The collapse started when Kiana came to the door

Kevin turned his face and looked directly into Su's closed eyes. He suddenly said something that surprised Su: "Did you know that Alicia is still alive?"

Did he already know? Su hesitated for a moment, nodded, and sighed softly: "But she doesn't seem to want more people to know about this, Kevin..."

"To prevent misunderstanding, let me confirm it again." Before Su could try to persuade his best friend, Kevin suddenly interrupted him and said, "Have you already known that the real Alicia is still alive?"

"..."

"..."

The footsteps stopped.

What did Kevin say just now?

News that the real Alicia is still alive?

"...Wait." Su raised his head and opened his eyes in surprise, "Kevin, you just said...?"

"Yeah." Kevin nodded. His azure eyes, which usually looked a little cold because of their lack of emotion, suddenly showed some emotion similar to joy.

...In Su's memory, the last time Kevin showed similar emotions in his eyes was fifty thousand years ago, when they had not yet separated from their original bodies and were still [humans] rather than [memories].

"I lied to you." Kevin said, "I didn't notice Aponya's behavior, but was invited here by Aponya."

"..." Su gently closed his eyes and shook his head with a bit of a smile, "It seems that our two ideas seem to have coincided with the same path by accident."

Now that he thought about it, the whole journey was smooth without encountering any creations of Abonia. Perhaps it was not because Kevin was with them, but because... the owner of this place had opened the road to them from the very beginning.

"...You don't seem to know that Alicia's true body is still alive." Kevin said, "Now that I have told you why I came here, then..."

"When the visitor was communicating with Eden, I saw that Alicia was attached to her in a way similar to a consciousness body. It was also at that time that I learned part of the truth from Eden." Su said calmly, "As fusion warriors of the same spiritual perception system, I think that among them, Aponia should have the most detailed and objective understanding of the facts. Therefore, I set foot in this territory that originally belonged to Aponia."

"So, you've seen Alicia," Kevin said.

"Yeah." Su nodded, "But I never knew whether it was the real Alicia or Alicia's memory. However, now that I think about it, she did say something like [her mission is about to fail]."

Su paused for a moment and said helplessly: "Indeed, if you think about it carefully, the memory in the paradise should not be restricted or instructed by others. Even you, Kevin, have no right to give Alicia a task that must be completed."

Kevin nodded, acknowledging Su's words, and fell into silence again.

In the bright sky corridor, two steady footsteps sank into the other side of the clouds. After a period of time when nothing happened and there were no obstacles, Sue and Kevin finally arrived at the end of the corridor.

The moment they stepped onto the floating altar at the finish line, the boundless whiteness and silence quickly permeated Kevin and Su's perception.

Before the two startled people could get on alert, a light and cheerful voice sounded in their ears.

"Hi! Kevin! Sue!"

That voice was undoubtedly Alicia's voice.

In a joyful tone, Miss Fairy gave a warm welcome to the two invited visitors: "Welcome to the realm of Apolonia's consciousness!"

The moment Alicia finished speaking, the boundless white area gradually began to turn pink.

Kevin and Sue simultaneously focused their eyes towards the place where the colors were generated.

In less than half a second, the condensed pink mist formed the figure of Alicia, who was very familiar to them, and she was waving at them.

"..." Kevin looked at Alicia waving at them and was silent for a long time, but in the end, he still didn't say anything, just nodded lightly.

"...Heh." Realizing that this was Alicia's true form, Su let out an inaudible smile and nodded gently, "Long time no see... Welcome back to the paradise of the past, Alicia."

Just like that, after greeting each other——

"So... in your plan, although the Paradise of the Past still needs to be destroyed, you still want us, the memories... to attach to other people's spirits in the form of Yu Duchen's [avatar]?"

——Soon, these fusion warriors, whose minds were filled with nothing but fighting the Honkai, quickly broke away from their joy that Alicia was still alive, and steered their conversation back on track.

Su summarized the memories he read from Aponya's consciousness, touched his chin, and asked cautiously: "But if this is the case, will it put too much pressure on the visitor's spirit? And... if according to your plan, we die one by one in front of the visitor, will it be too bad for the visitor?"

