The Sixth Divine Key—Key of Creation: Abyss Flower.
During the Seventh Honkai Eruption, this Divine Key displayed tremendous power. Paired with Elias' [Lilium Sanguineum], it was able to reverse the otherwise unstoppable Honkai Eruption. Thus, after the Seventh Herrscher was defeated, Fire Moth immediately began searching for this Divine Key.
They were determined to return this holy lance to Elias' hands.
However, due to the oversight of a certain genius inventor who forgot to install a locator on such an important Divine Key, Fire Moth's search did not go smoothly.
Still, four days ago, Helixcraft's mecha unit, with help from local residents, managed to find a lead on the Divine Key. But during the search, all the mechs were scrapped due to mysterious Honkai energy corrosion.
Vill-V reported this to Dr. Mei, who immediately dispatched Ato, an Emperor-level fusion warrior, to continue tracking down Abyss Flower.
That should have been more than enough.
Yet during the mission, Ato encountered a mysterious woman. Before he could even approach her, he was inexplicably overcome by Honkai energy corrosion and collapsed.
Just before he lost consciousness, he heard the woman say: "If you wish to retrieve the Key of Creation, Elias must come in person."
...
Inside the hospital ward.
"That's how it is. So, our great hero Elias, do you have anything to say? Clearly she's after you. As the one carrying out the mission, I have reason to suspect this is your old lover, here to collect a debt!"
Ato spoke righteously.
"Uncle Ato, you're despicable! I worked so hard helping you take care of your daughter, and you dare to frame me like this! I'll sue you for slander! Griseo, your father's a bad man!"
Elias spoke with grief and indignation.
"You bastard! You call that helping me take care of her? You've clearly stolen my daughter! And stop clinging to my Griseo! Elias, I'll drag you down with me!"
Ato gnashed his teeth. For a doting father, this was worse than death itself. He was just about to add more fuel to the fire, to throw Elias into a hopeless situation, when…
"I hate bad Daddy. Don't bully Big Brother Elias."
Cute little Griseo wielded Frostmourne as she stepped onto the battlefield, finishing off her own father with a single line.
Elias froze for a moment, then celebrated Griseo's victory right in front of Ato—kisses, hugs, lifting her high in the air—all while delivering another fatal blow to the father whose HP was already like a candle in the wind.
If his system tracked achievements, Elias would surely have unlocked [Nemesis of Fathers-in-Law]. After all, whether it was Siegfried, Raiden Ryoma, or Ato, he had defeated them all.
"Cough, cough! Eli, about this mysterious woman—are you really sure you have no clue?"
Elysia coughed lightly, looking very concerned.
Elias firmly shook his head in denial.
"None at all! Not even the slightest! My dear Elysia, you know me. Am I the type to sneak around behind your back? Obviously not!"
"Yes, that's true. My dear Eli, you've always done things openly."
Elysia pressed a hand to her forehead. In this regard, she trusted her boyfriend completely.
Elias would never sneak around, because whether it was Mobius, Eden, or anyone else, it all happened right under her nose.
At that thought, Ely felt like spitting blood.
"Alright, enough speculation. What Ato said might be possible, but the probability is low. That mysterious woman is clearly not ordinary," Mei said, arms crossed.
After all, an Emperor-level fusion warrior had incredibly high resistance to Honkai energy. Yet Ato had nearly died just by getting close.
She then projected data into the air—the recent Honkai energy concentration measurements from Australia.
"Ever since Elias' blood flowers scattered across Australia, the Honkai energy was nearly wiped out. Yet in recent days, several places suddenly showed Herrscher-level Honkai energy reactions. It seems this must also be connected to that woman."
"Mei, why are we only finding out now?"
"Because it didn't trigger a full Honkai Eruption, and the readings kept appearing and disappearing intermittently. Our people thought the instruments were malfunctioning."
"..."
Elias frowned. In his memory, there was no record of such a scenario. After pacing back and forth, thinking for a long time, a sudden thought struck him.
(No way… could it be…)
"Ato! Did you see what that woman looked like?" Elias hurriedly asked. He had a bold suspicion.
"Uh… I blacked out before I could get close, but I caught one glimpse. She was very beautiful, with long white hair—like yours. I can't remember anything else."
Long white hair?
Instantly, everyone's eyes turned toward Elias. They weren't doubting whether he had another woman anymore—they were wondering if she might be his blood relative.
