Collapse Iron: Cosplaying the Near-Death Star, but with a full destiny.

She turned to the counter, took out a stack of credits from the inside pocket of her coat, and placed it in front of the proprietress.

"Breakfast for these two is on me. I'll also add another one like hers."

She pointed to the set in front of Hoshino.

The proprietress glanced at the stack of credits, then at Kafka, and accepted them with a smile.

"Okay, just a moment."

Kafka pulled out a chair and sat between Hoshino and Hoshino.

Her movements were so natural, as if this spot had been reserved for her.

Xing's brows were furrowed tightly.

"What are you doing here? The Star Core Hunter isn't—"

"It's holiday time."

Kafka picked up the teapot on the table and poured herself a cup.

"Everyone needs a break sometimes."

She picked up the teacup, gently blew on the steam, and looked over the rim of the cup at Hoshino.

"Besides—"

"I have important business to attend to."

Hoshino took a new pair of chopsticks, picked up another xiaolongbao, and this time successfully put it into her mouth.

"What important matter is it?"

She asked vaguely.

Kafka put down her teacup.

Her expression changed.

The languid, playful smile faded from his face, replaced by a rare... distress.

"Noriboshi".

She called out.

"Do you know how much trouble you've caused us?"

Hoshino chewed on a xiaolongbao and raised an eyebrow.

"Elio's 'script'".

Kafka leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest.

"You should know this, right? All our actions as Star Core Hunters are based on Elio's prophecy. He can see countless branches of the future, then choose the optimal solution from them, write it into a 'script,' and guide our every move."

"That script was so precise that it could predict every single second of the changes."

"But ever since you came into my life—"

She stretched out her right hand, spread her five fingers, and made an "explosion" gesture.

"Everything's in chaos."

"The future that Elio sees now is like a ball of yarn that has been scratched by a black cat. The threads are all tangled together, impossible to cut or untangle."

"The once clear chain of cause and effect has become a mess. The branches of the timeline have exploded from a few hundred to tens of thousands. Every single branch bears your mark."

"The history you rewrote, the people you saved, the enemies you eliminated... every variable is constantly generating new butterfly effects."

"Elliot said that writing scripts is now at least a hundred times more difficult than before."

A hint of helplessness flashed in Kafka's pink eyes.

"And the culprit behind all of this—"

She looked at the star.

"It's you."

Hoshi swallowed the last bite of the xiaolongbao and took a sip of the savory soy milk.

"Um."

She nodded.

"Okay. And then?"

He was as nonchalant as if he were admitting that he was three minutes late today.

Kafka paused for a moment.

"You seem to have absolutely no sense of guilt."

"It's already been changed."

Hoshi shrugged.

"You can't expect me to change the timeline back, can you? I don't intend to let those people I saved die again."

Kafka remained silent for a moment.

"Indeed. There's no going back."

She sighed.

"That's why I've come to you to talk about 'compensation'."

"compensate?"

Xing chimed in from the side, her tone wary.

"What do you plan to have her do?"

Kafka turned her head and glanced at Xing.

There was a certain...tenderness in that look.

A gentle touch from elders to younger generations, without any malice.

"don’t worry."

she says.

"What I'm asking Hoshino to do should be considered a good thing for you as well."

She looked at Hoshi again.

The troubled look in her pink pupils was replaced by a deeper emotion.

Worry.

A genuine, heartfelt, and undisguised worry...

"Fireflies".

She said that name.

The sound was very soft, almost drowned out by the steam coming from the breakfast stall.

You should know something about her 'entropy syndrome'.

Hoshi put down the bowl of soy milk.

Her expression turned serious.

"The chronic disintegration of the physical structure. Irreversible decay at the cellular level. Without the life support of the SAM armor, her body will collapse in a very short time..."

She didn't finish speaking.

Kafka spoke for her.

"Disintegration".

A simple word, yet it carries immense weight.

"The research on Nguyen Mai's reproductive fate has found some solutions at the genetic level to delay it. But the distance between 'delay' and 'cure' is wider than the Milky Way."

Kafka's voice remained as steady as ever, but a thin layer of moisture shimmered in her pink eyes.

"That child is very strong. She never shows any pain in front of anyone. She will smile and say, 'It's okay,' 'I'm fine,' 'The weather is so nice today.'"

