Chisa's Unexpected Encounter

In front of the college lecture hall.

"Phew... Are you ready?" Lacerta held Dania's hand, comforting her, "Dania, just tell the truth, the teacher will handle everything else..."

"Professor Lacerta... where is Lu Guan?" Dania looked around but couldn't see Lu Guan anywhere.

"He wasn't invited to this meeting," Lacerta explained. "But don't worry... he's been watching you. Don't be shy, just act normally when he asks questions."

"Professor Lacerta... I'm ready."

"Then... let's face it together."

Lacerta led Dania into the lecture hall.

Meanwhile, Lu Guan is facing some trouble.

"Teacher Chisa, it really is you." Lu Guan looked helplessly at the white-haired shrine maiden in front of him. "Did the committee send you to keep an eye on me?"

"Our meeting was purely by chance," Chisa shook her head. "I have no right to interfere with the committee's decisions, and correspondingly, they have no right to order me around anything other than 'transactions'."

"I have other matters to discuss with the academy..."

She reached out and took out a small sword that gleamed with a purple light. "I found this while I was walking through the Darkhollow beneath Lahai-Roi. At the time, it was residing within a Tacet Discord I had never seen before..."

Upon seeing this object, Lu Guan's pupils contracted sharply, and he reached out to grab Chisa's fair wrist, which was gripping the sword hilt. "It's actually the ' Desolation ' artifact! Chisa- sensei, when did you discover it?"

"Do you... recognize it?" Chisa, seemingly unfazed by Lu Guan's earlier outburst, asked inquiringly, her crimson eyes questioning, "I originally intended to take it to the research institute for analysis by the Deep Space Union Laboratory..."

"No... we can't do that." Lu Guan quickly shook his head. "Teacher Chisa, can I handle this?"

"Hmm... Sure. If you know where this thing came from, I hope you can tell me." Chisa nodded, and out of trust for her "student," she directly handed the small sword in her hand to Lu Guan.

After acquiring the artifact, Lu Guan began to remove the "Desolation" effect from it. Soon, the purple light on it slowly faded, revealing the small sword's true form.

"Lady Xu's Dagger..." Lu Guan sensed the information emanating from the possessed object. "The Records of the Records of the Grand Historian states, 'When used to test people, their blood soaks through the thread, and they all die instantly.' Sure enough, after becoming the possessed object of the ' Desolation,' it has also acquired the property of being fatal upon contact with blood..."

Suddenly, as if he had just remembered something, he quickly asked, "Teacher Chisa, were you injured when you fought that Tacet Discord?"

"It's alright, that level of Tacet Discord can't hurt me." Chisa was saying when suddenly her expression changed drastically. She clutched her head, swaying precariously, clenching her teeth as cold sweat poured down her face, as if she were experiencing immense pain.

"Teacher Chisa?" Lu Guan quickly helped her to a recliner. "Try to recall carefully what happened when you fought that Tacet Discord in the Darkhollow Plains?"

"... After I exorcised it, the purple flames it carried also dissipated." Chisa's voice was somewhat weak. "Now that I think about it, it must have gotten tainted by something at that time..."

Seeing Chisa's pained expression, Lu Guan felt a pang of unease. He had originally planned to resolve Dania's matter before heading to the Black Shores to share information about the "Desolation" with the Shorekeeper...

Unexpectedly, Chisa encountered the "Desolation" and unknowingly became infected by its aura...

"I'm doing alright... perhaps with some rest I'll be fine..."

Before she could even utter the word "obstacle," Chisa felt a strange force rushing to her head, attempting to invade her consciousness. She had no choice but to close her eyes tightly and focus her mind to resist the mental erosion.

Seeing Chisa's condition deteriorate rapidly, Lu Guan became extremely anxious. He quickly focused his mind on the system and asked, "My friend is now being corrupted by the ' Desolation.' Is there any way to save her?"

Sora's voice rang out at the opportune moment. "A solution? There is one... Based on my previous... uh... experiments, the best way to combat the ' Desolation ' is to fight poison with poison..."

"Only you are immune to harm from your own kind. If you give her something of your own... like bodily fluids, it should effectively alleviate and suppress her current condition."

