"Um... Li-bao... everyone..."
Having finished compiling the dusty fragments of memory in her mind, Hyacine still seemed a bit anxious.
"The story I'm about to tell is just a summary I pieced together by restoring the journals left behind by my ancestor, combined with some vague legends passed down through word of mouth."
"Because my ancestor suffered from severe mental anomalies in her later years, the contents she left behind are often contradictory. Many crucial parts were blacked out, altered, or even violently torn out... Therefore, I can't guarantee with 100% certainty that what I'm about to say is the exact, unvarnished historical truth of what happened thousands of years ago."
The girl's tone was full of apology; she felt guilty for being unable to provide concrete facts.
The sunlight danced on her lowered eyelashes and slightly trembling shoulders, draping her in an aura of fragile vulnerability.
"We'll treat it as a reference. I understand."
Fuli reached out and gently patted the slightly cold back of Hyacine's hand, completely ignoring the needle-like glare Mei was shooting at him.
"Besides, isn't the whole point of an adventure to personally peel back the fog and step closer to the truth? If Hya just opened her mouth and flawlessly explained the entire story right now, uncovering the mystery wouldn't be nearly as fun—Ouch!"
"Saving Little Ica is our top priority right now! You idiot Little Li!"
Mimi floated in mid-air, her tiny paws planted firmly on her hips. Despite her minuscule size, she was trying her absolute hardest to look like a stern elder giving a scolding.
However, combined with her utterly fluffy, adorable appearance, any sense of authority was entirely lost. In fact, she looked so cute Fuli immediately wanted to squish her.
"Yes, yes. You're absolutely right, Great-Auntie."
Fuli surrendered at the speed of light. Then, catching her off guard, he struck like lightning, snatching the little creature out of the air and vigorously rubbing her fluffy cheeks.
"Guuu! B-Baby!"
Mimi's words slurred together. She wanted to bite him, but couldn't bring herself to actually do it.
This joyful, lighthearted interaction quickly dispelled the heavy, oppressive atmosphere. Castorice covered her mouth and giggled, and even the cold, perfect lines of Mei's profile softened significantly.
"Hehe~"
Hyacine's beautiful eyes curved into crescents. She adjusted her breathing, and when she opened her eyes again, her gaze was focused and clear.
"Alright, I'll begin then."
The girl spoke softly. Her gaze seemed to pierce through space and time, tracing back to that distant, hazy epoch.
At the dawn of the Current Era, Hyacine's ancestors did not dwell on the earth like the other early humans. Instead, they lived high above, in the boundless, azure sky.
"Lived in the sky?"
Right from the opening sentence, Fuli was confused.
The dawn of civilization? That had to be at least four or five thousand years ago, right?
A bunch of primitive humans—who barely knew how to make fire and were still wearing animal pelts and feathers—living in the sky?!
"Yes."
Hyacine nodded firmly. "I understand the doubts you and everyone else are having, Li-bao. With the technology and power early humans possessed at the time, it was absolutely impossible for them to conquer the sky on their own, let alone build stable settlements and thrive there."
"But you have all heard of the existence of 'Divine Authorities' and 'Godhoods', right?"
Heard of them?
Why did Fuli and Cyrene do that joint livestream just a few days ago? Wasn't it specifically to gather faith so Murasame could ascend the Steps of Godhood under the name "Hatsune Miku Bodhisattva" and condense her own Divine Authority?
"So, what you're saying is..."
Mei tilted her head slightly, a flash of understanding passing through her amethyst eyes. "Your ancestors didn't ascend to the sky using their own power. Instead, they received the protection of a Divine Entity, thereby gaining the right to establish a kingdom and live peacefully above the clouds."
"Exactly, Miss Mei," Hyacine nodded, sighing with complex emotion. "In her journals, my ancestor reverently referred to the great entity who sheltered them and gave them a home as the 'Titan of the Sky', the 'God of a Hundred Eyes', or the 'Eye of Dawn and Dusk'. But in the most widely known legends, His name was Aegler."
