It was a profound loneliness, a hollowness after dreams were completely crushed, a stubbornness refusing to compromise with the twisted reality remaining after the collapse of the obstinate belief that "the world shouldn't be like this"...
These complex and indescribable emotions were not transmitted to Fu Hua in the form of specific content, but turned into a hazy, chilly "feeling" that quietly spread across her heart.
This was not compassion for the weak, nor pity from the strong for the victim.
This was a more essential, subtle resonance beyond words generated in the deepest part of emotions between two independent souls under some extreme circumstances.
It was a silent resonance about the "suffering of existence" that could still exist between "human" and "human" after stripping away social identity, strength, and even specific experiences.
Fu Hua's gaze lingered on Yun Mengxi's curled figure for a moment longer than observing anything else, deeply engraving that unique posture and that wisp of strange emotional resonance into the depths of her consciousness.
Immediately after, the backward flow accelerated, and scenes flew by.
When all light and shadows finally converged, the familiar sense of weightlessness and returning came—
Fu Hua opened her eyes again in that quiet room of the Taixu Martial Arts School.
The faint morning light cast quiet spots on the tatami through the window lattice.
Everything was exactly the same as when she woke up "last time."
She slowly sat up, her movements steady and her breathing smooth, as if she had just finished a brief meditation.
Only in the depths of those profound eyes, the heaviness accumulated from two loops and a trace of the freshly branded, slightly cool emotional imprint settled.
She raised her hand and subconsciously brushed the corner of her eye.
Her fingertips touched a cold dampness.
A clear tear silently slid across her always calm cheek, leaving a fleeting wet trail.
This tear did not stem from her own sadness or fear, nor was it related to the shock of the loop.
It seemed to be a trace of cold moisture that hadn't evaporated in time, received during the last emotional synchronization with that girl curled up in the corner, silently rejecting the entire world from a distant spacetime.
She quietly wiped away the tear stain, but her eyes had firmly remembered that figure.
Yun Mengxi... huh.
Beneath her was the soft bedding, before her eyes the familiar ceiling.
This time, Fu Hua didn't sit up from the bed, but just lay there, trying to retain this moment of rest.
But her mind didn't start adjusting along with her body.
Her eyes were half-closed, her breathing long, sinking her consciousness into the deep pool of memory.
She wanted to dredge up every detail from the two loops and try to sort out a thread of logic in the absolute chaos.
The starting point was the difference in time.
The first loop, from the Honkai descent to the world restart, the interval was extremely short, about... three minutes?
What were they doing in that time so short it was almost futile?
It was hasty, instinctive reactions, shock after witnessing the disaster, and subsequent attempts at remedy based on a sense of responsibility.
Facing the almost completely unknown "Honkai," they didn't know its source or principle, let alone prevention. They were powerless against the impending natural disaster and could only take action after the Honkai descended.
However, the essence of the action was lagging, passive "post-disaster intervention," with minimal effect, like trying to scoop dry a flood from a broken dam with a teacup.
Result—the world reset after three minutes.
The second loop, the restart happened about ten minutes later.
These extra ten minutes were the key variable.
But... why?
This extra time stemmed from them possessing the memory of the "first time."
They were able to inform Joachim in advance about the concept of "Honkai," its general manifestations, and even the possible heavily hit areas in Sapphire City.
The early injection of information changed the basis for decision-making.
This led to the second node: Joachim's deduction and strategic shift.
In that meeting at the Taixu Martial Arts School, based on this "future information," Joachim proposed a bold hypothesis: This world might be a "simulation field" or a piece of "Ouroboros timeline" stripped individually to form a self-loop.
To break this loop, what was needed might not be minor repairs, but a "variable" drastic enough to disturb the logic of the entire system.
And the direction he gave was: Try to conduct larger-scale, more proactive intervention before the Honkai descends, with the goal—to save the entire Sapphire City.
This was undoubtedly a complete negation of the passive remedy mode of the "first loop," a strategic-level shift.
However, the third node revealed a harder barrier.
They tried accordingly.
But the result?
Carefully prepared Titan Mechs, lurking forces, actions trying to clear unstable factors in advance and guide the public... only lasted ten minutes in front of the true national power.
Those ten minutes were less of a confrontation and more of being quickly identified, classified, and suppressed by "order" itself.
These ten minutes of suppression coldly demonstrated how low the ceiling and how fragile the foundation of any "individual heroism" or "small group action" attempting to "replace" or "surpass" orthodox power within the existing framework of rules.
Their direction might be correct, but their methods appeared naive and powerless under the true comparison of strength.
Perhaps... only...
No, there was no perhaps.
Fu Hua gently shook her head, discarding that "subconscious" thought that popped up in her mind.
Then, it was time to draw a conclusion.
Their direction of effort was correct, but the path of realization needed to be re-examined.
Two loops, from bewildered remedy to proactive layout but encountering setbacks, at least proved that the core idea of "greater change" touched some key.
The delay in restart time was the reaction made by this Ouroboros timeline system, or the Herrscher who forged this timeline, to the "variable."
Only, the "variable" they created wasn't big enough, or the method was wrong.
Herrscher... what exactly does He want?
Just as this question was born, a sudden jump appeared in Fu Hua's chain of thought.
Yun Mengxi.
At the very last moment of the second loop, amidst that futile yet tragic resistance, in the frozen instant when the world was about to return to zero again, she "saw" that curled-up girl and perceived that cold "rejection" incompatible with the surrounding purgatory.
That wasn't the fear of a survivor, but more like a...
Bug?
An "anomaly" that had a strong rejection reaction with the loop plot itself?
Logic couldn't directly establish causality between Yun Mengxi and breaking the loop. There was no evidence. But an association originating from a deeper layer, almost intuitive, quietly emerged at this moment.