The World Serpent takes time, the Stigmata Project takes time, resource acquisition takes time, and dealing with Schicksal takes time.

But Gray Serpent had no shortage of time.

Since the Lord has agreed to extend the timeline of the Stigmata Project, he has enough time to wait.

We await the day when humanity of this era will pay a heavy price for its arrogance and hubris.

The World Serpent executives who support the Stigmata Project believe in its doctrines and in the Stigmata Project's victory, much like mortals believe in the existence of the sun in the sky.

Gray Serpent: "Human life is short, and time is precious. Some people's time is priceless, while others' time is worthless, but for me, time is merely a commodity to be traded on a scale."

Kiana: "Why does this person always say such nonsensical things?"

Raven: "Who knows?"

[Q&A begins.]

[After Kevin returned to World Serpent, what did Gray Serpent personally present to him as a gift?]

[Quick Answer Question]

Gray Serpent: "A gift to our lord?"

The system's question startled Gray Serpent for a second. He stared at the question, deep in thought, as if he had too many options in his mind and didn't know which one to choose.

Raven: "Gray Serpent, don't tell me you didn't know."

Gray Serpent: "I'm sorry, but sometimes thinking too much isn't an easy thing. As you all know, with the resources of the World Serpent, there are far too many gifts we could offer to the Lord as a token of our respect."

Kiana: "For example?"

Kiana was the first to disbelieve that there were still too many treasures to give away.

The World Serpent's struggle for resources with Schicksal has resulted in a series of defeats. Without Kevin, the organization run solely by the Gray Serpent is nowhere near as glorious as he claims.

Gray Serpent: "For example, the Divine Key, or the Core of the Herrscher of Reason."

Bronya: "?!!"

Welt: "I can understand the Divine Key, but the Core of the Herrscher of Reason... are you trying to steal it from the Alliance Leader?"

Was it that the Gray Serpent had become too weak, or had Welt simply lost his ability to wield his sword?

He accepted that he couldn't beat Kevin, and he accepted being trapped in the Sea of Quanta, but that didn't mean that any Tom, Dick, or Harry of World Serpent could bully him, the Herrscher of Reason.

Gray Serpent: "Why not? The Herrscher of Reason constructed a labyrinth to trap our Lord. Now that our Lord has returned, he must be in a weakened state. What difficulty is there in obtaining a Herrscher Core from Anti-Entropy?"

Kiana: "I don't believe it."

If you were truly that capable, you would have taken Kevin out of the Sea of Quanta long ago. Why would Welt have needed to be so foolish as to open the Eye of the Abyss?

Welt: "If it weren't for Sovereign Welt accidentally opening the Eye of the Abyss, you wouldn't even know how to enter the depths of the Sea of Quanta."

Theresa: "Exactly! If that Welt hadn't been out of his mind and opened the Eye of the Abyss for no reason, none of this would have happened."