After the main culprit was defeated, the town of Kolosten collapsed back to its original state.
Medieval streets, a medieval church, and crumbling ruins stood everywhere, as if an earthquake had just struck.
Fu Hua had already departed. Though she had ten thousand questions about Fuli, using the Taixu Sword God and the zeroth rated power twice had completely drained her.
A golden phantom detached itself from Fuli, who was holding Kallen, and materialized into a familiar figure.
Otto looked at the unconscious Kallen, then raised his head and said in a light tone, "Good thing Eleanor helped out at the critical moment. Otherwise, who knows how long we would've been tangled up with that woman."
"So we'll go see her later," Fuli said, his gaze lowered. "You promised her you'd go to the Heaven of Mars and spend time with her after this was over."
"I'd like to," Otto said with a bitter smile, raising a hand. His once-clear fingertips were gradually blurring.
It wasn't just him. The sky, the earth, the buildings, the streets... as if a narrator from a higher plane had hit the delete key, everything was collapsing, starting from the distance and moving closer.
The only two things unaffected were Fuli, a person from the real world, and Kallen, who had been gifted the Equation of Life and had truly become a unique individual.
This was also what the boy didn't want to face.
It was time for them to say goodbye.
Seeing his dejected expression, a pleasant smile formed on Otto's lips.
"Heh."
"What are you laughing at?" Fuli glared at him, annoyed.
"I was just thinking, in a situation like this, if I were the only one feeling down, wouldn't that be incredibly embarrassing?" The man chuckled and reached out to ruffle his hair. "Seeing you look just as miserable, brother, makes me feel much more balanced."
Fuli dodged, not forgetting to spit at him. "Get lost. What kind of twisted mindset is that? You really deserve to have no friends!"
"It's fine if I don't have friends. Having someone I love and a brother is enough." Otto shrugged. "I'm suddenly feeling a bit sorry for the 'me' on the outside. He couldn't save the one he loved, and he doesn't have a good brother to joke around and trade barbs with. After Vera passed, he's had to spend five hundred years all alone."
"I bet he's become the person Kallen hates the most by now. Despicable, shameless, lecherous, paranoid, hypocritical, and two-faced." The man gloated, then changed the subject. "Brother, at the very end, there's one more thing I want to ask of you."
"What is it?"
"In the real world, if you see the real me, if you get the chance..." He paused, then said with utmost seriousness, "Kill him. Free him."
Fuli frowned and stared at him for a long moment before sighing and retorting, "You're a real piece of work, brother. You got your wish to save Kallen, and now you want me to stop him from achieving his."
But he still extended his hand for a high-five.
"But, I promise."
SLAP!
"Memories are a punishment for those who live in the past. If I get the chance, I'll free him for you."
"Thanks." Otto retracted his hand, his gaze returning to the sleeping Kallen in the boy's arms.
The nun's expression was surprisingly sweet, as if she had fallen into a deep slumber after letting go of all the burdens on her shoulders. Her picturesque features were like a perfect work of art by Michelangelo, flawless in every way.
He looked away. "Go."
Liking someone is about trying to possess them. Loving someone is about willingly letting them go.
Having seen the exceptionally beautiful sunset and the gentle you, I hope that the next time we meet, we will both embrace our own dawns and miss no more.
"IN YOUR DREAMS!!!!!"
A roar of ultimate fury came from the edge of the collapsing world.
It was Ella's true form, a swollen, chaotic core of data.
Realizing that all her efforts were about to be in vain, she no longer cared about the outside Otto's siege. She was betting everything on invading this place and snatching the Equation of Life, the symbol of freedom, from Kallen.
Fuli, who was already in a foul mood, had his expression change drastically.
He slowly moved his jaw, about to say something as he stared in the direction Ella was coming from.
Otto stopped him. "Don't get angry with a hysterical loser like her, brother. She's not worth it."
His gaze drifted to the forming gateway to the real world not far away. "Go," he said. "Leave this to me."
The man flipped his hand, producing something that looked like an RPG.
[Name: Super Silver Bullet]
[Rank: B]
[Category: Consumable]
[Effect: White, 50CM, 100KG. Blast radius of 100-200 kilometers, ten times the power of the Tsar Bomba. Comes with a rocket launcher-style firing device, can only be fired with this device. Maximum firing range of 5000 meters.]
[Note: "...Are you kidding me?"]
A product from Fuli's last ten-pull.
"A blast radius of 100-200 kilometers and a maximum firing range of 5000 meters. I really don't know what the designer was thinking." Otto grumbled as he struggled to hoist the launcher, showing no sense of tragedy or sorrow for his impending demise.
And Fuli.