Kevin nodded, agreeing with Su's words. "We all know that if [my] plan goes smoothly, the power of the End will be taken over by him in the coming time. Even if the arrival of Captain Li Shubai has given rise to additional factors in this world and provided other ways to cross the End, making the Stigmata Plan not the only option, the existence of the End should be restricted. There is no need to deceive the Herrscher of Thunder simply for the End."

"That's what I thought at first." Alicia spread her hands, "But... the captain doesn't seem to think that the End is something that can be easily restricted by us. He even doesn't think that the Stigma Project is a choice that will inevitably succeed."

"Reason?" Kevin asked briefly.

"Simply put, the captain believes that the upper limit of the energy level of Honkai, as a phenomenon and law of the universe, cannot be understood by humans as intelligent creatures." Alicia recalled Li Shubai's words in the military intelligence room: "Although in principle, everything has a limit to its existence, Honkai is something that has completely deviated from the laws of physics, and the full scale of it cannot be expressed by the existing cognitive language of humans alone."

"...Indeed." Su said softly, "Although Dr. Mei believes that defining Honkai is simpler than defining humans, and has successfully deduced the time and scale of the end...but the scale of [Honkai] itself has a limit that it can eventually reach, and even Dr. Mei has never touched it."

"Even Herrschers who were born from the Honkai have a maximum limit to the Honkai energy they can withstand. If they exceed this limit, their bodies will also collapse. How can you guarantee that the Honkai energy that the awakened ones of the stigmata can withstand is greater than the scale of the Honkai itself?" Alicia shrugged and imitated Li Shubai's argument, saying, "To be frank, no matter how many awakened ones of the stigmata there are, it is impossible for them to exceed the population of 7 billion. Even according to the proportion of the stigmata, it would be good to have 1% or 1/10,000 of them."

"The captain admits that the Stigmata Plan is the best and most optimal plan under extreme circumstances. However, relying on a mere number of tens of millions, it is delusional to expect to even out the collapse, which is a cosmic phenomenon and has a scale of more than one trillion..." Alicia recalled Li Shubai's words and smiled bitterly. "I'd better not say the next words for now."

Chapter 4: Treasures Come (k)

"It's okay." Su looked at Kevin, who had no expression on his face, and shook his head gently. "Even if the direction and the route are not the same, whether it's us, Dr. Mei, or any of your captains, our ultimate goal is to continue humanity and civilization under the pursuit of Honkai. In this process, it's normal for everyone to have some differences in their opinions."

"Yeah." Kevin nodded and said calmly: "As long as it is reasonable and feasible, Mei doesn't care about others questioning her views and plans."

"Moreover, even if the [I] outside disagrees with your captain's point of view..." Kevin glanced at Alicia, "...he should not be able to easily take on the power of the end in a short period of time."

In fact, the so-called Herrscher of the End actually contains two different definitions.

In a sense, every Herrscher has the potential to destroy the entire civilization, that is to say, every Herrscher has the possibility of becoming the [Herscher of the End].

However, if we analyze it from another perspective based on the theorem calculated by Dr. Mei, the Herrscher of the End refers specifically to the Herrscher with serial number 14. She possesses a Honkai energy scale far exceeding that of the first thirteen Herrschers, and also has a Honkai energy operation method that is beyond common sense.

At the same time, in the last era of civilization, she was also the only Herrscher who fulfilled her potential and achieved the ultimate goal of "the end" for mankind.

As far as Kevin knows, the power of the Herrscher of the End is the concrete manifestation of all the power of the top thirteen Herrschers of the current civilization. Conversely, if it is not possible to aggregate all the power of the top thirteen Herrschers, even Kevin in the real world should find it difficult to reproduce the power of [The End].

In the last civilized era, until the end, the Twelfth Herrscher was not truly defeated. Although Dr. Mei used the miracle that only lasted for a moment created by the kind sisters Sakura and Ling to successfully seal the Herrscher of Corrosion from the previous civilized era in the black box, [sealing] is not [defeating] after all, nor is it [killing].

In the original timeline, it was because of Alicia's memory that the Ruler of Corrosion was defeated, achieving a result that the previous civilization had failed to achieve. Kevin, who had successfully usurped the power of Corrosion, was able to continue to carry out his plan.

Therefore - even if Alicia and Li Shubai did not have similar goals in the beginning, the moment they chose to [Erosion] the Herrscher of Corrosion of the current civilization era, for Kevin, unless Li Shubai and Alicia took the initiative to transfer the power of Corrosion to Kevin, then collecting the powers of the other thirteen Herrschers except the End would become a nearly impossible task.

