The mindless, Lovecraftian stupor didn't last long.
Li Wu's lucidity returned shortly after he finished reading the system's monologue.
"Consume it."
He slit his own wrist and held it out to Kallen. Golden blood pulsed from the wound, gushing eagerly as if it had finally sensed a more suitable vessel.
"...Are you asking me to eat it? Like this?" Kallen leaned back slightly, though her throat bobbed in an involuntary swallow. "What do you think I am, a dog? You offer, so I must eat? Where was this initiative when I was the one offering?"
"You don't have a choice," Li Wu said flatly.
Kallen's lips curled into a mocking sneer, mercilessly piercing through his stoic facade. "Heh. You really do care about your precious little girlfriend. What's the matter? You'd rather pay a far heavier price by letting someone you feel absolutely nothing for into your Sea of Consciousness, all just so you won't 'wrong' her?"
She narrowed her sapphire eyes, searching his expression for a crack, a flinch, anything.
Obviously, she found nothing.
In a daze, Kallen darted her tongue out, licking her parched lips.
Thirsting for his Divine Blood was a biological instinct, not a conscious desire. She knew that perfectly well. She also knew that Li Wu didn't actually care about her; to him right now, she was nothing more than a tool to neutralize the lethal ichor burning through his veins.
"You can choose not to consume it. And then you can fall into the eternal cycle of reincarnation with me," Li Wu stated. It sounded like a threat, yet his voice was so deadened it seemed like an absolute certainty.
Kallen grimaced in sheer disgust. "You...! Hmph. So you have this side to you as well. How enlightening, Savior. You know full well that the thing I hate most in this world is being with you—let alone for eternity... Fine. As you wish."
With a heavy sigh, she leaned forward. She cupped his bleeding wrist in both hands and pressed her lips tightly against the wound.
The moment the Divine Blood made contact, it rushed in like a maddened flock of sheep, desperately crowding the center of the laceration to stop the flesh from healing itself.
"Mmph!"
Kallen's cheeks puffed out like a blowfish. Copious amounts of golden ichor flooded her oral cavity, instantly filling her small mouth.
But it didn't stop there. The Divine Blood seemed to possess a sentience of its own. It bypassed the need for digestion, forcefully permeating her mucous membranes and flesh, fusing with her on a cellular level. Lacking space, the excess blood rushed down her throat, settling in her stomach where it began assimilating through the stomach lining.
GLUG... GLUG... GLUG...
Strange, visceral sounds echoed in the quiet room.
In less than ten seconds, every last drop of Divine Blood in Li Wu's body had been drained dry.
Yet, his organs—now thoroughly nourished by the ichor—continued to function normally, generating fresh, ordinary red blood like any regular human.
The curse of immortality was temporarily stripped away. In its wake came a sudden, hollow wave of exhaustion.
Most of his strength was gone. Even igniting his Golden Eyes required immense mental exertion now; he wouldn't be able to maintain them for long.
"It worked."
"Yes, it worked. You finally don't have to die anymore. What now? What are you going to say?"
Kallen's face grew animated. Having been trapped in chaotic madness for so long, this rare moment of clarity opened the floodgates. Five hundred years of repressed, agonizing emotion came pouring out.
"Are you going to clear up the misunderstanding with your little girlfriend? Be all lovey-dovey, get married on some auspicious day, and grow old together after a long, happy life? All while leaving me—the immortal one—to shoulder the burden of saving the world for you?"
Her voice pitched higher, laced with venom.
"Or maybe you'll groom a new Savior? Shower her with warmth and affection, just to lead her down the same despairing path I took?"
"Ten paths, a hundred paths, a thousand, a million... Isn't that what you told me? 'In infinite regressions, among infinite possibilities, there will always be one path leading to a perfect ending. As long as we persevere, we will absolutely find the answer to save everyone.' Hah! Persevere... Do you see me now?! Endless perseverance only warps a person into an unrecognizable abomination, where even being lucid is a luxury!"
"Do you know what I saw, Li Wu? In one of those loops, I watched the world fall to ruin. First the ordinary humans. Then the Valkyries. Then the Herrschers. Finally, even the Kaslanas and Schariacs... The entire world, everyone except me, degenerated into 'Children of Omen'. Otto, Theresa, World Serpent, Anti-Entropy—it didn't matter who they were, they all corrupted! I was the only one left, and I couldn't even die! I died and reset, died and reset, over and over, just trying to find a way to break the inevitable annihilation!"
