Humans are in chaos, despicable outsiders.

"I think he's just pretending to be asleep. Just wait and see how I wake him up—!" The girl's words were accompanied by the sound of pots and pans being rummaged through.

The young girl next to Kevin... Hmm? Alicia... No, the voice doesn't quite sound like her. Gretchen? No, Gretchen's voice lacks a bit of vitality compared to this one. Padofelis... No, then this girl's voice lacks a bit of energy.

Eden... uh, not at all like it, Sakura? Emmm... Sakura would talk like that? Su thought very rudely, and Aponia thought even less of it; that nun always spoke in a mysterious way.

Dr. Möbius... wait, what am I thinking?

...Just as Su was lost in thought, he felt a slightly hot sensation on his lips, and his sense of smell was telling his brain that it seemed to be food.

"Young master, open your mouth and slurp the noodles—" A young girl's voice rang out beside Su. The silver-haired youth subconsciously opened his mouth upon hearing the girl's words, and a strand of rice noodle slid into Su's mouth.

Hmm... soft, glutinous, and savory, the rice noodles are very chewy, but there's just a tiny bit of spice... wait... a tiny bit of spice? — The serene silver-haired youth suddenly opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a blonde girl who was handing a bottle of water to the young man with a mischievous grin. Kevin, his friend, was slurping noodles while watching them helplessly.

"You guys... uh..." Su hesitated as she looked at the two people in front of her, feeling as if fire was about to burst from her mouth and she would transform into a thousand calamities.

"You're awake! The surgery was a success. You're now a fairy in the lake!"

The blonde girl stopped her mischievous grin, her tone becoming serious and earnest as she looked at Su with a "congratulations" expression on her face.

"Pfft—! Cough—cough cough!" Kevin, who was behind the girl, heard her silly words and immediately spat out the noodles he had just slurped up, coughing violently.

The silver-haired youth, who had just woken up and whose mind was still hazy from the devil's spicy stimulation, paused for a moment and subconsciously looked down at himself to see if he had gained or lost anything.

"Pfft—" Seeing Su's actions, the blonde girl in front of her finally couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Looking at the two people in front of her who were trying not to laugh, Su suddenly felt that her good temper wasn't so good after all.

It's hardened; the fist of the enlightened one has hardened!

"Cough cough cough... Alright, Su, long time no see." Realizing that he and his descendants seemed about to be beaten, Kevin decisively changed the subject.

The silver-haired youth stared at Kevin in front of him for a moment, then finally smiled.

"Long time no see, Kevin."

"So, could you please explain to me what happened?" Su Zi looked at the blonde girl beside her with a hint of confusion in her red eyes.

"I should already be dead..."

"You were supposed to sit under the Bodhi tree and attain enlightenment... to play chess with some kind of will, right?"

Su nodded, waiting for the girl to give her answer.

“Ancestor Kevin didn’t want you to leave, so I brought you back. That will of the sea is quite easy to talk to. I originally thought I would have to have a tug-of-war with Him.”

The girl casually uttered words that overwhelmed Su's mind.

"Wait? You pulled me away from some will in the Sea of ​​Quanta???"

The answer, which defied common sense and comprehension, caused the silver-haired fusion warrior's pupils to shrink, his face filled with disbelief. Kevin patted Su, who was about to continue asking questions, and pointed to the campfire behind the three of them.

There, a golden greatsword, unlike the one Su remembered as Kevin's Heavenly Fire Judgment, was stuck in the ground, burning with golden-orange flames. A simple grill was made from branches broken off from a cherry blossom tree.

The suckling pig, which had been smuggled from some neighboring world, had now been gutted, marinated, and skewered onto the Eternal Spear, a weapon familiar to fusion warriors from the last century.

The silver-haired youth watched with twitching eyes as the spear that had once claimed the lives of several comrades was now reduced to a roasting stick, roasted over a flame. If weapons had a spirit, Su felt he could probably hear the curses and swears of the demonic sword and the divine spear.

.......

"I see... So you're on the same level as that being in the Sea of ​​Quanta, Kevin. You truly have an extraordinary descendant..."

"A free god...unbound by any mission, wielding immense power, favoring humanity...suddenly, fifty thousand years of observation seem utterly meaningless—"

The silver-haired man sighed, entering a state of "I'm going to give up," and turned to look at his best friend.

"Kevin, are you still going to continue your Stigmata Project? The descendant next to you has a status equal to that Honkai consciousness, perhaps even higher."

"I...? I don't know right now..." After hearing Su's explanation, the white-haired man shook his head in confusion, while the young man looked at the cherry blossom tree in front of him.

"Then let's continue. Anyway, your World Serpent henchmen are incredibly fanatical. It's impossible to get them to stop immediately."

Snow pursed his lips, seemingly recalling a certain idiot who jumped onto his face.

“They probably won’t be in a rush to implement Project Stigmata right now... Instead, they plan to get me out of the Sea of ​​Quanta first…” Kevin shook his head.

"If you want to go out, you can do it now..." Snow leaned against a tree, and a small door leading to the real universe quietly opened beside him.

"No, it's impolite to stand someone up... Su, do you want to go out and take a look?" Kevin looked at his best friend.

"I just said goodbye to Miss Bianca not long ago... It doesn't seem quite right to go back now..."

"So you're all planning to stay here for now... What are you planning to do?" Snow tilted his head.

"Uh... slurping noodles? And... Snow, my descendant, do you know how many ways a greatsword can be used?

"?"

Chapter Sixty-Three: The Curtain Rises

"Weak forehand, poor backhand, loose footwork, slow reaction time—not a single movement is decent!"

"Ow—!"

"How exactly did you manage to defeat my armed puppet?" Kevin looked at his descendant in confusion.

"Huh? He has short arms, literally."

