"The Sixth Herrscher... Why couldn't she be killed?"
Mei muttered in disbelief.
"It was my oversight..." Mikael was also speechless. This Sixth Herrscher was even tougher than a certain Yaksha.
But he gradually understood how the Sixth Herrscher had died and revived this time--just like what Mei did in Nagazora City in the story, the Herrscher had actively severed her connection with the core the moment the core left her body, entering a state of suspended animation.
Then, she reconnected to the Imaginary Tree, causing the original Herrscher core to disappear and a new Herrscher core to be generated directly within her body…
But now that he understood it, it was meaningless.
"Heh… Elysia… now humanity can actually be defined as extinct from a biological perspective."
Mei leaned against the railing, her voice incredibly hoarse. Along with her words, an emotion called despair uncontrollably spread.
Ellie didn't respond. She simply allowed the evening wind to ruffle her hair. Her hair danced, struggled, like someone in despair who wanted to pluck the setting sun from under the evening glow and use it as a torch to light up the entire world once more.
But it was just the setting sun.
Its light was nothing more than a final, fleeting reflection.
"…"
Mikael didn't know what to say.
The injuries on his body had already disappeared. He had just reconstructed a body. It was easy for him now.
Yes, it was easy. He clearly had such strong power now. He could easily do the things that he couldn't do before. But in the end, there was nothing he could do.
Even for an insignificant bubble world in the Sea of Quanta, he couldn't save it.
"Thank you, Mikael," Ellie said softly.
She was thanking Mikael for saving her and Mei a moment ago, but that rescue was meaningless--this world was already at its end. No one could save it.
"When I think about it, you've said goodbye to me so many times, but you've never actually left… well, this time it's my turn to say goodbye!"
But Mikael remained unmoved. He closed his eyes, and leaned against the railing on the rooftop, just like Mei. He seemed to be contemplating something in his heart.
Suddenly, Mikael and Mei opened their eyes at the same time.
"I..."
Mikael was about to speak when Mei interrupted him forcefully:
"So, Mikael, since you claim to be from another world that is similar, may I ask you a question?"
She adjusted her glasses, her eyes flickering with extreme, suppressed excitement and curiosity, as if the despair from earlier had never existed.
"What?"
"Is there something wrong with the world we are in?"
"..." Mikael turned his head away, avoiding Mei's gaze. He was silent for several seconds before nodding slightly: "Yes. How did you notice?"
"Ah... well..." She walked to Elysia and took a small listening device off of her back. "I heard your conversation."
"Based only on that?"
"Yes, only based on that. From your words, I can roughly understand a few things. In your world, you should have a good relationship with Elysia. And, Kevin, Mobius, Hua, Himeko, and Ato were too."
"Of course, I've never heard of Sakura, so I don't know who she is. In general, you keep a state of conflicting emotions and logic. Your logic seems to be telling you that everything here has nothing to do with you, and you don't need to pay too much attention, but your emotions obviously didn't manage to suppress your logic."
"Not what I'd expect from Mei..." Mikael touched his nose and asked, "But what does that mean? Maybe I'm just a cold and aloof person?"
"Perhaps. But if you were really 'cold' and your logic clearly suppressed your emotions, why didn't you leave immediately? Why did you say goodbye, but in reality just wanted to stay with Elysia for a little longer? It makes me think of..."
"I'll use an inappropriate analogy: You're like someone looking at a picture of someone who's passed away. The picture is very important to you, because the image is of someone you love, but it's not really important, because the person you really love is gone."
"..."
"Alright, that's the end of my justification for how I discovered that. Now… Mikael, I want to know the whole truth. What exactly happened to our world?"
"Mei, do you really want to know the truth?"
Mikael looked over the lifeless city in the last of the sunset's afterglow.
"If you want to know the truth, then you have to be prepared to bear the pain that the truth brings."
The sky gradually faded from cyan to a distant dark blue, leaving only a small bit of crimson embers reflecting in the west.
Mei looked at Elysia, who nodded in response. So Mikael knew that the cruel truth could no longer be hidden, and shouldn't be hidden.
"Your world was actually destroyed a long time ago."
Regardless of whether the other two could accept it, Mikael quickly said, "This world, I call it a bubble world. You can understand it as a reflection of a certain world that has already been destroyed. Of course, this is just my own superficial understanding, and it's not necessarily correct."
"But I can be certain that the bubble world is just an unstable structure. One day, everything here will be eroded by the space called the 'Sea of Quanta,' just like the area beyond the invisible boundary."
"Hoo…"
Mei gently touched her chest, letting out a long breath: "In other words, no matter how much we struggle, we cannot change our fate of being destined to die, right?"
"Mm…"
Mikael only managed a short sound before falling into a somewhat awkward silence.
"So, Mikael, what were you going to say at first?"
Ellie suddenly asked.
"Ah?"
It was then that Mikael remembered that he originally had something to say, but was interrupted by Mei.
"I... I'm not going to leave this world yet."
"Huh?"
"I was in a hurry to leave mainly due to time constraints. But I just used my spatial power to perceive the speed of this bubble world… Basically, the flow of time here, compared to my own world, is almost at a standstill, so I can stay here for a long time."
Time was just an artificially defined dimension, and its essence was simply movement. If he wanted to sense the passage of time, it wasn't difficult, he only needed to perceive the movement of space, the movement of electromagnetic waves, the movement of heat and Honkai energy, and he could roughly judge the flow of time.
"Furthermore, my original world hasn't reached the Sixth Honkai level, so perhaps the experience of fighting the Sixth Herrscher in this bubble world can help me in the future—of course, I can't guarantee that this act wouldn't cause the power of the Sixth Herrscher in my original world to change... but I have to try."
After Mikael finished saying that, he looked at Mei and Ellie, and saw that the two of them had exchanged a glance and were suddenly smiling strangely.
"Huh?"
"That…"
Ellie flipped her hair at her temples.
"Actually, we do want to ask for your help on this matter..."
"What?"
Mei turned her head away and said nothing.
Elysia composed herself for a long while. Her originally exhausted face suddenly bloomed into a flawless smile: "Oh my, oh my! To be able to reach a consensus with only a few words and a few glances, this is the first time that Mei and I have been so in sync!"
In that moment, it was as if she had thrown away all her grief. Together with the ruined human civilization, with the world's destiny of destruction, Elysia, now freed from everything, stood in front of Mikael. With that initial posture that was so familiar to Mikael, she poked his cheek gently:
"Mikael, I don't know how this world originally came to its end... but... even if this is just a reflection, and even if it won't change anything, I hope to draw a perfect ending for this world, for the human civilization of this world. This ending can be grand, it can be not magnificent, it can even be imperfect, or it can be very tragic, but this ending must exist. That's how it'll feel like… we had a beginning and an end!"
"Ah…"
Mikael gently hummed a sound, and a tear slid down, pooling in his sunken cheek and clinging to Elysia's finger.
He reached out, and gently held the finger that Elysia had poked at his cheek, the one that she was reluctant to let go of.
"Ah… I understand… I will work with you to kill the Sixth Herrscher, and take it as a parting gift to your world…"