"Under the mighty protection of Aegler, the ancestors of the Sky Clan were able to build their homes above the sea of clouds, escaping the myriad disasters, ferocious beasts, and tribal wars that ravaged the earth below. They enjoyed a life of relative peace. Although they could not escape the mortal fate of aging, sickness, and death... compared to the early humans on the surface, whose lives were constantly in peril, it was practically a carefree Garden of Eden."
"In exchange, the ancestors—who bathed in the God's grace and lived abundant, peaceful lives—held an incredibly pure faith in Aegler."
"The God provides protection, and humans give back faith. It's a very healthy, positive feedback loop," Fuli commented.
He exchanged a glance with Mimi, both of them sharing a similar thought.
Not long ago, they had just been discussing the survival strategies of modern divine entities—running off to the deep ocean or empty world bubbles to preach and gather faith.
Who would have thought that a smart deity had already done the exact same thing thousands of years ago, right at the dawn of civilization? And from the sound of it, they were incredibly successful.
Or perhaps, this was actually the norm. Heaven, the Divine Realm, Asgard, Mount Olympus... looking at ancient mythological systems across Earth, legends of divine kingdoms suspended high in the sky were endlessly common.
During the early stages of civilization, these energy lifeforms—born from the combination of ambient Honkai energy and the collective consciousness of humanity—had very nearly snapped the independent development of human civilization right in half.
If it weren't for their strictest "fathers"—the Flame-Chasers of the Previous Era—stepping in to intervene... things would have ended very differently.
The Schicksal Crusaders marched east into the Mediterranean, forcefully organizing the chaotic pantheons under the unified management of the Cross Religion, funneling all the generated faith to the Son of God situated at the very bottom of the Seven Heavens World Bubble.
Meanwhile, the Celestial Phoenix sat guarding the most fertile lands in the East, waiting to brutally smack down any wild god that dared pop its head up like a game of Whack-a-Mole.
If it weren't for them, God only knew what modern Earth would look like.
However, regardless of how future generations evaluated it, for those ancient children of the sky living under Aegler's wings, it truly was a beautiful, almost dreamlike era.
The grand narrative of fighting the Honkai?
Earth should be ruled by humanity?
Those concepts were far too distant for them. All they knew was that if they prayed devoutly to the kind, great God of the Sky, they would receive a peaceful life free from hunger and cold.
"So..."
Castorice broke the brief silence.
Sharply picking up on the implied turning point in the narrative, her eyes filled with concern. "...Did something happen later?"
"Yes."
Hyacine hummed softly, her long eyelashes casting a small shadow. "Under Aegler's protection, the ancestors lived incredibly happy lives, and the faith they gave back was naturally abundant."
"And then... another Divine Entity set its sights on their home."
The logic was simple. When a field lies fallow, no one cares. But once it yields a rich harvest, everyone fights for it.
Compared to the slow, sustainable development of patiently cultivating a realm, spreading doctrines, and nurturing believers with no guarantee of the final harvest... for those Divine Authorities desperate to gain power quickly, plundering an established, wealthy source of pure faith was undeniably the more tempting option.
Hyacine lowered her voice. "The evil god who coveted and ultimately invaded the Sky Realm... in the journals, He is referred to as the 'Lord of the Spiraling Abyss'."
"As for His power... He controlled the oceans and the waters."
Sky and Wind VS Ocean and Water?
Hearing this exact setup, Castorice—who was secretly the famous fanfiction author Long-Shirt Calling the Purple Dragon—immediately thought of a certain extremely famous modern fantasy anime.
But she quickly suppressed her irrelevant, geeky thoughts and refocused on the story.
"So, a war broke out between Them?"
"Yes," Hyacine sighed. "And Aegler... lost."
"The Eye of Dawn and Dusk, possessing a completely stable and abundant 'battery'—I mean, source of faith—actually lost to an invader?"
