Sirin took a step forward.
"Allies?"
She repeated Eden's word, her tone stiff.
"Fine."
Eden's smile didn't change.
Her upper body remained perfectly still, her posture elegant, both hands folded over her knees.
Beneath the desk, the toes of her right foot curled slightly.
Su Yu bit down on the back of his own hand, not daring to make even the sound of breathing.
He could hear "Kiana's" footsteps drawing closer.
One step. Two steps.
Don't come over.
Please, don't come over.
Sirin took two more steps forward.
In this sealed space, her five senses were amplified to their limit.
The sound of Su Yu's heartbeat rose up from beneath the desktop, abnormally fast, like a rat cornered in some dead-end.
His body temperature was rising, the scent of sweat mingling with that strange sweet-and-fishy odor, seeping out through the cracks of the desk.
This man was afraid.
Sirin's brow furrowed.
The Su Yu she knew was the madman who, in the consciousness space, could be killed by her a thousand times and still get up and charge at her again.
He was the bastard who dared flip off the Herrscher of the Void.
He was the human who was forever languid and devil-may-care, treating everything as beneath his notice.
That man who always looked at the Paramecium with that nauseatingly tender gaze was, at this moment, exuding a faint, utterly wretched aura, like someone who had thrown away his armor and fled.
Just like a stray cat driven into a dead-end alley, unable to even pull its own claws free.
A flicker of pure confusion passed through Sirin's eyes.
Across the long years she had spent as an experimental subject, the cold instruments of the Babylon Laboratory had never installed in her any module of knowledge concerning the two sexes of humanity.
She did not understand what lust was, nor what immorality was.
But she understood what strength and weakness were, what it meant to be crushed.
Ignoring Eden's greeting, she strode straight ahead, walking around to the side of the desk.
Eden's gaze followed her, her smile still perfect, but a faint trace of wariness now lay deep in her eyes.
Her foot quickened its rhythm beneath the desk.
Su Yu's body went rigid all at once.
He couldn't take it anymore.
He had already been pushed to the edge of the cliff. Eden's toes had precisely hooked into Su Yu's fatal weak point, and "Kiana's" footsteps were right above his head, closer and closer, closer and closer—
Sirin bent down.
Her movement was too fast—so fast that even Eden had no time to react.
The next second, Sirin's face appeared at the gap on the side of the desk.
Two pairs of eyes collided in the dim space beneath the desk.
Gold met black.
Su Yu saw "Kiana's" face.
That face he saw every single day, that he saw when he combed her hair for her, that he saw when he cooked noodles for her—at this moment it was peering in from the edge of the desk, less than thirty centimeters away from him.
This surge of panic, far from snapping the string drawn to its absolute limit, instead became the most violent catalyst.
The ultimate stimulus on the visual front, the desperate pressure on the tactile front.
Su Yu's spine arched up violently, like a fish flung onto the shore.
He could endure no longer.
"—Mmph—!"
The muffled groan suppressed in his throat finally shattered apart.
Eden's right foot was thoroughly drenched in the loss of control, warm liquid flowing from the top of her foot down between her toes.
A few drops of liquid, carrying a startling heat, splashed onto Sirin's utterly defenseless cheek and the corner of her lips.
Following the fine, white-porcelain texture of her skin, the liquid slid slowly downward.
It was an utterly absurd, even faintly blasphemous, forbidden tableau.
In that moment, time seemed to have been filled with viscous glue.
Su Yu's brain ceased operating entirely.
He lay on the disheveled carpet, forgetting even to breathe.
It's over.
Everything was over.
Su Yu's face could no longer be described merely as pale.
His whole body was curled up beside the leg of the desk, his fly still open, his hair a mess, his forehead drenched in sweat, his eyes like those of a rabbit pinned in a car's headlights.
He didn't dare look at her.
His gaze darted around frantically, leaping from the pattern of the carpet to the screws on the desk leg—anywhere but a single inch toward "Kiana's" direction.
Sirin stared at him for three seconds.
He was like a completely different person from the Su Yu in her understanding.
