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

"Either die here, or take the headmaster away from this world. There is no third option."

Yae Rin carefully jumped off the boy's back, and she looked at Su Qing'an with a strange expression.

She said:

"Big brother is scared, isn't he? It's normal to be scared. The person in front of you is a Herrscher, but you have to listen to the words and information from this person to make a judgment and then choose a path with a nine-out-of-ten chance of death."

"But I know you're scared, so why is big brother so calm? Normal humans aren't like this."

Su Qing'an remained unmoved. The reason why her emotions could be read was easy to understand; in fact, it proved the truth of the other party's statement.

Rin is part of the Herrscher of Corruption, which is why she can see through her own emotional fluctuations through her access to the Stigmata Space.

The boy gave his answer:

"Why did Rin desperately try to kill herself? You must have been scared too, right?"

"Whether that self is one you hate or dislike, the real feeling of killing yourself, and the forced empathy that arises afterward, is something that you can't help but be afraid of, just by imagining it."

"But it has to be done. For Yae-san's sake, Rin can endure suffering that she herself could not have endured before."

"I would be the same. Right now, I'm no different from any other ordinary villager in Yae Village. But under these circumstances, I have to face a problem that is far beyond my limits. It's only natural to be afraid."

Su Qing'an spoke earnestly, revealing that he was genuinely afraid, even though he had overcome one difficulty after another, his emotions were still beyond his control.

There's no escaping it; in the past, I would have silently recited the Sword Heart Mantra at times like this.

Yes, it's so good to silently recite the Sword Heart Mantra.

I am not afraid of anything, and no emotion can be an obstacle.

Absolute calmness, absolute precision.

But that was just an escape.

Su Qing'an, however, had long since given up on escaping.

He continued speaking, but his tone gradually lost its initial calmness.

"It's just that I have to do it. Just like Rin did it for Yae-san, for her own sister, for me, most of the meaning of living in this world is behind me."

"They're all at St. Freya Academy."

"I can't imagine the consequences of failure. Sometimes I wonder why things aren't as simple as in games and comics, where the protagonist just has to work hard and get a response, and you can get a reward as long as you try."

"Then I suddenly realized that I had gone astray. This is reality... Even if I used to treat it as a game, this is now undeniably reality."

Su Qing'an lost control of her emotions.

This young man has always been so calm and composed, his actions have always been so methodical, and his responses to crises have always been so decisive and efficient.

His composure, unperturbed even when the sky is falling, is a mask that is hard to remove.

He didn't seem to care much about life and death.

But now, facing a strange yet familiar spirit, Su Qing'an couldn't help but utter the words hidden in her heart.

Finally, the boy regained his composure.

He said:

"Reality is unreasonable, Rin."

"So if you don't fight hard, miracles will never happen."

Yae Rin hugged the boy and whispered:

"Big brother has always worked so hard..."

"But don't worry, even though Rin is a Herrscher, we made a pinky promise, right?"

"We already made an agreement."

"So how could Rin bear to let her older brother die?"

She released her embrace, looked at the boy's stunned face, and smiled.

"Just as you will protect me, I will protect you too."

For some reason, the girl's words that reached his ears gradually began to sound unreal.

A sense of emptiness had already permeated his entire body before anything happened, and in the next instant, Yae Rin shattered into a magnificent array of countless rays of light.

A radiant light flowed into the boy's body, and a gentle warmth embraced his entire being.

But an even colder loneliness and a sense of emptiness overwhelmed everything...

80. Innate Stigmata - Yae Rin (Top, Middle, Bottom)

Yae Rin disappeared.

Instead, a completely new shell perfectly recreates the real world.

But before he could think carefully about Rin's whereabouts, a burning sensation on his back pierced his nerves, and his consciousness was pulled into the deep sea at that moment. A suffocating discomfort blocked his throat and chest.

Su Qing'an found it hard to breathe for a moment.

It's a Stigmata!?

The stigmata are reappearing on this body.

He realized the answer.

