Collapse, survive

He decided to have her crawl, like a band member sleeping on all fours.

Himeko only felt...childish. She understood Fang Jie's gaze, which held a mixture of expectation and cooperation; she even:

"dad."

Kiana was stunned. This was something she was supposed to hear; Bronya was still there.

The duck had no objections.

She's probably the only one who doesn't understand anything.

Ji Zi knew how to crush people, and Fang Jie accepted the challenge.

"Elbow, come back to the room with me. Good boy, it's time for you to go to sleep."

Fight!

Don't abandon your humanity; keep up with the pace of your life's expansion and unleash it with passion.

……

……

In the same night, under the starry sky, someone wakes up—

"Where am I?"

The young female knight opened her eyes and felt another 'hallucination' strike her, her mind a jumbled mess.

At the end of the previous civilization, Kevin's all-out attack temporarily halted the Herrscher of the End's actions for 12 hours, and the release also caused Bianca to crash. Only now has she awakened to a strange call.

Not only did I suffer another round of memory regression, but I also heard a strangely aged and gentle voice, as if I were hallucinating:

"Bianca, Durandal, Atagina, open your eyes, I am 'Su'."

.

Chapter 72 Su: Yulandel, open your eyes.

"Hello, Sue, thank you for waking me up."

“I did nothing. This is your own will, Bianca, Durandal, Atagina.”

Wandering among the stars, the young knight converses with unseen, almost illusory figures:

"Just call me Durandal, Sue. I want to know—how is Earth doing now?"

Without asking who Su was—someone whose voice could only be heard but not seen, and whose voice could even be heard from space—she inquired about the situation on Reach.

Flying towards the sun, Durandal awoke to find herself floating in an asteroid belt. Thanks to her powerful physique, she was not frozen by the cold universe and turned into a drifting ice block, but she had drifted here unconsciously and was buffered and captured by various meteorites in space.

After waking up, she estimated the duration of her mental blankness to be several hours. Almost all the brain cells in her brain had stopped working, the electrical currents on the nerve synapses had stopped flowing, and all the muscles, cells, tissues, and organs in her body had shut down. Everything was sealed... or rather, blocked.

From space, or even a higher level of time, at the moment a corner of the world constructed by spacetime was destroyed, a kind of 'sub-co-crystal' based on the world, that is, the material used to build walls in subspace, solidified into 'amber' and then flew high up, like a golden horizon.

Frankly speaking, Durandal felt nothing at all; she was utterly defeated.

She wouldn't be discouraged, but she also worried that the Herrscher she couldn't stop might have destroyed the Earth...

"No need to worry, at least not for now. The Earth of the intrinsic world is safe and sound, and the world bubble in the Sea of ​​Quanta is also safe and sound, Durandal."

Su's tone was unhurried, clear, and helpless.

"But I can't see their future."

"?"

Durandal didn't quite understand the second half of the sentence, but being an honest person, she was satisfied with the first half being unharmed.

"That's good, I'll go back right away."

As she awoke, the Luna Armor began to regain its functionality, ejecting particles to accelerate and propel the young knight. Without waiting for the Destiny's space carrier to arrive and rescue her, she flew back to Earth on her own.

You won't get lost!

Leaving aside Durandal's innate spatial perception talent, Earth is so big, and there's that terrestrial planet in the third orbit of the solar system, with the moon orbiting it, Su also gave her directions.

"This is a rare opportunity, why not go see the moon?"

"No need, I'm going back. My battle isn't over yet."

"But you can't win. Even though I can't see 'his' future, you can't win right now."

"I see."

Durandal agreed with Sue, but instead of slowing down, she continued to accelerate toward her battlefield—near the Earth's surface, she only needed to move at Mach, but in the unobstructed space, this speed could be increased, accelerated, and accelerated continuously.

"Please slow down. If you are captured by Earth's gravity, the impact you will bring will be stronger than a meteorite hitting the ground."

"it is good."

Durandal listened to advice and slowed down to maintain a steady pace.

Her eyes reflected the Milky Way.

Once you escape the planet's atmosphere and enter the sky, there is no endless darkness behind you.

