The collapse started when Kiana came to the door

"..." Li Shubai was silent for a moment, then shook his head with a serious expression, "This is the only thing I cannot deny."

Although she is a seasoned warrior like Kevin, Alicia's palms are still so soft that they give people an unreal feeling, with smooth and fair skin, complex and delicate palm lines, and a cool touch in the softness.

If possible, such a flawless hand would never make people feel tired even if they held it for a lifetime.

"You are an honest boy. I praise you~" Seeing Li Shubai's reaction, Alicia, who is a memory body, smiled even brighter.

"Thank you." Li Shubai accepted the compliment with a smile, and then said, "Excuse me for not introducing myself. My name is Li Shubai. As you can see, I am a time traveler who travels back and forth between different time and space. I am just an ordinary boatman. It's nothing big."

"This self-introduction sounds ordinary and has nothing to do with it." The fairy lady who is a memory body smiled, "But... a time traveler who travels back and forth between different time and space? It's really a romantic and desirable statement."

"Attractive?" Li Shubai blinked and suddenly laughed. "To be honest, although my boat is really nothing special, it can still accommodate a lot of tourists and crew members. If you are willing, why not come and experience time travel with me?"

"Is it okay?" Alicia's eyes lit up as she was a memory. She lowered her head slightly, and her expression became more serious than ever before. "Well... it's really an extremely tempting proposal."

Seeing that her memory seemed to be ready to run off to Hyperion in just a few words, Alicia finally couldn't sit still anymore. She walked behind her memory, patted her shoulder, and put on a stiff smile on her face: "Wait, have you forgotten your duties and responsibilities? And Captain! Why are you fooling around with my memory too! We still have other things to do now!"

As the words fell, the atmosphere in the consciousness space suddenly turned cold.

Including Alicia's memory, everyone silently turned their gaze to Alicia and stared at her without saying a word.

Do you also mean to say this?

"What's up?" Although no one spoke, Alicia, who could still read this sentence from the glaring gazes of others, couldn't help shrinking her neck and said with a stiff face, "Am I wrong?"

"Well, I can't refute it." Alicia's memory tilted its head, "But, since you have already appeared here, it means that there should be no danger anymore."

Since Li Shubai was able to save his real life even in such a situation, it means that whether it is the memory of the paradise in the past or something else, it should not be in danger for the time being.

"But what is the serious matter you are talking about?" Alicia's memory turned around and asked her original body with curiosity.

"Let's get down to business..." At this moment, Sakura, who had been silent all this time, suddenly raised her arm and interrupted the conversation between the two Alicias, "Um, can you interrupt for a moment?"

After interrupting the conversation and drawing everyone's attention to herself, Sakura walked to the two Alicias, glanced left and right at their flawless faces that were no different from each other, and then shifted her gaze to Li Shubai.

After observing and analyzing their conversation over the past few minutes, Ying felt that she had almost figured out the general context of the matter.

Although it was hard to believe, if her guess was correct, the reason why Alicia's body survived to this day... should be closely related to the boatman named Li Shubai, who claimed to be a time traveler.

In other words, this series of events should have been planned by this man who looks like a teenager.

"Hey... Captain, if there is nothing else for me to do next, can you send me back to the paradise?" Ying asked cautiously and politely, "Because I thought Alicia was in danger, before I left the paradise, I sent a distress signal to Qianjie... another Yingjie. Since Alicia and I are not in danger, then... I hope to return to the paradise and explain to Qianjie as soon as possible."

"Hmm?" Li Shubai's eyes suddenly lit up. "Wait, you said you sent a distress signal to Qianjie?"

"Yeah." Sakura nodded. "If we leave it alone... that man might do something dangerous."

"Great!" Li Shubai clenched his fist. "I was originally thinking about how to forge the secret code of the poison pupa, but I didn't expect that you have already sent the signal to Qianjie."

"Huh?" Ying was stunned. Seeing Li Shubai's excited expression, she couldn't help but wonder, "Um, how about trying to forge the signal of the poison pupa?"

Although she is no longer a member of the Poison Pupa, and the killer organization was buried in history along with the end of the last civilization era 50,000 years ago, and naturally she would not care about others forging the Poison Pupa's proprietary signal... But Ying still finds it difficult to understand the motives of Li Shubai's behavior.

Is the distress signal of the poisonous pupa something worth forging?

"It means exactly what it says. Even if you don't send a distress signal to Qianjie, I will find a way to forge it." Li Shubai said, "Ailixia... I mean her true form. Haven't I had time to explain it to you yet?"

