BOOM!
"Hah... now isn't the time to space out... I have to get out of here."
Unaware that everything on her homeworld had already been displaced and replaced, turned upside down, and that her older brothers and sisters led by Grandma Mobius had already been revived, the expansion and pursuit of Honkai was, to Griseo, no different from the approach of an impending catastrophe...
Outside the Ark spacecraft, where warning lights flashed incessantly, the pitch-black depths of space resembled storm clouds before a thunderstorm—just like Griseo's heart at this very moment.
In her eyes, Honkai energy was dispersing and spreading across the horizon. That vast mass of purple-crimson radiance that made her heart tremble surged endlessly from the depths of a forbidden space descending upon the world from beyond the hyperdimensional veil.
A colossal arc of light—so immense that all sense of distance was lost—illuminated the chaotic spacetime fractures within the shattered void. It also lit up the dimming violet eyes of the sky-blue-haired girl.
"I have to live."
There was no time to think further. The approach of the cosmic Honkai Eruption left Griseo unable to remain within this fragmented void—dangerous, yet unexpectedly stable as a temporary safe zone.
At the same time, she had to temporarily stop thinking about the "long dream" and the "murmurings of Marvin and the Knight" that had accompanied her here through a chain of coincidences.
Taking a deep breath, the sky-blue-haired girl walked to a carefully hung photo frame and gently brushed her fingers across it.
In the photograph, a young girl with the same sky-blue hair—paint still smeared across her face—stood expressionlessly before the camera, surrounded by the Flame-Chasers.
Griseo gazed at the little girl in the photo.
The flickering light illuminated her delicate face.
"Everyone... I will do everything I can to survive. For all of you in Fire Moth, I will complete Project ARK and pass on the flame... Civilization—your will—has not yet perished."
Her hand slowly left the frame as she spoke with quiet determination.
The once-innocent child in the photograph had grown into a graceful young girl. The naivety had long since faded from her face, replaced by the decisiveness and resolve befitting a Flame-Chaser.
Bzzzt!
As Griseo entered the ship's control chamber, the engines—silent for so long—roared back to life.
Beep—beep—beep—
She tapped several keys on the console. Dozens of holographic screens that had concealed the central control room slowly rose. The ship's sensors and deployed micro-autonomous devices transmitted images and data back to the terminal, streams of information flashing rapidly across the displays.
The hum of artificial light sources, computers, and instruments layered over one another in the enclosed space.
"Analyzing hyperspatial corridors. Identifying navigable safe routes."
"Decrypting and converting data—"
The mechanical female voice paused for several minutes before announcing, "Decryption complete."
The next instant, a completely different voice—bright and brimming with enthusiasm—rang out. "And now, please welcome the most passionate broadcaster of this century, Vill-V, who will—"
"Skip."
Griseo was already used to it. A certain senior's eccentric sense of humor.
"Compile the detected data into graphical tables."
Expressionless, she issued the command, her hands moving swiftly across the screens.
Having learned under—and self-studied from—"Helix" Vill-V, and having absorbed nearly all the notes left behind by the Flame-Chasers as well as the immense legacy of the previous civilization stored within the Ark's database, Griseo lacked nothing when it came to technical initiative.
"Indexing—"
"Hyperspatial fluctuation frequency. Constructing database inference. Estimating safety probability..."
"Mm... they're all subjective projections. If it were Vill-V... or Grandma Mobius... what would they choose?"
Staring at the rough judgment data displayed across the holographic screens, a faint crease formed between Griseo's brows.
These probabilities and numeric projections were based on spatial data gathered during Fire Moth's campaign against the Second Herrscher of the Void, combined with the fluctuation frequencies of the spacetime fractures within this shattered void.
She knew very well—the data was subjective.
But she no longer had the luxury of hesitation.
The shadow of Honkai had already expanded here. It was close—too close. She could almost hear the howls of Honkai Beast hordes, the whispers of civilization's annihilation, the cries of all life marching toward extinction.
The only combat-capable individual aboard the Ark was her.
If she stayed, she would surely die.
She... absolutely could not betray the mission entrusted to her by everyone.
The Ark—the Ark that carried the flame—must not crash here.
"Hah..."
The girl cast one final glance at the display showing the distant horizon.
The ominous shadow that dyed the silent starfield blood-red—spreading as if it would lunge forward and swallow her whole in the next instant—continued to expand.
A glint of resolve flashed through Griseo's eyes.
Through the viewport, she watched the visible hyperspatial veins intertwining, various entry and exit jump corridors twisting and fracturing through the void.
"Ark, depart."
Griseo manually pulled the control lever.
She chose her course.
Within it, a relatively narrow spacetime fissure writhed slowly. Faint, as if barely perceptible, a thin seven-colored shimmer pulsed within.
Whoosh—!
...
"She left."
Somewhere within this distorted void, atop the jagged protrusion of a shattered stellar ring, a gray-haired woman with crimson eyes sat upon the pitted remains of a broken celestial body, observing everything.