"I—!"
"Save the world?!"
"Is there a funnier joke in existence?! If the only meaning of living is just to die a little later, then the life of Kallen Kaslana is the most pathetic farce under heaven! Savior? You couldn't find a more vicious curse in the entire universe! If there was a button right now that would instantly destroy the world, hesitating for even a second to press it would be a waste of time!"
As she ranted, Kallen straddled Li Wu, her hands shooting out to wrap around his throat.
A crazed smile split her face. Her eyes reflected his gloomy, 'I don't care if I die' expression as her grip tightened.
Li Wu's pulse beat clearly against her palms.
He was so fragile. Like a piece of delicate porcelain.
Kallen carefully controlled her strength, terrified that a slip of the hand might accidentally strangle him to death and trigger another reset. Gradually, the deranged smile on her face froze. She wanted to laugh, but looking at his utterly unresponsive, dead-eyed face, the laughter caught in her throat.
Her consciousness was already beginning to fracture again. Soon, she would revert back to the mindless stupor she had been in before he awakened her.
Yet, even in these final moments of lucidity, she still hadn't gotten what she desperately wanted.
Please... just say something...
Just one sentence...
Anything...
Don't... don't do this...
Don't leave me alone in the dark before I lose myself...
Li Wu felt her grip loosening. She was wavering.
His mind, however, had already shifted away from Kallen and onto the information she had just revealed.
Children of Omen. She was the only human left alive.
That was an apocalyptic disaster that had never occurred in the original manga storyline.
In other words, at some point in the future, a "twisted existence" would emerge, causing anyone without Divine Blood to degenerate into monsters. Ordinary humans were corrupted first, followed by the Kaslanas and Schariacs. This meant Holy Blood offered significant resistance to the corruption, while Divine Blood offered total immunity.
The cause? The rate of infection.
Kallen let out a bitter scoff. Seeing Li Wu completely lost in his own analytical thoughts, she tilted her head up, refusing to look at him anymore.
I'm such a fool. Expecting a response from a stone...
"Do you not want to be the Savior?" Li Wu asked suddenly.
"That's right. If I had the choice, I wouldn't want it at all."
"Then would you press it? If that button really existed, and pressing it would instantly annihilate the world, erasing all pain and all happiness alike—would you press it?"
Surprisingly, Kallen—who had just passionately declared that hesitating for a second would be a waste of time—could not give an answer.
Time slipped quietly by.
"I understand. Get off me first," Li Wu's voice was faint, as weightless and insubstantial as a passing cloud. "As compensation for neutralizing my Divine Blood, I will use my own methods to help you escape the fate of the Savior."
It sounded casual, almost dismissive. Yet the weight of that promise was heavier than anything else in the world.
Kallen froze for a long time. She absentmindedly wiped the drying blood from her lips and opened her mouth to speak, but her mind drew a blank.
The fragmented memories of countless loops violently shredded her active thoughts.
Gradually, her noble head lowered. Her resentful eyes lost their focus, fading into a dull, vacant void. Stripped of everything but base instinct, she mumbled a single name:
"Li... Wu..."
Li Wu reached up and gently rested his hand on her head, petting her as softly as one might stroke a newly bloomed flower.
"I'll remember," he whispered gently. "Even if you don't."
"Ten paths, a hundred paths, a thousand, a million... In infinite regressions, among infinite possibilities, there will always be one path leading to a perfect ending. As long as we persevere, we will absolutely find the answer to save everyone."
Li Wu repeated the words to himself. Suddenly, a memory from his life before crossing over surfaced.
Back on the internet, a user named InvincibleKeyboardWarrior had argued with him, telling him: 'Spouting empty, grandiose ideals built on pure data is meaningless.'
Is it meaningless? No matter how passionate the heart, no matter how intense the emotion, infinite time will inevitably distort and rot it. In the end, everything loses its meaning.
But that doesn't apply to me. Even if I remain in this emotionless state forever, I don't find it painful. The only thing I need to worry about is preventing the infinite looping memories from frying my brain.
