"Retainer, do you think there's something wrong with my body?"
After returning from the hospital, Sirin grabbed Chen Li's hand and asked.
"Oh? What makes you say that, Your Majesty?"
"I don't know why, but when Cecilia hugs me, I get this feeling of reassurance, and her embrace feels very... wait, why am I even telling you this?"
Acting on an impulse to vent her troubles to someone, Sirin blurted out the words, but her own stubbornness made her stop just as quickly.
"I've got it!"
"You've got what?"
"As a professional psychologist, I have reached a conclusion. Your Majesty, you're in love."
"Huh?"
Sirin, who had been lost in her melancholy, stared at Chen Li in disbelief.
Do you even hear the crap you're spouting?
"Therefore, I suggest that if Your Majesty cherishes this feeling, you should punch Cecilia until she falls to her knees, then drag her back to your room and force her to be your..."
"Shut up, you quack!" Sirin leaped up and chopped Chen Li on the head.
However, the blow was soft and completely devoid of force.
"Your criticism is truly baffling," Chen Li said, scratching his head.
Chen Li felt that punching Cecilia to her knees, dragging her back to the room, and forcing her to be your mother would have been a pretty good outcome. Why was she so against it? Or could it be, dear Your Majesty, that you were thinking of something... less wholesome?
However, Sirin's stubbornness didn't last long. That night, as she lay in bed, leaning against the belly of the giant Homu costume—that is, Chen Li—she couldn't help but confide in him again.
"She's so good to me, but she's not my real mother. What am I supposed to do?" Sirin was lost.
"Confusion is a good thing. It proves that you are growing," Chen Li said, gently patting Sirin's head with the costume's large hand.
Confusion was indeed a good thing. It proved that Fu Xuan's use of the Taixu Sword God to sever the connection between the Honkai consciousness and Sirin had been meaningful. Only after losing the Honkai consciousness, which had acted like a wise old mentor in her head, could Sirin's easily inflated personality return to normal, allowing her to experience the confusion and sadness unique to humans.
In a way, Fu Hua's Taixu Sword God had actually done Sirin a favor.
Thinking of this, Chen Li wondered if he should give Queenie the Sprite a taste of the Taixu Sword God as well, to see if he could sever the Honkai's influence over her.
[Queenie the Sprite's beliefs and actions are purely driven by hatred. She doesn't have a Honkai consciousness acting as a live-in mentor. One slash from you will only result in a Queenie the Sprite that has been split in two.]
"Let's try another angle then. If I could freely control the output of the Taixu Sword God, would that mean I could choose whether or not to sever the distracting thoughts in someone's heart, or sever the influence a certain consciousness or existence has on a living being?"
[Theoretically, yes. But have you forgotten that you have [Myriad Phenomena Severance]?]
"Right." Chen Li had a flash of realization.
"Homu King," Sirin called out in a small voice.
"What is it, Your Majesty?"
"What should I do now?"
"Like I said, punch Cecilia until she falls to her knees, drag her back to your room, and force her to..."
"You're even less reliable than Benares. Benares might not understand anything, but at least she doesn't come up with such weird ideas." Sirin chopped Chen Li's head again.
"This is 50,000 years of wisdom! Although it wasn't actually that long. But I was indeed active in this world 50,000 years ago," Chen Li said matter-of-factly.
"Oh? Then how old are you, exactly?" Sirin's interest was piqued.
"Seventeen."
"That's it?" Sirin was a little surprised.
"Compared to the native world we are in now, the flow of time in a World Bubble is not fixed... Your Majesty, the doll in your hands is on fire."
Just as Chen Li was trying to concoct a reasonable explanation, he suddenly noticed something.
"Doll? Benares! Benares, what's wrong? Answer me!"
Seeing her doll start to burn, Sirin instantly panicked.
The Benares doll in her hands was, in fact, a manifestation of her control over the real Benares. The doll starting to burn meant that this control was no longer stable.
But no matter how much Sirin cried out, Benares did not respond. All she could feel from the doll as it burned away in her hands was a faint sense of reluctance and longing from a great distance.
Snip!
At that moment, the crisp sound of scissors echoed.
The scissors snipped down hard on the Benares doll, severing the burning part from the untouched section. The burning portion of the doll transformed into threads of blue and white flame, solidifying in the air.
Sirin froze.
"So this is that companion of yours? Your Majesty, you go handle your business. I'll see if I can preserve Benares's consciousness and keep it intact," Chen Li said.
"Huh?" Sirin froze again.
"As your future signature weapon, these scissors can sever anything that can be understood. I have just severed the disappearance of Benares's rationality and wisdom. Next, I will try to use these threads, formed from the flames of its dissolution, to stitch the doll back together. If I do, Benares's rationality and wisdom might still be saved."
"Really?"
"Really. It's fortunate that we're in a dreamscape, where your control over Benares has been made tangible. However... Benares's physical body has reverted to a mindless beast. That is something that cannot be undone." Chen Li nodded.