Beneath the variegated and ominous glow, the curves of her youthful and beautiful body were fully revealed. Her waterfall-like silver-gray hair flowed smoothly to her hips. Flesh-toned stockings tightly wrapped her thighs, outlining their full and rounded contours—captivating beneath the hazy starlight.
"We have to follow as well. If we don't want to die. After all... It has arrived."
"Sigh... I had thought I was the hunter. In the end, it was all for nothing. I gained nothing at all—only lost years of painstaking accumulation. The stage I built has turned to ashes. Worse, I may have already drawn the edge of Its blade upon myself..."
Her murmur was low—self-mocking, bitter.
"But perhaps that's only natural. In this starry sky, the hunter is also prey. The reversal happens in an instant."
Because It had arrived.
Before absolute advantage, all schemes, calculations, and conspiracies were meaningless.
"Honkai" had come.
Perhaps "Honkai" had never cared about small fry like her.
But that did not mean one could evade it.
Reality was often more despairing than imagination. A single grain of dust in the tide of an era, when it fell upon an ordinary person, became an insurmountable mountain.
The gaze of "Honkai"—even for a fleeting instant—was not something she could resist.
It was not false.
Though she did not know what had occurred, she could vaguely sense the changes within Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta.
All things were boiling.
Spacetime was reversing.
Reality itself was warping...
The endless hyperspatial maelstrom resembled the power of a god...
No.
It was the power of a god.
Once again, a response arose from the depths of Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta. It was the reaction to the supreme "Honkai," the Goddess of All Things, casting its gaze upon reality for but an instant.
A joyous exultation born from the very source of existence.
Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta rejoiced instinctively, yet their response alone was enough to send Honkai energy levels skyrocketing, trigger frequent Honkai Eruptions, and even cause reality itself to fold and mutate.
"Alright, alright. I know you're badly injured. That sudden storm that swept through Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta ruined all our plans, but at least we survived, didn't we? Facing a disaster like that, staying alive is already a blessing... so don't be too greedy."
"Hm? When was I lecturing? We're one and the same. If you're doing well, that benefits me too. A wise person knows when to retreat. Someone else is already scouting the way ahead, so trust me on this."
As though speaking to herself, the woman straightened and stretched her graceful figure.
"She may be weak, but don't forget—without great power, her resolve alone sustained her through tens of thousands of years sailing across a lonely starry sky. Though she spent most of that time asleep in a hibernation pod, that too is a form of fortune. And our luck has never been good."
As she spoke, the gray-haired, crimson-eyed woman lifted her head to watch the Ark's trajectory. With a slight bend of her knee, she transformed into an almost imperceptible streak of light and shot into the depths of space.
"Or are you planning to stay here and face the annihilating vanguard of Finality? As for me, I wouldn't dare. Everything over there has changed. I wouldn't dare pry. That truly would get us killed. It's already a blessing if It doesn't bother to look our way."
...
At this moment, within the shattered void—this chaotic expanse formed when the Goddess of Finality severed an entire stretch of the real universe and displaced it—spacetime curtains lay exposed, jump corridors bulged outward, hyperspatial veins intertwined and crisscrossed...
It was a tangled mess beyond measure, an endless sea of fractures.
As Griseo drove the Ark in flight to escape the encroaching Honkai, the final remnant of the Previous Era drifted amidst a kaleidoscopic tide of energy within the perforated super-spacetime rifts.
Like a lone boat caught in raging waves, strange energies and countless newly formed spatial fissures churned around the Ark.
The entire vessel trembled.
Griseo tensed, relying on the intuition of "Stars" and the assistance of the ship's computational systems to navigate this unknown domain. Gradually—she did not know how much time had passed—
Suddenly—
"External energy frequency residue detected. Capture complete..."
"Cross-check it!"
Griseo's voice tightened unconsciously. If it were Honkai Beasts—or quantum or imaginary entities—then she would have no choice but to make a final stand.
"Comparing—frequency does not match any known Honkai energy characteristics within the database. It is a new energy element. Recorded and logged into the database..."
She let out a breath of relief.
"Can we follow this energy signature?" Compared to wandering aimlessly, having even a faint marker was far more reassuring. As long as it wasn't Honkai.
"Affirmative."
On the screen, a weak flicker of energy indicated the exit of a super-spacetime fissure.
"Has a lifeform passed through here..."
Murmuring in thought, Griseo adjusted the Ark's course.
The instant the ship approached the writhing veil of the fissure, a powerful suction force seized it.
The Ark was dragged inward.
Pulled into an unknown realm—and then—
The view suddenly opened.
A vast expanse of white light.
Feeling the long-forgotten sting against her retinas, Griseo clenched her fist in excitement.
"The sun..."
As her eyes rapidly adjusted from darkness and the surreal domain to the brilliance of sunlight, the scenery that came into view was a vibrant and magnificent continent teeming with life. High above, what appeared to be an island floated in the sky.
On the distant horizon, she could see sweeping emerald plains, vast yellow-brown deserts beyond mountain rainforests, an icebound mountain range stretching like the spine of a colossal beast, archipelagos scattered across the ocean, and even a strange sea flowing and pooling among towering mountain peaks...
"A new world."
A world where civilization had been born—yet untouched by Honkai.
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