Mei barely managed to catch herself before blurting out the word "battery."
"It's not that surprising," Fuli said, pulling the restless Mimi off his head and placing her gently in his lap to stroke her fur. "Since this Lord of the Spiraling Abyss dared to attack in the first place, it means He must have had absolute confidence in His ability to win."
"Or you could look at it from another angle," Mimi chimed in from his lap, using her crisp, child-like voice. "Perhaps in the even more distant past, plenty of other gods who coveted the Sky Kingdom had challenged Aegler. But they all failed and were forgotten by history. The Lord of the Spiraling Abyss was simply the one challenger out of many who finally won."
To put it simply: survivorship bias.
"Fortunately—perhaps because the God of the Sky's life force was tenacious enough, or perhaps by paying some horrific price—after His defeat, Aegler was not killed on the spot. Instead, He sank into the deep sea, sealed away layer by layer by the seawater and ocean currents, falling into a long, agonizing slumber."
Hyacine continued, "Having lost their guardian deity, the Sky Kingdom naturally became the territory and spoils of the evil god. The ancestors quickly lost their peaceful, happy lives, plunging into an era of darkness and suffering."
"As time dragged on, the despairing people began to weep day and night. 'Who will save us?' 'Great Aegler, where are You?' 'Is there a hero who can slay this wicked god?'"
"And to those prayers... my ancestor, the 'Sun-Thunder Knight' Ceneus, answered."
Hyacine's voice turned solemn. "Ceneus was a natural-born demigods. The bloodline of a God-Slayer flowed through her veins."
"However, this innate talent did not bring her glory. Instead, it brought her misfortune and absolute isolation."
It didn't take a genius to imagine the massive uproar caused by the birth of a God-Slayer in a peaceful kingdom explicitly protected by a deity.
"Out of sheer terror, Ceneus's parents abandoned her at a very young age. Even though she miraculously survived, and swore to everyone that she would never raise her sword against Aegler, who protected them all... she was still shunned, ostracized, and deeply loathed by her fellow countrymen."
Imagining the young girl enduring constant isolation and scorn in that kingdom above the clouds, Castorice—who deeply empathized with that feeling—couldn't help but clench her fists. Profound sympathy filled her beautiful face.
"But even so!"
Hyacine's voice suddenly rose. "When everyone else was wailing, begging for a savior to descend and kill the evil god... Ceneus still stepped forward without the slightest hesitation!"
"She did not hold onto any hatred for the injustice she had suffered! Nor did she shrink back because of the cold stares her people had given her in the past!"
"But she also knew perfectly well that her own strength was nowhere near enough to fight an evil god head-on."
"So, she didn't recklessly charge at the Lord of the Spiraling Abyss. Instead, she resolutely left the Sky Kingdom, embarking on a journey of grueling trials filled with unknown dangers."
"She slew a monstrous, multi-headed serpent. She gravely wounded a despicable jackal that had turned an entire region into a living hell..."
"And during her travels, she also met Little Ica's ancestor. The two of them formed an unbreakable bond, becoming the most important of partners."
Speaking up to this point, Hyacine gently stroked the little Pegasus in her arms, a soft light returning to her eyes.
"Doo..."
Struggling through its illness, the little creature weakly raised its head and nuzzled the girl's chin.
"And after enduring countless trials and honing her strength to its absolute peak... Ceneus faced her ultimate, and final, trial."
"Riding her Pegasus, she charged into the endless deep sea without looking back. For three days and three nights, she fought, finally unleashing a sword strike that tore the abyss apart! She severed the surging ocean currents that imprisoned Aegler, restoring His freedom!"
"Then, together, they returned to the Kingdom in the Sky."
"And then..."
Recalling the records in the journal, Hyacine's voice turned incredibly bitter. "...What they saw was a living hell."
Mei had already anticipated this. "You cannot gather faith through pure violence. If that were possible, divine entities would only need to spread endless terror and harvest negative emotions."