That man who, even with her hand clamped around his throat in the consciousness space, could still laugh and say "you can't strangle me to death"—at this moment he didn't even have the courage to lift his head.
His shoulders trembled, his Adam's apple rolled up and down, his lips opened and closed, but he couldn't get a single word out.
And yet.
The screaming, the breakdown, or the runaway of the Herrscher's Authority that she had anticipated—none of it happened.
Sirin merely furrowed her brow slightly.
She raised her hand and, with a slender index finger, scraped off the warm liquid from the edge of her cheek.
She brought her fingertip up beneath her nose and sniffed it; that smell made her instinctively feel a trace of irritation.
Then, under the stares of Su Yu and Eden whose eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets, she naturally extended the tender pink tip of her tongue and licked her fingertip.
The instant her tongue touched the liquid, her entire face scrunched up.
"That's disgusting."
Sirin stuck out her tongue in revulsion, her brow furrowing deeper.
"So—what exactly are the two of you doing?"
The air in the office froze solid.
Su Yu's brain let out a piercing buzz.
The perfect smile hanging at the corner of Eden's mouth, for the first time, showed a visible crack.
Those eyes of hers, always carrying a tipsy, half-drunk haze, blinked in disbelief.
This world-class superstar, who had seen every storm of the fame-and-fortune arena, actually froze and crashed for a brief moment.
This "Kiana" before her—it seemed... she really didn't know what she and Su Yu had just been doing?
Eden's pupils contracted ever so slightly.
But Sirin was no longer looking at Eden.
Her full attention had fallen upon the man curled up beneath the desk.
Su Yu was wretched to the extreme.
His hands trembled, his breathing trembled, even his lips trembled.
He tried to zip up his fly, but his fingers shook so badly he couldn't even grip the metal pull-tab; he tugged at it twice and it slipped from his grasp both times.
Within Sirin's knowledge bank, so lacking in human common sense, the scene before her was undergoing a rapid reconstruction.
She watched this man—this man who dared to face off against her in the consciousness space, who always held the initiative with effortless ease—now sprawled on the floor like a puddle of mud.
He didn't even dare look directly into her eyes; the aura of his entire being had withered to the utmost extreme—it was the weakness of one who had been thoroughly crushed and defeated.
Why?
Sirin's line of sight moved down along Su Yu's body, finally fixing upon Eden's foot, which still rested upon him.
Certain distant scenes from her memory suddenly surged up.
On the wilderness of the Moon, that demon dragon Benares, granted reason, had likewise lowered its proud and lofty head, meekly kissing the top of her foot, swearing thereby its absolute fealty.
An astonishing, world-shocking idea took shape in an instant within Sirin's mind.
So that was it.
To tread upon the other's body with one's foot, to watch the other reveal a posture of wretchedness, fear, even trembling because they cannot resist—this was the ritual by which one strong one made another strong one completely submit!
Sirin abruptly turned her head, looking toward Eden seated behind the desk.
No wonder this woman could become Su Yu's "ally," no wonder Su Yu treated her with such courtesy.
So it was this woman named Eden who had thoroughly conquered Su Yu in this very manner.
Indeed, no matter which world it was, there always existed this kind of "King of Humanity" who established their rule by relying on an absolute sense of oppression.
Having figured all of this out, the corner of Sirin's mouth couldn't help but curl into a cold smile.
At last she had found this fellow's weakness, Su Yu!
A meticulous plan unfurled rapidly within Sirin's mind: she need only emulate this woman, stomp her own foot hard upon this detestable man, trample him until he was just like he was now—not daring to lift his head, utterly submissive—and then proclaim her true identity.
By then, this Host trampled beneath her foot—besides obediently following orders, what room would he have left to resist?
Although using her foot to make contact with a human body made her feel somewhat sickened, in order to thoroughly seize back the initiative, this was a necessary sacrifice.
That sweet, fishy scent still lingering, undispersed in the air, still obstinately bored its way into her nostrils.
For some reason, this smell made her heartbeat quicken faintly, her breathing growing somewhat labored.
Sirin attributed it to this body simply being far too weak.