After all, Ato's experience felt strangely familiar.
According to his account, the mysterious woman constantly released terrifying amounts of Honkai energy, enough to corrode even a fusion warrior.
Elias, by contrast, constantly released Holy Blood that erased Honkai energy—enough to suppress even fusion warriors.
Precisely because of this stark opposition, the resemblance felt uncanny.
Right now, countless biologists were curious about Elias' origins—especially the source of his bloodline. His Holy Blood seemed far too deliberately targeted against Honkai.
This white-haired youth with Holy Blood was like a gift from heaven to humanity, born to strike back against Honkai.
Unfortunately, like countless other "children of destiny," the section for Elias' parents remained blank, leaving no way to trace his lineage.
"Mei, send me the coordinates. I'll go right now," Elias said seriously.
"So you've thought of something. Do you need me to send people with you?" Mei asked.
"No need. This started because of me, and only I can resolve it." Elias shook his head.
He stepped onto the windowsill, confirmed the coordinates, then unfurled his dragon wings and took off at supersonic speed toward the location.
"If it really is what I suspect… then this would truly be an unbelievable miracle," Elias muttered.
...
Northern forests of Australia.
It was winter. The remote land lay blanketed in snow, a vast expanse of white. Yet the woman standing there felt no cold.
Seven full days had passed since this "woman" was born. In that time, she had neither eaten nor drunk, yet felt no weakness or hunger.
Because she was not a normal human. In fact… she was not human at all.
Roar—!
Howl—!
Clank—!
Suddenly, hordes of Honkai Beasts appeared—Chariot-class, Templar-class, even Emperor-level. Monsters that spelled certain death for ordinary people. Yet in the woman's eyes, there was only deep pity and sympathy.
"You poor things…"
In the next instant, those newly-born Honkai Beasts collapsed lifelessly with agonized cries. From birth to destruction, less than five seconds passed.
The pity in the woman's eyes deepened.
"The spawn point was too close to me. If they'd been born farther away, perhaps they could have lived a while longer… though in the end they would still have been slain by his subordinates."
After speaking, she gave a bitter, self-mocking smile.
Why pity these Honkai Beasts?
In truth, she should envy them.
Even these mindless creatures possessed the ability to die. But she could not. Whether by cutting her own throat, plunging into an icy lake to feel cold and suffocation, or any other method…
She could not die.
For her, merely existing was an incurable disease.
"No, there's still hope—there's still hope for me!"
The woman shook her head hard, as though trying to shake out the despair of being unable to die.
She knelt in the snowy field, clutching a white knight's lance tightly in her arms, as if embracing her only salvation.
"If it's him… then he can definitely save me—kill me. He definitely can!"
She repeated it to herself like a mantra, hugging the knight's lance even tighter.
This Divine Key, Abyss Flower, was a weapon extremely important to that boy. As long as she held on to it, she believed he would eventually come to her.
Thus, these past days she had always carried the holy lance with her.
Whether Honkai Beasts, mechs, or even fusion warriors—until she saw the boy she longed for, she would never hand over this Divine Key to anyone else.
And finally, at that very moment—
"He's here!"
The woman suddenly looked up toward the distant sky.
Boom—!
In the next instant, the white-haired boy descended from above.
A huge cloud of snow was blasted into the air, obscuring his figure. Though it would scatter within seconds, the woman could not bear even that short wait. With a thought, she erased the snow instantly.
The moment Elias' figure entered her vision, her whole body trembled uncontrollably. Fear, longing, guilt, desire—countless emotions welled up inside her. It was the closest she had ever felt to being human.
"So it really is as I thought."
Elias also saw her clearly now.
She bore the exact same appearance as the S-rank Valkyrie, Cecilia Schariac—snow-white hair, aquamarine eyes, a saintly face like a holy maiden.
At this moment, she clutched the holy lance to her chest, gazing at him like a sinner awaiting judgment from the god she had longed to meet.
"Hello, my beautiful Miss Stigma," Elias greeted her.
"You… you know what I am?"
Her eyes widened in surprise, but she quickly relaxed. Of course he would know. Ordinary people might never understand her existence, but Elias was different.
After all, she had been born because of him.
She was the crystallization of the Schariac stigma.
A being from the far side of Imaginary Space—the "Stigma Space"—taking human form. The first proven example of an [Idea] in human shape!