"I understand." Lu Guan nodded, and without further hesitation, bit his finger, squeezed out the blood, and fed it to Chisa.

As Lu Guan's blood flowed in, Chisa's expression gradually softened. But strangely, Chisa, now had an unnatural blush on her cheeks.

However, Lu Guan was too preoccupied with other matters to notice this unusual situation. Seeing that her condition had improved somewhat, he asked, "Teacher Chisa, how are you? Do you feel any better?"

"... Hmm." Chisa let out a muffled nasal sound, then released her mouth and asked, "What was the origin of that power just now?"

Faced with Chisa's question, Lu Guan sighed and explained, "That's a ' Desolation,' which you can think of as a kind of marine erosion phenomenon from another world that uses some kind of host to erode things on Solaris..."

"The Tacet Discord that Teacher Chisa encountered in the Darkhollow Plains earlier was manifested by the possession object you just gave me." Lu Guan showed Chisa the sharp blade in his hand.

"For some reason... nothing on Solaris... including the Resonator, can resist its corruption; once infected... it will..."

Lu Guan didn't finish his explanation, but Chisa understood the feeling—a feeling of having all her senses invaded, of her consciousness being stripped from her brain...

"Corrupted by its power, turned into a puppet?" Chisa asked, "And what happened to you just now?"

Lu Guan replied, "I am rather special... I possess power that does not belong to this world, therefore I am not affected by the ' Desolation Desolation,' and my blood can temporarily suppress its erosion."

"Is it just a temporary suppression...?" Chisa felt the strange power within her body, which was indeed like a maggot clinging to her bone and impossible to remove. Only by drinking the blood from Lu Guan could she suppress its corrosive impulse.

"This is all we can do for now..." Lu Guan said apologetically, "If I had informed everyone about the existence of the ' Desolation,' perhaps you, Professor Chisa, wouldn't have suffered so much..."

"If I had handed over the first artifact to a research institution instead of keeping it for myself, would we have developed a way to combat the ' Desolation ' much sooner?"

"If I..."

Before Lu Guan could finish speaking, a body that was cold yet warm embraced him.

"Child, none of this is your fault."

Chisa's embrace was completely different from her usual cold demeanor; her restrained gentleness was fully revealed at this moment, solely to soothe Lu Guan's sorrowful and self-reproachful heart.

"Please stop blaming yourself... Teacher Chisa doesn't blame you."

"Besides, if you hadn't happened to be here, I'm afraid Teacher Chisa would already be..."

So please stop thinking like that, okay?

Upon hearing this, Lu Guan's emotions calmed down, and he realized that this was not the time to blame himself.

If the existence of the "Desolation" is not spread, similar incidents to the Chisa on Solaris may happen again...

With this in mind, Lu Guan immediately made up his mind.

Having chosen to shoulder the responsibility of eliminating the "Desolation," we must no longer hesitate.

Desolation won't wait for you to make a decision.

"Teacher Chisa... thank you, I feel much better." Lu Guan gently pushed away Chisa's embrace. "Getting back to the point, can you figure out how long that power can be suppressed within you?"

"... Hmm." Chisa nodded. "Judging from the current situation, conservatively speaking... about three days..."

"Three days..." Lu Guan looked towards the academy's lecture hall. He remembered that Lacerta had told him before that the final result regarding Dania would be discussed there today.

"Internal strife... it's internal strife again... those fools are always oblivious when danger approaches," Lu Guan thought with some irritation. "And when real disaster strikes, it's often those who once oppressed and discriminated against Resonator are at the forefront..."

That's how it is in games...

Deep Space Union's top brass considers the Tunneler an asset.

But if Augusta and the Rover hadn't been piloting the Tunneler in their final battle against the False God, Aleph-1 would have turned Lahai-Roi into McDonald's's kitchen long ago...

The same is true now...

The Deep Space Union's high command's attitude towards Dania, the Threnodian Resonator, is exactly the same as their attitude towards the Tunneler in the game!

A chilling glint flashed in Lu Guan's eyes, his words devoid of any emotion. "They really... gave them too much face..."