But at the same time, an inexplicable flare of anger shot up from the bottom of her heart.
Watching Su Yu's listless, dispirited appearance beneath Eden's foot, Sirin felt an immense surge of displeasure.
It was as if... this prey, which by all rights should have been trampled beneath her foot in the future, had now been claimed by someone else who got there first.
"Didn't you say you had something to discuss?"
Sirin forcibly suppressed that inexplicable irritation within her, coldly staring at Su Yu on the floor, opening her mouth in a tone she tried her best to make resemble Kiana's usual awkward manner.
Say less, make fewer mistakes—now was not yet the time to expose her identity.
"What are you still lying on the floor for? Playing dead?"
Su Yu felt as though granted a pardon.
He practically scrambled and crawled his way free from beneath Eden's foot, hurriedly pulling up his zipper, straightening the sweat-wrinkled suit trousers.
Eden, too, came back to her senses from her earlier shock.
She gracefully withdrew her long legs, using a tissue to unhurriedly wipe the traces from the top of her foot, then slipped that pair of exquisite high-heeled sandals back on.
She gazed at Sirin's flawless, cold countenance, a flicker of deep contemplation passing through the depths of her eyes—but it was quickly covered over once more by her perfect smile.
Meanwhile Su Yu's brain was spinning at an extremely high rate, trying to fish out from that disaster of a moment any single straw to save his life.
Kiana saw it.
Kiana put those things into her mouth and tasted them.
Kiana said "that's disgusting."
Kiana asked "what are you doing."
With these four facts arranged side by side, Su Yu's first reaction was that he was finished. His second reaction was: wait.
Wait.
What she asked was "what are you doing."
Not "how could you do this," not "what's your relationship with her," not crying, not running, not breaking down.
She was genuinely asking.
Su Yu's breathing slowed half a beat.
Those golden pupils, the wrongness he'd faintly sensed since morning, and just now that look of utter ignorance regarding matters between men and women—
All the clues and links connected together in Su Yu's mind.
A question that left him shocked and astonished rose into his heart.
Why? For what reason?
Why was Sirin able to take control of Kiana's body so soundlessly, without a trace? And why did she need to disguise herself as Kiana?
Where had the real Kiana gone?
Was Fenghuang's lack of response since morning also connected to this?
Su Yu's brain began to spin rapidly, the shame and lingering fear of moments ago already cast far behind him. What he was now considering was a far more critical, far more deadly question—
But he couldn't directly call Sirin out here, at least not for now.
Because this was the studio, because Eden was still here. Although Su Yu had the confidence to subdue the Sirin before him—he of course had no idea just how weak Sirin currently was.
But he was perfectly clear that, having lost the Herrscher's Authority, Sirin—though possessing Kiana's powerful physical body—couldn't even bring out half of Kiana's original strength with her amateurish, third-rate skills.
She fundamentally understood nothing of martial arts, nothing of techniques; she only knew how to wantonly squander her own "talent"—otherwise she wouldn't have been called the Herrscher of the Pufferfish, captured in all manner of ways during the Second Eruption.
What's more, he still had the [Star of Eden] as his trump card.
Of course, Su Yu's greatest reliance was still the authority he'd synchronously obtained when establishing the studio—[Absolute Overlord Mode]. Within the studio, Su Yu would receive an all-around enhancement, immune to any physical or magical attack.
In other words, as long as he was inside the studio, he was invincible.
He'd originally thought this dog of a System had been afraid that, after dropping emotional gut-punches, fans would show up at the door with bombs to blow up the company—he'd never imagined it would, in such a muddled and unexpected way, come in handy in this place.
But was this truly a pleasant surprise?
Probably not.
Su Yu knew very well that this so-called System definitely had its own purpose. To grant armament like the Star of Eden in a peaceful world without Honkai energy—this had already faintly confirmed some of Su Yu's conjectures.
It had him make games, used recognition to help Kiana survive in this world—the goal was absolutely not merely to let her live.
After mulling it over again and again, Su Yu decided not to expose Sirin just yet. He wanted to see what exactly Sirin was selling in that gourd of hers. Or else, he'd wait until after work, when everyone in the studio had left, and then alone, ask Sirin her true purpose.