"...No." Ying shook her head in confusion, "I just met Alicia's true form here, and I haven't had time to have any other conversations."

"Then let me explain it to you." Li Shubai glanced at Ying, then waved to Alicia's memory.

"Hmm? Are you looking for me?" Alicia's memory took a look at her own body and pointed at herself uncertainly.

"Since Alysia didn't have time to explain, she certainly didn't have time to explain her own memory, so let me explain the current situation to you." Li Shubai said, "Let me tell you the conclusion first. In short, I need you Thirteen Heroes to temporarily believe that--"

He raised his hand and pointed at Alicia's memory.

"——Your data has been completely deleted."

"Ugh?"

"Ugh?"

in unison.

Sakura and Alicia's memories froze for a moment.

Alicia's memory looked at her own body. She put away her seemingly unserious expression for the first time in a long time, lowered her head, and put on a look of serious thinking, but did not immediately comment on Li Shubai's outrageous words.

"Why?" Although Ying didn't think Li Shubai had any ill will towards them, she couldn't help but frown. "Since you know Alicia and the Thirteen Heroes, you should know what the consequences of doing this will be."

"Of course I know. Not only do I know it, but I have also seen it with my own eyes." Li Shubai shrugged.

"Have you seen it with your own eyes?" Ying frowned. She immediately recalled Li Shubai's self-introduction as a "time traveler" and nodded in understanding. "Have you seen similar events on different timelines? Then why did you..."

"It's so as not to affect my ability to continue observing the original [possibility]." Li Shubai shifted his gaze to Alicia's memory, suddenly raised his palm and waved it in front of her eyes, "Hey, come back to your senses first."

"Hmm?" Seeing Li Shubai's hand, Alicia's memory suddenly came back to her senses, "Ah...what were you and Ying talking about just now?"

"Don't worry about that for now." Li Shubai said, "Although it is a memory, as the first Herrscher, you should be able to perceive the changes in your body through your ability to interpret Honkai."

"Eh?" Alicia's memory stared at her own body, hesitated for a moment, and nodded, "Well... if my feeling is correct, she now possesses another Herrscher Core and Power in addition to the ones I originally possessed, right?"

"You... and the memories of all the Thirteen Heroes should thank Alicia." Li Shubai said, "If she hadn't devoured the core of the Herrscher of Corrosion that was dormant in the Past Paradise during the present civilization era, the deletion of Alicia's data would not be a fabrication by us, but would have become a complete fact."

"Wait!" Ying's pupils shrank. "The Herrscher of Corrosion from the Age of Civilization is now dormant in Paradise?"

"Well, you don't need to worry about it." Li Shubai said, "Just as I said, the Herrscher of Erosion in the current civilization era has been devoured by Alicia. Now, she is the twelfth Herrscher of the current civilization era."

Hearing this, Ying breathed a sigh of relief. She raised her hand and wiped the sweat from her forehead, feeling a little scared.

Although she had not personally experienced the Twelfth Herrscher incident of the previous civilization, the knowledge she had sensed through the chaotic realm of entangled memories in the paradise was enough for her to understand what kind of threat the Herrscher of Corrosion was to them, who were essentially just memories of data.

There is no doubt that for these memories, the Ruler of Corrosion is equivalent to the end.

While he breathed a sigh of relief, a deeper doubt surged into his heart: "Since the Herrscher of Corrosion in the current civilization era has been solved by you, then why did you..."

Halfway through the question, Ying suddenly fell silent. She sighed and said, "Forget it... Since Kevin in real life is also standing here, it means... this behavior should be beneficial to you."

"But I have another question." Ying glanced at Alicia's memory and asked hesitantly, "Besides Alicia and I, are there any other memories that know about this?"

"Eden and Aponia know about this," Li Shubai said. "Besides them, I will also try to find a way to let Vilvi, Hua, and Kosmo know about this as well."

"So, what about Kevin, Sue, Mebius, and Phyllis?" Sakura asked.

She did not ask about Grayshu and Qianjie, and as for the reason... everyone knew it.

"They don't need to act." Li Shubai shrugged. "In the original future, Mobius, Kevin, Su, Padofilius, and even Aponia were all eroded by the Herrscher of Erosion for various reasons, and for various reasons... after being eroded and remaining in the form of data inside the Herrscher of Erosion, they still temporarily preserved their selves."

