"Are you out of your mind?! That's Schicksal!" Raiden Ryoma let out a deafening roar. The expression on his face was identical to Argar's when he first heard Li Wu was going up against Schicksal—a twisted mixture of shock, confusion, and bottomless fear.
Against such an unfathomable behemoth, the power of a single individual was utterly insignificant.
Saying it was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot was an understatement. To call the gap between them the difference between clouds and mud wouldn't even cut it; it was a distance spanning entire galaxies!
"If I could save Raiden Mei from your hands, I can save that stupid girl from Schicksal's. It's just a matter of looping time and... mental endurance."
"Impossible!" Ryoma stated categorically, his tone leaving no room for doubt. "You completely fail to understand what an organization like Schicksal means to ordinary people. You think you can take on the entirety of Schicksal by yourself? Keep dreaming! Even if all of Anti-Entropy stood by your side, defeating them would be impossible! The Overseer of Schicksal alone could flatten half the world!"
"Do you understand that the true apex combatants of this world—Anti-Entropy's Herrschers, World Serpent's MANTISes—are nothing in the eyes of that Overseer? Fine, even if she doesn't personally act, what about the S-Rank Valkyries? Everyone calls S-Ranks walking nuclear fission bombs. Going all out, one of them could wipe a city off the map in half a day! Against dozens of S-Rank Valkyries, could you defeat even one of them? Li Wu, this isn't like last time!"
"A kid holding a gun can fire a bullet just as lethal as an adult's, that's true. But the enemies you're facing don't even fall into the category of normal humans! Standard bullets wouldn't even scratch the paint on a Valkyrie's armor. How are you supposed to win?"
Ryoma was burning with anxiety, desperately trying to persuade Li Wu to drop this suicide mission.
Li Wu's face remained impassive. He listened quietly, waiting for Ryoma to finish before replying at a measured pace. "That is exactly why I need to prepare. If winning were easy, I wouldn't be standing here, and I wouldn't be agonizing over this."
"I'm not asking you or Raiden Mei to fight with me. Even if I did, you'd probably refuse. But when it comes to providing weapons you don't even need anymore, you don't have the right to refuse. Because I saved your daughter's life."
Li Wu's words were resolute, driving into Ryoma's chest like a heavy iron nail.
"..."
"Fine."
Ryoma turned around and walked into his bedroom. Two minutes later, he emerged, tossing an ID card to Li Wu and giving him the location of the armory.
"I'll ask you one last time. Are you really going to do this? You don't know many people, do you? From what I've gathered about you, there's Mei, Kiana, Anna, and your classmate Yuno Sato... But aside from Mei and Anna, the rest are just acquaintances you exchange a few words with. You don't have any inseparable bonds with them. Throwing away the successful life that ordinary people dream of just to save a girl you haven't even known for long... It really isn't worth it."
"It's not too late to back out. I can pretend everything you just said was just the heat of the moment."
Ryoma had conducted a thorough background check on Li Wu. He grew up alone in Nagazora City, had excellent grades, was withdrawn, and had no friends.
He didn't even know who this girl Li Wu wanted to save was—perhaps someone he'd only met in the last few days. To throw away a bright future for a passing acquaintance simply wasn't worth it.
Li Wu didn't answer Ryoma's proposal directly. He tilted his head back, looking out at the sky burning like a raging inferno, impossibly brilliant.
That evening, when he strolled along the beach in Ireland with Cecilia, they must have seen a similarly beautiful sunset.
Gorgeous sunsets will always be there, but the person you watch the dusk with... if they die, they're truly gone forever.
Li Wu clenched his left hand, feeling the majestic power surging endlessly within him. A bitter smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "Mr. Ryoma, sometimes I wonder... how nice would it be if I were truly just a normal person? Then, I wouldn't have to consider these seemingly impossible tasks. Because I'd be normal, I wouldn't be capable of doing them, so I wouldn't even try in the first place."
"But unfortunately, I have this power. If I don't act, I'm afraid I'll spend the rest of my long life looking back on today's cowardice countless times."
"It's true that the connections between people can be terrifyingly shallow. Most are just fleeting acquaintances, and even family members eventually drift apart until you're the only one left. I probably don't truly understand her, just like I don't completely understand anyone who likes me, or anyone I like. Their hobbies, their fashion, their values, their blood types, their habits, their wishes, their favorite animals..."