For now, he had to first keep the other party stable.
Five minutes later.
The steam from the teacups curled upward, sliced into several segments by the afternoon sunlight.
Eden opened her tablet, pulled up the first draft of a promotional plan, tapped the screen a few times, and pushed the file onto the projection at the center of the conference table.
Her makeup was still impeccable, the pleats of her skirt without a single ruffle out of place, as if that absurd silent comedy that had happened beneath the desk five minutes ago was nothing more than a hallucination produced by Su Yu's overheated brain.
"For the first wave of promotion after the PV releases, Ellie and I will each push it out simultaneously on our respective social platforms. The second wave..."
Eden's voice glided smoothly over those precise figures and time nodes.
But her gaze, every few seconds, would sweep imperceptibly toward the silent "Kiana" on the right side of the long sofa.
Sirin sat there, her back ramrod straight.
Both hands folded over her knees, that posture less like someone attending a business meeting and more like a defendant seated in the dock awaiting her verdict.
Her line of sight was fixed on the projected screen, but her eyes didn't follow a single line of text as it moved.
"Kiana, what do you think?" Eden suddenly called her name.
"Whatever," Sirin blurted out.
A second later she seemed to realize something, and added a line: "It's—it's all fine, I guess."
That stiff turn at the tail of her words, falling into Su Yu's ears, was clearer than any piece of evidence.
Kiana Kaslana was indeed a fool.
But she was a fool who possessed the common sense of a normal human being.
No matter how careless and breezy she was, there was no way she could, after witnessing a scene like that, lick her finger without changing her expression and say "that's disgusting."
What's more, the whole day today.
From the moment they'd stepped out the door in the early morning, this "Kiana" had been off.
When she spoke to him, her eyes lacked that warmth mixed with dependence and awkwardness.
Thinking about it now, every smile had been a calculated arc, every interjection a clumsy imitation, traced from a template like painting a gourd from a gourd.
That proud, lofty Herrscher of the Void, who would rather be beaten black and blue than bow her head—had actually swallowed her humiliation and borne the burden, disguising herself for an entire day?
The more Su Yu thought about it, the more curious and puzzled he became.
In that very instant as Su Yu stared blankly at the reflection in his teacup, a voice that had been silent for so long surfaced from the depths of the Spiritual Link.
"Su Yu, can you hear me?"
Fenghuang.
That voice was steady and clear, like a bronze bell hauled up from a deep well.
Su Yu's pupils contracted for an instant, but the muscles of his face didn't move in the slightest.
He picked up his teacup and pretended to take a sip.
"Kiana is currently in the consciousness space, together with me," Fenghuang said, getting straight to the point. "Not long ago she did something very reckless, but also very brave. Her consciousness crossed the barrier and returned to the Honkai world once, and in the Sea of Quanta she saved Bronya."
The teacup paused half a beat against his lips.
"The price was that her spiritual power was nearly exhausted, and the control of her body was seized away by the Herrscher of the Void the instant she returned. That is also why the one sitting across from you now is Her Majesty the Queen."
Fenghuang paused.
"But the good news is, she has now reached a temporary reconciliation with me... she agreed to follow me in cultivating the Heart Essence Chapter of the Tai Xu Sword Heart."
"I must thank you, Su Yu. After this period of nourishment, Kiana's current spiritual power is more unprecedentedly powerful than at any time before."
"It was you who healed Kiana's heart with that warm, everyday life. The Kiana of now also has a clear goal—she wants to properly cultivate the Tai Xu Sword Qi, to become strong enough to protect you."
Eden's voice was still continuing its exposition about the rhythm of the promotion.
Sirin still huddled in the corner of the sofa with that keep-your-distance air about her.
And Su Yu's heart was undergoing a soundless earthquake.
Comfort, emotion, and a trace of bitterness all welled up together in the bottom of Su Yu's heart. That girl who, a little over two months ago, had been like a stray cat at his doorstep, had not only managed by her own will to help her own dearest friend.