"......"

In the tiny bubble of the world, a white-haired youth, wielding a longsword carved from a tree branch, was instructing the girl before him. The girl, who was on the throne of gods, was being beaten up by her own ancestor during the pure swordsmanship instruction.

What happened on the rooftop of Chiba Academy in Changkong City is now being replayed under the cherry blossom trees of Sekaibubble. However, compared to Raiden Mei, who was beaten up, the blonde girl is at least able to occasionally launch a successful counterattack.

“That’s the difference in experience, girl,” Su said, sitting under a tree trunk, holding a bowl of hot noodles in her hands, squinting as she slurped the steaming noodles with her chopsticks.

"Hmm... This food called Crossing-the-Bridge Rice Noodles is really good... Kevin has experienced at least thousands of years of battles, and the girl can't compare to him in terms of experience."

The silver-haired youth sat under the tree, sipped his noodle soup, and watched contentedly as the old man and the young man began to circle the cherry blossom tree, reminiscing about their past lives.

"So is this taking advantage of one's age, or bullying the weak? Ouch—"

As the blonde girl wielding the wooden sword retorted to another ancestor in her surname, Kevin caught up with her again. Caught off guard, she misjudged the situation and was struck on the arm once more.

"Emmmm... I think this is probably revenge..."

"what?"

"We pioneers endured tens of thousands of years of hardship to defeat the Honkai, and our comrades and like-minded friends fell one after another on our journey..."

"And now, someone has appeared before us... telling us that the plan can be abandoned, because there are already humans who are on par with the Honkai..."

"Isn't this a good thing?!" The blonde girl, seeing that she couldn't get around her ancestor by circling the tree, chose to scramble up the tree herself.

"That's over, I have the high ground, Kevin!"

Kevin glanced at Snow, who had climbed up the tree and wasn't planning to come down anytime soon, and snorted a few times before putting down the wooden sword in his hand.

"But the mission that everyone entrusted to us has become unimportant; there's always a sense of loss in that—"

"...Oh, I have a really fun suggestion. Would you like to hear it?"

.........

"You mean...we should all play that Archbishop Otto Apocalypse...?" Su put her right hand to her lips, looking down in thought.

"...Isn't this interesting? I'm really looking forward to seeing my father apologize to everyone one by one at the end." The blonde girl standing in the tree smiled gleefully, and Kevin couldn't help but shudder as he looked at her.

"That sounds like an interesting suggestion, but resurrecting... Kevin?" Su squinted at Kevin's eyes.

—A man's eyes have witnessed opportunities that mortals could never dream of, and have also borne the sorrow of the destruction of all things.

But all of this, everything those eyes had witnessed, was forged by an extraordinary will into two ruthless, indifferent blocks of ice.

Even reunions with old friends and meetings with descendants only melted a little of that ice; this man remained a warrior, a warrior marching forward.

"Otto Apocalypse regrets his past experiences and the tragedies he caused, and therefore wants to change the course of history and rewrite the story of the world. But I... have no regrets..."

"Su, I have no regrets... I have countless feelings about her leaving me, perhaps sadness, perhaps regret, but never remorse... She is tired... Let her sleep."

As expected, Kevin rejected Su's implied meaning; this man had indeed sealed his heart, or rather, his love, away in the distant past.

If they have now overcome the Honkai, and the man is no longer dwelling on past vows, he will simply raise his head, start moving forward anew, to witness humanity's golden age, to witness the moment when human civilization strides among the stars.

"...If this is your choice, I respect your decision—Kevin." Su nodded.

......

Ultimately, Kevin Kaslana accepted the invitation from his descendants... The pioneers, temporarily lost and bewildered, decided to find something to do—even if it seemed to be full of both immorality and pleasure.

--

"Achoo! Who's talking about me..." The body forged from soul steel sneezed inexplicably, and a strange sense of unease crept up Otto's spine.

"It's probably Snow... I wonder what that kid was doing in the Sea of ​​Quanta..." Otto shook his head helplessly and continued looking at the report—his plan was about to officially begin.

--

Nighttime at St. Freya Academy, in the Valkyrie's dormitory.

“Almost a year has passed... Snow, you’ve been gone for quite a while now…” In the double dormitory, Jiu Xiao hugged a Houmu doll and looked around the empty room where one person was missing.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a tapping sound from the window. Looking towards the sound, she saw a black raven tapping on the window, seemingly wanting to come in.

"...?" Out of curiosity, Jiuxiao opened the window and let the raven fly in.

"Lord Kyushou of Penglai Temple, you may call me Fukujin, the Creator's messenger—she sent me to make a change to a certain plan for you..." The black raven fluttered on the bedside table, speaking to the girl in human language, its tone full of respect for the purple-haired girl before it.

“…Snow? Where is she?” Jiuxiao raised an eyebrow, looking at the raven in front of him.

"Our lord is currently in a certain world, traveling with the forerunners of the previous era, and is temporarily unable to return to the original world—"

"The lady had an even more interesting idea, and for this she granted me the power to enter other people's dreams and create illusions."

"Entering someone else's dream, wait... what does she want to do?" Jiu Xiao's eyes began to twitch.

"The master intends to... accelerate maturity? I think that's how it should be said? The master intends to accelerate the maturity of the mind of an individual named K423." Raven tilted her head, her black eyes looking at the girl in front of her.

"Forced ripening...wait? She wants Kiana Kaslana to experience what will happen next in her dreams first?" Jiuxiao seemed to have thought of something and stared wide-eyed at the black raven in front of him.

......

“Okay... I agree. So when does she plan to start?” After a long period of thought, Jiu Xiao agreed to the new plan.

"This is what the master said after the Moon Throne was taken back," the raven shook its feathers, brushing the sand it had picked up on the road onto the cabinet.