"But I know."

"Every night, when she thought everyone was asleep, she would curl up in Sam's cockpit, biting her lip, enduring the pain of her body gradually fading away."

"She never cries."

"Because she felt that if she cried, she would become a burden to others."

Kafka closed her eyes.

"I can't cure her. In Elio's script, there was originally a path to 'healing'. But that path... was disrupted by your butterfly effect."

She opened her eyes and stared directly at the star.

"so."

"Noriboshi".

"The God of the End. The holder of the eighteen paths of destiny."

"You have the power to reverse time, the power to rewrite cause and effect, the power to bring the dead back to life, and the power to make history repeat itself."

"So——"

"Curing a girl's illness should be within your capabilities, right?"

The rising steam from the breakfast stall blurred the boundaries between the three people.

Hoshino looked at Kafka.

Looked for a long time.

"Kafka".

She spoke.

"Believe it or not, even if you didn't come to see me today—"

"I will also go to find fireflies."

Kafka's pupils contracted slightly.

Hoshi raised his hand from between the bowls and plates, holding up one finger.

"The entropy disorder of fireflies has been on my 'to-do list' since the first day I stepped into this world."

"It ranks very high."

She put down her hand and picked up the savory soy milk.

"I will retrace the 'healing path' you disrupted in my own way. Of the eighteen paths of destiny, abundance governs life restoration, immortality governs eternal existence, the end governs time reversal, and wisdom governs gene analysis—"

"The four paths of destiny work together to reverse the entropy increase process within the Firefly's body back to a stable state."

"Theoretically, it's feasible."

"In practice, it will take some preparation time, but not too long."

Kafka stared at her for a few seconds.

Then, an extremely rare expression appeared on that face that always carried an air of calculation and control.

I feel relieved.

It's like someone who has been carrying the burden alone for too long finally finding a shoulder to share the weight with.

"So, that's... compensation?"

Her tone softened.

"Calculate."

Hoshi took a sip of soy milk.

"The script going wrong is my fault. Curing Liu Ying is my compensation. We're even."

Kafka smiled.

That smile was completely different from her usual cat-like, mocking smile.

sincere.

Clean.

Like sunlight shining into a dark, deep purple alley.

"Thanks."

she says.

Only two words.

But the "thank you" that came from Kaffa's mouth was more weighty than any other person's thousand words.

Xing sat quietly to the side and listened to the entire conversation.

Her hand had already moved away from the flaming spear.

In her golden-gray pupils was reflected Kafka's rare, genuine smile.

"...So you can say 'thank you' too."

Xing muttered something under her breath.

Kafka turned her head and instantly resumed her lazy and playful demeanor.

"What? You don't believe it?"

She reached out and, just like before, gently pinched Xing's cheek.

"Kid, you're still too green."

"You—! Let go!"

Xing's face flushed red instantly, and she slapped Kafka's hand away.

"Who's the little kid!"

"You."

Kafka smiled and withdrew her hand, picking up her own bowl of freshly served savory soy milk.

"In my eyes, you are all children."

Her pink pupils peered over the rim of the bowl, looking at the star.

"Including you."

With a bite of a fried dough stick, Hoshino mumbled a reply.

"Fine, fine, you're the boss."

"Of course."

Morning light streamed in through the dome and fell on the three people's table.

The steam from the steamer was still rising in wisps.

Kafka picked up a shrimp dumpling, put it in her mouth, and raised an eyebrow.

"Luofu's shrimp dumplings are better than Pinocchio's."

She commented.

Xing silently moved her basket of shrimp dumplings closer to her.

The "Cave Heaven" of the Luofu Immortal Ship is hidden in a folded space at the deepest level of the Star Chariot Sea's central core.

The entrance is located behind a hidden door on the seventh underground level of the Shence Mansion. The door is made of star-forged alloy specially crafted by the Craftsmanship Department. It has no decorations on the surface, only an embedded psionic lock—which can only be activated by Jing Yuan's own destiny factor.

The passage behind the door extends downwards for about three hundred meters, ending at a separate subspace. This space has been folded into the structural layers of Luofu by the secret techniques of the Immortal Boat Alliance, making its existence completely undetectable from the outside.

The headquarters of the Star Core Hunters is located here.