Now she was even, for the sake of protecting him, desperately undergoing the cultivation of the Tai Xu Sword Qi.
Most crucially of all, she had "forgiven" Fenghuang.
Su Yu had originally been agonizing all along over how to tell Kiana about the matter between him and Fenghuang—but he'd never expected that Kiana would actually choose, of her own initiative, to reconcile with Fenghuang.
This left him feeling happy, yet his heart couldn't help but ache with a wave of sourness.
It was like an old father who had watched, under his own tender care, his daughter gradually set down her coldness and guardedness against the world, finally releasing goodwill toward this world of her own accord, taking the first step toward accepting and facing her unfair fate and her bleak, dismal life.
He felt a little like crying.
It was out of being moved, out of relief.
But he couldn't cry. If he suddenly burst into tears here, he'd have no way to explain why he was suddenly shedding tears like some idiot.
At that very moment, a glaring crimson light-screen suddenly popped up in the center of his vision.
[Ding! Congratulations, Host!]
[My painstaking efforts as your godfather over this time were not in vain—you've finally touched the threshold of the world's truth!]
[Truth is, I'm not some "Plagiarist System" at all.]
[From the very beginning, the entire purpose of everything about this System has only ever been one thing——]
[All of this has been to correct that timeline which long ago collapsed.]
[To save the Kiana Kaslana of the IF-line who, unable to endure the torment of the Herrscher of the Void, in the end put a bullet in her own head.]
The hand holding Su Yu's teacup stopped in midair.
[The game? That's merely a tool for raising recognition.]
[Once it's officially released, the recognition and resonance of players across the globe toward Kiana will be converted into true power—activating the "Valkyrie Cultivation System," turning that recognition into fuel to raise her strength.]
[And every bond you forge through the community will synchronously feed back into both you and her.]
[To put it plainly, everything you've done, from the very first day you picked her up in the stairwell, has been about using the bonds and warmth of this peaceful world to save a person who was meant to die.]
A person who was meant to die.
Su Yu's eyes went wide, the System's words falling into his eyes as though they weighed a thousand catties.
[You think the [Quantum Ghost] was just a metaphor? You think there was no reason she had to stay within one meter of you at first?]
[From the very beginning, the Kiana Kaslana of this worldline was a person who was meant to die.]
[Every effort you've made, everything you've given, has been to save a person whose body was meant to die, but whose soul has yet to be extinguished.]
So, this was the truth of it all.
From the very beginning, Kiana had already been a "dead person."
That girl who had huddled in his stairwell like a stray cat on a rainy night was a Quantum Ghost who could thoroughly dissipate at any moment.
Every meal he'd cooked, every task he'd taken on, had been using the warm, mundane life of this peaceful world to piece back together her soul, which by all rights should have been broken to fragments.
"Why didn't you tell me all of this from the start?" Su Yu drew a deep breath.
[Because I had to confirm one thing—whether your will to protect, to save Kiana Kaslana, could withstand a cruel trial.]
[In fact, every effort you made for Kiana Kaslana's sake—the lies you told, half true and half false, for her; the running around you did to make her a legal resident.]
[To let her feel truth, goodness, and beauty once more in this world, to find again a meaning to go on living——]
[Even unto facing the awakened Herrscher of the Void, the despairing struggle on the rooftop. The will that, after a thousand bitter battles in the consciousness space, still refused to be extinguished——]
[All of these were the necessary efforts you needed to make to reach the truth.]
This was a trial.
From the very beginning, it had been a trial.
"So this is the reason you were so useless at the start?" Su Yu recalled the System's earliest form—aside from watching for laughs, playing the jester, and ribbing him at every turn, it had been a complete waste of space.
But ever since he'd helped Kiana directly suppress the Herrscher of the Void for the first time and obtained a legal identity. It had suddenly popped up a window, grandly proclaiming something about a System upgrade, now unlocking the community system.
At the start it hadn't even handed out any substantial rewards at all, then later came the cash flow, and then the [Star of Eden] armament force he'd only just recently obtained.
There had never been any System upgrade at all—if anything, it should be called [Unlocking Authorities].
