Honkai Impact: Starting from Wandering with Kiana

Chapter 237 Aha

who I am?

Was it a dream...?

…………

"Wow, look who's here? Hey kid, wake up."

pop-

After being slapped several times, Jiu Xiao instantly sobered up, jumped up, and vowed to give the guy who slapped him a good beating.

"..."

But when Jiuxiao opened his eyes, he was confused.

"Where...where have I gone?!"

At a glance, the Milky Way is incredibly brilliant, with countless star systems forming a star belt that resembles a river.

The boundless starry sky is reflected on the surging river, weaving a magnificent musical score as stars are extinguished and born.

Behind Jiuxiao is a colossal tree that spans countless light-years and stands tall in the universe.

Jiuxiao stood on those unreal, illusory tree branches... and fell into confusion.

"Damn it, wasn't I going to the Sea of ​​Quanta? How did I end up on the Tree of Imaginary Numbers?"

"Are you done talking? If you're done, move over, you're stepping on me." A voice, the same one that had slapped him to wake him up earlier, came from under Jiuxiao's feet.

Jiu Xiao quickly jumped to the side, repeatedly saying sorry. However, he paused for a moment after seeing what he had stepped on.

At the foot of the heavens... is a crying, smiling clown mask?

"Hey, haven't you ever seen a talking mask before?" The clown mask bounced around on the ground, its crying smile adding to the comical effect.

"How amazing! I've never seen a talking mask before!" Jiu Xiao exclaimed in surprise as he picked up the mask from the ground and curiously examined its structure.

"That just shows how limited your knowledge is. This world is vast and boundless, and the forms of life are countless. Hehe, even a black hole can have consciousness, so there's no reason why a mask like mine can't, right?" The mask answered Jiuxiao's question with a grin.

The mask's laughter was strange, a mixture of bitter and cold laughs, countless laughs merging together to form its sound. But Jiu Xiao didn't find it jarring; instead, it possessed a purity like that of a baby's cry.

However, the mask seemed to feel embarrassed being held like this by Jiu Xiao, a little brat, so it flew off Jiu Xiao's hand and condensed into a phantom human figure. At the same time, various kinds of joyful masks hung on its humanoid phantom, while the mask of its true form was worn on the phantom's left chest.

Then it picked up Jiuxiao with its back hand, just like parents who have just had a newborn child at home, and held Jiuxiao affectionately and gently rocked him.

"Yo yo yo, little baby, do you want some milk?" The illusory figure formed by the mask had no face, but Jiu Xiao could sense its playful smile from its words.

"..."

Jiuxiao floated away into the air, leaving the embrace of the mask, and stared at it expressionlessly.

"My name is Jiuxiao. I stand above the nine heavens, my body transformed into myriad celestial stars. Heaven and earth are all beneath me, and the stars shine for me. Do you... do I look like a child?"

"Aha—" The masked man burst into laughter, clutching his stomach, and gasped for breath as he ripped Jiuxiao from the sky.

"Nine Heavens, Nine Heavens, just call me Aha. Let me take a good look at you, Nine Heavens. What exactly are you? Carrying...? What is that..." Aha was originally smiling, wanting to see what kind of background this guy who claimed to be above the stars really was, but then Aha stopped smiling.

However, after a pause, Aha laughed even louder.

"That's it? Come and beat me up if you dare! Hahaha—but even if I get beaten up, it'll be my future self getting beaten up, what does it have to do with me? Hahahaha—"

Ahha, holding Jiuxiao by the back of his collar, walked towards the top of the Tree of Imaginary Numbers, laughing loudly.

"...? What are you talking about? What time river?" Jiu Xiao tilted his head in confusion. Jiu Xiao was still being held by Aha. Anyway, from the moment Aha pulled him off, Jiu Xiao understood that the guy in front of him was a big shot, someone he couldn't afford to mess with.

"Guess, and I'll tell you if you guess right."

"I already guessed that, what else do I need you to tell me..." Jiu Xiao pondered for a moment, then asked in a low voice, "Will I be so powerful in the future that I can traverse the river of time at will?"

Guess!

"So... my past life was really awesome?"

Guess!

"It's not my past life, nor is it my future. What else could it be related to the river of time? It can't possibly be me now, can it?" Jiuxiao shrugged, indicating that he couldn't understand.

Aha didn't reply this time, but its laughter grew even louder.

"Goodness gracious... If I were that powerful now, why would I need to cross the river of time..."

"That's not necessarily true. Maybe you've already crossed the river of time?"

Ahha cupped Jiuxiao's face in his hands, turned him around, and made him look down at the Tree of Imaginary Numbers.

Jiuxiao's eyes suddenly widened...

On the countless branches of the Tree of Imaginary Numbers, on each branch, Jiuxiao and Aha walk...

