Kevin's calm, rippleless eyes suddenly contracted, disbelief flickering across his expression.
Shock and confusion still lingered on his face.
The wind howled past him, tugging at his short white hair — yet it couldn't blow away the tremor in his heart.
Right before his eyes, mere inches away, floated drops of water — perfectly formed, reflecting the icy-blue world around them.
Beautiful… and terrifying.
And it wasn't just the two before his face.
Two more hovered over his throat — and his heart.
This battle if it could even be called that — ended the very moment Nagami finished speaking.
Just like Elysia had joked earlier, Nagami had already been holding back.
Not because some of their opponents were beautiful girls with fair skin and slender waists and long legs — no, that wasn't the reason at all.
The warriors in the Elysian Realm were memory constructs of their real selves.
They weren't easy to kill, but if their bodies were completely destroyed, they would disappear forever.
At the speed those droplets moved… if Nagami didn't precisely control them… even fusion warriors would be reduced to dust in an instant.
"So… this is what holding back looks like." Kevin stiffly moved his body, staring blankly at the black-haired boy who hadn't even taken a single step.
The moment Nagami spoke, Kevin had obeyed instinctively — activating every ounce of power in his body, forcing his cells toward their semi-Honkai form.
And even then, he only sensed something was wrong at the very last instant.
No chance to react — four droplets already surrounded him.
Not because he was special enough to deserve four, but because—
Kevin looked around.
Every fusion warrior stared at Nagami — their eyes trembling with a fear buried in their hearts for fifty thousand years.
A faint mist of blood filled the space, chilling even beneath the warm sunlight.
Their limbs… were simply gone.
No wounds. No tearing.
Just smooth and clean — as if space itself had erased them.
If he were his normal self, Nagami would have spared the girls such a cruel fate.
But in his "Afterglow" Mode, Kevin alone received mercy.
No — please don't misunderstand.
"Afterglow" Mode doesn't magically change his romantic preferences.
The reason was simple:
Among all the fusion warriors, Kevin in here is connected to the real one.
Destroying his actual body would require more effort to restore later — and Nagami dislikes unnecessary waste.
Memory constructs, however?
Fixing them is as easy as tapping a screen.
"Nagami… what… what is going on?" Mobius stared at him.
Nagami continued walking slowly through the air toward Mobius and Elysia, his voice gentle and steady — like the ocean that embraces all.
"Doctor Mobius, you should be able to understand this. The Herrscher of Flames isn't just controlling fire — beneath that power lies one of the four fundamental forces: the strong nuclear force."
Behind him, a six-pointed sigil shimmered into existence — rotating slowly behind the two girls.
"This is a little toy I made using the strong interaction. I call it a **'Droplet.''"
He glanced toward the other warriors, as the purple sigils repairing their lost limbs and restoring their memory bodies.
With surprising patience, Nagami explained how the droplets were made and what they could do.
Even one fundamental force, taken to the extreme, can surpass imagination.
Compared to the god-tier civilizations in Three-Body problem with mathematical weapons and conceptual weapons — these droplets truly were just children's toys.
But in the Sea of Quanta and Imaginary Tree?
If any civilization ever reached this level, they would have already passed the highest trial — and become weapons on the frontline of existence itself.
Against the Final Herrscher of this world?
It would be like stepping on an ant.
"A toy… huh. That's one way to describe it." Elysia forced a bitter smile as her body rapidly regenerated before her eyes.
"In some ways… Nagami is even scarier than the Final Herrscher from fifty thousand years ago."
It wasn't raw power she feared — but what he could do with it.
That phasing ability earlier? That had to be the power of the Herrscher of the Void — yet the Final Herrscher had never used it back then.
And now these "toys" created with the Flame Herrscher's authority…
Elysia wasn't a scientist like Mobius or Nagami, but she wasn't clueless either.
Well, compared to them she kind of was, but—
Even she understood enough to feel dread.
These tiny, harmless-looking droplets… could erase the entire pre-Honkai fleet in a heartbeat.
If the Final Herrscher had used something like this back then… Humanity would never have even gotten the chance to fire the Moonlight Throne.
Instead, she simply crushed civilization with overwhelming force.
The end result might look similar — but the message would be different:
No hope.
No future.
Only darkness.
Elysia shook off the spiraling fears, her soft smile blooming once again — bright and beautiful.
Her eyes sparkled with a new light as she gazed at the black-haired boy.
From the very first day of their fight against Honkai, even now in this lingering state of fractured souls…
Nagami was the greatest possibility to finally defeat the Honkai.
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