Kevin because of his extremely firm self-awareness, Sue and Aponia because of their abilities as psychic perception fusion warriors, Padufils because of the backdoor left by Velvet, and Mebius because of the experiments she conducted on the Herrscher of Corrosion.

So... for Li Shubai, there was no need to inform these people in advance, except Abonnia.

The only difficulty is how to make Weiwei cooperate with me.

Chapter 4: Su: I'd better pretend that I know nothing (k)

He awakens my soul

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anointed my head with oil and made my cup overflow.

Surely lovingkindness and goodness will follow me all the days of my life.]

Alicia is dead.

In the dim Paradise Archives room, with the dim afternoon sunlight shining into the room through the window, Raiden Mei frowned and confirmed over and over again the contents written on the deathly pale paper.

Just last night, I made an appointment with Alicia in the dusk garden to meet again in the morning, but after one night, the whole paradise... has changed.

First, Alicia stood her up for unknown reasons. Then, when she set out to look for her, she heard news from a few heroes she met by chance that she didn't even know how to understand.

From Alicia getting into trouble, to Alicia temporarily [disappearing], to the end, she heard from the dangerous and sinister Mobius that [Alcia is dead], a conclusion that seemed absurd to her.

Mei Raiden certainly couldn't accept such an absurd... even hilarious fact. In order to confirm the condition of Alicia, she first questioned the heroes step by step. After getting the reply from Aponia that "they are also trying to trace Alicia's data", she helped Su resist the influence of the huge and complex discarded data of the past paradise during his [tracing] and [observation] of all the data of the paradise. However, the final result was not satisfactory.

Not only did they fail to find any trace of Alicia in the paradise, they even noticed that the data of another hero, Ying, had undergone some strange changes.

Alicia's condition has not been confirmed, and there is even another abnormal hero... According to Kevin's judgment, the heroes who know about these abnormalities have been ordered to keep silent. Just when Kevin was about to go to the Paradise Archives to further investigate these situations, Raiden Mei naturally followed him.

Although on the way to the Paradise Archives, when she helped Aponia bring [Purple] to Grace at her behest, she encountered some incidents that made Kevin, Kosmo, and Raiden Mei feel a little bit amused... But anyway, she and Kevin still managed to arrive at the Paradise Archives before Grace, and saw this scene that made people wonder how to comment.

The dim archive room of Paradise was filled with messy papers, most of which recorded the same content, except for the number of repetitions. Not only that, the printer that claimed to be able to print all the objective facts that happened in the Paradise of the Past was also destroyed.

If you drew a human figure on the ground with chalk, even if you told Mei Raiden that a murder had occurred here, she would probably believe it without hesitation.

In short, after about half a day, from noon to nearly sunset, the issue of Alicia was still not resolved at all... Not to mention being resolved, there was not even much positive impact that could be called progress.

——Except for the only piece of paper with different contents found in the pile of papers covered with the six words [Alisa is dead].

After searching the entire Paradise Archives, Mei Raiden approached Kevin, trying to learn from the leader of the Thirteen Heroes how he was going to deal with such an emergency. As expected, she got an answer that even the Riddler would not understand.

"Kevin, as a leader, you really... disappoint me."

After saying these angry and chilling words to Kevin, Raiden Mei left angrily.

Although she said this to Kevin, Mei Raiden also knew that it would be difficult for her to continue investigating Alicia's affairs in Paradise by herself.

Speaking of which, I don't know if it was an illusion, but during the previous conversations with these heroes, Raiden Mei could always feel a kind of apologetic gaze sweeping across her body from time to time.

Who was the owner of that sight? As she pondered, she tried to find other traces of Yingjie in the gradually darkening sky. Finally, she found Su in the garden again, with his eyes closed, making it impossible to tell whether he was asleep or awake.

What makes Mei Raiden feel fortunate is that although Su and Kevin are close friends who can talk about anything, the two are completely different in terms of personality and style. In her opinion, compared with Kevin, Su, who speaks in a somewhat mysterious way, is the one who is easier to communicate with.

She explained to Su in detail what happened to her and Kevin. Of course, she was not without some dissatisfaction with Kevin's inexplicable words. As Kevin's friend, Su, who knew his style of doing things, naturally smiled it off, but he did not defend Kevin to Mei Raiden, but just told her about Sakura's abnormal situation.

After finishing talking about Ying, Su suggested calmly: "Perhaps, you should try to find other types of help."

"I do have such a plan. At the moment, it seems that Klein - and even Kevin in real life, may be able to provide greater help in this matter." Raiden Mei expressed her agreement with Su's proposal, but the next moment, her voice suddenly became low.