[No way, no way, no way? You didn't actually think your godfather here was some useless System, did you? Surprised?]
"If you could just be serious for even three seconds, I wouldn't be treating you this way."
Su Yu inwardly rolled his eyes to the heavens, already a bit too lazy to bother roasting it.
But those originally grinning, smarmy words, sprinkled with emoticons, had turned proper and grave.
[The weight of this power, you've already glimpsed but one corner of it.]
[I must remind you once again—correcting the erroneous worldline, saving the Kiana Kaslana who was meant to die, is far, far more difficult than you imagine.]
[This is not some casual game of playing house.]
"The way you put it—do I even have the option to give up?"
[Of course you do.]
Su Yu was stunned.
[As long as you choose to give up, then everything ends right here.]
[You can go back to being an ordinary person, using the knowledge of your original world, living out this life happily and joyfully as a Plagiarist. You can marry Eden, you can bravely pursue your own love, pursue everything you want, and spend the kind of time others can only dream of in this peaceful world.]
[The price is merely that you'll lose this power that doesn't belong to you, as well as... that "Kiana Kaslana" who was meant to die in the first place.]
[How about it? Tempted at all?]
Su Yu curled his lips into an arc of mockery.
In the depths of his consciousness, he raised his middle finger at that virtual panel without the slightest courtesy.
"You son-of-a-bitch Sys, what are you putting on this brooding act for?"
"Don't tell me you're not deliberately using this kind of rhetorical trick to test me?"
Su Yu sneered coldly in his heart as he fired back.
"Don't tell me you've forgotten the very day she came to this world?"
That day—that rainy evening.
Su Yu, walking out of the convenience store carrying an Unmodeled Kitty Set, had been thoroughly fed up with this task of [Binding a High-Quality Valkyrie].
He'd crossed the bustling, traffic-filled streets, breathing in the smell of rain mixed with earth in this peaceful world that made you want to cry, calculating just how he ought to pass tonight.
He'd crossed the familiar streets, returned to the familiar old neighborhood, grumbling a line about how the stairwell light had been broken and nobody had come to fix it.
And then he'd encountered that girl.
That Kiana Kaslana, huddling in the corner of the stairwell like a frightened stray cat.
Lost, at a loss.
Her eyes dim, like firewood burned down to ash.
Having lost all her strength and the capital to resist this world, wanting with all her heart only to make herself vanish from this world——
Even when faced with Su Yu's sudden concern, her first reaction had been to flee.
And then?
He'd looked at the water stains the white-haired girl had left in the stairwell, and sent a message to Kevin.
He didn't need to scroll through his phone at all; that text message sent to Kevin—every single word of it was carved into his brain.
[Su Yu: If you discovered a girl at your front door, with wounds on her body, possibly being hunted down by someone? Would you reach out a hand to help her?]
[Su Yu: The whole hero-saving-the-beauty trope only exists in novels. As an ordinary person, with no special abilities whatsoever...]
[Su Yu: Do you choose, for the sake of momentarily playing the hero and saving the beauty, to have the hunted person stabbed to death on the spot, two lives lost in one corpse?]
[Su Yu: Or do you pretend you saw nothing, turn around and leave, preserving your own everyday life?]
He had been asking Kevin.
Because he knew that, in whatever world it was, Kevin Kaslana's answer would only ever be one.
And in his own heart, he had long since had the answer too.
"My answer was already decided from the very first day I met her."
Su Yu drew a deep breath, and facing the still-flickering light-screen, revealed that signature, somewhat devil-may-care smile.
"My everyday life is the everyday life I spend together with Kiana."
"A future without Kiana Kaslana is not the future I want."
The consciousness space fell into a deathly, prolonged silence.
Just as Su Yu thought the System had crashed, that infuriating voice returned, even carrying a trace of a humanized sigh.
[You... really are the same idiot as always.]
[Past, present, or future, you're always this same sort—never once changed.]
This tone.
This way of speaking.
Su Yu suddenly froze.
A powerful sense of familiarity struck him in an instant.