Benares, as the Herrscher of the Void's companion beast, originally had no rationality. It wasn't until the Herrscher expended a great deal of energy on the moon to grant it a Pseudo-Herrscher Core that it gained wisdom and reason.
Just then, a knock came from Sirin's door.
"Hey, Sirin, what's wrong? I heard you yelling, did something happen?" Siegfried's voice sounded from outside her door.
"That man! It was him who cut Benares's wings! Yes, that must be it! It's all a trick by these ants. They're trying to confuse me with a happy life, then use the opportunity to kill Benares!" Hearing that voice, Sirin gritted her teeth.
"...Despicable ants!"
A golden light materialized behind Sirin as the Lances of the Void appeared at her side. The disappearance of Benares had awakened Sirin from the blissful illusion, and her voice was once again filled with resentment.
A Lance of the Void shot through the air, piercing the door and slamming viciously into Siegfried. The immense force sent his body crashing through the wall of the house, landing heavily on the lawn outside.
A gaping, penetrating wound appeared in Siegfried's abdomen, an injury that was surely fatal.
"Die!"
Once again in her Herrscher form, Sirin commanded her lances to shoot toward the fallen Siegfried. But in the nick of time, Cecilia appeared, grabbing Siegfried and dodging the attack.
"Stop it, Sirin!" Cecilia tried to stop her, but her calm actions and agile movements made Sirin realize that this woman had never been hypnotized by Fenghuang Down at all.
The happiness of the past few days instantly turned to gasoline, poured on the fire of Sirin's rage, which was already blazing due to Benares's near-death state.
"You liar! You knew all along I wasn't your daughter! You lied to me!" Sirin instantly went berserk.
However, at the critical moment, the giant phantom of a mech grabbed hold of Sirin. Welt had appeared once more.
While Sirin was restrained, Welt and Cecilia scooped up the heavily injured and unconscious Siegfried and fled.
Naturally, Sirin was not about to let them go. She gave chase, leaving only Chen Li behind, holding a half-burnt Benares doll and a single thread of blue and white light.
"I'm not very good at sewing..." Chen Li muttered, holding [Myriad Phenomena Severance] in one hand and the doll and thread in the other, completely stumped.
Maybe you should stop fighting for a second, Your Majesty, and have that Cecilia woman help me sew the doll?
But Chen Li had a feeling that shouting that would only enrage the already furious Sirin even more. It would be tantamount to proving to her just how dire Benares's situation was.
"Tch, whatever. Allocate and add points!" Chen Li sighed.
Benares was very lucky, truly.
[Myriad Phenomena Severance] could cut anything, but as Chen Li had said, it could only cut things that could be seen or understood by the user. The conditions were very lenient, however. For instance, Chen Li could even sever Sirin's "ownership" of the Benares doll to trigger the scissors' splicing effect, ultimately preserving Benares's rationality and wisdom.
Although Chen Li felt that saving Benares was pointless—he could just watch some ads later, piece together a Revival Card, and try to resurrect her—he also felt that if he didn't assert his presence and pull a few more stunts, he might not accumulate enough Causal Anchors to pay off the debt of severing the connection between the Previous and Current Eras.
If that debt came due in the Previous Era, then...
"But besides saving Benares, my future rival, there are other ways... For example, I could throw this thing away right now, tell Sirin she couldn't be saved, and then, while she's heartbroken, say to her: 'Your Majesty, even though you don't have Benares anymore, you still have me.'" Chen Li muttered to himself.
[Hachiko Li, you...]
Considering the fiery, love-hate relationship between the last person who said something like that and the person who heard it, you can probably imagine what would happen, right? Right?
"The price to be paid for severing a sliver of Benares's wisdom and rationality and splicing it onto this doll is... my desire to perform will temporarily become insatiable? What the hell kind of price is that?"
As Chen Li began to re-form a doll's body for Benares with that single thread, he also received notification of the price from [Myriad Phenomena Severance].
Use now, pay later. That was the mechanism of the scissors.
Of course, Chen Li could still choose to abandon weaving the body for Benares. If he did, he wouldn't have to pay the price, but this sliver of rationality and wisdom would drift off to who knows where. For a small matter like simply severing Benares's dissipating sentience, [Myriad Phenomena Severance] wouldn't charge a price.
But as for things like abandoning the weaving, trying to preserve the sliver of sentience, and then weaving it back later to try and exploit a bug... theoretically, it was possible. But weaving a tangible existence out of pure rationality and wisdom was an authority only gods should be able to touch.
The ability to "splice" things at will was the most heaven-defying effect of [Myriad Phenomena Severance].
"Looks like I have no choice but to reluctantly accept this price," Chen Li sighed.
[Then why are you smiling so happily?]
"I'm not smiling," Chen Li shook his head repeatedly.
It was just that when he thought about what he was going to do next, he couldn't help but chuckle.
---o---