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

The wealth, connections, and status I've built up through hard work are all for this moment today.

The entire room is specially designed, with the Gatling gun's external power supply hidden inside. The floor is made of a different material than the rest of the room to better withstand the fierce recoil.

Even the narrowness of the entrance was designed to facilitate a single, sweeping shot that could kill the enemy.

Daigo yelled at the villagers to rush toward Shuichi Kanbara, trying to stop him from reviving the murder weapon.

He understood how terrifying the destructive power of modern weapons was, and even with divine protection, Daigo did not believe that everyone could remain unharmed under such an offensive.

The hydraulic motor can start up very quickly.

Before the villagers even reached them, flames had already begun to erupt.

If the sound of thunder were to occur, this M61 Vulcan cannon is equipped with the M12 hydraulic drive system for anti-aircraft use. Although its rate of fire is not as exaggerated as the highest speed of 7200 rounds per minute, it can still achieve a rate of fire of 6000 rounds per minute.

The man could no longer hear Daigo's roar. AP armor-piercing rounds were devouring all the lives in front of him. All the bullets easily pierced through flesh and blood, breaking through all obstacles in front of him, heading towards an unknown end.

To take Kanbara Yu's life, one must step over his corpse.

Even if such an ending were to occur, this man stubbornly wanted everyone to understand.

Gatling gun bullets can fall much faster than cherry blossoms.

41. The snow in Sapporo that year was beautiful.

The world before my eyes is desolate.

In less than a minute, the building was shattered, leaving only large empty spaces and the pouring darkness of the night.

The ground was littered with mangled limbs and bloody remains. After the murder weapon ceased functioning, the world returned to silence.

The villagers all died.

Both Daigo and the dozens of villagers who hadn't even reached them in the narrow passage were all caught and turned into dust.

This was an unexpected result and achievement.

Daigo's outstanding leadership ensured that no villager escaped the gunfire, which was the reason for the enemy's complete defeat.

However, Shuichi Kanbara was still injured in the end.

Before they died, the villagers were completely transformed into zombies by the uncontrollable Honkai energy within their bodies. The villagers who were the first to approach Kamihara Shuichi relied on their increased speed and vitality after becoming zombies, and with their last bit of strength, they touched Kamihara Shuichi at the moment when the Gatling gun's activation rate was at its lowest.

Even though their bodies had been torn to shreds by the Vulcan cannon and were almost unrecognizable, they dragged their husks along as if using a morbid willpower in a final burst of energy, and indeed managed to injure Shuichi Kambara.

His internal organs were cut open.

"I dedicate everything to the gods." These were the whispered words of the person before their death, expressing their faith in the gods.

His right hand, which was gripping the Divine Blade, was also torn off by immense force, revealing the stark white bone, and blood gushed out like a fountain.

The man laughed and knelt down on the ground.

Even a simple assassin's strength is beyond what ordinary humans can withstand. Even though Shuichi Kanbara had mastered Mind's Eye and was able to react to the opponent's movements, his body, which was eroded and damaged by Honkai energy, did not have enough ability to dodge.

This is probably the best ending.

The man was already somewhat delirious, had lost a lot of blood, and his internal organs, which had been partially removed, were ruptured. He wouldn't live much longer.

But at least...

I kept my promise to my wife.

"Kannahara Shuichi."

It was a mournful sigh, like the whisper of the dead. Kanbaru looked down at the ground where only large areas of remains remained.

The remains have vanished.

Flesh and bone fragments, internal organs and blood twisted and pieced together to form a gigantic monster that could barely be identified as human.

The monster stood swaying, looking at the man kneeling on the ground, who was nearing the end of his life.

"Shuichi Kanbara, the gods cannot be defied." That was Daigo's voice, only more hoarse, more unpleasant, and devoid of all emotion.

The villagers had long been puppets of the living dolls. Kitahara Shin was able to break free from the dolls' control because he had spent much less time in Kambara Village than the villagers, and he also possessed a strong will and the stimulation of pain.

More importantly, it wasn't a living puppet controlling it directly; what remained in the mist was merely the aftershock of the puppet's power, which was naturally much weaker and easier to get rid of.

The villagers who are now given tasks by the living dolls are no longer human at their core.

The death that is more tragic than becoming a suicide soldier is being exploited to the extreme, as it is now.

"The offerings are inside, I can feel their presence."

The monster ignored Shuichi Kanbara's intentions. The monster before him was neither Daigo nor the villagers, but a tragic product born from the fusion of their personalities to make it easier to complete the mission of the living doll.

The monster staggered and walked step by step toward the locked door leading to the basement, its blood drawing a winding, meandering pattern on the ground.

Shuichi Kanbara struggled to crawl toward his severed right hand; he wanted to get his hands on the divine sword.

The body, its life force already fading like a candle in the wind, emitted a brief afterglow as the man crawled awkwardly to the side of that hand.

