As far as Ling Ke knew, ever since the Cocoon of Finality descended upon the Solar System, destroying Venus, Mars, and perhaps countless other civilizations along the way, its little experiment on Earth had already been running for a very, very long time.
To cultivate its own kind.
To embrace its own kind.
Or, to put it more accurately, human civilization on Earth had been forced through countless cycles of destruction and reset.
And among all those eras, the Previous Era, which served as the stepping stone for the Current Era, was undoubtedly the most unique.
It was the era that erased an entire continent from the face of the planet.
It was the era that locked in the sequence of Herrschers for the next cycle.
It was the era that gave the Herrschers of the future a chance to retain their humanity.
And above all else…
"The first time Kevin and the others achieved transcendence was not when I pulled them outside of time."
"It was Elysia."
"She severed the threads binding them and allowed them to transcend fate."
"Only then could the Pioneers survive and step into the next era."
"Otherwise…"
Otherwise, surviving Finality's cyclic reset was not as simple as hiding in an underground bunker and taking a nap inside a hibernation pod powered by the Key of Stagnation.
You could not fool it that easily.
Frankly, if things were really that simple, the upper ranks of The Moths Who Chase the Flames would have made Dr. MEI's Shelter Project their absolute top priority long before the Twelfth Honkai Eruption.
Just like those science fiction films.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.
2012.
Don't Look Up.
In the eyes of some people, civilization could burn to ash, as long as they themselves could cheat death and live forever.
But…
"As a Returnee who has lived through every form of despair imaginable, Kevin will not let this era walk the same doomed path."
The fact that he had already begun building his own faction in the shadows was proof enough.
Who knows.
Maybe, somewhere down the line, they would even witness a spectacle where Deliverance crushed The Moths Who Chase the Flames, allowing World Serpent to rise once more and reignite the era.
But for now…
"Sigh… Honestly."
Down below, the pink-haired girl who had just barely rescued two people from a collapsing building looked toward the distant flames and raging thunder. She let out a helpless sigh.
"Even if you're throwing a tantrum, you should at least pay attention to your surroundings."
"Don't drag innocent people into it."
As she spoke, she seemed to sense something.
She tilted her head slightly, her gaze lifting toward a specific direction.
At the very peak of another skyscraper, Ling Ke stood there alone.
He wore casual clothes, both hands shoved deep into his pockets, standing right at the edge of the rooftop.
For an ordinary person, it was a dangerous position. One wrong step and he would plummet straight down.
But Elysia could tell at a glance that he had no intention of jumping.
His expression was far too relaxed.
Only moments ago, the adjacent building had been smashed into rubble by the flaming wreckage of a falling passenger jet.
Yet he remained completely unfazed.
His gaze was fixed calmly on the distance.
Watching the battlefield.
No.
He was no longer watching the battlefield.
He was looking straight at her.
Those eyes…
They held no focus.
But they were not simply empty either.
They were clouded, filled with a suffocating and absolute indifference.
It was not a human gaze.
For the first time in her life, Elysia felt an emotion that was utterly foreign to her.
Fear.
Her body tensed by instinct.
It was the first time she had ever encountered an existence so fascinating, yet her first impulse was not to approach.
It was to turn around and run as fast as she could.
And then…
"It seems even your foresight has its limits."
The stranger's voice murmured right beside her ear, without the slightest warning.
"At the very least, you cannot see beyond the boundary of Finality's cyclic reset."
Elysia whipped around.
Nothing.
Alarm bells screamed inside her mind.
She threw herself backward at once, trying to put distance between herself and the phantom.
But like a cat toying with a trapped mouse, that unfamiliar voice simply sounded from behind her again.
"How interesting."
"I didn't expect you to have a side like this."
"It makes you seem much more… down-to-earth."
"That expression just now."
"That looked human."
Those teasing, loaded words slipped into her ears one after another.
Her unseen guest seemed entirely absorbed in his little game. No matter how wildly Elysia turned around, she could not catch even a glimpse of him.
He was always there.
Right behind her.
Whispering just over her shoulder.
Finally, something clicked.
Elysia snapped her head up toward the tall building from before.
"!!!"
There, standing on the edge of the rooftop, the dark-haired young man with those strange eyes was smiling down at her.
How terrifying.
Then she blinked.
Just a brief, involuntary flutter of her eyelids.
And the young man was gone.
"Let me guess."
That unfamiliar voice rang out from right behind her again.
"Loss. Sorrow. Heartache. Loneliness. Pity."
"Set all of those aside."
"From the moment this began until now…"
"Is this the first time you have ever shown a negative emotion entirely for yourself?"
Elysia whipped around once more.
This time, he kindly remained exactly where he was.
He looked at her with a smile.
"That's good."
"After all, nobody is perfect."
"To be flawless means you were never human to begin with."
Boom!
In the distance, the battle still raged on.
Against the torn, blood-red sky, the dark-haired young man remained perfectly at ease.
But that very ease, in a place like this, was exactly what made him so terrifyingly bizarre.
"You…"
"You should hurry up and leave The Moths Who Chase the Flames, Herrscher of Human of this era."
"!!!"
She had not even had the chance to ask his name.
Yet the very first thing he said to her sent shockwaves crashing through Elysia's mind.
In truth, she did not fully understand her own identity yet.
But she had already sensed the inconsistencies around herself.
Otherwise, she would never have left her beloved Vostok-51 all those years ago.
She would never have left gentle Mother Celia behind.
As a young girl, she had not wanted to admit it.
She had not been willing to admit it.
She had not dared to admit it.
That she was the sole anomaly in this world.
And so, after leaving the warmth of the orphanage behind, she had set out to find the meaning of her own existence.
Now, after journeying across the world, she had learned the truth.
This world was so vast that no pair of feet could ever reach its edge.
And yet, there was no true paradise anywhere.
Then she would simply have to create one herself.
But…
"Your identity has been exposed."
The dark-haired young man continued speaking.
"Consider this a friendly warning born from a whim."
"A small compensation, since I am the reason this happened in the first place."
"Do not use your own innocence as the measure for human malice."
"Especially when you are dealing with a crowd."
For a brief moment, Elysia's mind went blank.
By the time she came back to herself, the young man had vanished.
In the distance, the massive commotion that had been raging only moments ago finally fell silent.
"It's over," Elysia murmured.
Indeed.
The battle between those two had ended.
And a certain chapter of her own journey had been forced to an early close.
But at the same time…
So many things were only just beginning.
Elysia lowered her gaze and looked down at the two youths she had just pulled back from the jaws of danger.
Kevin.
MEI.
"Your story is only just beginning too, isn't it?"