"Then why are you still doing this?" Ryoma was even more baffled. He couldn't comprehend it. If Li Wu understood this reality so well, why was he still so dead set on this path?
"I'm just being myself." Li Wu opened his right palm, gazing at the ID card with a faint smile. "Maybe... no, it's highly likely that someday in the future, I will deeply regret what I'm doing today. I'll regret throwing away such a perfect life. I'll regret choosing the hardest possible path. Maybe when that time comes, even the feeling of 'regret' will be a luxury. I might lose the ability to feel anything at all, reduced to an emotionless walking corpse just trying to speedrun the game of life."
"But I still feel that this is what I need to do right now. My current anger and sorrow aren't fake. You're right, Mr. Ryoma—I don't know many people, and I have even fewer close friends. I haven't known the girl who needs saving for very long, and our relationship is just at the level of normal friends..."
"But she saved me! She didn't know anything, she couldn't even fend for herself, yet she still pushed me out of harm's way. How could I possibly betray that? How could I pretend nothing happened? Watch her suffer, and then die all alone in some forgotten corner, knowing that everyone abandoned her?"
Li Wu enunciated every single word clearly, filled with intense conviction.
As he spoke, the tragic image of Anna reduced to a blood slave—which he had seen through [Future Loan]—flashed through his mind. Her beautiful short chestnut hair had lost its color and grown dull. Her fair skin had become shriveled and inelastic, looking like hideous, bumpy tree bark.
He had even chosen to save Raiden Mei, a girl who had once killed him.
So why?
On what grounds?
Why should he abandon a girl who had been so good to him?
Are good people destined to be bullied? To have guns pointed at their heads? To be thrown away?!
Li Wu lifted his gaze, his eyes shining brightly. "The world is a bowl of water. When the water isn't level, sacrificing the kindest, most understanding person is the only way to make it calm. I don't want it to be calm. I want the good to be rewarded and the wicked to be punished. If my future self regrets it, then let him regret it. I am not him. I am going to do what I believe is right."
What he believes is right?
Ryoma stood frozen in place, unable to reply. He instinctively glanced to the side, looking at the plush dolls he had meticulously placed around the room as compensation for Mei. A different kind of emotion welled up in his chest.
Back then, when Li Wu was saving his daughter... was he thinking the exact same thing?
He wasn't looking for compensation afterward; he just gave it his absolute all in the moment, striving for a clear conscience.
It was a weighing of pros and cons, sure. But in this calculation, his conscience held far too much weight.
Ryoma suddenly felt incredibly conflicted. By societal standards, he was undeniably successful. He had seen much of the world and firmly established himself in a circle of power that ordinary people could never reach.
The commercial landscape of the entire Far East fluctuated with his moods. A single word from him could cause thousands to lose their jobs, or find new ones.
Faced with an inexperienced youth like Li Wu, Ryoma naturally felt a sense of superiority—something he had displayed perfectly during their first meeting. Back then, he hadn't hidden his arrogance and disdain, viewing Li Wu as nothing more than a hot-blooded idiot with a narrow worldview and a small heart.
But compared to Ryoma—who believed the world was vast and that one must make compromises to find the optimal solution—Li Wu was an absolute madman. For the sake of the small things in his heart, for people he wasn't even deeply connected with, he dared to bare his fangs at the most authoritative and powerful faction in the world!
How did he dare?
How... was he so brave...
Even in a video game, fighting a level 100 boss with a level 1 character would be agonizing, right? Even with infinite retries, a person's patience has limits. And a game was just a game—in reality, the pressure and the pain you suffer don't magically decrease just because you're fighting out of your weight class.
Ryoma simply couldn't fathom what was going through Li Wu's mind. It wasn't until the doorbell rang and Raiden Mei returned that Ryoma snapped out of it. He looked up to say something, only to realize Li Wu had already vanished.
"Dad, I'm home! I made so many friends today, and so much happened at school! Let me tell you, today I accidentally knocked over a commoner classmate's desk, and he didn't even get mad! He just told me it was okay and picked up his books himself..."
