Regarding the question of whether one thousand lives are enough to beat Honkai Impact 3rd.

Regarding the question of whether one thousand lives are enough to complete the game "Honkai Impact 3rd," the author is titled "The Essence of Humanity."

Summary:

Su Qing'an wanted to be the one who could bring Fu Hua happiness. And for that, even in the darkest timeline and the most hopeless future, he could tolerate a purgatory far more terrifying than before.

[Current timeline in the book: Pre-civilization Canghai City – Main storyline Changkong City – Main storyline Changkong City – Pre-civilization – Yunmo Era – Paradise of the Past, Post-Honkai Odyssey, IF route with a corrupted immortal, Cyberpunk elements in the Lostbelt – Anti-Entropy main storyline (final chapter plus side stories).]

———————————This article is dedicated to the immortals as a million-word love letter.

The trumpet of destiny sounded here.

1. Meeting the girl

Su Qing'an is being hunted down.

He was running, the cold wind rushing into his chest through his mouth and nose, the tearing sensation like a knife sending a warning signal to his body, which had been sedentary for years.

Every breath felt like he was draining his life force; he was like an old bellows, each rise and fall of his chest wearing down the material's durability.

My leg muscles were spasming, my feet felt like they were about to break, and I had already reached my physical limit, but I couldn't stop.

The threat of life and death forced his will to exceed its previous limits.

"Run!" he told himself.

He was acutely aware that he would die if he were caught.

An hour ago, he was on the streets of Shanghai in the early hours of the morning, carrying a bag of Coke as he walked out of a 24-hour convenience store, pondering whether he should adjust his biological clock for the sake of his health.

But in the blink of an eye, he inexplicably found himself in this unfamiliar area, being chased by monsters that resembled zombies from a movie. These monsters swarmed towards him like sharks that had smelled blood.

The monster's face was as hideous as a demon, and its rotten, hollow eye sockets looked at him as if he were staring at a dead thing.

Caught off guard, Su Qing'an had a deep scratch on his back. In his desperate escape, he had no time to care about his body and strangely felt little pain, only a burning sensation.

He had used the fastest speed he had ever achieved in his 17 years of life, but the monster behind him was still hanging less than five meters behind.

The monster's stamina is inexhaustible.

Unlike the clumsy zombies in typical movies, the monsters behind him were excessively agile, and their sheer number made him lose all desire to stop and fight them to the death.

Given Su Qing'an's speed and stamina, the final outcome could only be that all his flesh and blood would be devoured, turning him into a skeleton without a tomb in this foreign land.

But he couldn't stop. Perhaps death shouldn't be something that made him show such shame, but his basic will to survive and sense of bewilderment compelled him to keep struggling.

The stench of decay filled his nostrils, and his speed inevitably slowed down due to exhaustion, while the monster's breathing seemed to touch his back.

In the instant that fear tightens around the heart like a rope, the world spins before one's eyes.

The boy twisted his ankle on the uneven ground and naturally fell down.

Dead.

As his brain transmitted this information, Su Qing'an felt his body tilting downwards.

Was it a crack in some ruin? In such a short time, he only had time to grasp this possibility.

Immediately, his weight and the momentum from the fall propelled him into the depths of the ruins without stopping.

His body slammed violently against the ground, and he covered his head with his hands. The intense pain that rained down on his nerves was, at this moment, something Su Qing'an considered a stroke of luck.

About five seconds later, he tumbled awkwardly into the underground ruins. Faint sunlight shone through the cracks, indicating that this place must have once been an underground facility.

Su Qing'an took deep breaths, but the smoke and dust in the air made him cough.

"Cough, cough, cough cough, I... survived." The boy muttered to himself in a daze, his voice gradually rising and falling at the end. He looked at the world outside the crack with a complex and confused feeling.

"Who are you?" It was a faint but clear voice that reached my ears.

The boy turned his head and looked over. The owner of the voice was obviously a little wary. She moved her small, curled-up body back a little, as if that would give her a little more sense of security.

It was originally a shelter for one person, but suddenly a stranger appeared, so he probably felt uneasy.

Su Qing'an understood it this way, and for some reason, the girl was speaking Chinese, so he could understand her.

So is he still in the original world?

The possibility of returning to a normal life dispelled much of his confusion and despair, and inevitably ignited a sense of anticipation and hope within him.

He took a closer look at her; she was a very pretty girl.

Although her condition was similarly disheveled to his, the delicate features and clear, blue eyes that one could vaguely discern indicated that she was quite beautiful.

Her legs were clad in black pantyhose, but several tears from the escape revealed her fair skin, the contrasting black and white colors creating a striking effect on her long, slender legs.