The Milky Way is dazzling, the solar wind is bright, and the 'moons' that reflect and refract them have also taken over the baton, radiating a cool light.

The silhouette was solemn and silent. It wasn't the first time she had seen it, but every time she had looked at it, Durandal's heart was filled with turbulent waves, yet she didn't have time to stop and admire it.

Bathed in the solar breeze, a white light danced gently like a golden ponytail, its brilliance traversing the distant night sky.

Su's occasional cold voice sounded just like the old ghost drifting in space.

Finally, upon reaching the planet's gravitational field, Durandal breathed a sigh of relief and gratefully replied, "Do you have any unfulfilled wishes?"

"Actually, I'm not dead yet, I'm not a ghost."

Su's tone was not helpless, but she did not expect Durandal to treat her like a ghost.

"Huh? You're not a ghost."

Durandal was somewhat surprised: "But I can't see you at all. Your mental attacks are also quite good. Even though I received special training from His Holiness the Bishop, I still fell into your illusion. These voices are all 'illusions,' right? And those strange 'illusions' too."

There's absolutely no visible human-to-human spiritual communication across the universe; what else could this be but a ghost?

“Yes, I am communicating with you through spirit, Durandal.”

Sue reiterated, "But I am not a ghost. I only saw you when I was observing other worlds through the Tree of Imaginary Numbers. Your performance in the World Bubble impressed me. As for the strange hallucinations about you, they were not caused by me."

"World Bubble".

Durandal seemed to understand but not quite. She had never met anyone named 'Su' in the world, so was it spying?

The bishop was also a voyeur, which she couldn't get used to; she just knew that this kind of person—silently giving Su, who relayed the message, the initial impression of a voyeur—Durandal directly asked:

"Su, who are you? I don't think I've seen you before."

“I’m sorry, Durandal, I cannot reveal my identity at this time. What I can tell you is that the illusions you, all of you, including mine, were caused by that ‘Fang Jie’.”

"I see."

Durandal understood.

"Once we defeat him, all of this will be over."

First of all, you can't beat them;

Secondly, don't you completely misunderstand?

Su has met many honest people. Hua has always been honest, and Kevin can be considered an honest person as well. Su admires the wisdom of treating others with sincerity, but reality often forces us to be more tactful.

“Durandal, you still have plenty of time, and I can tell you more, including my conjectures, conjectures based on the words and actions of that Fang Jie.”

You really do like spying. Durandal won't mind this time. To defeat an enemy, you must understand them, especially when you can't win.

"I am listening."

Durandal intends to learn about her opponent from this, an opponent so strong that even she has no way to deal with them.

"In your understanding, Fang Jie is an alien, but based on my indirect observation, he also claimed to be a person from the future, a person who 'claims to know destiny'."

“I once heard him say to a very important girl: I don’t believe in coincidences. There are no coincidences in this world. Everything is a seed planted in the distant past.”

"I also heard him tell that girl in a roundabout way: 'The beginning reverses destruction. The sky burns the earth. The pursuit brings revenge. The future saves the past. The old kill the young. This is the cyclical fate of the world.'"

Everything has begun; it is both a beginning and a continuation. The gods have bestowed upon me their glory, proclaiming that their authority is attainable. But I know full well—[the throne high in the heavens has never been reserved for you].

I will not stand still, watching from the sidelines; I will embark on a journey until the very end, to understand meaning and let the world settle. There must exist things that only I can do, things that only I can accomplish.

Sue's tone remained gentle, aged, clear, and contained much more that remained unspoken.

He hadn't heard Fang Jie and Hua's conversation, but Hua's subsequent retelling of their various plans regarding the previous civilization—the Fire Seed Project, the Hengsha Project, the Sacred Mark Project, the Ark Project…

Fang Jie seemed to know everything and intended to join in, but he didn't explain his own plans.

He came with good intentions, though those good intentions were tainted by something rather appalling.

Sue tells Durandal everything Kiana heard, and the alien story Fang Jie told her before bed, which made him unable to just watch any longer and led Durandal back home.

"This story is like a ballad, a ballad without beginning or end, without sound or whisper, coming from the mouth of no one and going to the ears of no one. It goes like this:"

"The vast plains stretch for thousands of miles, seemingly emerging from the clouds; it is the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, a place where heaven and earth are perfectly level."