But before he had time to think it over carefully, the System recovered its grinning, rascally, hooligan face at the speed of light.
[Since that's the case, as your godfather, I can't shortchange you, you foolish boy.]
[Let me give you a heads-up in advance: the original world, having lost Kiana Kaslana, was meant to collapse all the way down into the Abyss, careening wildly off course like a derailed train.]
[You'd best prepare yourself mentally.]
[Very soon, you'll meet the [others] who come to this world because of this chain reaction.]
[This is both a crisis and an opportunity that comes once in a thousand years. They could become the scythes that take your life, yet they could also become the strength by which you protect Kiana Kaslana.]
[That's all I have to say.]
The System's voice gradually grew faint, but before it dissipated entirely, it left behind one promise heavy as a thousand catties.
[Su Yu.]
[You need only forever remember one thing—no matter where you are, no matter what desperate straits you face]
[I am always with you.]
"Su Yu? Are you still listening?" Eden's voice pierced through the red light-screen, pulling Su Yu's thoughts back to reality.
"Ah, I'm listening." Su Yu set down his teacup, his voice steady. "Just do the second wave's rhythm the way you said."
Eden glanced at him, but didn't press further.
Fifteen minutes later, Eden closed her tablet.
"Let's leave the first draft of the plan at this for now. I'll go back and adjust the details with Fuxi. Ellie and I have some matters to handle tonight—I'll trouble you to send Griseo back to the Mobius Laboratory when the time comes."
She stood up, picking up that handbag inlaid with dark gold patterning.
As she passed by Su Yu, she slowed half a beat and turned her head to the side.
"Contact me anytime if anything comes up."
The tail of that sentence lifted slightly, carrying a certain implication that Su Yu had no spare attention to decipher at this moment.
The door closed.
From the corridor came the crisp sound of high heels receding into the distance, followed by a cheerful greeting drifting over from far away in Elysia's voice. The two voices mingled together, finally sealed off outside by the "ding" of the elevator door.
The office quieted down.
The low-frequency hum of the air conditioning became the only background sound.
Outside the window, Arc City's skyline warped faintly in the afternoon heat haze; the glass curtain wall of some distant office tower reflected a glaring spot of light, like a tireless eye.
Having seen Eden off, only Su Yu and "Kiana" remained in the office.
No—to be exact, it was Sirin disguised as Kiana.
"Squad Monitor."
Su Yu sighed inwardly toward Fenghuang.
"You should have told me a little sooner. Good thing nothing major came of it this time."
"I'm sorry. During that period I had to put everything into stabilizing Kiana's state in the consciousness space; I couldn't spare the attention to contact you."
Fenghuang's tone was as candid and forthright as ever.
"Now that she's already entered a cultivation state, I can divert a portion of my attention over."
"Then help me analyze this—why would Sirin take the initiative to disguise herself as Kiana? Although I vaguely have an inkling, I still want to hear what you think."
"Out of fear, and out of weakness."
Fenghuang gave a precise judgment.
"Her weakness is synchronized with Kiana's."
"In this peaceful world without Honkai energy, she's lost the capital she relied on to run rampant. Without the support of Honkai energy, she can't even fully bring out Kiana's own physical strength."
"Simply put, her actual combat power right now is far inferior to yours."
"And earlier, in the consciousness space, you and Kiana joined forces and beat her quite badly."
Fenghuang's wording was still restrained, but Su Yu could almost hear it—hidden in her tone was a faint trace of something resembling "serves her right."
"She's afraid that, once exposed, she'll be subjected to even harsher treatment. So she chose to endure in silence, disguising herself as Kiana, observing your true depths on one hand while seeking a chance to turn the tables on the other."
Su Yu was stunned for a moment.
So after all this fuss, this seemingly ferocious, fiendish Lady Queen before him was now nothing but a paper tiger? And a paper tiger that he himself had scared into submission, at that?
The corner of his mouth couldn't help but twitch a couple of times; his originally taut nerves relaxed somewhat, but what came along with it was an even greater headache.
"Squad Monitor, then what do you think I should do now? I can't actually just go beat her up, can I?"