Gazing at that slender, golden back, he finally couldn't help but say, "Seriously, more than Kallen, I really wanted to take you with me on this trip."
Otto heard this and shook his head with a smile. "If you did that, the person known as Otto Apocalypse would have died the moment he left the virtual space."
Congratulations to me for obtaining the golden item [Never Compromise].
Sometimes, the man really wondered if someone had arranged everything. They were so spent they didn't have a shred of strength left to fight, yet Fuli's previous ten-pull just so happened to contain a weapon of mass destruction like the Super Silver Bullet to delay AL's advance.
But.
Whatever.
If this was indeed fate's arrangement, then meeting these two people at the end of my life has made it all worthwhile.
"..."
After one last, deep look at Otto, Fuli turned and walked toward the forming gateway to reality, carrying Kallen in his arms.
Fzzt!
A sound like a spark being lit. It was the life cards the three of them had folded into lucky four-leaf clovers before setting out that morning.
Otto's part was burning fiercely.
DONG! DONG! DONG!
The church's bell of destiny also began to toll rhythmically.
As if announcing the end of this world, or perhaps sounding the death knell for the man who was about to meet his end.
With a swish, the advancing Fuli raised his arm.
"Next time we meet, I'll buy you a drink."
The half-empty flask of immortal wine was held high, its reflection in the launcher's surface catching Otto's eye.
"Heh." The man chuckled softly, preparing to pull the trigger on the frantically charging core of Ella.
"Is it worth it?"
A clear voice, identical to his own, sounded slowly from behind him.
A blond man, identical to him, stood there. The noble Overseer of Schicksal, his expression unusually complex.
"She's just a fake Kallen, isn't she?" Otto said softly. "To gain a self after countless cycles, yet willingly give it all up for a forgery? Is it worth it?"
As if presenting the world with its final scene, a light rain began to fall from the sky.
Opening his hand to catch a drop, Otto turned his head, his expression gentle. "She isn't your Kallen. But she is my Kallen."
—Thus spoke my Apocalypse.
He pulled the trigger. An endless light and heat consumed all that remained of Kolosten.
On this day, the time that had stood still for Otto for countless years finally began to flow.
Now, he could laugh at his powerless fate.
He laughed at how weak this fate was.
It couldn't even hold on to a mediocre nobody like him.
He said: I am going to a place much farther away.
And so he set off.
He left the land that had poisoned him for so long.
He met the venomous and furious gaze of fate.
He was no longer afraid.
He broke free from fate.
He broke free from time.
He broke free from suffering.
He broke free from everything.
He broke free from all the shackles and chains that had been placed upon him.
And so, he flew toward the vast distance, full of hope.
Just as in the beginning.
He came into this world, full of hope.
...
The sound of hurried footsteps echoed in the cold, white corridor.
The person's name was Amber. She was a cybernetic clone created from Kallen's genes and later mechanically modified, and also the secretary-general to the Schicksal Overseer.
As mentioned before, after Otto moved the Schicksal headquarters to the floating islands above the Mediterranean Sea, he also used the Aether Anchor technology to move the seven-layered heaven bubble universe here.
And just now, Amber had been sent to the lowest layer, the Heaven of Saturn, to check on the situation at the Throne of God.
Normally, with Ella, the grand steward of Schicksal, having rebelled, Amber should have been assisting Otto in suppressing her.
And in fact, that was the case. She had been the one to summon the current Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and arrange for them to enter the virtual space to assist Fuli in defeating Ella.
However, upon detecting the disturbance in the Heaven of Saturn, she, the secretary-general, had immediately dropped everything and rushed to the Throne of God to check the situation.
After confirming that the seal on that Son of God was intact and waiting for a while to make sure nothing else happened, she had hurried back.
"Lord Otto!"
The large doors in front of her slid open. Amber, panting slightly, arrived at the Final Command, the Overseer's office.
"...Ah, it's you, Amber."
The blond figure standing by the floor-to-ceiling window came back to his senses.
A peerlessly handsome face, a gentle and refined tone, combined with a tall, elegant figure and a position above hundreds of millions of people—this was undoubtedly an existence that would make most people in the world feel ashamed of their own inadequacy.
"There's no need to rush," Otto said, swirling the crimson liquid in his wine glass.
Seeing the man still chatting and laughing, Amber's tense body unconsciously relaxed.
She asked, "Lord Otto, Ella...?"
"We have regained full control of the Celestial Neuron Assembly. Although the AI personality is still hanging on by a thread, its failure is only a matter of time."
The wine glass in his hand dissipated into golden light. Otto sat back down on the throne that symbolized the highest authority in Schicksal.
He rested his chin on one hand, his eyes seeming to hold countless swirling stars. "Did you find anything? About that Son of God."
