K424 of the Collapse World

"Do you know what your actions mean?"

"I know I violated the agreement between us."

Xing nodded with her hands behind her back, her eyes calm, and her casual and brisk tone showing no awe for her superiors.

"You chose to believe me, Mr. Kevin. You kept the verbal agreement between us and proved to me the credibility of World Serpent."

Having said that, the purple-haired girl's expression gradually took on a hint of cunning.

"Although I appreciate your trust, it's a pity that Xing is a bad kid~ Agreements and promises don't have much binding force on me..."

"Xing Maer, your goal is to free Silis Kaslana from the fate of fighting the End. You betrayed our cooperation contract in advance, and your wish will end here."

“It won’t end~”

As soon as Kevin finished speaking, the girl's soft whisper floated out.

"Even without me, Mr. Kevin will still complete the Stigmata Project with all his strength, right? I have done what is beneficial to Far East. As long as the World Serpent seals the Honkai Impact before the end comes, Sister Shilis will be fine."

"I have no obligation to guarantee the survival of the Ruler, if that's what you decide... eh?!"

Just as he said this, Kevin suddenly realized something and cast a serious gaze on Xing's arms.

Although Xing had her hands behind her back, Kevin could sense what was happening in her body.

The power of the law of time was oscillating outward from Xing's body at a regular but violent frequency, and the starting point was exactly the finger position hidden behind the girl's back...

"Could it be that......"

"Alas... As expected of the strongest person in the previous civilization, you discovered me so quickly."

Xing shrugged and stretched out her hands behind her back, showing them to Kevin.

The tips of her ten fingers had turned translucent, like a damaged texture, constantly repeating the process of switching between reality and illusion. The space around her also flashed intermittently like a stuck videotape.

The energy of the Law of Time is overflowing...

"I did intend to fulfill my promise seriously from the beginning, Mr. Kevin."

Xing watched the confusion on Kevin's face gradually disappear, spread out her hands and smiled bitterly, but still explained softly.

"But it's a pity that before I got the power of the law of time, it seems that I have already overdrawn the price that I can't repay~"

Xing looked at the turbulent energy spreading from her fingertips and gently closed her eyes.

From the moment she awakened as the Herrscher of Time, she had regained all her lost memories, including the moment she was caught by the light while immersed in the dark sea of ​​consciousness. The subsequent scenes also reappeared in her mind...

·————————————·

If the human mind is compared to a world, then the world of mind imagery would be an infinite ocean, covered by the sky, with scattered islands on the surface of the ocean...

When awake, the human spirit will stand on these islands, facing the outside universe; but when asleep, the spirit will sink to the surface of the sea and immerse itself in the inner sea of ​​consciousness.

The spirit itself will never fall asleep. Being in its own sea of ​​consciousness, it may be able to see the reflection of reality in the bubbles of the waves and recall the past; or be enveloped by the bubbles of consciousness and witness those absurd and magical dreams under their interference; or stare blankly at the empty sea of ​​consciousness and reflect the pure ocean into its own eyes...

The color of the sea of ​​consciousness depends on the most essential color of a person's heart.

Some are pure white, some are blue, some are gray, and some... are dark purple that is infinitely close to pitch black.

As for pure black, there is only one situation in which this occurs.

When that person's spirit body,

When he sinks to the eternal bottom of the sea of ​​consciousness, never to be able to float to the surface, this endless darkness will be the last scene he can see.

Xing now has a thorough understanding of these abstract knowledge. But a few hours ago, when she saw the darkness, she did not realize that her spiritual body had begun to disappear...

At that moment, when she could no longer stay conscious and was about to merge into the darkness of death, the golden light grabbed her and completely dispelled the darkness around her.

The moment she felt that warmth, the first thing that came to Xing's mind was the silver-haired girl who had once pulled her out of the darkness...

(Siris...sister?)

In the girl's hopeful eyes, these flickering spots of light gathered and shrank, forming a slender human figure, which gradually turned into the appearance that was extremely familiar to her memory.

But the next moment, a strange voice broke her fantasy.

"I'm sorry, I'm not your sister Sis."

(Eh...?! But you...)

“Why is it exactly the same as ‘Silis’, right? Because she is my half, you should understand that, right?”

A silver-haired girl made of light stood in front of Xing. Except for her pure golden star-like eyes, her other appearance was exactly the same as Xili in Xing's mind.

However, compared to Shirley, her slightly more mature figure seems more like Shirley's sister...

(But who are you...)

"Don't worry about my identity, Xing Maer. I appear before you as a soul incarnation just to confirm one thing with you."

(…)

The voice echoing in her head directly interrupted Xing's question. It was obvious that in some kind of "authority" in this area, this silver-haired girl with an unknown identity was higher than her.

"First of all, Xing Maer, you are already dead."

(What......?!)

"To be precise, you are in the process of dying. Your power of law is not chosen by God, but stolen from human experiments. Therefore, your fragile soul has reached its limit after two reversals of the law of time, and is destined to be unable to withstand the energy backflow of the third reversal."

767 The price of promise >>

(…)

"But you still did it. As a result, your body was destroyed by the backlash of energy, and your consciousness was eliminated by the energy of the law. Although the time of this era was reset by you, you, lying on the bed, are already a corpse."

Listening to the calm narration of the silver-haired girl, a storm surged in Xing's mind.

Am I...dead?

I just mastered the rules of the law and was about to break the reincarnation trap set by the Herrscher of Time, but when I successfully activated my ability, I was already dead? ? !

What an irony...

However, before Xing's spirit completely collapsed, the voice of the silver-haired girl once again penetrated her mind, and under the influence of some power, she was forced to calm down.

