Within Elysian Realm.
"Good, very good! So this is how you're going to play me, is it?!"
Elysia trembled violently from head to toe.
The pink elf wore an expression on the verge of darkening completely. All her usual gentleness and sweetness had vanished. The veins on her forehead bulged so fiercely they nearly formed a giant cross mark.
Beside her, Elf Elysia clutched her magic staff and shivered in fear.
"G-grown-up me, please calm down a little."
"Calm down? In a situation like this, how am I supposed to calm down? Eli—my Eli doesn't even know what those bad women have done to him by now. Just thinking about it makes my heart ache so badly I can barely breathe. Eden, you actually betrayed me?"
Elysia raised a hand and clutched her chest.
She wore an expression of utter heartbreak. A few crystalline tears even welled at the corners of her eyes. If not for the ominous dark aura radiating from her body...
She might have looked like a tragic heroine worthy of sympathy.
But right now, she looked more like an adorable witch on the verge of falling into darkness after being betrayed.
Just moments ago, Mobius had called Elysia for the first time in fifty thousand years, immediately arousing her suspicion. Then, after mentioning the keyword "little lab rat," she abruptly hung up.
(No matter how I look at it, she was avoiding the question! And after that, whenever I called her, it kept saying 'line busy'...)
Since Miss Pink Elf had never in her life experienced having someone "reject" her calls, she initially didn't realize that it was merely a polite automatic response after being declined.
She quickly called the other Flame-Chasers to ask if they knew anything. The result?
Every single one of them had turned off their devices!
(D-don't tell me...!!)
If she still couldn't realize something was wrong at that point, perhaps it was time to replace her brain.
Elysia even put down her R18 doujin titled The Forbidden Love Between the White Prince and the Vampire Princess.
She rushed out of Elysian Realm, which she hadn't left in who knew how long, and searched through every Flame-Chaser's memory domain.
Not a single one of them was there.
Even Klein was missing.
At that moment, Elysia knew something huge had happened.
At some unknown point in time, Elysian Realm had been reduced to her alone!
This obviously wasn't some large-scale prank or an Elysian Realm hide-and-seek competition.
If the Flame-Chasers weren't in the realm, then they had gone to the outside world.
And what could possibly exist in the outside world that would attract all of them at once—and keep it hidden from her...?
The answer was painfully obvious.
Her beloved Eli!
Elysian Realm lay empty.
The Flame-Chaser girl group had secretly made a run for it!
They'd pulled the wool over the elf's eyes and left her behind as the loser!
At first, Elysia still held onto a one-in-a-billion sliver of hope.
Maybe it really was just a prank.
Maybe it really was some hide-and-seek competition.
So the pink elf headed to the one place that could prove the girls' innocence—the "Elysian Realm Archives."
She stood before the fairy typewriter that "only states objective facts." But what she discovered was that this crucial device had been destroyed—so thoroughly shattered that even Elf Elysia couldn't repair it.
When Mobius had broken the typewriter, she believed that would ensure Elysia could never reach the truth.
However, there was something she didn't know.
There were two fairy typewriters in Elysian Realm.
Fifty thousand years ago, when Elias and Elysia had accidentally damaged the typewriter through improper operation, Elf Elysia—then serving as the archives administrator—hadn't known how to fix it.
So Elias used the authority of the Herrscher of Reason to construct a second fairy typewriter.
Meanwhile, over the long span of fifty thousand years, the original one had gradually been repaired by Elf Elysia and eventually placed in storage, left to gather dust.
The other Flame-Chasers didn't know about this.
But Elysia did.
After all, she had personally watched Elias construct the second typewriter back then. And Elysian Realm was her memory domain.
So after locating the second typewriter, Elysia immediately began operating it...
Though by this point, even she felt that the others' crimes were already set in stone, with absolutely no chance of redemption.
The result was exactly as she expected.
When Elysia asked the question: [For what reason did the Flame-Chasers leave Elysian Realm?]
Countless A4 sheets printed with the name "Elias" burst forth, covering the entire archive floor.
And then, the long-neglected typewriter—having gathered far too much dust—exploded on the spot.
Boom!
Elf Elysia: "M-my last typewriter!"
