--- Volume IV: Ice, Rock, and Kindling ---
Only the most profound, soul-crushing regret can give rise to a transformative growth. Whether it's humans or Herrschers, progress is always paved with loss.
Though they hadn't spent much time together, Pardofelis's death had ultimately touched Raiden Mei's heart. This world wasn't a gentle one, it seemed; even a child like her couldn't be treated with kindness.
What tormented her even more was the realization that she had been hurting Pardofelis all along with her constant suspicion…
Through the perspective of the cat food can, Ren truly felt Raiden Mei's pain. He watched as she buried Pardofelis's body, along with the iron box containing her treasures, in the pouring rain, her heart heavy with regret. Ren felt a strange sense of pleasure seeing the young woman suffer from her remorse.
But Ren quickly suppressed this feeling. He wasn't a sadist; he merely looked at the unscathed Pardofelis beside him, lost in thought. Due to his memories from his past life, Ren's understanding of the Honkai world stopped at the early stages of the Elysian Realm. He only knew the Flame-Chasers' names and appearances.
Now, he had stolen their identities and staged more than one fake death. If Raiden Mei were to actually enter the Elysian Realm and encounter the real Flame-Chasers, would she feel confused or betrayed?
After a moment's contemplation, Ren abandoned these pointless thoughts.
As long as Mei followed his plan and infiltrated World Serpent as a mole, Ren's goal would be achieved.
Whether she'd be furious to learn the truth after entering the Elysian Realm or would accept the deception was none of Ren's concern. Besides, Mei was already way off her original path, and what she'd actually do was impossible to predict.
After dealing with Mei's situation, Ren's attention turned back to Coral Island. With his deliberate guidance, Kiana had successfully arrived at a nearby city.
It wasn't that he was intentionally avoiding Kiana. It's just that the time crystals he had copied from the Imaginary Tree were unstable. If he got too close to Kiana, the time stored within them would be released, and the entire city would be sent back to 1951 Berlin.
Like Otto's manipulation of Kolosten in the original timeline, reversing time by decades.
Being able to interfere with the natural world's time, even on the scale of a single city, was something only a god could achieve.
It wasn't hard to understand that at the end of the illusion, when Ren exhausted all his progress with the Imaginary Tree to retain his memories, he had gained a power of that magnitude.
However, the time crystal was just a tool, no matter how valuable, not an inherent ability, so it had no real meaning for Ren. Time and space were interconnected, and only the Herrscher of the Void Kiana could truly wield the power of Time Dilation.
Moreover, Ren had a feeling that the Herrscher of the End, something that Ren didn't even get to know of before his death in his previous life, was also related to time. If Kiana could master the power of time dilation, it might be an important tool to fight against the End.
Of course, this was just a wild guess, after all, it was the End, it couldn't be something as simple as time.
In any case, Ren was actually looking forward to meeting Kiana again, but she wasn't yet ready to handle the power of the time crystals, and premature contact would only lead to unintended consequences. Both she and Ren needed further growth.
"Herrscher of Flamescion," Ren murmured, looking at Kiana on the screen.
The Herrscher of Flamescion, the identity Ren had once vehemently rejected, had become his hope for Kiana.
He closed his eyes, the memories of his time with Kiana flashing through his mind. He didn't reject these memories but cherished them. However, when Ren opened his eyes again, all emotion was carefully hidden.
He was consciously controlling his feelings.
…
"Brother, brother… save me." Collapsing buildings, burning flames—everything felt so real.
"Little Wen!" Chen Tianwu jolted awake from the nightmare, gasping for air. Even the heavily modified mechanical prosthetics couldn't mask the fear in his heart, emitting sounds beyond their operational limits.
The laptop in front of him was still on. Had he fallen asleep from overwork?
Leaning back in his chair, Chen Tianwu looked up at the ceiling, a hint of pain in his eyes.
Every time he closed his eyes, images of his younger sister, Chen Tianwen, would flash before him. She would be asking why he didn't save her, why he had abandoned her.
But Chen Tianwu couldn't answer.
Because he himself was only a shadow, barely clinging to life with the help of that girl.
Two years ago, the great Honkai eruption in Manila had destroyed everything Chen Tianwu had. It had left his sister permanently in that land, and he himself was severely corrupted by the Honkai. If it hadn't been for that girl…
"Anna," Chen Tianwu whispered the name, looking at the half-heart pendant in his hand, his eyes filled with deeper pain.
Just as Chen Tianwu was suffocating in the memories of the past, the door to the studio was pushed open. He ignored it, but the newcomer wasn't about to ask for his permission and simply said, "If you're tired, you should take a rest."
Chen Tianwu turned to see the gray-haired, red-eyed Raven, holding a stack of files in her arms, her eyes cold.
"Oh," he replied absentmindedly, tapping the empty space on the table with his finger. "Just put the files here, I'll get to them."
It was laughable, really. The massive World Serpent organization only had a handful of capable executives. Their best intelligence operative, Chen Tianwu, acted like he had given up, and their strongest combatant, Natasha Cioara, was like a raven whose claws had been broken, devoid of her former spirit.
"Chen Tianwu, do you remember how we first met?" Raven unexpectedly asked.
"Of course, that city ravaged by blood and slaughter. It still makes me sick to think about it."
Chen Tianwu remembered that young man named Chris, collapsed in front of him like a desperate dog. But it was that weak man who had slaughtered an entire city.
Sister... those are the people that Chris wanted to protect.
But Chen Tianwu couldn't even protect anyone. His sister, Chen Tianwen, had died in the Honkai, and he hadn't even been able to see her one last time.
"I don't want you to become a madman like that," Raven said, staring at Chen Tianwu, her eyes flashing dangerously. She could see the state Chen Tianwu was in.
"I don't want something like Moth to happen again. You should understand."
Of course, Chen Tianwu understood. As fellow intelligence operatives, he had worked with Moth many times. He actually admired the guy, he was always able to get intel in strange ways, which saved Chen Tianwu a lot of effort.
But Moth had betrayed them, killing the children that Raven held dear. This had been a heavy blow to the already understaffed World Serpent. Especially for Raven, the hatred towards traitors had reached its peak.
"Here's all the information Moth left behind. Try to sort out what's useful. Remember, you can rest, you can do what you want, but you know what the consequences of betrayal are."
"Oh," he replied, still indifferent.
But the moment he opened the first page of the file, his listless body suddenly tensed up.
[Anna Schariac]