"No matter what, I am sure that the [answer] I want is with Alicia, and just when I am about to touch it... everything is ruined." With a voice full of coldness and suppressed anger, Raiden Mei said in a calm tone: "This makes me feel that I have been fooled by some unknown force, and I have been unable to tolerate this [fooling] for a long time."

In the consciousness space, after Mei Raiden's words were conveyed on the screen displayed, Alicia's memory, Kiana, Kevin, the Herrscher of Consciousness, Yulandel, and Sakura who was holding a little fox-like figure could not help but cast their gazes at Li Shubai, with strange eyes and hesitant expressions.

"Why are you looking at me?" Li Shubai spread out his five fingers to cover the lower half of his face to hide his slightly square expression. He couldn't help but argue for himself: "I didn't do anything bad."

"I really didn't do anything bad." Sakura stroked the tail and hair of Hiyomaru who was sitting in her arms, her eyes full of infinite tenderness and satisfaction, and her tone was no longer as calm as when she faced Raiden Mei in the paradise, but obviously became soft and warm: "I think, after everything is over, this captain should be able to stand in front of Miss Mei with a clear conscience."

Although the tone was so gentle and humane, Li Shubai couldn't help but break out in a little cold sweat when listening to Ying's words. He said speechlessly: "Ying, has anyone ever told you that you are actually very sinister?"

"Really? I've never heard of such an evaluation." Ying smiled slightly, "Maybe it's just the captain's illusion."

Is it possible that the person who made such an evaluation of you is no longer alive? Although he wanted to complain, looking at Ying's smiling expression, Li Shubai was silent for a moment and decisively did not say this complaint.

"Come to think of it, what was my original body doing?" The memory of Alicia touched her smooth chin. She looked at the screen where Mei Raiden was running around to check on her safety. She felt a little guilty but also a little happy.

"She should be looking for Wei Erwei now, right? The original Herrscher of Corrosion should have been discovered by her at about the same time." Li Shubai said uncertainly, "How about we move to her side first?"

As Li Shubai snapped his fingers, the scene on the screen changed.

Contrary to their expectations, after re-entering the eternal paradise, Alicia did not go looking for Velvet, but appeared next to Eden.

In order to avoid Su's search and tracing, Alicia chose to temporarily attach herself to Eden in the form of a corrosive virus. Coincidentally, just when Li Shubai and the others changed their perspective from Raiden Mei to Alicia's, Raiden Mei appeared in front of Eden.

"Oh no...it's already this late." Alicia made an awkward and helpless sound deep in Eden's heart, "Why does Su care so much about my affairs? I don't even know where I can hide."

To be honest, although she already understood why the original Herrscher of Corrosion suddenly launched an explosive erosion on Paradise before coming to this world, when facing the pressure from her former teammates, Alicia had to admit that both she and Li Shubai underestimated the pressure that the original Herrscher of Corrosion would have to face.

Obviously, his power should be equivalent to the end of these memories, but unfortunately - these memories, which are essentially just data, can still effectively launch a highly threatening counterattack against it.

If it weren't for the fact that after deleting Alicia's data, he happened to meet one of the personalities, Velvi, who happened to need to use it, perhaps, during the first round of large-scale searches conducted by Su and Aponia, the Herrscher of Corrosion would have been discovered and easily annihilated by the Thirteen Heroes.

Seeing the efforts these memories made for her own memories, while feeling relieved and happy, Alicia, who had already obtained the power of the Ruler of Corrosion, also felt an unprecedented pressure.

Perhaps feeling the psychological pressure from Alicia clinging to him, Eden gently swirled the wine in the goblet, and a hint of intoxicating yet calm smile appeared on the corner of his mouth: "Don't worry, my friend."

"?" Mei Leidian, who had walked in front of Eden, was stunned. "What are you worried about?"

"Ah, Miss Mei." Eden raised his face and looked at the stunned Mei. "Nothing, just talking to myself in my spare time."

"..." Mei Raiden looked at Eden who seemed a little drunk, and nodded without any doubt.

Among all the heroes, there are only a few people that Mei Raiden trusts and recognizes far more than others. Apart from Hua, with whom she has a deep friendship in real life and who is far ahead of everyone else in this respect, Eden, Su, and Sakura, whose whereabouts are also unknown now, are all heroes that Mei Raiden thinks of very highly.

"Eden." Raiden Mei quickly stated her purpose, "Have you... seen Alicia?"

"..."