"That feeling... it's getting closer..." Hanxing muttered to himself. The feeling was naturally that Firefly's "fate" was drawing near. His urgency left him unable to continue tracking the three of them, so he sliced open a spatial portal and went straight to the lobby.
"This is... the place, right?" Firefly panted in the middle of the lobby. She had clearly just run there, and she kept glancing warily around her, as though something had chased her there.
Firefly! Hanxing appeared at one side of the lobby and spotted Firefly in the middle at once, but to avoid exposing himself, he only cried out in his heart.
At that moment, Caelus and the other two approached from another direction. Firefly turned at the sound and glanced toward Hanxing out of the corner of her eye, but to avoid exposing him, she did not look directly at him.
With Tuning active, no one except Acheron could see Hanxing. And as long as he did nothing threatening, Acheron probably would not interfere. There was no time for Hanxing to think any further. The feeling of a hand gripping his heart returned. "Fate" was about to reveal itself, and he had no choice but to rush toward Firefly while maintaining Tuning.
Suddenly, a cloud of purple mist appeared above Hanxing. Dormancy's blade swept past his head and carried Firefly, who had turned back around, straight into the air. Crack- Death's wing blade pierced Firefly's slender body, and a few tears appeared on her face from the unbearable pain. Then the blade drove deeper, and tears streamed uncontrollably down her cheeks.
"'Fate'..." Firefly murmured as the wing blade flung her down from the sky. Her body drifted slowly toward the ground like a weightless feather. At the very last moment, Hanxing reached her and caught the vanishing Firefly in his arms. But it was too late. The instant Hanxing touched her, her body dissolved into blue-purple Memoria and scattered across the ground, as though she had never existed.
Since none of the three knew Firefly, none of them stepped forward. They were merely shocked and frightened, as though they had witnessed a murder. But Acheron saw Hanxing racing toward them, and when she noticed him rushing for Firefly, the hand she had been about to draw her blade with quietly fell to her side.
After Firefly fell, Black Swan and Acheron shielded Caelus behind them to prevent Dormancy from striking again. But Dormancy merely vanished slowly, leaving only a cloud of purple mist.
"Is this... a dream?" Caelus asked Acheron, his voice tinged with doubt and surprise. "It seems so... This place is very different from the dream on the surface," Acheron replied. Right now, they should have been more worried about the other members of the Astral Express Crew.
"I'm terribly sorry, but I must leave for a short while... 'Death' is still roaming about. I must personally check on Miss Himeko and Miss March 7th and warn them... I'll leave Caelus in your care, Miss Acheron." Black Swan sounded somewhat worried. Then she left the scene.
After Hanxing recovered from Firefly's death in the middle of the lobby, he altered Tuning's audio and slowly walked over as Yan Bai. "Are you... from the Astral Express?"
"And you are?" Acheron asked cautiously, placing a hand on her blade in case the person before her had ill intentions. "Yan Bai, the boyfriend of the lady who just died." Hanxing's voice trembled slightly. "I witnessed everything, but I hate that I was a step too late. I want... to avenge her."
"That's awful, watching the one you love vanish before your eyes..." Caelus's voice took on a comforting tone. "Then come with us. We'll definitely help you get revenge!"
"Thank you..." Hanxing's voice was a little choked, but that was only how Caelus perceived him under Tuning. In reality, he and Acheron were on the verge of a fight.
"If you intend to hurt him, don't blame me for using some special measures." Acheron's voice was icy enough to drip water. She could see through all of Hanxing's disguises under Tuning, so naturally, she found him untrustworthy.
"Don't be like that." Hanxing's voice was just as confrontational. "I told you, all I want is to avenge my girlfriend. You should have seen it all from the side."
As far as Acheron was concerned, his claim that Firefly was his girlfriend was not in doubt. What she should have been most wary of was his strength, lest she be unable to stop him in time if he meant to attack. "You can see I don't have any weapons, can't you?" Hanxing spread his hands, showing that he had no intention of stabbing them in the back.
"Then I advise you to keep your promise. Otherwise, I'll strike back no matter the cost," Acheron threatened him one last time. Then her expression changed. "In that case, welcome aboard."
"All right, I'm counting on you." Hanxing forced a smile, then listened to the rest of their conversation. But this, too, was only an illusion. In an instant, he left the spot while leaving a double behind.
"Firefly is..." Hanxing slowly calmed his mind and searched for the mark he had left by glancing at Firefly when he had encountered Dormancy and fought it earlier. But the mark was too faint to sense easily. After several attempts, he had no choice but to give up.
"I can't reach Firefly. What happened to her?" Silver Wolf's projection appeared beside Hanxing. "She... embraced her first death," Hanxing answered briefly. "I can sense that she isn't dead. She's just gone somewhere very far away."
"I see..." Silver Wolf's voice slowly grew subdued. Then she seemed to remember something and looked up again. "Right, the tracking system on Firefly!" "Tracking system?" Hanxing was puzzled. As far as he remembered, he did not know when Firefly had been fitted with a tracking system that could be used in dreams.
"You know she doesn't have the ability to dream..." Silver Wolf realized she had misspoken, but there was nothing she could do now except tell Hanxing the truth. "The night you were asleep, Firefly was put on the operating table and underwent surgery that would let her dream temporarily. While they were at it, they implanted a tracker that could locate her in dreams..."
"Surgery?" Hanxing was surprised. "Then... are there any side effects?" Silver Wolf shook her head. "I don't know, but this should be the first and last time she ever dreams..."
"So... that's how it is-" Hanxing sighed softly, then turned his attention to the matter at hand. "In that case, tell me where she is first." "All right-" Silver Wolf sighed too. "Let me see... 'Dreamflux Reef'? What kind of place is that?"
"Never mind, I'll bring it up in front of you. See for yourself." Before long, a holographic image appeared before Hanxing, and the bright red dot was Firefly.
"So... she's here." Hanxing quickly committed it to memory, then turned Tuning up to maximum power and locked onto Firefly's location. Soon, the figure in green appeared before his eyes from thousands of miles away. "I'm coming!"
Tearing space apart with his bare hands, Hanxing arrived in a completely unfamiliar Memory Zone. But at first glance, he saw an unfamiliar woman in white standing beside Firefly.
"Who... are you?" Hanxing's voice was cold and full of killing intent, but the person opposite him seemed utterly relaxed. "Miss Dahlia, don't..." Firefly tried to stop her from the side, but it was already too late. "I'm your dearest Sister Hua. Have you forgotten what happened on Fansha Star?"
Clink- Something shattered. When he looked again, his embroidered spring blade was already drawn. "What? You thought you could test me with just that?" Hanxing's voice grew even colder. "Or do you think you can toy with the feelings between Fly and me however you please?"
"Fly?" The unfamiliar form of address felt a little strange to Firefly, but most of her face turned red. Anyone could tell it was a little sign that the two of them had grown closer~
"All right, all right, calm down." The woman called Dahlia waved a hand. "By rights, I was probably the one who saved her."
"No... my memories... what's going on?" Hanxing kept shaking his head, as though he had remembered something. "How... could this be?" Dahlia's voice was also full of surprise, as though she had seen something extraordinary.
"What... what happened?" Firefly asked worriedly, but Hanxing and Dahlia both pulled themselves out in time. "It was... me from another world-" "In any case, don't try to probe this memory again. It would lead the universe to the worst possible end," Dahlia warned.
Hanxing said nothing more and pulled Firefly into his arms. Firefly was a little surprised, but she put her arms around him too. She did not expect Hanxing to whisper something in her ear:
"If one day you have to kill me, I want to tell you I'm sorry in advance."