Honkai Impact 3rd, a simulator of lifelong regret!

You have no friends left in this world; your only family member, the only boy you ever loved, has died before your eyes.

—You want to become numb.

You cannot become numb.

Because you are not human, but a fairy born in a world of beauty and romance; your eyes have always been for seeing beauty, your power has always been for helping others, and your body has always been for seeking paradise.

That means they will never become numb, and they will never give up on saving others just because they've seen so much...

[—The goddess of stars and moon.]

This soul will not be worn down or eroded, nor will the passage of time cause its memories to fade. Every smile and every emotion will endure, forever existing in its most beautiful and complete form.

That is a flower that does not belong to this world, forever blooming, forever in its most magnificent and unrestrained moment of blossoming.

These features were originally excellent, sought after and coveted by countless people, yet none could attain them.

But for you, it has become torture and shackles.

A gentle heart and delicate emotions allow you to perceive even the slightest changes, making you acutely aware of the many mistakes you've made.

[It will never fade, never blur, and will not lose its color due to the wear and tear of time. No matter how fierce the wind, it cannot destroy a single bit of the memory, allowing you to repeatedly recall the beauty of the past.]

[Let the harsh reality of your current world, where you can't even find someone to talk to, be repeatedly compared to the happiness you personally shattered in the past.]

【ah……】

[Eternal torment.]

[It will never stop until death.]

You are acutely aware of the terrible situation before you, a hell you never imagined before, and you are also acutely aware of why you have repeatedly shattered the beauty of the past, leading yourself to this miserable state.

Knowing you no longer deserve that happiness, knowing you created it all with your own hands, and that the life you have now is the best treatment for you.

[You no longer crave or fantasize about the life you once shared with the boy, because even if you can only be an observer, even if you can only pitifully stay in the corner watching Jiang Cheng and Wei Erwei's happy life, it is still a beautiful, heavenly fantasy for you.]

How utterly tragic!

How could everything in your life have fallen apart to such an extent in such a short period of just over a decade?

Perhaps this is how it should be.

[A Lawyer, a Natural Disaster.]

You can only bring disaster to others, endless destruction, and together with the calamities of decay, you ravage this world that should have been beautiful.

The Honkai will turn everything into wasteland, where even flowers cannot bloom, and the destroyed land will quickly become a hellish ruin.

Even the most tenacious life can only be reduced to a mindless puppet; no trace of life will ever reappear on this land.

The Honkai Beasts, infected zombies, and Herrschers relentlessly destroy this world, killing every life they see.

[This level of cruelty, unmatched even in zombie movies, proves that Herrschers like you are simply not suited to survive in beautiful places with people and life.]

Perhaps those repeated failed choices were predetermined, because your very nature as a Herrscher is contrary to all that is beautiful.

Countless self-analysis and countless recollections have made it clear to you that Jiang Cheng's death was caused by you.

From the moment you arrived in the town, through every little detail of your journey, from the appearance of Vivi, to the confession of the real princess, to your ignored death.

At any point in time, you can rewrite the ending simply by slightly changing your behavior and having a little courage.

Even in the very last moment, even in the instant before death, you could have saved the boy, and at least Jiang Cheng wouldn't have had to die in such despair.

He even believed you had abandoned him until his death.

Even though he thought you had abandoned him, he still prepared gifts for you time and time again.

……

Alicia continues to wander the world, following the boy's last request: to live and then search for paradise. But she will not take away the Realm of True Self, nor is she qualified to touch the Fallen Flowers of the Past. Instead, she chooses to make a new bow for herself, a weapon more suitable for the Herrscher and the Calamity.

71. Alicia begins hunting down her own kind.

The wind carried this message, along with falling leaves and flowers, delivering the information that the flawless fairy needed a weapon to the land where hope still lingered.

During this time, all the animals and plants you helped joined hands, there was no strife, no hunting, and it was as perfect as paradise.

The great tree sways its branches, willingly offering its body as a strong bow for you.

The night dew and the leaping of small fish and shrimp bring a fresh cleansing to the branches of the trees.

A gentle breeze stirs the falling petals, hoping to offer you a perfection and flawlessness akin to that of a fairy.

The silkworms work together to spin magnificent and resilient silk, which is then carried by nimble birds.

[The titmouse offers beautiful music, the united wolf pack helps trim the branches with their sharp teeth, and the once ferocious lion joins hands with the sheep to complete the final step, before handing it over to Mr. Bear to present the final product to the flawless fairy.]

The bow and arrow, as perfect and flawless as those in a fairy tale, embodies the gift of life and nature to the fairy; it is so romantic that perhaps only a goddess from the stars and moon could wield such a weapon without seeming out of place.

Alicia refused this gift and deliberately retreated away from the animals, away from this happiness that no longer belonged to a young girl.

"already……"

"You don't need it anymore~"

Simply infuse the weapon with power to repay this gentleness.