"Exactly. The Lord of the Spiraling Abyss's plan was always doomed to fail. But He was entirely unwilling to leave empty-handed," Hyacine agreed, her voice trembling with sorrow for the tragic fate of her ancestors.
"And so... He created a plant known as the Usum. The pollen it released was like a mixture of the most potent narcotics and hallucinogens ever conceived. Any human who inhaled it would fall into a deeply intoxicating illusion, experiencing an extreme, mind-shattering euphoria that completely transcended any happiness reality could offer."
When Ceneus and her companions broke through the clouds, their hearts filled with the hope of victory and the belief of salvation, this was the sight that greeted them in the home they had been away from for so long.
The air was thick with a cloying, sickeningly sweet, pink dust. The entire kingdom was as quiet as a massive, horrifying morgue.
The only signs of life were the living corpses—humans completely submerged in their euphoric dreams, occasionally letting out unconscious, idiotic giggles or incoherent ravings.
"Of course, as a battle-hardened knight, even after witnessing such a horrific scene, Ceneus did not give up."
"Once I kill the evil god, everything will return to normal!"
"Holding onto that belief, she and her partners charged the massive fortress at the center of the kingdom, engaging in a final, apocalyptic duel with the Lord of the Spiraling Abyss."
"Tragically, having lost His source of faith and having suffered through a long, agonizing seal, Aegler was incredibly weak. He didn't even retain a tenth of His original power. As for Ceneus... even after enduring the harshest of trials, she was still fighting an evil god who was in relatively peak condition. She simply couldn't win in a frontal clash."
"And so, at the most critical juncture of the battle... Aegler voluntarily sacrificed Himself. He allowed Ceneus to complete the final procedure of a Demigods—God-Slaying."
Every Demigods possessed extraordinary potential. They needed to continuously strengthen themselves through spiritual ascension or other methods until they could slay the specific god tied to their destiny.
Only by refining that god's Divine Authority into a "Kindling" could a Demigods officially reach their absolute peak.
For example, Her Highness Tribios—whom Fuli was very familiar with—was one of the rare individuals who had successfully merged with her Kindling, becoming a living Goddess of the present era.
And for Ceneus, the god corresponding to the golden blood in her veins... was exactly Aegler, the Protector of the Sky who had given her ancestors a home.
"Having completed the final step, Ceneus finally gained the power to completely overturn the battle. Unleashing a final strike filled with everything she had, with all her boundless fury and sorrow... every trace of the evil god's existence was utterly annihilated!"
This should have been a triumphant conclusion.
But hearing this, both Fuli and Castorice had already realized the horrifying catch.
Sure enough—
Hyacine's voice dropped heavily. "That included... the plant known as the Usum."
"Unlike the Flower of Gijera, which gives humans beautiful dreams but allows them to wake up if the flower is destroyed... there is no cure for the Usum. Its pollen was released day and night. Destroying the plant didn't reduce the addiction; it simply severed the source of their euphoria. And because the source was gone, the withdrawal symptoms erupted in a terrifying, agonizing wave, hundreds—thousands of times worse."
"Ceneus was strong. Both her body and her fiercely tempered spirit."
"But as long as someone is human, there is an absolute limit to the pressure and agony they can endure. Not to mention, she had just been forced to kill Aegler, and her closest partner, the Pegasus, had been critically wounded during the battle."
The crushing, unbearable guilt... the dark shadow of committing deicide... the sheer despair of failing to save her people... the unimaginable shock of witnessing her countrymen reduced to writhing, inhuman husks begging for death...
All of it wrapped around her mind like the most venomous of nooses, tightening layer by layer until it finally snapped the last remaining string of the great knight's sanity.
She initiated a massacre. She slaughtered almost everyone in her own kingdom, and then permanently sealed the Kingdom in the Sky away.
The only person who miraculously survived... was her younger sister, who was also Hyacine's direct ancestor.
"And... that is everything I know."