Wait. Didn't Kallen ever try using Fenghuang Down or other consciousness-altering methods to purge her memories? No, Otto would never overlook such a solution. Yet Kallen still went mad from the infinite regression memories. There's only one explanation—just as the system warned that the Emperor-class Honkai Beast 'Phantom Bane' couldn't affect me in my death state, mind-altering methods likely have absolutely zero effect on Kallen and me due to 'Return by Death'.
Okay. The logic is sorted.
But... what am I supposed to do now?
Li Wu felt a sudden wave of aimlessness. He had completed every immediate task required of him. It felt like playing an RPG and following the quest markers to the end of a storyline. But now that the questline was over—with no looming crisis and no clear objective—he was just staring at an empty map, completely lost.
Out of habit, he mentally called out to the system.
But this time, it offered no reply. The silence was absolute, swallowed mercilessly by the tides of time.
Ana had seemed so devastated. But he wasn't a mind-reader. He didn't understand what she was thinking, or why she had cried in such agony.
Otto had promised to stop persecuting her and Cecilia. She could finally return to her normal life as a Valkyrie. So why had her voice been so hoarse? Why had her face looked so ashen, without a single trace of joy?
I saved her from a tragedy... so why was she crying?
Li Wu couldn't figure it out. Perhaps the old him would have known the answer.
[Future Loan] had a passive repayment mechanism that only triggered upon his next death.
Right. The Main Quest awaits. I should just kill myself.
Return by Death, and then initiate Act IV... But something feels off. Would the old me have done that? Shouldn't I prepare something first? Like... go back to school, try to return to a normal state of mind, and then clear Act IV?
Just as Li Wu was blanking out, there was a knock at the door.
It was his neighbor.
The neighbor held out a smartphone. From the speaker came a familiar, highly punchable voice.
"Teacher, I presume you have finished consummating with Kallen. You are now free to do as you please. If you require anything, Schicksal will cooperate fully. Furthermore, please prepare a change of clothes for Kallen. I will personally arrive with a team to escort her back to Schicksal shortly."
Li Wu looked up and noticed several Schicksal soldiers stationed at the end of the hallway.
The actions and personal information of every single resident in this apartment complex were likely already under Otto's complete control.
Li Wu nodded, closed the door, and went back inside.
He carefully picked up the coat Kallen had discarded and dressed her in it. He took his time with every button. It wasn't out of enjoyment; it was simply because he had no idea what else to do, so he executed the current task with mechanical perfection.
"Someone will come to pick you up soon. I'm going to school now. I am a student. If I return to school, I might be able to find myself again," he said to Kallen.
She sat slumped on his stiff bed, her head tilted at an odd angle. She clearly couldn't understand him, only letting out faint, meaningless murmurs.
He showered, changed into a spare school uniform, and slung his backpack over his shoulder.
He mirrored his past routine flawlessly. His "dissociative state" had triggered during an accident at school. Li Wu operated on the logic that going through the same motions and imitating his past memories would eventually snap him out of it.
It was nine in the morning. The summer breeze was pleasantly cool.
The air carried the fresh scent of blooming flowers. When a faint, inexplicably familiar scent of iris drifted past, Li Wu reflexively stopped and looked back.
The pedestrians behind him flinched, unnerved by his abrupt stop and the lifeless, empty stare he leveled at them.
If it had been the old Li Wu, he would have wilted under the awkward attention, quickly looking away and pretending nothing happened.
But the current Li Wu just stared blankly. His gaze pierced through the crowd, looking all the way to the end of the street, only to realize the scent was just coming from a roadside florist.
No one was waiting for him. And he couldn't find the person he was looking for.
What was I expecting?
Li Wu didn't know. He just felt an ingrained instinct that someone should be waiting for him at the end of the road, and that he only needed to turn around to see them.
That thought is too arrogant. Who would do that? ...Was the old me really that narcissistic? Acting like a protagonist who takes it for granted that someone will always be by his side? How is that possible?
Li Wu lowered his eyes.
Like a machine composed of precision gears, he began to walk. The distance of every stride, the arc of every arm swing, was identical. It was a rhythm so flawlessly mechanical it lacked any trace of humanity.
Bathed in the cold morning light, he walked through the gates of Chiba Academy.
A heavy scent of lavender washed over his face.