The countless stars formed a magnificent meteor shower. Yet when the meteors struck Elysia, they caused no harm. Instead, they shattered into blossoms of stardust, blooming in fragments and carrying a trace of coolness.
"Hehe." Magician looked immensely pleased. With this, offense and defense had switched. Elysia could only busy herself "blocking her own attacks."
"You're cheating, Vill-V~ But... I do quite like this unique kind of romance~"
"When a star falls, its beauty may last only an instant, yet it will be forever remembered by those who witness it."
"To those who gaze upon it and make a wish, please do not grieve for her... As long as someone is willing to pause for her beauty, her long-cherished wish has already been fulfilled."
Elysia circled around Vill-V, her delicate steps shifting lightly as she danced a waltz. With the pink rifle's muzzle, she gently tapped the falling stars. The starlight responded, bursting into different hues. Even the stars seemed captivated by Elysia's elegance.
"This bouquet from the starry sky... please accept it with gratitude~"
The stars spun once around Elysia before flying toward Vill-V. The multicolored starlight became a beautiful bouquet gifted from Elysia to Vill-V.
Faced with Elysia's "counterattack," Magician naturally did not remain idle. She placed the magic staff between her palms and brought her hands together. As the staff vanished without a trace, she murmured, "If falling stars can truly grant wishes, then let this moment remain suspended."
The gears of time halted. The falling stars froze around Magician, their delicate glow adorning the dress Elysia had given her in radiant colors.
"Only by becoming a shooting star can one meet you. If that is so, why stop here? Continue onward~"
Elysia, her white silk-gloved hand raised, curled her fingers upward. The frozen stars around Magician fluttered like fireflies, dancing toward both of them. They drifted through the surrounding void, scattering shimmering stardust as if blessing this fleeting encounter and leaving emotional traces amid mottled years.
It was a pity no lost traveler happened to pass by. Otherwise, they would surely have paused to admire the beauty of such a splendid moment.
Fortunately, upon this stage, there were still other spectators.
Vill-V watching herself... perfectly reasonable, was it not?
Id: Elysia dances so well (applause).
Lecturer: As expected of Elysia. Even her dance is flawless.
Conductor: It seems Elysia has long harbored such romantic thoughts.
Scholar: Let life be as splendid as flying blossoms; let death be as resplendent as falling stars.
Pure Evil: Elysia, you stab me... I will stab you too!
...
In a blink, as if three autumns had passed, the two young and beautiful girls completed the closing of their wondrous duet with one final clasp of hands.
The distant stars in the night sky streaked faster across the heavens and the illusory horizon, as though singing praise to the end of this peculiar ball.
"Oh my, Magician, why are you crying?"
Magician hurriedly wiped away her tears. "N-No, it's nothing. Just some ice got into my eyes. Another unavoidable accident during the performance."
Those words Elysia had spoken during the dance had not become reality. Yet even before the curtain call, Magician had nearly been brought to tears by Elysia's sentimental musings... There was no way Magician would admit to something so undignified.
Amid Elysia's applause, the rejuvenated great Magician made a sweeping gesture. The starry stage curtain fell. When it rose again, they had already returned to Vill-V's somewhat messy workshop.
"Hehe, my very best Magician, thank you~ A ball with you as my partner felt just like magic—filled with joy and surprises." Elysia held the bouquet she had just received from Vill-V and praised her. "Even someone as flawless as me... was almost moved to tears."
Then, somewhat reluctant, she added, "I truly wish the stage would never have to fall."
After all, in a certain sense, the stage resembled the legendary paradise.
Upon the stage gather humanity's dreams, humanity's ideals, humanity's struggles...
Here lies every possibility of humankind. It is as though the stage itself is a paradise created by humanity.
And yet, the stage is fleeting. All beauty ends when the curtain falls.
Magician could never bear to see an audience sink into melancholy after a performance ended. She gently placed her top hat atop Elysia's head, shielding her sorrowful expression, and explained, "There is no performance that never ends. The curtain call is part of the etiquette of a show, dear Miss Elysia."
"Besides, with one ending comes a new beginning. If one remains forever immersed in past, repeated performances, how could one bring novelty and surprise to the audience? Audiences are quite picky, you know."
Magician pointed toward the dim workshop. "Don't be fooled by Expert's messy workshop. In truth, it can give birth to performances even more dramatic than my stage."
Mm. A proper compliment to boost Expert a little, lest she complain again about modifications to her equipment.
"Mm!" Elysia adjusted the magic hat with both hands, revealing a pair of curious eyes. "Your little assistant has one more question for the adorable great Magician. Was what made us float earlier some kind of anti-gravity device from a science fiction story?"
Magician took Elysia's hand and spoke in a mysterious tone. "Ordinarily, revealing secrets is a magician's greatest taboo. But a magician's adorable assistant is an exception."
"Hold my hand tightly. Your greatest Magician will now unveil the secret behind the trick for her curious assistant. Try not to be too shocked~"
With that, Magician snapped her fingers.
Magician and Elysia once again entered a state of weightlessness.
No...
Elysia shifted her gaze toward the window. The scenery outside was rising. Rather than weightlessness, it was more accurate to say they were falling. The entire building was tilting. The entire workshop room was slowly descending.
Although it was descending at a slow rate, there was almost no sensation of acceleration. The room had already entered a weightless state similar to outer space.
"This is... truly a surprising answer." Held gently by Magician's hand, Elysia felt neither fear nor panic. Instead, she found the unprecedented experience fascinating.
"No wonder you designed the entire room within a massive gyroscope, Vill-V. It was so the whole room could maintain dynamic balance while falling."
The renovation of this twelve-story building had been carried out by Conductor and the HoMu Guild.
The workshop mechanism itself had been built solely by Expert.
This project, known as the Wallfacer Project, had been formulated to ensure that during the Fourth Honkai Eruption, Vill-V's command center would not be destroyed by a casual tornado from the Herrscher of Wind.
The technology was based on a gyroscopic device, maintaining dynamic equilibrium by controlling the building's tilt angle.
When a tornado struck, the command center building could tilt with the wind like grass bending along a wall. It could even pretend to have been destroyed, while in reality remaining completely intact.
At this moment, the building's tilt had already exceeded seventy-five degrees. The room was nearly pressed against the ground near the structure. For anyone else, experiencing a building collapse would likely turn their legs to jelly. Yet Magician and Elysia merely treated it as an amusing experience.
Boom.
With a loud crash, the entire building lay flat upon the ground. Meanwhile, the workshop where Magician and Elysia stood continued descending. The two were no longer weightless, instead returning to normal gravity—slightly heavier than usual—as the room underwent deceleration and buffering within the Ground Auxiliary Substructure Mechanism.
One of the functions of the Ground Auxiliary Substructure Mechanism, jointly designed by Conductor and Expert, was precisely this buffering system. As a result, the workshop's drop distance into it was not particularly large.
In truth, the energy required was not significant. Although the building appeared tall and imposing, it was actually hollow—there were not even any stairs inside. That was why Expert had once been so astonished at how Elysia managed to enter. Under normal circumstances, entry and exit required the workshop to descend.
After the buffering process concluded, the room began to rise again, returning to its place within the building. The building itself gradually straightened as well.
Magician and Elysia could once more see blue skies and white clouds through the window.
As for what passersby outside might think—curtains had already been erected around the building, along with safety warnings stating that demolition work was underway.
And a building undergoing demolition doing a sit-up or two was perfectly normal, wasn't it?
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