Although Kevin speculated that the "self" outside had lost the initiative in the negotiations, and based on his understanding of "himself", "himself" was also impossible and incapable of seizing the power of erosion from Alicia, who became the Herrscher of Erosion, but... after all, he was not the real Kevin himself, and the years and choices that the real Kevin had endured did not belong to him either, so he quickly put this matter that had little to do with the current situation behind his mind.

"Rather than talking about that, let's get back to the original topic." Kevin turned his head, glanced at Alicia, and said calmly, "Since the original Herrscher of Corrosion has been dealt with by you, Alicia, what are you going to do?"

Hearing Kevin's straightforward question, Alicia scratched her pink hair and showed a somewhat embarrassed expression: "You asked me what I was going to do. Anyway, let's find a time to go to Wei Wei first? Wei Wei is the best at performing, right?"

"I don't deny this, but I don't think Velvet will act strictly according to your ideas." Kevin bluntly pointed out the biggest dilemma at present. "And in the [future] that Aponia showed us, without Velvet's plan, it would be difficult for us to help the Herrscher of Thunder reproduce your memory."

"Besides, in addition to the problem with Velvi..." Su said softly, "Qianjie and Mobius are also difficult problems to deal with."

As for Kosmo's words, as long as Alicia herself comes forward, it shouldn't be difficult to convince them, and as for Grayshu... since Aponia and Kosmo have been convinced by them, they probably won't express any objection to Alicia's decision.

The only exceptions are Velvet, Chihiro, and Mobius… It’s really hard to imagine that they would cooperate well with Alicia in acting.

At this moment, Aponia, who had been silent all the time, suddenly spoke.

"Su." She called Su's name, then pondered for a moment and suggested, "If [acting] is not feasible for them, why don't we join forces to temporarily change the perception of others in the paradise towards Alicia, what do you think?"

"Do you want them to turn their fake play into reality?" Su gently opened his eyes and pondered for a moment. "In principle, this should be a feasible plan. If the two of us work together... even Kevin should be deceived by us temporarily."

"Oh, there's one more thing." Suddenly, Alicia seemed to remember something and raised her hand. "Can you perform S0-1129's surgery again?"

"......?" Hearing this number that they hadn't heard for a long time, Su and Abonya looked at each other, both feeling a little confused.

"Why is that?" Su asked, "Now that you are the Herrscher of Corrosion, you should be the same as us, appearing in the paradise in the form of similar data, right?"

"It's not me." Alicia waved her hand. "The captain just contacted me and hoped that you could help him perform an operation on S0-1129."

"Although he lent me a feather from the Yu Du Chen temporarily, I am not the original owner of the Yu Du Chen after all. I am not very comfortable using it, and it is difficult to transfer all of the Thirteen Heroes' memories. For me... keeping [myself] and Ying's memories in the outside world in the form of Yu Du Chen's clones... has almost exhausted all my strength." Alicia said, "Besides, the captain also said that when you conduct this experiment on him, he will find a way to analyze the principle of this experiment and reversely deduce a method to transform the data back into consciousness."

"This..." Su pondered for a moment and nodded: "I have no objection."

"It is a great honor for me to meet the captain who saved Alicia." Aponya said softly, "Like Su, I don't mind performing surgery on him."

"It's decided then!" Alicia said with a smile.

Just when several heroes in the deepest place decided on the next action to be taken, outside, in the hall of the paradise of the past, accompanied by the sound of crisp footsteps, Raiden Mei walked step by step into the corridor.

Although Su's mental connection has ended, its residual influence still exists. Slightly messy memories emerge in front of her for no reason, making Raiden Mei feel a little dazed and dizzy.

As she took firm yet slightly shaky steps, the gradually darkening stone wall covered her field of vision and gradually swallowed up her perception.

When the scene before my eyes was illuminated by light again and my five senses were restored—

——Raiden Mei, who thought she should have left the paradise of the past life, suddenly shuddered all over and woke up.

"This...?!" She looked around at the surrounding scene, the square stone brick ground, the big tree standing between heaven and earth, the fresh vegetation and the heavy air, all of this was silently telling Raiden Mei an irrefutable fact.