No more than five people in the entire Luofu region know about this.

Jing Yuan. Fu Xuan. Bai Lu. Ying Xing. And—the deceased former general.

Since Yingxing was "corrected" back from the timeline by the Star, the previously broken hidden thread between the Industrial Creation Division and the Star Core Hunter has been reconnected.

The secret agreement that Yingxing made with Elio back then continues to this day on this rewritten timeline. The Star Core Hunters are able to operate under the protection of Luofu, while Luofu obtains intelligence from all over the universe through the Star Core Hunters.

A delicate symbiotic relationship built on mutual benefit and trust.

The interior of the cave was much more spacious than I had imagined.

The overall layout resembles a small underground city—with residential areas, training grounds, medical pods, a communications center, and even a miniature garden planted with a few Dream Orchids brought back from Pinocchio.

The medical cabin is located on the west side of the cave.

The hatch was wide open, and white light poured out from inside.

Jing Yuan stood in the corridor outside the medical pod, his hands behind his back.

He was dressed in casual clothes—a dark blue long gown, without general's armor or Shence command flag—looking more like a neighbor visiting.

But his brow was furrowed.

Silver Wolf leaned against the wall across the corridor, arms crossed, her gray spiral ponytail swaying behind her head. Her goggles were pushed up to her forehead, revealing a pair of sharp eyes that were currently staring at a holographic panel in her hand.

The panel displays a complex set of biological data curves.

Every curve is declining at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"The rate of increase in entropy has accelerated again."

Silver Wolf's voice was devoid of much emotion, but his fingers tapped the panel with more force than usual.

"At this rate, Sam's life support system can only last for three more months at most. After three months—"

She didn't finish speaking.

Jing Yuan remained silent for a moment.

"What about Nguyen Mai's proposal?"

"It can delay the inevitable, but it can't cure the root cause."

Silver Wolf turned off the control panel.

"The adjustments she made at the genetic level can reduce the rate of entropy increase by 40%. But the essence of entropy loss lies in the quantum-level dissociation of physical structure, and gene repair can only treat the symptoms."

"It's like giving a new coat of paint to a building that's about to collapse."

"It looks nice, but it's useless."

Jingyuan's brows furrowed even deeper.

"Miss Liuying's condition..."

He carefully considered his choice of words.

"With my abilities, I am truly powerless. The Hunting Path excels at destruction and tracking, but offers almost no help in life repair. Although the Pill Refining Department of the Immortal Ship is first-rate in medical skills, traditional pills and spiritual techniques are like scratching an itch through a boot when faced with quantum-level body disintegration."

He turned around and looked at the end of the corridor.

"Perhaps the only solution is to invite them—"

Before he could finish speaking...

The sealed door at the end of the corridor made a hissing sound as it released air pressure and slowly slid open to both sides.

Kafka walked in.

Her deep purple hair gleamed with a cold, elegant luster under the white lights of the cave, and her pink pupils held that familiar, cat-like, languid smile.

Her steps were light and graceful, her high heels clicking rhythmically on the metal floor.

Half a step behind her, Hoshi followed.

Her long gray hair fell over her shoulders, and her golden pupils were particularly striking under the white light.

She wore a custom-made "Corona Weave" gown by Aglaia, the sheen of the fabric's life force subtly shifting with each step.

as well as--

star.

He had short, silver-gray hair, golden-gray eyes, and wore a black and gold short jacket with a flaming spear slung across his waist.

Jing Yuan glanced at the newcomer, a slight smile curving his lips.

"Speak of the devil, and he shall appear."

He nodded slightly to the star.

"Miss Hoshino. We were just about to send someone to invite you."

"That's enough."

Hoshi raised his hand.

"Kafka has already told me about the situation."

Her gaze passed over Jing Yuan and looked towards the direction of the medical pod.

"Are there fireflies inside?"

"Um."

Silver Wolf straightened up from the wall.

"Ellio is now working overtime until 3 a.m. every day."

That's his problem.

Hoshi shrugged.

Silver Wolf stared at her for two seconds, then turned to the medical pod.

"Go in. She's awake."

The door to the medical pod slid open.

White lights, the smell of disinfectant, and the low hum of various life support equipment all rushed out at once.

In the center of the cabin, a huge mechanical device occupied most of the space.

Sam.

....................................