Su Yu wasn't some kind of psychopath; bullying a Sirin like this—he didn't find anything amusing about it at all.
Fenghuang was silent for a moment.
In those few brief seconds, Su Yu could almost see that old stickler rapidly conducting some complicated weighing of interests.
"I recall you still have a System task," Fenghuang said. "To tame the Herrscher of the Void. Since the System issued this task, it means such a possibility does indeed exist."
"But that's the Herrscher of the Void, Squad Monitor—you should know what that means."
"I understand."
Fenghuang's voice held not the slightest wavering.
"Whatever the reason, the crimes she has committed are too numerous to record."
"But, because of Otto, I—who aided the tyrant in his evil—share in her guilt."
"My fault led to the revival of the Herrscher of the Void, led to the occurrence of the Great Eruption, led to the sacrifice of Major Himeko."
"I have dragged out my existence to this day for one purpose alone: to atone."
Within her pause was a heavy, leaden vicissitude.
Su Yu sighed soundlessly.
This was Fenghuang. This was Fu Hua.
She would forever only shoulder all those sins and faults upon her own shoulders.
Su Yu said no more; he knew that mere words could not change Fenghuang's mindset.
She was a person stubborn to the utmost extreme—and it was precisely because of this that she was so immensely heart-wrenching.
"I'm not making excuses for her."
"But if you can use the warm, mundane life of this peaceful world to wash away the violence and hatred within her heart."
"Even if it's only making her a temporary ally, letting her power be used by you... then perhaps, when she returns to the Honkai world in the future, she too will have the chance to atone for her past."
"This is, at present, the choice that maximizes interests."
Sirin stood up.
She walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, her back to Su Yu's direction.
The afternoon sunlight stretched her shadow out long, casting it upon the light gray carpet like a thin, slender crack.
"I know this is a difficult decision for you. After all, even if she didn't truly die, within that consciousness space, you still——"
Fenghuang didn't continue.
But Su Yu heard the meaning behind her words.
Su Yu said nothing, only remaining silent.
After a long while.
He responded to Fenghuang in his mind.
"As long as it's for Kiana—I'll do anything."
This answer didn't seem to surprise Fenghuang.
Or perhaps, the moment Fenghuang asked the question, she had already known the answer.
Miracles are reserved only for those who never give up.
The miracle referred to Kiana.
And the one who would make the miracle happen again was Su Yu.
"Be careful in all things. I must concentrate my energy on overseeing Kiana's cultivation; from here on you can only rely on yourself."
"Tonight, I'll arrange for you and Kiana to meet. When the time comes, I'll remind you."
The voice in the Spiritual Link gradually sank lower, finally returning to silence.
Su Yu leaned back against the sofa, gazing at that figure before the window.
The white jacket was outlined with a faint halo in the backlight, the ahoge swaying gently in the slight breeze of the air conditioning.
She had indeed disguised herself very well.
But not well enough.
Compared to the Kiana in his memory, her movements were somewhat unnatural—the reason he hadn't been able to notice this earlier was, on one hand, because the string of events one after another had left him nearly exhausted.
On the other hand, it was simply that no one could ever have imagined that the lofty, supreme Herrscher of the Void, who regarded all things as ants, would actually choose to disguise herself as Kiana just to avoid getting a "beating" after being discovered by him.
He couldn't help feeling that this fellow was already sprinting full-speed down the road toward becoming some unnamed Ah Quan.
Sirin suddenly turned around.
On that face identical to Kiana's hung a smile that was clearly forced out.
"Eden left?" she asked.
She'd watched the woman leave with her own eyes, yet still went to the redundant trouble of confirming it.
This cautious, probing timidity, and the gap between it and the Herrscher of the Void who had looked down upon all living things on the Moon, was so vast it was almost laughable.
Sirin walked back to the sofa and sat down at the very end farthest from Su Yu.
She crossed her arms over her chest, chin lifted slightly, struggling to maintain a condescending posture.
Then, she asked a question that made Su Yu's brain crash and freeze for three seconds.
"Just now—were you offering up your loyalty to that woman?"
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