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

Page 118

Su Qing'an sensed the helplessness in the girl's words.

He said softly:

"So I'm going to die soon."

"But... I don't regret it."

How could he regret it? His decisions have always been as resolute as a sword blade, unwavering and unyielding.

Besides, he shouldn't regret it. Regret proves that you think the decisions you made in the past were not worthwhile or were wrong.

However, Su Qing'an never thought that she made the wrong decision, nor did she think that the decision was not worth the price she had to pay.

He did nothing wrong, he just... lost.

Rin said with a hint of helplessness:

"Yes, that's the kind of person my older brother is, after all."

"But that's precisely why Rin doesn't want her older brother to die."

"So, let Rin handle the rest."

"Big brother, you just need to swing your sword as before."

Su Qing'an was somewhat bewildered; the gray mist in his eyes still lingered. But for some reason, the moment Lin spoke those words, he knew he had to respond.

"Simply swing your sword."

He repeated the girl's words word by word.

"Simply swing your sword."

He continued, his voice barely audible yet brimming with a dazzling, golden will.

The girl hugged the boy tightly, but the illusory arm simply passed right through her.

Sure enough, I couldn't hold him...

Rin glanced at her hands with some regret, then looked at the handsome face smeared with blood and revealed a bright smile.

She said:

"That's right, big brother should just wield the sword. This kind of thing should be left to Rin. It's Rin who's being selfish. It's Rin who's arbitrarily forcing big brother to do something he clearly can't do."

Her voice grew softer and softer, and her last words were barely audible.

"So, in the end, let's leave this to Rin."

Yae Rin released her hands, no longer holding Su Qing'an, and chose to leave.

The girl approached the katana and murmured:

"The Divine Key was created using Rin's body, so how could it reject a part of itself?"

"If it were up to me, I could make my older brother pull out this knife."

The boy's vision had long since blurred, but he could hear Rin's voice gradually fading into the distance, as if it were from a very, very far place.

Perhaps, it's a place I'll never be able to reach again in my entire life.

Sensing unease through her overly keen intuition, Su Qing'an pressed her throat and squeezed her vocal cords to shout:

"Rin! What are you doing?"

It was a hoarse voice, filled with confusion, unease, and a sorrowful sense of foreseeing the outcome.

She turned to Su Qing'an and smiled, a smile the boy was destined never to see.

It was a very innocent, cute, and slightly sad smile.

It's natural to feel sad that I can't personally deliver the gift to my sister, and that I won't be able to see her again.

But if this could bring her the ending she desired.

That's not bad, right?

Yae Rin gazed intently at the boy's appearance, as if trying to carefully etch this person into her memory.

Then, she said her goodbye:

"Big brother didn't break his promise, and neither did Rin."

"I feel very lucky to have met a human like my older brother after such a long time."

"If you're an older brother, Rin hopes you can find happiness."

"So, don't think about those messy things anymore. You can't have thoughts like 'I don't care about my own life.'"

"At least, if you die, Rin will be very sad to find out."

Goodbye... Su Qing'an.

The girl pronounced the boy's name for the first time, and placed her hand on the hilt of the knife.

Her figure vanished in an instant, like a fleeting bubble or a setting sun, shattering bit by bit into even more illusory light with incredible speed.

Light surged into the Divine Key, and the hilt, which was originally painted with a demon mask, was covered by other forms.

Those were fallen cherry blossoms...

Ukiyo-e prints featuring cherry blossoms completely obliterated the demon mask.

Yae Rin used everything she had to transform into a brand new sword hilt.

Su Qing'an shouldn't have been able to see it, but at that moment, a scene of a butterfly withering into ashes flashed through her mind.

A heavy rain fell on the lake in his heart. The boy stood on the frozen surface of the lake, his black hair soaked and plastered to his forehead. He looked up and let the rain fall into his pupils.

He didn't blink, and cold raindrops streamed down his face.

"Tick-tock".

Raindrops pounded on the lake's surface, making the frozen lake appear as if it were churning up towering waves.

Emotions, like a massive tide, dragged the boy into the depths of his heart.

The inner demon is awakening; it has already devoured all emotions, and now it also wants to devour its master.

Su Qing'an.

Outside, the holy marks on his back had faded, and the cherry blossom pattern had vanished, but a warm power surged forth from it, transforming into a pair of hands that pulled Su Qing'an back from the depths of his heart.

"Big brother, you just need to swing your sword as before."

That was Rin's voice, but were these words recorded in the stigmata, or was it the real Rin speaking?

Not important anymore.

The light pierced through the gray haze in his eyes, and the boy stood up without a word.

His body was theoretically no longer able to support his movements, but Su Qing'an stood up just like that.

My body feels so light, probably because all the blood has drained away.

But it's okay, I can still wield my sword.

Willpower, like a thread, controlled the body; the obsession with wielding this sword became the sole driving force.

The boy gripped the brand-new hilt, drawing the Divine Key with the ease and grace of picking up a thin sheet of paper.

The blood-red blade looked as if cherry blossoms were falling.

He could almost smell the fragrance of flowers in his nostrils, and for a moment he felt as if he were in a grove of cherry blossoms falling softly.

It's so beautiful.

Looking at the cherry blossoms on the hilt of the sword, Su Qing'an suddenly felt that the cherry blossom pattern of the stigmata was also very nice.

The boy thought for a moment, then swung his sword at the core of the evil thought.

His movements as he wielded the katana were slow and weak, like those of an old man nearing the end of his life.

The wound twisted more and more grotesquely with each movement, the blood had dried up and all had flowed out, so even this extremely difficult movement couldn't squeeze out any more blood.

The knife in his hand was as light as paper, but it was as if picking up a piece of paper was an extremely difficult task for Su Qing'an at this moment.

The warrior's body had already largely solidified, and his posture, existing between reality and illusion, was beyond human reach.

In just a short while, the demon formed from evil thoughts will be resurrected.

But as the blade sliced through, the unpredictable power of the Divine Key ignored the ethereal nature of evil.

The dazzling crimson blade light slowly descended, slicing through the core-shaped object woven from fine purple threads.

The evil thoughts that had clung to the bone for 50,000 years, like maggots that could not be driven away, melted away like snowflakes in the sunlight.

The samurai, about to be resurrected, lay scattered on the ground like an empty shell without a skeleton, and all the remnants of evil vanished as if from an illusion.

The scene before me is so simple it's almost a joke.

The twelfth Divine Key, Jizo Mitama, is now fully completed.

After unleashing this sword strike, the thin thread of the boy's will seemed to have exhausted its last bit of strength and snapped.

Su Qing'an collapsed.

His broken body collapsed awkwardly to the ground.

The Divine Key held in the boy's hand also vanished in a flash of light.

They should go find Yae Sakura, that's good, this ending is enough.

Principal Theresa is safe, and St. Freya Academy is safe too.

That's enough.

But Rin... I'm afraid I'll make you sad.

He should have died long ago; he is now nothing more than a ghost forcibly remaining in the human world.

The castle tower gradually began to tremble.