Slender, white, and soft fingers gently traced elegant arcs in the air, as if holding the band's lead singer's baton. That belonged to the stars and moon, to the flawless, and the primordial realm enveloped this colorful world.

A fairytale-like light enveloped the area, and the moon, seemingly within reach, floated in mid-air, exuding a distant and aloof beauty.

The pale light did not appear overly cold, like the bright moon hanging in the sky that you see when sitting at a table on a day of reunion.

Feel the whiteness that is whiter than man-made light bulbs, and the aloofness that is more solitary than towering skyscrapers.

The ground is like a glass covering a river, so clear that it seems as if it would gently shatter if you stood on it, perfectly showcasing the flow of the sea.

Countless veins droop like traces left by falling stars. Water droplets shatter the shape of light, scattering silver stars that are tinged with a faint pink hue.

A gentle breeze carries a low murmur across time and space, as if the stars in the sky are singing a hymn from a goddess. Sparkling bubbles rise and fall on the water, swaying uncertainly, telling tales of nature's beauty.

Alicia gently raised the staff in her hand. No matter what she had been through, this authority was still so beautiful that people couldn't help but exclaim in admiration.

The authority from the origin is infused into the weapon before me, as the primordial seed, the ideal of paradise.

Under the still-pink light, the arrows gently fell to the ground, and the weapons of nature returned to the embrace of nature once more.

The girl returned everything they had given her in another form, for since she had already lost her paradise, she was no longer qualified to set foot there.

As a Herrscher, as a calamity, regardless of appearance, one will only bring endless destruction and devastation.

Just like how only poisonous mushrooms often grow brightly colored.

—In order to lure others.

No need to step in, no need to possess, let's choose something more suitable for villains.

Alicia plucked dry, rotten branches to form her body, adorned herself with withered, fallen flowers, and the dim starlight reflected her distorted posture—this was the girl who truly belonged to the present, a weapon born of despair and collapse.

Used for...

— Hunting down her own kind.

……

At twenty-five, the Fifth Herrscher was born, a power capable of freezing everything; her mere appearance transformed vast swathes of land into a snow-covered wasteland in the far north.

[Having long lost its human consciousness, the Herrscher, now only capable of destruction, roars and displays despair to the entire world, beyond imagination and comprehension. The energy it unleashes in an instant is enough to flatten two-thirds of the continent.]

The cold winds carried the ice outwards, freezing over a third of the Earth's oceans and wiping out countless lives in an instant.

[If it weren't for the fact that the defensive infrastructure left behind in Jiangcheng had been fully deployed over the past few years, including features for constant insulation, it could have formed an ecosystem in the few remaining human cities in an emergency.]

Humanity could lose at least one-sixth of its population and billions of lives in an instant. The subsequent disasters are unimaginable. None of the problems encountered will exist in isolation; rather, they will form a chain reaction, collapsing the edifice along with other issues.

Even if a large number of lives are preserved now, the resulting catastrophe after mass extinctions will take humanity a considerable amount of time to deal with.

Faced with what is called Honkai, humanity and everything it possesses are incredibly fragile; destroying any one link requires thousands of years of recovery.

"As expected, it's still an incomplete life form... Without eternity, without infinity, it should simply vanish like this, utterly pulverized by the Honkai."

Mebius's deep green eyes watched all this, but the indifference he once possessed was gone, replaced by a coldness akin to that of a bystander. His slender fingertips unconsciously pressed against his overly full chest.

[He had clearly lost everything—everyone who understood him, all his friends, and he couldn't even find someone to have a relatively equal conversation with.]

[He had clearly completely abandoned so-called humanity, so-called narrow-minded sentimentality and kindness.]

【Why……】

—I still feel sad.

I could feel the same pain deep inside, a pain that almost brought me to tears, as if something essential had been forcibly distorted.

[It doesn't matter, let it be distorted if it's already distorted.]

[Möbius's true nature is definitely not that of heartlessness and indifference. He also feels sadness for the loss of someone important, is equally unable to accept it, and experiences joy, anger, sorrow, and his own little emotions.]

This inner world, hidden beneath the surface of innate genius, perhaps contains emotions even stronger and more sensitive than those of ordinary people.

It's pointless now.

If even your last friend dies, if your last friend disappears, then what meaning do feelings and kindness ultimately hold?

Möbius simply turned away, listened to the screams of his experimental subjects, and returned to his laboratory to prepare for the next round of research.

[Now there's no need to worry about disturbing the peace, because almost all of the Fire Moths have gathered to fight against the Herrscher.]

Humanity can now launch effective attacks immediately upon the arrival of a Herrscher, predicting their potential location, instead of being powerless to stop them from destroying the main base as before.

[Jiangcheng, Vilvi, Blanca...]

If this technology had been implemented sooner...

【…】