"Have I returned to the paradise of the past?" She murmured in a somewhat tired voice, and hastily displayed her Herrscher's weapons to quickly annihilate the enemy that appeared out of nowhere beside her.

Could it be that someone interfered with my conscious perception?

Aponia? Su? Or Hua?

No...it shouldn't be them.

Aponya was not by his side, and neither Su nor Hua had any reason to interfere with his consciousness.

No, while swinging the sword in her hand to quickly cut the enemy's figure, Raiden Mei gently clenched her teeth.

I have just escaped from the influence of the mental connection. If I am dragged down, my physical strength will be exhausted quickly.

As usual, try to exit the training of Paradise and return to the hall.

But when Raiden Mei silently said [Exit] in her heart as she did before, the enemies that should have stopped appearing did not decrease at all.

"?!"Why?

Why couldn’t I return to the Paradise Hall?

Feeling her physical strength slowly draining away in the process of killing the enemy, Mei Raiden became increasingly anxious and couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat, and her breathing became disordered involuntarily.

My hands and feet felt heavy as if they were filled with lead, and my vision gradually became blurred.

Oops, if this continues...

Alicia is missing and she is unable to contact the outside world. If under such circumstances, she falls into a [Death] state.

In that case, it's over.

Mei Raiden...will simply die here for such unclear and inexplicable reasons.

Are you kidding me?

In this case, let’s find a way to cut open this area itself!

"!?" But at the moment when Mei Raiden continued to muster her strength and tried to further increase the output of the power of conquest despite the defeat.

Suddenly, a feather with a very ancient style appeared in her field of vision.

…and more.

Behind the feather, she also saw two people.

One of them was a woman who looked like Hua but had a very different temperament from her, and the other was a strange man.

Who...are they?

Oh no, could this be... Yu Duchen's power...

Her eyes closed uncontrollably, and as her vision fell into darkness, Mei Raiden fought hard to maintain her remaining consciousness and imprinted the appearance of the two people in her memory.

"Hmm..." Looking at Mei Leidian who was lying on the ground in front of him, Li Shubai touched his chin and looked around, "Is this the trial site of the paradise of the past? It's really a unique scenery."

"You're too leisurely, Captain." The Herrscher of Knowledge put his hands behind his head and glanced at Mei Raiden who was lying on the ground, his eyes flashing with anticipation and excitement. "Next... I should be able to see what the old antique looked like before. Uhuhuhu, how should I tease that guy then?"

"You said I was leisurely? As soon as I ran in, I was thinking about causing trouble." Li Shubai rolled his eyes and muttered in a low voice, "I should have known not to let you in, Kevin."

"Ah, what did you say?" The Herrscher of Knowledge said with an exaggerated expression, "I can't hear you~"

"Forget it." Li Shubai waved his hands and pointed at Raiden Mei who was lying on the ground. "You want to do it or should I?"

"Of course, leave it to me!" The Herrscher of Knowledge walked quickly to the side of Raiden Mei, then stretched out his hand and lifted her onto his shoulders with ease, and stuck out his tongue at Li Shubai, "Men and women should not touch each other, do you understand?"

"It's up to you, as long as you're happy." Li Shubai shrugged indifferently, "Let's go in first. Alicia has reached a consensus with the only two spiritual perception fusion warriors in the Paradise of the Past, and Kevin, the only one who can resist them, has also agreed to Alicia's plan, so next... let's deal with the memory of Hua, the owner of Yu Duchen."

"What's there to worry about? It's just a small antique." The Herrscher of Knowledge raised his eyebrows, his voice full of disdain, "If you're worried that you can't convince her, let me do it."

"Oh?" Li Shubai said in a provocative tone, "Don't you want to use your power of consciousness?"

"..." The Herrscher of Consciousness fell silent. She glared at Li Shubai fiercely, "If you don't want to use the power of consciousness, then don't use it! What's the big deal? Just wait and see!"

"Then let me wait and see." Li Shubai said with a smile.

As the two were "chatting and laughing", the surrounding scene instantly changed from the trial ground in Paradise to the luxurious and glorious appearance of the Paradise Hall.

As soon as they arrived at the hall, the Herrscher of Knowledge threw Mei Raiden to the ground without mercy. Then he jumped up and flew to the entrance of the paradise in mid-air: "Wuhu! Old antique! Comrades! Here I come!"