On some branches, two people walked together, laughing and chatting. On others, two people fought because they couldn't stand each other. However, there were no evenly matched fights; only Ahha pinning Jiuxiao down and beating him, or Jiuxiao, while being beaten by Ahha, suddenly transforming and beating Ahha in return. (Aha became a star god after understanding the truth of the universe on a branch of the Tree of Imaginary Numbers; he is not yet one.)

Hmm... It has the shadow of Apocalypse, but it doesn't look quite like it. It also has the shadow of Deified Na, but it doesn't look quite like it either.

Jiuxiao sighed, unable to understand. After all, he had been beaten up quite a bit in the original world, and the two old men in the Holy Mark hadn't come out to help him.

After withdrawing his gaze, Jiu Xiao crossed his arms and laughed at Aha, saying, "So... you didn't sense anything from me, you saw something, right!"

"Aha. Who knows? Why don't you guess again?" Aha laughed and continued walking up the Tree of Imaginary Numbers.

"I'm too lazy to guess with you, I have to go now. Someone is waiting for me."

Jiuxiao closed his eyes and focused his mind, still communicating with the blessing left on him by the Tree of Imaginary Numbers.

When Aha saw Jiuxiao's appearance, a small light bulb lit up on his head, and he shouted "Heave-ho!" as he used his power to condense pieces of wood.

Then, with a few heaves and clangs, he wove the wooden strips into a small stool. Aha sat on the stool with a grin, cracking sunflower seeds while watching Jiuxiao.

Nine Xiao's face was covered in countless thumbs up. What's wrong with this guy named Aha?! Can't he see that the other person is trying to calm down and concentrate? Why is he making a fuss and disturbing him?!

However, even without Aha's interference, Jiuxiao found that he still couldn't communicate with the Tree of Imaginary Numbers...

Jiuxiao opened its eyes again in a daze, looked past the expectant Aha, and gazed at the boundless Tree of Imaginary Numbers behind it.

crackling and popping—

Jiuxiao, who had been looking like a dead man, came to his senses and looked at Aha.

"I'm a professional clown, isn't it normal for me to carry celebratory fireworks with me?" Aha acted as if nothing had happened, skillfully putting the fireworks back into his pocket.

Then he reached out and touched his non-existent long beard, striking a mysterious pose.

"Let me tell you why, because Jiuxiao, you've time-traveled! Applause, applause—your time has been pulled forward for an unknown amount of time, and the traces of time on you show a tendency to flow backward. Congratulations, you may become the first person in history to live in reverse?"

pop-

Aha clapped for Jiuxiao happily, as if celebrating a birthday.

Jiuxiao's face was ashen, and countless alpacas seemed to be running through his mind, but he still noticed one of Ah's words.

"Why are they considered to be living in negativity?"

"Because I've never seen it before! I'll give you something."

Ahha stabbed Jiuxiao in the stomach and then pushed him to the ground.

"I've seen it now, but it's not as interesting as I imagined... Ah, what a disgrace."

Jiuxiao lay quietly on the ground, lost in thought, before finally managing to utter a few words after a long while.

"Aha, I'll f*** your grandpa."

Chapter 238

"Tsk tsk tsk, things that reach our level are indeed not easy to kill." Aha squatted down next to Jiuxiao, fiddling with the small knife on Jiuxiao's body.

"Yes, he's really hard to kill... but that doesn't mean you can just cut me down whenever you want."

Jiuxiao pulled the knife from his abdomen and stabbed it into Aha's mask, gouging a large hole in its forehead.

Aha's true form was pierced by Jiuxiao, and its condensed humanoid phantom flickered for a moment before solidifying again.

"Oh dear, this is really going to kill me."

However, Aha was not angry at Jiuxiao's attack, nor did he treat his wounds. Instead, he simply put a light bulb inside the head that Jiuxiao had gouged out.

Jiu Xiao, who was lying on the ground, sat up and tried to pull himself up by Aha's body.

As a result, when Jiu Xiao pulled hard, the humanoid phantom that Aha had conjured vanished. Jiu Xiao, who had just sat up, fell to the ground in the opposite direction due to his own strength.

"Hehe, it's not my fault~ Look, I don't have any arms." Aha looked at Jiuxiao on the ground with a gloating expression.

Jiuxiao simply floated up and kicked Aha's mask away, leaving a beautiful shooting star in the interstellar space.

"What bad luck." Jiu Xiao wiped his hands, feeling disgusted that he had just touched Aha's hand.

Ah, the world suddenly became quiet.

Jiuxiao sat on an illusory branch, trying to make contact with the imaginary tree below, which existed only in concepts.

The tree accepted Jiuxiao's energy but did not respond in kind. However, this was within Jiuxiao's expectations, since the tree only communicated with the sea and nothing else.