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

The entire ground was stained with his blood, like a thickly painted postmodern painting.

Shuichi Kanbara is also in this painting, appearing as a demon.

There were no sentimental reflections, no agonizing over right or wrong.

There was no disappointment, no regret, or no regret at all.

It's just a matter of perspective.

You want to worship so-called gods, but I want to protect my daughter.

If the actions contradict each other, then the only option is to draw swords against each other.

After glancing at the scene before him, Shuichi Kambara muttered to himself.

"The fate of the Kanbara family must come to an end."

He walked forward indifferently, his feet dragging heavy trails of blood, leaving clear footprints on the clean floor ahead.

People will continue to come to this area sooner or later, and even their abnormal mental state will make them wary.

Once someone becomes wary, it becomes much more difficult to carry out a backstab murder so easily.

However, there was no time or leeway to deal with the situation on-site.

Having made this judgment, the man listened to the footsteps and moved in that direction like a ghost.

Shuichi Kanbara wasn't simply fleeing; he was guarding a gate, which is why he could only linger in the vicinity of this place.

Under such circumstances, the scene that cannot be cleaned up will sooner or later become a key clue that leads to his gradual identification.

We cannot stop here.

35. Intuition and Anxiety

The world is like a roll of cloth torn apart.

The illusion vanished, and the familiar mist returned to their eyes.

Su Qing'an sheathed his sword, and his muscles twitched and spasmed in an instant. This was the price of concentrating all his strength for the second time in a short period of time.

But he immediately took control of his entire body, adjusting the muscle spasms into natural, flowing waves, and his blood flowed smoothly and quietly, restoring his body to its optimal state once again.

Before the artificial holy mark was transplanted, Su Qing'an's physical strength was not even enough for him to unleash a single [Time Slash].

But now, with the ultimate control he has achieved in the state of still water, he is confident that he can unleash a third strike.

However, a significant drawback is that such a specially named tactic cannot be used as the key to breaking the deadlock indefinitely.

Moreover, Su Qing'an failed to kill the living puppet this time.

That sword strike went astray.

Even though the illusion was shattered, the living puppet still survived.

It floated in the void, tilting its head to look at the two of them. The dense sword marks made its body look tattered, like a cheap toy discarded in a junkyard.

The living doll's hands and feet were shredded by the Honkai energy sword threads formed by the aftereffects of [Time Cut].

The once magnificent kimono was now mostly torn to shreds, with the remaining hem sparsely covering her snow-white thighs and joints, making her look quite disheveled.

It remained quietly in place, its empty eye sockets simply gazing at the two of them, its faint smile unchanged.

The living doll seemed to have lost its desire to attack; it even stopped making any further moves to create illusions.

This is strange.

“Your sword didn’t deviate. It was its defense that increased at that moment. The reason the illusion shattered was because the living puppet gathered all the Honkai energy that created the illusion in front of it before you struck it.”

"In other words, in order to protect itself, it practically tore the entire illusion apart and made it a target for you to attack."

Sato Yuno calmly analyzed the situation and gave a vivid description of the unexpected outcome.

"Its illusion was strange. My body became a little heavy, and this hasn't changed even now that the illusion has shattered."

Su Qing'an looked warily at the seemingly motionless living puppet and pointed out the strangeness of the illusion.

But besides that...

Very strange.

Intuition was warning him of something else, a piece of information that Su Qing'an could not easily ignore.

Although it sounds mystical, his premonitions were surprisingly accurate as his soul's essence gradually strengthened.

There's something wrong with it.

After its first death, the living doll ceased its attempts to attack the two, and after the illusion was shattered, it did not attempt to recreate it. The increasingly dense fog spread outwards...

Right, diffusion? Why is it spreading outwards? If Yuno is right, then the living doll undoubtedly possesses the ability to manipulate the Honkai energy environment here, so what reason does it have not to concentrate all the Honkai energy to kill us, but instead choose to continue spreading the fog?

After sorting out his thoughts, he finally understood the reason why the living doll did this.

There is only one answer.

For Kanbara Yu.

For the girl who should have had her blood and life drained by it at this time.

"Yuno! Try to sense the area outside the fog with your ability." Su Qing'an gave the order in almost a second after completing the thought process.

“Okay.” Without asking for a reason, just from hearing the slight fluctuation in the boy’s tone, Sato Yuno understood the importance of the matter.

The girl's power had already usurped control of the forest during the previous preparations, so there was a reason why she only symbolically attacked the living puppet with vines and handed over the main attacker to Su Qing'an.

Demolishing the shrine and waiting for the incendiary bombs to continue destroying unnecessary things to expose that thing is only part of the plan.

Half of this scheme lies in the tiny root system that wanders underground. These roots silently and gradually meander through the main body of the shrine and the surrounding underground space. The root system, shaped by Honkai energy, is naturally more sensitive to Honkai energy and is an excellent tool for searching.