Elysia: "The evidence is complete. Unforgivable. You'd better start preparing your confessions now. Eli, wait for me—your most beloved Miss Pink Elf is coming to rescue you!!"
An inextinguishable flame burned fiercely within Elysia's eyes.
She picked up her exclusive weapon, Whisper of the Past, and with the mindset of a fairy-tale princess rescuing her prince, prepared to officially enter the Current Era S2 season.
Elysia's fighting spirit surged sky-high.
"So what if I'm behind right now? I'll show you soon enough what it means to be the absolute first place of the Previous Era S1 season!"
The pink elf, brimming with absolute confidence in her love for Elias, strode firmly toward the exit of Elysian Realm.
And then...
She broke down again.
Staring at the tightly sealed, completely locked gates of the realm.
Elysia: "Pink Elf Flying Kick!"
Boom!!
The massive doors were kicked open by this pink elf's single kick.
"Hmph~ is that all—... what?!"
Only after kicking the doors open did Elysia realize she had celebrated too soon.
As everyone knew, for safety and concealment, Elysian Realm had been constructed thousands of meters beneath the Golden Courtyard.
Unless one possessed the spatial authority of the Herrscher of the Void, anyone would have to obediently take the elevator shaft.
But now...
The elevator shaft had collapsed.
The vertical passage spanning several thousand meters had been completely filled and blocked by soil.
Elysia trembled as she stared at the sight before her. Her face turned green as if she had just chugged bitter melon juice.
"Mobi—ius—you're ruthless!"
With a move this wicked, Elysia didn't even need to consult the typewriter to know—it had to be that snake's handiwork!
What left her even more exasperated was that Miss Pink Elf realized she truly didn't have any particularly good solution.
The authority of the Herrscher of Origin was versatile—but not omnipotent.
At the very least, Elysia couldn't simply make a wish and have the earth split apart from both sides, revealing a passage several thousand meters long leading straight to the surface...
Well. Not that it was impossible.
But anyone with a shred of common sense would know that such a scene would trigger a catastrophic earthquake at ground level.
To tear open a fissure thousands of meters deep would far exceed even a magnitude ten quake. It would likely be enough to sink the entire Far East region into the sea.
Even if this pink elf had momentarily darkened, she would never make such a wish.
After all, she was the Herrscher of Humanity who loved mankind—Elysia.
Which meant there was only one option left.
Miss Pink Elf picked up a diamond pickaxe.
Time to dig!!
"Mobius, just you wait! Once I get out of here, I'm turning you into snake soup to nourish my Eli! And everyone else who kept this from me too—cut ties! I'm cutting ties with all of you!!"
The dark aura around Elysia grew denser and denser. She truly felt she had made terrible friends.
For just a tiny, tiny fraction of a second, she even had the faintest urge to join the Honkai and destroy the world!
"Eli, wait for me. It's only a few thousand meters. I'll dig my way out in two days! Wuuu... my poor Eli must be suffering under those bad women right now. He must miss me too, right?"
Elysia gazed at the photo she had set as her terminal wallpaper—Eli's peaceful sleeping face.
Instantly, strength surged through her.
"Wait for me! Your favorite Elysia will be there soon! What is this tiny obstacle compared to the power of our love? I dig!"
And thus, Player Elysia logged in.
She swung her pickaxe fiercely toward the ceiling. True, it was a massive project—but the pink elf decided to treat it as weight loss training!
...
Meanwhile, in the main world.
Unlike Elysian Realm, where day and night blurred indistinguishably, it was already the next day here.
"Ah-choo!"
Now dressed in a white fitted outfit, Elias stood by the roadside. He rubbed his nose in confusion after sneezing.
"Strange. I feel like someone was just thinking about me. And for some reason, my heart feels warm. Is it because I'm too excited about my date with Bronya?"
At that thought, the corners of Elias' lips curved slightly upward.
In an instant, the entire street fell hopelessly in love.
Passersby felt as if angels armed with bows had shot straight through their hearts.
The women had already begun thinking of baby names.
The men decided that gender was no longer important.
Elias himself became a landscape more dazzling than nature itself.
Now a dual Pseudo God of the Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta, whether in temperament or appearance, he had surpassed the limits of what a human could reach.