"Oh? Dad, did you buy this for me? It's so cute! This is the limited edition from Northern Europe, right? Can I give it to a classmate? My friends are always talking about these. They're called HOMU dolls, and they're super popular worldwide! The limited editions are priceless. If I give it to my friends, they'll definitely love it—after all, their parents couldn't buy one even if they had the money."
Faced with Raiden Mei's endless chattering, Ryoma raised a hand and rubbed his temples, his voice tinged with exhaustion. "Mei... go back to your room for now. I have some things I need to think about..."
"Okay! I'll go chat with my friends online then, we still have so much to talk about~"
Raiden Mei happily skipped to her room, and the sound of cheerful conversations soon drifted out from behind her door.
---||---
Meanwhile, Li Wu used [Future Loan] again to teleport to his destination. He retrieved the unfinished plasma weapons and used a life to test them.
First, he picked up a combat blade named Plasma Army-Breaker and pushed it to maximum output. The excessively violent energy instantly incinerated his right hand, leaving deep, charred scars.
Next was a laser cannon named Plasma Reaper. At max output, the volatile energy spilling from the muzzle shattered into shrapnel, driving straight into his left eyeball.
With one eye left, Li Wu continued testing until he had run through every single weapon, confirming their side effects and specific capabilities.
By the end, his body was utterly mangled. Massive amounts of Honkai energy and plasma radiation intertwined within him, accumulating endlessly and destroying his organs and nervous system without pause.
If he were a normal person, he would have been burned to ash the moment he tried the Plasma Army-Breaker.
The Golden Holy Blood had modified his body, granting him a regenerative speed that far exceeded his expectations. Even his ruined left eye managed to heal enough to vaguely make out his surroundings.
Once he had finalized his checks, Li Wu turned the muzzle of the Plasma Reaper toward his own head and pulled the trigger—
SQUELCH!
Flesh and blood scattered. His entire head was instantly obliterated, leaving behind only a battered, hole-ridden body and an empty stump above the neck.
...
...
After returning, Li Wu's physical condition was completely restored. He packed up the usable plasma weapons and pulled out the Key of the Fire Moth.
Perhaps because the "testing" just now had been too stimulating, Li Wu found his mind to be exceptionally clear, even as phantom pains flared up all over his body.
Fortunately, his subconscious knew that the agony belonged to the previous loop. To his current self, the pain was fake, so he didn't need to worry about it.
"Kosma still owes me a favor, but there's no guarantee he'd step in. Having him hold off Schicksal's S-Rank Valkyries would severely worsen the relationship between Schicksal and World Serpent. Plus... the moment he sees me, I might not be able to keep up this disguise. Losing this alias would mean the mastermind behind the scenes won't hold back anymore."
"Setting all this up is clearly an attempt to force me to use supernatural powers, just to prove that I am 'that person'."
Supernatural powers...
In a way, with the help of [Return by Death] and [Future Loan], he could acquire the powers of any supernatural system.
But what he gained was often accompanied by an equal loss. The System had warned him: the price to borrow enough power to defeat three S-Rank Valkyries was one he couldn't afford. That path was a dead end.
Kiana, Raven, Yuno Sato...
No, none of them would work.
Li Wu's mind raced. Even as the creator of this manga, he couldn't find a single viable solution to this scenario.
Schicksal's lore made them overwhelmingly powerful, and the subsequent heroines had no connection to him yet. Even if they did, they wouldn't risk certain death to help him. Just not reporting him to the authorities would be a blessing; standing on the same frontlines against Schicksal was a pure pipe dream.
He couldn't stand on a moral high ground and demand his friends help him unconditionally, forcing them to become fugitives of Schicksal and risk getting blown up by unstable plasma weapons... His original intention was to save someone, not drag others down with him.
Besides, against S-Rank Valkyries, any backup below A-Rank was entirely meaningless.
"Normal Holy Blood barely gives me a boost anymore, but it's better than nothing. It's time to go grab the Holy Blood from the black market. As for compensating the guy... I'll deal with that later. I'll ask Raiden Ryoma for some cash to pay the black market merchant back, assuming Anna hasn't killed him yet."
After quickly washing the blood off his body, Li Wu followed the address Ruslan had given him earlier. He navigated into an underground street in Nagazora City, eventually stopping in front of a storefront hanging a sign that read "Vienna Stitching Shop."