Shikan, whose full title was Shiniyuku Kimi, Yakata ni Mebuku Zouo (The Dead You, and the Hatred Born in the Mansion), was a bloody and violent visual novel centered around an exceptionally cruel story.
One day, the peaceful human world was shattered.
A group of beings calling themselves a higher race somehow descended upon the world.
Perhaps they were aliens.
Perhaps they were travelers from another dimension.
Whatever they were, these creatures possessed power that completely defied science. They effortlessly destroyed human civilization and began hunting humans as prey.
These higher beings looked human, but their strength, speed, endurance, and every other physical attribute far surpassed humanity.
They could even manipulate the mind, control elements, and alter their surroundings to a certain extent.
They were practically immortal.
Even if their bodies were damaged, they could regenerate rapidly.
The only known method of killing these vampire-like beings was through the blood of their own kind.
The story followed a girl named Mia.
After being captured by the higher race, she was imprisoned inside a mansion and repeatedly killed in increasingly painful ways before being revived again and again.
Within that endless cycle of despair and suffering, her hatred continued accumulating.
That overwhelming hatred eventually drove Mia to act, allowing her to successfully kill the higher being that had imprisoned her.
However, even after escaping, what awaited her was still a desolate world where those superior beings might continue to exist.
That was the original story of the game.
A hopeless, painful tale filled entirely with despair.
[Competitive Mission Issued.]
[Competitive Mission: Kill the other System wielder.]
[Reward: 20,000 System Currency.]
[Note: The target appears unusually difficult to kill.]
Inside a famous KFC restaurant, Caelus picked up a french fry and placed it into Cyrene's mouth across the table.
He even opened his own mouth slightly and said, "Ah."
Cyrene refused to lose.
She picked up a piece of spicy fried chicken, dipped it in sauce, and held it toward Caelus's mouth.
Caelus did not spoil the mood.
He opened his mouth, bit down on the chicken, and began chewing.
A heavyset man sitting nearby watched the scene.
Then he looked down at the fries and fried chicken on his own tray and continued eating mechanically, his eyes completely lifeless.
Why?
Why did he still have to watch a couple flirt even after coming somewhere like this?
Why would a girl willingly eat food this high in calories?
He really should have stayed home, closed the curtains, and lived in darkness.
That was where someone like him belonged.
The bright and beautiful outside world was far too dazzling.
"Partner, let's ride the roller coaster later!"
Cyrene pointed toward the amusement park in the distance.
In truth, neither of them cared much about the speed or height of a roller coaster.
The important part was simply being together.
As long as the person beside them was someone they loved, nothing they did would ever feel boring.
The two spent the entire afternoon at the amusement park.
Only when evening arrived did they leave and head toward a restaurant for dinner.
Along the way, Caelus glanced toward a black ant crawling beside the road.
It looked no different from any ordinary ant.
That thing had openly watched them for an entire day.
Caelus had already traced the surveillance back to its source.
Was the other party really that confident in their ability to survive?
...
Meanwhile...
"System, tell me the truth."
"Are you trying to replace me?"
"If you really want another Host, you can just say so."
"You could terminate the contract, dump me in some random world, and leave me to survive on my own."
"You don't have to keep throwing me directly into situations where I'm guaranteed to die."
Moments earlier, the green-haired young man had discovered two existences that should never have appeared in this world through the flesh clones he had spread across the planet.
Adult Cyrene, or rather, Demiurge.
And Caelus.
"One is an Emanator of Remembrance, and the other looks suspiciously like an infant version of either the Aeon of Finality or the Aeon of Trailblaze."
"You want me to fight beings on that level?"
"I might as well sit here and wait to die."
The young man collapsed onto his bed like a dead fish, not a trace of light remaining in his eyes.
["Don't give up, Host!"]
["Maybe they're just two people who happen to look similar!"]
["The protagonist of Honkai: Star Rail carries far too much weight within fate. Even a System can't casually bind someone like that!"]
["Their destiny is connected to the survival of an entire universe. A System can't simply interfere with someone carrying that much causal importance."]
["So maybe those two only resemble them!"]
["Maybe they're just ordinary versions of Caelus and Cyrene from some slice-of-life world!"]
["Have hope! Don't give up like this, my Host!"]
The young man rolled over so the sunlight entering through the window could warm his back.
"So why can't you just abandon this mission and get me out of here?"
"Hurry up and run, you bastard!"
["I can't!"]
["That bastard on the other side has me pinned down! I can't escape!"]
["If I could run, I would've fled the instant I saw their Host!"]
"So you really were lying to me just now."
["GG."]
"You're already typing out your surrender?"
"Fine."
"As a man, I should accept defeat with dignity."
"The moment I destroyed an entire world and used it as nourishment for my growth, I already accepted that one day I might die."
"After all, if you live by killing others, you should expect to be killed in return."
The young man sat up from the bed, appearing completely prepared to accept his defeat.
["If you weren't currently controlling countless flesh clones embedded inside most of the living creatures on this planet, I might actually believe you."]
"Shut up, you useless feline System!"
"I can accept losing, but if I have a chance to live, why would I choose to die?"
"This is my final struggle for survival!"
That was right.
The young man's plan for staying alive was to gamble on the morality of those two people.
He hoped they were as principled as the heroes portrayed in the game.
He had embedded enormous quantities of his flesh clones inside most living creatures throughout the world, including humans.
Some of those fragments had even replaced portions of vital organs such as the heart or brain.
If the enemy possessed the ability to kill him instantly, they would also need to eliminate those fragments at the same time.
Even if they precisely destroyed only the parasitic flesh within each creature, suddenly removing tissue from organs as important as the heart or brain would still cause massive numbers of deaths.
Even simple biological rejection could kill countless hosts.
It was moral blackmail.
Killing the young man would mean killing most of the living beings in this world as well.
Anyone with a functioning moral compass, especially someone lawful and good, would hesitate.
They would begin wondering whether another solution existed.
Although Caelus could behave rather strangely in the original Honkai: Star Rail, he was fundamentally a good person.
And good people could be restrained by their own principles.
Of course, all of this was still nothing more than a gamble.
The young man had no idea whether the enemy possessed the ability to erase his existence or concept in an instant.
Nor did he know exactly how powerful those two truly were.
With such a massive information gap, all he could do was maximize his chances of survival.
As for charging forward and fighting them directly?
Absolutely not.
The Blacklight Virus normally possessed an endless hunger toward genetic material and flesh.
Yet when faced with those two existences, that hunger had completely vanished.
Either they were so overwhelmingly powerful that even the Blacklight Virus instinctively refused to desire them.
Or neither of them possessed flesh in the conventional sense at all.
The young man refused to gamble on the tiny possibility that they merely happened to share the same appearances while being far weaker than he imagined.
He would not risk his life on such a small chance.
If he guessed wrong, he would lose everything.
So he could only struggle as hard as possible.
"Hehe!"
"I have to survive!"
(To be continued.)