"Yes." Amber hesitated for a moment before raising her hand to the high-tech B-type visor she wore.
"The reason that Saint's power was released was because someone made a wish to his virtual counterpart."
A true Grand Herrscher of the Sequences could already pierce through virtual and reality. Even if the one in the Kolosten bubble was just a reflection, it could be considered the real person.
"A wish?" Otto was intrigued. "Who?"
"Kallen."
Otto's breath hitched.
Amber continued, "To be precise, it was a Kallen from an unknown number of cycles ago."
"That Kallen Kaslana also broke into the lowest layer of Schicksal, the Heaven of Saturn. At the end of her life, she humbly made a wish to the Son of God on the cross."
He answered her prayer.
Not because God loves the world, nor because they shared the Kaslana name.
Only a prayer that was not for one's own selfish gain would be answered by him.
"The wish Kallen made was to be able to leave words inside the Oath of Judah that would not be erased by the reset and could be preserved forever."
Why, in the previous cycles, was Kallen always able to arrive in time to stop 'his' suicide attempts, again and again?
Extremely rarely, Otto's hand trembled for a moment.
He was silent for a moment before pulling up the data of Judah from the virtual world.
[To the me of the future, I beg you, save him!]
[Save that idiot of a great inventor!]
Words like these were densely written on the inside of Judah.
Yes, even though her memory was reset every time, even though her experiences were never the same.
The idiot named Kallen Kaslana had made the exact same choice every single time.
This was the Saintess!
This... was Kallen.
"Heh."
Otto closed his eyes and shook his head, everything from five hundred years ago replaying in his mind.
There was a song in the old version of Ji Gong called "Half a Face," with a line that went:
"Half a face cries, half a face laughs."
"Half a face is sad, half a face is happy."
In Amber's opinion, this line was a perfect description of the expression on Otto's face.
He was crying as he laughed.
He was laughing as he cried.
...
Tonight, above the Mediterranean Sea, the moon was bright and the stars were few.
After importing the virtual Otto's data into his memory, for the first time in centuries, Otto Apocalypse had a dream.
In this dream, he seemed to have returned to that night five hundred years ago, kneeling outside the dungeon, begging Kallen to fulfill their marriage contract so he could save her life.
And Kallen, whose faith was greater than anything, unsurprisingly refused, only asking for a glass of red wine before she said goodbye.
However, just as he was turning to leave, planning to follow his sister Risa's instructions and release the Honkai Beasts imprisoned in the lowest level of Schicksal.
With a thud, something fell from the sky.
He hurriedly turned around, just in time to see Kallen, who had spat out a mouthful of red wine, and that boy from Shenzhou who was struggling to pull his head out of the ground.
The boy was unexpectedly super strong. With his help, they successfully broke out of prison, broke into the lowest level of the headquarters, and lifted the curse.
Then, with the help of Eleanor, the knights loyal to Kallen, and Kallen herself at her full power, they overthrew the old Schicksal.
Kallen, by popular demand, became the new Overseer, leading Europe's fight against the Honkai.
He himself served as her advisor, while also opening an orphanage to raise children displaced by the war.
He taught the children to utilize the scientific achievements in the Void Archives, revitalized the economy to make the common people more prosperous, and trained powerful knights and Valkyries to maintain peace.
After that, the now-adult boy from Shenzhou, amidst his own murderous glare and Kallen's gratified laughter, married the also-grown-up Vera, becoming the new face of Schicksal, the hero known as the Blade of deliverance.
Until time turned, decades later, and he and Kallen were old and gray.
It wasn't that they couldn't live on. They just weren't greedy for that little bit of extra time.
Because—
"This life has been satisfying enough!" he had said.
"The future of Schicksal is in your hands now, Lord Blade of deliverance!" Grandma Kallen reached out and, as usual, pinched the boy's still-handsome face.
"Don't look so sad on your first day as Overseer, brother. Cheer up. You're the boss of the world's largest anti-Honkai organization. It's super embarrassing for people to see you crying."
He had also teased with a smile.
"I-I'm just annoyed that you two are shirking your responsibilities and dumping all the work on me!"
Look, still being stubborn.
He was even stuttering.
He and Kallen exchanged a look and couldn't help but smile at the same time.
In that instant, they seemed to see Schicksal continue to grow stronger under the boy's leadership, defeating the Honkai, flying to the stars, and stepping foot on other worlds.
Until they pierced through a thin membrane.
Until they arrived in this cold reality.
Overseer Otto, lying in bed, opened his eyes. The moon above the Mediterranean Sea was exceptionally round.
He pressed the back of his hand to his forehead and let out a complex laugh, its meaning unreadable.
"Heh, how nice."
How nice indeed.
How nice.
...