Combined with the girl's wary yet slightly fearful expression, it created a pitiful atmosphere.

"...My name is Su Qing'an. It might sound strange to ask this, but do you know where this place is?" he asked nervously.

"...This is Canghai City." Seemingly finding the question strange, the girl glanced at Su Qing'an with surprise before answering.

Canghai City? I've never heard of that name.

My heart sank; the hope that had been ignited was coldly extinguished by this name.

Have I really come to another world?

The city was nothing but ruins and monsters everywhere, like a scene from the aftermath of an apocalypse.

There's no way I can keep deceiving myself anymore; this is definitely not the world I knew.

The phone was still in his pocket, which seemed to be the only evidence that could connect him to his previous world.

The past seventeen years of his life have already bid him farewell, and what remains in this phone may be the last vestiges of his memory.

This is a trial before the gods begin their game; try your best to survive.

But when he turned on his phone, which still had battery, with mixed feelings, these black characters came into view.

A game of gods? You son of a bitch, what is this?

This unusual sight reveals the truth and reality.

Tell him that the fact that there's no going back is already set in stone.

After a long silence, Su Qing'an calmed himself down a bit and asked the girl:

"What's your name?"

"...The world is like this now, names don't really matter anymore."

The girl looked at him warily with her emerald eyes. In her view, Su Qing'an, who did not know the name of the city he was in despite the disaster, was very suspicious.

In the space where there were only the two of them, this vigilance deepened. She held a sharp-edged stone in her hand, the only thing that could give her a real sense of security.

"There might only be the two of us left alive in this city," the girl murmured, as if talking to herself, her clear eyes clouded with a gray mist.

"It's tough to survive in a world like this; you never know when you might die from some unknown calamity."

"Whether it's friends who study hard or parents who work diligently, they all optimistically believe that humanity will definitely overcome this disaster, and then their lives are abruptly interrupted."

The girl buried her head in her legs; was she crying?

Su Qing'an couldn't understand it, but he knew that it was a despair and pain far deeper than anything he had ever experienced.

If this city was as peaceful as his original world, then this girl may have witnessed a living hell firsthand. She truly watched as everything she once possessed was obliterated by disaster, and the despair she faced was naturally even more profound.

Now she has been all alone underground in these ruins for who knows how long, and no one can possibly understand what she has endured during that time.

"In such a world, death is the only relief."

In the quiet environment, the girl's whisper reached his ears.

A deathly silence fell over the room, the only sound being the faint, clear breathing of the two people. Both the boy and the girl seemed to be completely overwhelmed by their contrasting despair.

But

"Then let's live on together until then," the boy said, looking directly at the girl.

Upon hearing this, the girl looked up at the dappled sunlight and said:

"Why……"

Interrupting the girl's delicate voice, Su Qing'an said earnestly:

"Do we need many reasons to live together? The fact that you're still willing to live until now proves that you're just as afraid as I am. Fear of death is a human instinct, and death might be a relief in a world like this."

"But... I don't want to die." The boy's words were serious. He didn't want to die, he hated dying. Confusion and fear had long since grown and entangled in his heart, but the will to live was real and unwavering.

The girl looked up and observed the intruder for the first time. He was a young man who should be about her age.

A clean-cut and pleasing appearance gives people a good impression.

At this moment, his ebony-black eyes stared directly at her, as if demanding an answer.

“…Okay.” The girl’s nod was barely perceptible, and the words that came out of her lips were as soft as a mosquito’s buzz.

Upon hearing the girl's reply, Su Qing'an revealed the first smile he had shown since coming into this world.

"Then it's a promise, okay? People who break their promises are annoying, that's my opinion, so I'll try my best to live on."

In this dimly lit space, the boy's smile and words were like a ray of sunshine flowing into the girl's heart.

Dazzlingly bright.

2. Difficult Survival

Su Qing'an tried to move his body. His ankle was slightly sprained from the previous fall, and his body was also cut by pebbles as he rolled here.

But this action seemed to touch a nerve with the girl, who gripped the stone tightly and warned Su Qing'an:

"Please do not move around unnecessarily, and let's not get too close to each other."

"Okay, I just wanted to ask if there are any medicines or anti-inflammatory drugs here that can help with sprains."

Su Qing'an understood the girl's behavior. Although they had agreed to live together, they were now just strangers.

In such an extreme environment, the girl's actions were correct. As a man with a physical advantage, he should be more careful not to easily provoke the girl's nerves.

If even this basic respect cannot be shown, then the so-called agreement is nothing but empty talk.

"...This is a shelter built specifically to deal with the Honkai. There used to be medicine, but as you can see, it's dilapidated. Even avoiding monsters is just a matter of luck."