Hyacine remained silent for a moment before suddenly standing up. "Excuse me... I-I need to use the restroom."
Clearly, she had been deeply immersed in the tragic story of her ancestor, and needed an excuse to hide her overwhelming emotions.
After she left, Mimi scratched her ear in confusion. "Wait, I thought Hyacine's ancestor was Ceneus?"
"That's not a contradiction," Mei's calm voice replied. "The Sword Saint who created the Hokushin Itto-Ryu, Hokushin 'Bousenshu' Mei, never married and had no direct descendants. But that doesn't change the fact that she is still my ancestor."
Because the ancestors of the Raiden family were distant relatives of Hokushin Mei.
Fuli, on the other hand, felt remarkably reassured. "Even if we have to fight a fully completed demigod at her absolute peak... it shouldn't be a problem."
Excluding the ancient freaks left over from the Previous Era, the general trend in the Current Era's history was that the closer you got to modern times, the stronger the average powerhouse became.
This was directly related to the cyclical fluctuations of ambient Honkai energy density, humanity's deepening research into its own potential and technology, and the steady accumulation of inherited knowledge.
Even though Hyacine had described Ceneus's war against the evil god as earth-shattering... judging by modern power scales, whether either of them had even truly reached the S-Rank class was highly questionable.
And again, if a Divine Entity was truly a massive threat, the Flame-Chasers would have already stepped in to deal with it.
The Celestial Phoenix who guarded the East for five millennia, Mahamayuri the master of Gautama Buddha, the Old Testament God who rained hellfire upon Sodom... there was always a Flame-Chaser perfectly suited for the job.
"Let's head back to Earth, everyone."
Fuli stood up, placing the still-processing Mimi back on top of his head.
He met the gazes of his companions, his voice clear and resolute. "It's time to uncover the final secrets of that forgotten sky, silence the tragic echoes that have lingered for thousands of years... and bring our Little Ica back completely healthy."
Ceneus, the legendary dragon-slayer, had ultimately become the dragon. But that didn't mean humanity should forget the incredible courage she had once shown.
And that didn't conflict with the fact that she was about to be subjugated by those who came after her.
"Of course, before we set off, we must always keep in mind the solemn warning Hya gave us at the very beginning—"
"We cannot trust everything written in the journals," Castorice finished his sentence.
As an eyewitness to that world-shaking tragedy and the sole survivor of the Sky Kingdom... even with the special resistances provided by her demigods lineage, it was highly likely that Hyacine's direct ancestor had been deeply affected by the hallucinogenic pollen.
Or, at the very least, her perception of reality had been warped by the sheer, unfathomable trauma she endured.
Her severe mental anomalies in her later years, and the frantic, contradictory, heavily redacted entries in her journals, were the most direct proof of that.
Meanwhile, in the Real World, deep within the Sahara Desert, at a secret World Serpent base...
"The Kingdom in the Sky? Ancient Ruins?"
Dystopia furrowed her brow. "Never heard of it. Is the situation really so serious that it requires me to handle it personally? I'm the second strongest combatant in the entire organization next to Kalpas! The Esper Master known as 'The Tornado of Terror'! The great Executive codenamed 'Dystopia'!"
"It's about time we settled those ancient debts from the past."
Gray Serpent slowly twirled his umbrella, completely ignoring the girl's self-indulgent, chuunibyou roleplay. "Furthermore, this directly concerns the ownership of the 4th Divine Key. As we are right now, we urgently require the strategic deterrent of the Key of Devouring: Star of Eden."
"Hold up! Isn't the activation key for the 4th Divine Key locked up in Schicksal?!"
"As for the records related to the descendants of the sky... seek out Alaya. She will compile and summarize the data from our archives for you."
Having said his piece, Gray Serpent's figure began to slowly fade away.
Leaving, Dystopia standing there alone, grinding her teeth in sheer annoyance. She mentally swore that next time, she and Big Sis Raven would definitely hunt down and dismantle a few of his backup bodies just to vent!