The patterns, drawn with the strength of an iron pen and the sharpness of a silver hook, were slowly painted onto the boy's back, each stroke a painful torment that further tested his nerves.

As if recalling the moment when the artificial stigma was implanted, the phantom pain that the boy subconsciously experienced and the real pain he was experiencing at this moment intertwined to create a unique symphony.

The blood inside his body was boiling restlessly, like a clown out of control in a circus, laughing and trying to break free of his body, spill out into the outside world, and rise into the sky.

The body's organs wailed and roared under the pressure of the stigmata, and the intense rejection reaction oppressed the soul.

[Potential] is unconsciously activated; this is the powerful essence of the soul resisting unpleasantly.

In the emotional storm generated by painful stimulation, the "momentum" successfully interfered with a part of reality.

The weeds at the boy's feet were bent over by the weight of the grass, and then ground into powder little by little.

Su Qing'an spread his hands expressionlessly, quietly looking at the lines on his palms, his back straight.

The pain and his consciousness were clearly inseparable, but the boy's behavior was as if they were forcibly separated, and he was completely unaware of it.

He was in pain, of course; in such a world, every sting was clear and inescapable.

However, through repeated practice of [Thousand Stars], Su Qing'an's pain tolerance unintentionally increased.

That's how people are; after being constantly scarred, they either become soft and fragile, or they become as hard as iron.

He said calmly:

"Get back there."

So when the last stroke on the back was completed, all the abnormalities disappeared into the endless abyss, never to be heard again.

Taking a deep breath, Su Qing'an sensed the changes in her body and said:

"Rin, are you still there?"

Immediately, a soft, sweet voice cautiously sounded in my ear:

"I'm sorry, it must have hurt a lot, but if we want to kill the evil thoughts inside, simply manifesting your original body and power is not enough."

The boy felt the reconnected Honkai energy cycle. He no longer had any problems using the Taixu Sword Qi, but what was completely different from before was the speed and quality of the Honkai energy response.

Su Qing'an created a Honkai energy sword aura, which was unstable and flowed back and forth between illusion and reality. The boy's palm held the sword aura, and his fingers were unharmed.

The sword energy was easily dispersed by him, and during that time it was obedient and docile.

Adaptability to the drastic changes in the real world caused by Honkai energy.

In the past, Su Qing'an was like a small boat on a stormy sea.

Now, he feels as if he's in a calm, peaceful tourist area, relaxing on a deck chair on a luxury cruise ship, basking in the sun, feeling the sea breeze on his face, and everything around him is delightful.

The whispers were different from before.

Even though she understood that everything in this world was just an illusion, Su Qing'an still felt a sense of disorientation. All along, the collapse in their eyes had been such a gentle thing.

Even if it's just a little bit, he might be a little envious.

he asked:

"Rin, did you forcibly convert my original artificial stigmata into a natural stigmata?"

"...That's right. So it's just that it hurts a lot, there's nothing we can do about it."

Rin's small voice seemed to hide a hint of guilt.

Su Qing'an sensed the girl's little scheme and found it somewhat amusing. He then asked:

"What's your current situation? Are you living inside my body?"

Upon hearing this, Yae Rin replied:

"Big brother, don't you feel it? Rin is now your stigmata!"

The little girl's voice was no longer timid and hesitant; she said with a hint of happiness:

"Now the stigmata on big brother's back has a cherry blossom pattern, isn't it beautiful! Rin specially chose it!"

Su Qing'an remained silent. After Lin revealed this fact, he noticed that the temperature of the holy mark on his back would subtly change as the other person spoke.

It's quite interesting in many ways... Was this child this cute 50,000 years ago?

But the stigmata with the cherry blossom pattern...

It's a bit of a shame; the mystery of the unknown pattern is gone, and it just looks like an ordinary background image from a Ukiyo-e print.

Su Qing'an nodded and said:

"Yes, it looks great."

To make her happy, he lied without hesitation.

Even though Yae Rin has the ability to see through lies, she acted like a fool and believed the boy's words, laughing happily.

The boy was silent for a moment, then gripped the hilt of the sword.