Quantum power rendered him ethereal and untouchable.
Imaginary power added an aura of sanctity and sublimity.
And this was already his most restrained state.
If Elias were to reveal his full form—Artificial Cascade plus dual Pseudo God authority plus peak Anchora plus the powers of the twelve Herrschers—even he had no idea how exaggeratedly strong he would be.
Though he would find out eventually by sparring with the Herrscher of Finality.
Elias conservatively estimated that while he might still be unable to shatter the power of Finality outright, Finality likely had no chance of defeating him anymore either.
After all, he had completely surpassed the Imaginary Pseudo God Otto Apocalypse once achieved in the original storyline.
Now, Elias could draw energy infinitely from both the Sea of Quanta and the Imaginary Tree.
As long as the authority of his dual Pseudo God status remained intact, he himself would be eternal.
Even the Herrscher of the Void's Imaginary Renormalization now had less than a one-in-ten-thousand chance of affecting him.
And if he countered with his own authority of the Void—
The success rate dropped to zero percent.
In simple terms, if Elias fought the Herrscher of Finality again, he could practically remove the dodge button entirely.
One could shatter his HP bar and he would instantly refill it.
The other had a locked HP bar that couldn't be broken at all.
"Speaking of which, Finality has finally figured out the correct way to fight. That was close~ If I hadn't gained the Imaginary and Quantum Pseudo God authorities, I really would've lost next time."
Elias muttered with lingering fear.
He was not the only one who continued to grow.
The Herrscher of Finality was no longer the fool from the Previous Era who mindlessly spammed abilities, allowing Elias to siphon Finality's power and counter-kill her in the end.
She had learned human technique.
Against others, she used authority freely and bombarded them without restraint.
Against Elias, she engaged in close-quarters combat.
After all, as long as she denied him the chance to absorb Finality's power, he had no way to break her defenses.
Only...
Herrscher of Finality: "Ah. I lost my weapon."
When she began learning close combat, the Goddess of Honkai suddenly realized that her world-destroying divine spear was still lost within a bubble world in the Sea of Quanta—a place called "Teyvat"—and had yet to be retrieved.
Elias could only say they would search for it slowly in the future.
After all, he now regularly went to the Sea of Quanta to "feed," assimilating more bubble worlds into himself to strengthen his body.
Incidentally, the powers of Quantum and Imaginary not only enhanced his strength—they also slightly altered his appearance.
His left eye had turned sea-blue.
It was as if the Sea of Quanta, dissatisfied that both his eyes bore the golden hue of Imaginary energy, had dyed one with its own color—leaving him with heterochromatic eyes: right gold, left blue.
Somewhat like Kiana before she fully mastered the authority of the Herrscher of the Void in the original storyline.
But since it looked rather cool~ Elias quite liked it.
Thus, a white-haired boy of overwhelming beauty and supreme temperament, bearing the rare and noble combination of blue-and-gold heterochromatic eyes, stood upon the street.
It would have been stranger if he hadn't attracted attention.
"Should we go talk to him?"
"N-no! His level is way too high—I don't have the courage!"
"Guh! What kind of peerless handsome guy is this?!"
"Is he waiting for someone? A girlfriend, maybe?"
"Huh? Who could possibly land a boyfriend like that? I'm so jealous I could cry!"
Elias ignored the women's whispers. He checked his watch and saw there was still an hour until the agreed time.
"The timing's about right. Bronya should be arriving soon."
It had to be said—Elias understood his girls extremely well.
Every one of them had the habit of arriving early for dates with him.
Bronya always arrived one hour early. That was fairly normal.
Ana would come three hours early.
Raiden Mei, two hours.
Kiana would be a few minutes late.
And some particularly outrageous individuals would even wait at the location the day before.
Meanwhile, a certain pink elf would always arrive precisely on time.
Because Elysia knew that no matter how early they arrived—Elias would always be there half an hour before them.
"Vroom vroom vroom!!"
Accompanied by the roaring engine of Project Bunny's motorcycle—
The cool, expressionless girl Bronya made her entrance.
Bronya: "No time to explain. Elias, get on the bike!"
Elias: "???"