The world turned pitch black, the great sun stirred up the tides, and it seemed as if migrating gods were leaving their traces as they came with overwhelming force.

Eight million evil spirits appeared in the world to slaughter mercilessly, but unexpectedly, their supreme power was stolen.

Of the 73,000 swords broken in Izumo Province, twelve were forged into the Imperial Guardian Swords.

Su felt a strange sadness. Even though Hua was once again working hard for modern civilization, he could only watch. But after hearing such a story, he couldn't help but take action.

Fang Jie once told Fu Hua that there are beings in the Milky Way who can survive the end, but that kind of experience is not worth learning from or even knowing.

Su could understand this warning. Even though he had looked out over countless possibilities and sought a way to overcome the collapse, he finally had a clue, but he felt that the future it pointed to was so tragic.

His songs continued to be sung to Durandal, to the young knight who had impressed him so much and whom he wanted to entrust his mantle to, and to tell her everything that 'Kiana' could hear.

"Then the dark world was swept away, the battle ceased, and the twelve cold lights were extinguished; then the sound of broken pieces stopped, the fallen flowers withered and flourished, the defeated returned to nothingness, and the victors... became nothingness."

A fragmented story, a fragmented song—what role does 'Raiden Mei' play in it? Sue doesn't know, but he knows what role Kevin will play, and he understands Kevin perfectly.

At the end of the fifth century AD, Kevin lost contact with the pioneers who carried out the Ark Project. Hua's Fire Seed Project also failed because the Collapse would come even faster with the accelerated development of civilization. Su observed for 50,000 years in the Second Divine Key without any results. Therefore, Kevin decided to launch the Stigmata Project.

He created the 'World Serpent' and, through artificial intervention, activated and recombined the broken antibody genome that Mei had inoculated in the embryos of a few offspring, but which had been scattered due to human lineage inheritance.

That was a wrong path. Kevin's use of the British Isles as a testing ground convinced Sue that he had gone astray.

then……

Sue lured Kevin to the Void Key he possessed, imprisoned him in the World Bubble, and outwardly fought him to buy time, while secretly activating the Void Key's first rated power, sinking the World Bubble they were in to the bottom of the Quanta Sea.

They were once best friends, having weathered the toughest times together, but when they met again, they had to perish together, because in the end, the path to salvation was so narrow that it could only accommodate one person.

Sue was prepared to risk his life to fight Kevin. He knew just how strong Kevin was and that he had no chance of winning.

But he succeeded, he won, and he stopped Kevin.

Kevin could have destroyed the core of the Void Key before the portal to the Sea of ​​Quanta opened, but he gave up because he was concerned about Sue's sacrifice to buy time.

In the end, just as the World Bubble was about to sink into the Sea of ​​Quanta, Kevin threw Sue back into the real world, while he sank to the bottom of the Sea of ​​Quanta along with the World Bubble…

Kevin's acceptance was sealed, and Su felt extremely guilty, believing himself to be a traitor. He then re-entered the Thousand Realms One Vehicle to continue his countless observations, both to fulfill his mission and to atone for his imprisonment of Kevin.

But Kevin will eventually return, just as I will eventually die.

Su could sense that his time was running out. Even a fusion warrior could not sustain the long years of observing the endless sands. His body remained stubborn, but his spirit and soul were on the verge of decay.

Kevin, without me, who can stop you?

Hua?

Hua's condition was not as good as Su's. She had burned too many memories and could no longer even unleash the Sword God.

So what will happen in the future?

Fang Jie's bedtime stories kept Su awake all night.

It's so similar, so very similar. Izumo, Takamagahara, the Eight Million Gods, the Twelve Blades of the World, and even beyond what he can observe, the abilities he displays beyond the essence of Fang Jie.

There's no mistake, it's the [Law of Reason].

However, it incorporates other powers, such as the Herrscher of Thunder, the Herrscher of Life and Death, and most importantly, the Herrscher of Corruption.

Even if he were to display the full twelve Herrscher powers again, Su wouldn't be surprised. Therefore, it's no longer surprising that his way of using power is ambiguous.