With difficulty, he pulled the Divine Blade from between his tightly clenched fingers.

"What an idiot, Shuichi Kanbara." The monster sensed the man's movement, but it didn't stop.

The monster mocked the man's embarrassing and pathetic appearance.

"How could someone like you possibly change the outcome the gods desire?"

The man silently and slowly climbed toward the monster.

But he was too slow; in fact, it was incredible that he could move at all under such circumstances.

The door he had fought so hard to protect until now had finally been opened.

The monster had assumed that the door led to a deep and dark underground room, filled with the man's usual cautious mechanisms and modern automated weapons, while Kanbara Yu sat behind the many barriers, like a princess desperately protected by a nation.

However, the princess's kingdom was on the verge of collapse because of her, so the princess naturally met a tragic end.

However, there were no mechanisms inside the door, nor was it as dangerous as he had imagined. In fact, it wasn't very big inside; it looked like just an ordinary storage room. The monster recalled the feeling of pushing the door open earlier; it was just an ordinary wooden object, and everything seemed quite commonplace.

Inside, there were only some odds and ends.

A family photo of the three of them, a box of worn-out toys, and some dolls and plush toys with writing on their labels.

For example, some are named Alice, some are named Knight, some are named King, some are named Queen, etc. It seems that the owners of these dolls used them to play games similar to house.

Perhaps she would sleep with the teddy bear named Knight at night, confide in the doll named Alice, and occasionally place the King and Queen together, staring blankly at the doll named Queen.

Look, Kanbara Yu is such a cute little girl.

So how could Shuichi Kanbara bear to see her possibly encounter any mishap?

He let her run away.

Kanbara Yu left the moment the festival day began.

The living doll was blocked by Su Qing'an and Sato Yuno. Since it couldn't create clones, it naturally couldn't stop Shenyuan Xi from escaping. Under such circumstances, only a fool would let his daughter continue to stay in the den of dragons and tigers.

The reason why the living doll was so furious when it first appeared was not only because the offering was not delivered on time, but also because the offering had run away.

She left Kambara Village in a Maybach. The village was empty and unobstructed, and no one realized that Kambara Yu was no longer there.

The living doll has no specific intelligence; it is only driven by instinct to bring the villagers to capture Kamihara Shuichi as a substitute. However, the villagers still believe that the sacrifice is Kamihara Yu.

This led to a misunderstanding on their part. They naturally assumed that the gods had sent them here, which meant that the real Shinbara Yu was at the Shinbara ancestral home.

They wouldn't have imagined that Shinbara Yuu had run away, and that the gods had sent them to capture Shinbara Shuichi to be used as a substitute for the inferior goods.

Shuichi Kambara was determined to guard this door at all costs, just to create the illusion that Yuu Kambara was still there. The later the villagers found out that Yuu Kambara wasn't there, the safer she would be.

The villagers were all fooled, including Daigo.

Who would have thought that all his hard work and effort would ultimately only result in protecting some worthless junk?

But the man acted as if there was something more important than life itself behind him, and that to reach it one had to step over his corpse.

You see, even now, Shuichi Kanbara is still acting.

Perhaps...

He's no longer just acting.

Those things might really be very important to Shuichi Kanbara.

It was something so important that he had to protect it, even if it meant crawling over in such an ugly way.

That photo, that box of toys, those dolls.

It is a precious treasure in Kanbara Yu's heart.

That would naturally be a treasure of Shuichi Kanbara.

This man valued all his treasures as much as a legendary dragon.

They value even the smallest things.

"Since there are no offerings available, we can only use you as a substitute to offer to the gods."

The emotionless monster could not feel the frustration and anger of being fooled until now. It made a calm and indifferent judgment and reached out to grab the man on the ground.

However, the movement was restricted.

The vines broke through the ground from deeper layers of soil and wrapped around the monster's body. Before it could react, an extremely sharp sword light, carrying violent Honkai energy fluctuations, easily crushed the monster's form.

The monster, formed from a mixture of human fragments, was melted into tiny, dust-like remains by the high-temperature heat energy converted from Honkai energy.

The debris, which danced in the air, was blown away by the wind and disappeared into the night.

That wasn't a particularly strong monster to begin with; if you had to compare it to a normal assassin, it wouldn't be much stronger.

Su Qing'an, who arrived with a body covered in wounds, and Sato Yuno, whose power was greatly restricted, easily killed it with almost no effort.

The world before Shuichi Kanbara's eyes was fading, and his blood continued to flow, yet he smiled as he watched the two figures disappear into the distance.

It was a laugh that was incredibly difficult, incredibly faint, yet so joyful.

The fact that the two of them came back can only mean one thing.

The living doll was successfully killed.

The five-hundred-year-old destiny of the Kanbara family comes to an end here.

Shuichi Kanbara's laughter grew softer and softer as darkness began to envelop him.