Sato Yuno's mind was almost entirely focused on manipulating and paying attention to the underground scenery and Honkai energy fluctuations, so when attacking the living doll, she naturally gave the impression of putting in a little effort but not putting in any real work.

Even though she focused most of her attention on the search, the Honkai energy fog made it even more difficult for her to search, to the point that even with the Honkai energy sensing ability and power assistance of a pseudo-Herrscher, she still hadn't found any clues.

At this moment, some of the underground root systems surged out in other directions.

Then they encountered obstacles.

The girl frowned and remained silent. Sensing the answer transmitted back from the roots, she shook her head at Su Qing'an and said, "In addition to using the Honkai energy accumulated over the past ten years to form mist, the living doll also created something like a barrier. At the same time, I suspect that this barrier is connected to the Honkai energy of the environment."

"And... those villagers aren't in the same place anymore either." Her expression was rather unpleasant, clearly indicating that she had realized the dire situation that had unfolded before her.

A shadow fell over Su Qing'an's face. Sato Yuno's words had confirmed his suspicions. He calmly analyzed and explained:

"The fog is still spreading outwards. The birth of that illusion seems to have accelerated this process. It wouldn't be surprising if the fog drifted to the Shinbara family. Rather, this is exactly the result the living doll wanted."

"If I'm not mistaken, the most likely scenario now is that the villagers have gotten rid of your toxin and are going to cause trouble for the Kanbara family."

“I noticed something was wrong with the villagers’ bodies before, but it was so subtle that I only noticed it now. It could be a sign of becoming a suicide soldier.”

"Yuno, your toxin was specially formulated for ordinary humans, so if the other person's constitution becomes no longer like that of a human, it will naturally have no effect."

Sato Yuno fully understood Su Qing'an's meaning. Her gaze towards the doll held an even colder killing intent than before. She said softly:

"That's why it hasn't had any aggression since it was killed the first time. Rather than going through the trouble of killing us unpalatable sacrifices, it's much better to find Xiaoxi, who is more to its liking."

Su Qing'an nodded and said, "We can't drag this out any longer and play a tug-of-war with it. If necessary, we should break the barrier and switch the battlefield to the Shenyuan family."

"Given the current combat power of the living puppet, either of us could suppress it for a short time, freeing up our hands to quickly eliminate the villagers who might turn into suicide soldiers."

The safety of the client is the top priority.

The two immediately reached an agreement.

Neither Shuichi Kanbara nor Yu Kanbara wanted anything to happen to them.

Su Qing thought to herself, "Uncle, you're still responsible for taking that girl to see the aquarium, the zoo, Himeji Castle, and Kiyomizu-dera Temple to see the cherry blossoms. How can you just die like this?"

Besides, if you die, who will that girl be able to rely on in this world?

So please hang in there a little longer.

For some reason, at that moment the boy suddenly recalled what the man had said to him in the Maybach.

"Life is but fifty years, and the past seems like a dream. Is there anything in the world that can live forever?"

This famous quote, which originated from Oda Nobunaga, was uttered by Shuichi Kanbara. On that day, the man's expression was so carefree yet concealed a determination to disregard life and death.

Even so, I don't want you to die.

The boy gripped his sword tightly.

Even if we haven't broken our promise.

I would too, and it would be unpleasant.

The mysterious patterns drawn in vermilion on the back gradually emitted a faint glow...

36. The whole world will make way for you.

In the misty landscape, flowers quietly bloomed as the two talked, tiny spores emerging from the tender petals and drifting into the air.

Those are spores that are almost invisible to the naked eye, as tiny as dust particles.

Spores emerge continuously from the blooming flowers, gradually becoming part of the environmental cycle here, enveloped in the mist.

So, the moment Su Qing'an finished speaking...

The spores quietly drifted with the mist and attached themselves to the tiny cracks and cavities on the living doll's body. After a few breaths, the dust-like spores grew without warning into strange thorns as thick as ancient trees.

The enormous thorns widened the wounds and sword marks, shattering the living doll's body into pieces. The thorns pierced through the now inhuman shell from countless directions, with perfect and regular spacing.

From a distance, it looked exactly like a strangely shaped sea urchin, but now this "sea urchin" made of thorns and a doll's shell lay on the ground, silent.

The living doll is dead.

As the stigmata on Su Qing'an's back glowed, Sato Yuno simultaneously and successfully killed the living doll, which was not a particularly powerful being to her.

Only the unique nature of the Herrscher of Corruption made her feel a little troubled, especially since the other party was in a broken and dilapidated state.

"Are you really going to use it..." Without looking at the remains of the living doll slowly disappearing into the thorns, Sato Yuno said something that even she herself thought was nonsense to Su Qing'an.

But she still couldn't help asking.

As the pattern on the boy's back emitted a faint glow, the Honkai energy embraced him with unprecedented tenderness.