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

Reasoning with Su Qing'an now is useless. Perhaps he understands this, or perhaps he feels guilty about the boy's current miserable state and wants to make amends.

Himeko said this:

“But I will keep your remains. I will announce that the Third Herrscher’s body was completely annihilated by the Honkai Fission Bomb, and only the Herrscher’s core was left at the scene.”

Su Qing'an did not answer, nor could he.

However, the solution proposed by Himeko is indeed the most ideal solution at present.

The existence of the Herrscher core was something Su Qing'an didn't care about.

What others would treasure as a Herrscher core was, to the boy, merely one of the culprits who caused Sato Yuno's death.

However, allowing others to touch the other person's remains was still something Su Qing'an could not accept, even if that person was Himeko.

She hesitated for a moment and asked:

"...Are you going to personally take out the Herrscher Core?"

The boy's eyes flickered, indicating his approval.

"You should also know that I once learned some information about your body through certain means."

"Although we don't know where your strength comes from, it is a fact that your Honkai energy adaptability is very poor. Getting close to the Herrscher core in person would only make things worse for you in such a critical situation."

"I'm not trying to persuade you not to do it yourself, but in this situation, any way that allows your body to move for a short period of time would be very painful and could even worsen the injury."

"I have now informed you of all the risks and consequences."

With a sigh, Himeko opened a corner of her protective suit, revealing her armor.

The armor she wears inside still has the ability to defend against the contamination from the aftershocks of the Honkai fission bombs, but the effect is rather poor.

The smooth metal surface of the armor suddenly became undulating, creating a groove in a mere second.

As the cold air filled the air, a special nano-reagent was ejected.

The woman explained as she injected it into Su Qing'an's body.

"This is the standard nano-reagent for moths that chase fire."

"The nanobots inside will ignore most extreme injuries and temporarily and precisely link all the nerves in the body, correct the distorted bones, and create corresponding materials to replace those broken parts that cannot support the human body structure, forcibly restoring a certain degree of mobility."

"But the consequence of doing this is that the pain will be dozens of times greater than that of a normal injury, and the subsequent recovery and surgical treatment will be much more difficult."

Himeko gazed at the boy's body, which was surging with unsettling activity, like countless lumps moving beneath his skin, and said softly:

"Most of the soldiers who survived by using this reagent would rather die than be injected with it again."

Su Qing'an felt his bones being straightened one by one, and the fragmented organs and bone pieces being directly crushed and used as materials to shape a brand new human body structure. These pain sensations dissipated like a light mist.

The boy's gaze was indifferent. The precise control of the Still Water Realm was even more terrifying than that of nanobots. He silently followed these external forces and began to make auxiliary corrections. The suddenly intensified pain could not shake him.

Su Qing'an was already used to this level of suffering. The process of trying to learn [Thousand Stars] and the feeling of his whole body being corroded into ashes by Honkai energy were far more torturous than this.

Himeko looked at his indifferent expression, feeling both frightened and worried:

How are you feeling?

Su Qing'an gradually brought his actions back under his control. He didn't respond to that sentence, but instead said softly:

"Make them turn their backs."

Himeko said "okay" softly.

Her prestige in the fifth squad far exceeded the cohesion of a normal squad. Without any questioning, the squad members obediently took their unconscious comrade and left the place first.

The boy carefully tried to clean his hands with his clothes, then gently embraced the slender girl who had fallen into eternal sleep.

He stared at Sato Yuno's face, whose outline he could barely make out, for a while at the curve of her withered lips, his face expressionless.

The corpse was so light, like an empty cicada shell buried in the winter snow, exuding a desolate and lonely feeling of being ignored.

There was no more blood, and no more filth.

Su Qing'an broke off the long dagger from the instrument and put it aside.

He followed the lines of the fabric and, after finding a way to remove the white dress intact, untied it and took it off.

The boy silently apologized to the girl, closed his eyes, and awkwardly unhooked the complicated bra that resembled a Rubik's Cube.

Su Qing'an's slender fingers carefully counted the bones and ribs in front of her heart, one by one. The touch felt like the rough and cold bark of a tree covered in frost.

Himeko observed the boy's movements and gaze, her manner as if she were treating a living, breathing girl, polite and proper.

This scene inexplicably made her a little sad.

Su Qing'an sensed the exact location, pressed his fingertip on that spot for a long time, and took a deep breath, saying to himself.

It's okay, Su Qing'an.

it's OK.

The Herrscher core is so dirty; she wouldn't like anything related to Honkai energy.