"Now, there are two paths before you—"

"First...if you die now, your soul will be thrown into the next reincarnation era after civilization is reset, just like the other dead people. All memory fragments will be cleared, and you will be reborn again with your current consciousness."

"Second...pay an irreparable price to refuse death..."

(I choose the second one!)

Before the girl could finish, Xing couldn't wait to shout out.

In response, the silver-haired girl just sighed softly.

"Just listen to me first... Your body and mind have been destroyed by the backlash of power. According to the rules of the material world, there is no hope of recovery."

Having said that, the silver-haired girl gently opened her hands, revealing a sphere engraved with dense runes in her palms.

"But I can draw out the human's 'soul' and let you directly use the power of the soul to drive the remaining body. However, when the spiritual essence of the soul is exhausted, your existence will also disappear completely, and will no longer reincarnate with each reset of the world. In other words, except for the traces you left in this era, no matter how far into the future, every leaf in the entire imaginary tree will no longer have the concept of 'Apricot Mal'."

"Even so, do you still want to make this choice?"

(…)

Xing blinked as if she understood, and after a moment of hesitation, she nodded heavily.

(I... am sure! I will die anyway, so as long as I can be resurrected this time, I don’t care what the price is!)

"Do you really understand what 'disappearance of existence' means? This is far more than just a single death..."

(I see!)

The silver-haired girl responded with an unwavering gaze.

(There will be no next era! Sister Shilis will definitely end the collapse, and I will help her achieve her goal in this era, instead of thinking about Sister Shilis's failure and hoping for rebirth in the next era!)

"...

..」

For the first time, the mysterious silver-haired girl lost her voice in front of Xing.

(If I choose the first path, there will be no next era, which means I will die without doing anything. I don’t want that!)

"Your blind trust in her is really..."

(Whatever you say...! Since you can revive me, just be quick and stop whining. I will not regret this choice, absolutely not!)

"...Silly boy, fine, I will grant your wish."

After a long silence, the silver-haired girl finally gave an answer with a wry smile.

"I was still hesitating whether to break the rules for her, so I gave you the choice, but I didn't expect... it seems that in the end, I really have to make an exception this time..."

As she spoke, she slowly raised her hand and aimed the ball of light in her hand at Xing's spirit body, allowing the holy golden light to completely cover Xing's shadow.

"I will restore the memories you lost in the flashback and infuse you with all the knowledge of the Perfect Herrscher. Please make sure to defeat the other Herrscher of Time!"

Xing gradually discovered that the star-like golden eyes were no longer the ethereal pupils of God, but were filled with the brilliance of humanity, slowly covered with a layer of mist...

"Please, save my sister... Don't let her become a caged bird like me. She should live freely!"

"Now that I think about it... Sister Shilis's true identity is quite interesting~ Being called sister by a being of that level, if I have the chance, I really want to ask her in person~"

Xing stretched out her right hand, and the faint light particles in the sky gathered towards her palm, gradually condensing into a dark red crystal.

The Herrscher of the Stone core that was shattered by Shiris was restored under the influence of the Law of Time and was held in Xing's hand, although her palm had become almost transparent...

The essence of the Herrscher's body is a spiritual body, and Xing sublimates the Herrscher with a burning soul. When it burns out, it will naturally disappear slowly like this.

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Kevin. However, although the promise to join the World Serpent cannot be fulfilled, we should still have room for a deal, right?"

Xing tossed the core in her hand and threw it towards Kevin.

"Can the Herrscher of Stone's core, combined with the Herrscher of Time's core, offset my breach of contract and give Silis Kaslana a chance to survive?"

"......Can."

Catching the core thrown by Xing, the white-haired man replied in a low voice. Facing a girl who was about to lose her soul, he could not ask her for anything more.

After all, cooperation with Herrscher such as Shirley was part of the Stigmata Plan, and without Xing's assistance, things would only become a little more troublesome.

Since she was willing to leave her core to the World Serpent, it didn't seem to matter if I agreed to this girl's wish to protect someone important to her...

As a tribute to the dedicated ones.

But the next moment, Xing suddenly raised her head and touched her hair with some embarrassment.

"Huh? Um... Mr. Kevin, my Herrscher core seems to be disappearing along with my body..."

"..."

"Haha~ I was just kidding. Look at your gloomy expression. You really can't take a joke."

The purple-haired girl chuckled and clapped her hands, her flickering body slowly drifting towards Kevin...

Looking at the girl whose figure had become blurred, Kevin lowered his head slightly, his eyes slightly gloomy.

"Is there anything I can tell the Law-Bound?"

"Last words? Let me think... Never mind, just don't tell her that I'm dead. Okay! Just tell her that I joined the World Serpent and am on a mission somewhere else, and that I never want to see her again in my life. Just say that. I don't want others to mourn for me..."

The purple-haired girl tilted her head and revealed a meaningful smile.

"Come to think of it, not only did I not say goodbye to my mother and the others, but the history of our two gatherings and sightseeing trips was also retraced. I feel a little sorry for Rosaria and Lilia... I was a little too harsh just now, and I don't know how Bronya is doing now..."

As expected, I don't want to leave like this...

Quietly, the figure of the purple-haired girl disappeared, leaving only a golden crystal lying quietly in Kevin's hand.

A few crystal drops of water remained on the crystals, sliding down from the smooth surface of the crystals, leaving behind tear-like water marks...

768 New Students

Before she could recover from the shock of her body shrinking, Shirley suddenly felt an inexplicable palpitation.

It seems like something bad happened...

"Eh......?"

Following her intuition, the girl subconsciously turned around and tried to look at the sea outside the branch base. But she didn't see the

Unable to find the source of her throbbing, her eyes met with a tall, blonde girl.