It is not pure at all, and it goes against all good things.

So, with trembling fingertips, he cut the blade along the bone into the soft human tissue, until the long dagger touched something hard, and then he drew a beautiful arc along the corresponding trajectory.

The boy reached into the bloodless, organless body and carefully extracted the Herrscher Core, which was as beautiful as a jewel.

Su Qing'an tossed it aside like trash, ignoring the spiderweb-like purple lines spreading across his hands, and carefully dressed the girl step by step.

The boy brushed the dust off his skirt, remained silent for a moment, and then said softly:

"Please help me bury her."

"Buried in a place where no one can find it, but it's not so lonely."

Himeko realized for the first time that a person's sadness could truly fill the air with a suffocating sorrow.

But his eyes were so cold, so very cold, like a lifeless lake in a frozen wasteland.

“…Okay,” she said.

82. The Sleeping Martial Arts Immortal.

The members of the fifth squad have a significant gap in their memories regarding Sato Yuno's remains.

Therefore, under the premise that Su Qing'an assured Himeko that it would not affect their personal safety, he successfully used soul pressure to deceive the self of several people, achieving the effect of erasure in disguise.

In this way, Himeko's claim that the remains of the Third Herrscher were annihilated in the Honkai Fission Bomb was largely eliminated.

Given Himeko Murata's personality, it would be difficult for her to agree to Su Qing'an's actions so quickly, but Himeko is somewhat different.

Clearly, the brutal bloody battle between civilization and decay, along with some of the methods employed by the higher-ups, has made her more ruthless and decisive.

……

……

The boy combed the girl's dry, pale hair. His movements became increasingly stiff and slow, yet still retained a careful and gentle touch.

He whispered to Himeko:

“I will be unconscious for a while; this is your only chance to kill me.”

Himeko closed her eyes. She didn't respond to Su Qing'an's whisper, but instead spoke to herself:

"You are a survivor who was successfully rescued by the Fifth Squad of the Fire Moth before Canghai City was bombed."

"During your coma, you were neither a teacher at that academy nor Su Qing'an, who fought against the Third Herrscher; you were just a nameless, seriously injured patient."

"You will be laid to rest in a hospital on the outskirts of the Australian Firemoth branch's jurisdiction. Fu Hua and Seele will join the logistics team of the Fifth Squad. The two students will also decide whether to stay or leave based on their own wishes."

The woman looked at Su Qing'an, her amber eyes reflecting the boy's lowered gaze as he remained silent.

So cold.

Yet it was still a coldness that was forced to remain at a certain temperature, like a satellite on the edge of Neptune, silently orbiting along the trajectory of gravity, unable to escape.

In astronomy, there is a definition called the Roche limit.

Planets and satellites will constantly move closer together due to gravity, but there is a minimum distance between them to maintain a safe distance.

This distance is the Roche limit, and once this limit is exceeded, tidal forces will tear the satellite apart.

Su Qing'an is in this situation now, but his stance on civilization is far more dangerous than that.

The shattered and collapsed satellites will at most turn into stardust, which will gather into a ring and embrace Neptune.

He, on the other hand, could exchange his own destruction for the annihilation of civilization.

This is easy to understand; going with the tide of collapse, it's not an evil deed that's difficult to commit.

At this stage, the exact threshold of the Roche limit in a teenager's mind depends entirely on the people they cherish and the aftereffects of their soul.

At the same time... it also concerns the rules of the gods' game.

Does a game where defeating the Honkai by hand is the only way to clear the game really allow itself to go against the grain?

Su Qing'an no longer cared whether she could complete the game or not. No matter what the so-called gods could give her, it was hard for her, who was not afraid of death, to be tempted.

Moreover, from the very beginning, the harsh reality constantly made him understand what it meant to be powerless.

If players can choose to use cheat codes when playing a game with high difficulty, then Su Qing'an is a character in the hands of a player called God.

The right to cheat and choose the difficulty level is in the hands of the gods; so-called freedom always has inescapable limits.

reboot.

The boy silently recited the word he once hated, but couldn't help but laugh.

The shackles imposed by the gods silently settled on his ankles. As long as Su Qing'an didn't want the cruelty he was experiencing to become completely irreversible, he absolutely could not violate the basic rules of the game.

This is a shackle in the absolute sense, based on its own nature.

But... we haven't completely lost yet.

He will eventually take back everything he has lost, little by little.

At that time.

A great fire will ignite in the world, burning away all filth and defilement.

[Soul Essence: 3.73 (78.31)]