"What a miracle. The Herrscher of the Void's power, the Schariac stigma, Holy Blood pushed to the extreme, and Abyss Flower's zeroth output rate… even with all these impossibly harsh conditions gathered together, the chance of your birth was still less than one in ten thousand."
Elias couldn't help but marvel. Even as the one who had indirectly caused this, he had never imagined such a miracle could happen. For a moment, he wondered if he was dreaming.
Yet the fused stigma on his back—the Schariac portion—was resonating in silent confirmation.
It told him that the woman before him, with Cecilia Schariac's face, truly was the end point of the stigma's connection: the Stigma Space itself.
(Though I carry the Schariac stigma, it originally came from Cecilia. So even if through me [Idea] was realized, Hare still took Cecilia's form… Hm, that's fine. If she had been born with my face, I would never be able to accept it.)
Elias quietly praised the outcome in his heart.
"As expected of you. You saw through my essence and the reason for my birth at a glance. How should I address you? Elias? Master? Father? Or…"
"Call me whatever you like. And I didn't figure it all out in one glance—I just already knew such a possibility existed."
Elias shook his head. He wasn't some analytical genius—
…Well, he was, thanks to the Herrscher of Reason's power.
But in this case, he knew her essence and origin because he already knew the story.
The reason this "Stigma Space" had descended into the world in human form was because he had used [Lilium Sanguineum], pushing the Schariac stigma to its absolute limit.
Together with the Herrscher of the Void's power within him, the barriers between reality and the Imaginary were briefly broken.
A miracle born from a probability less than one in ten thousand.
In the original story, this existence should have been created by Cecilia during the Second Eruption of the Current Era. Yet here in the Previous Era, Elias had inadvertently brought it into being.
To be honest, Elias himself was bewildered. The Stigma Project hadn't even started yet, and somehow an [Idea] had already been realized.
"As your stigma, I believe I understand you better than anyone else in this world… and yet, my understanding is still incomplete."
The young woman of the stigma gave a bitter smile, lamenting the boy's mystery. But the next moment, she lowered her head in repentance.
"I'm sorry. I failed my mission as the Schariac stigma. I sullied the great work you created, becoming the complete opposite of you… a monster who brings only death."
As an [Idea], she had been born already knowing language, knowledge, morality, even her own nature and origin.
And so—she despaired.
That day, when the white-haired boy cast the bloodstained holy lance, he saved tens of millions of lives. At the same time, he broke through the Imaginary and gave the Schariac stigma space the chance to descend into the world.
That should have been a birth filled with pride and honor.
A miraculous salvation worthy of being recorded in history. She was born from the boy's noble and beautiful ideal of "saving everyone."
But instead, she had become the opposite of that kindness—an agent of disaster.
The Schariac stigma carried two contradictory traits:
First: the Holy Blood that erased Honkai energy.
Second: the body that amplified Honkai energy.
That was why Elias' blood could purge Honkai, but his body itself could amplify it, turning 1 HW into 10 HW.
Elias had pushed the first trait to its utmost, allowing him to counter a Herrscher's Honkai Eruption. But she had pushed the second trait to its limit—becoming a moving, high-intensity source of Honkai energy.
Every moment she released terrifying Honkai energy. Its range wasn't large, but the intensity far surpassed a Herrscher's—on par with Elias' own 30,000 HW.
Wherever she walked, became hell.
Australia, which had been purified by the boy's blood flowers into a haven safe from Honkai, was once again corroded by her existence. Anyone who came near her was instantly killed by the overwhelming Honkai energy. Even Honkai Beasts couldn't withstand it.
Some once said that within catastrophe there was ecstasy—that destruction and ruin could be seductive.
But that was merely the wicked desire born of humanity's dark side.
She was a stigma—one rooted in salvation. For her, bringing ruin was like forcing a patriot to betray their country. It was unforgivable. And so…
"Please, Master, kill me."
The Schariac stigma woman lifted Elias' hands to her neck, tears brimming in her eyes, begging for death.
Since realizing she was a monster who brought only ruin, she had tried dozens, hundreds of ways to die.
But even with a human form, her essence was still that of the "Stigma Space." No blade, no fire, no slit throat or pierced heart could end her.
Her last hope was Elias.
And yet…
"Sorry. I don't think I can do it either. In this era… your existence is practically invincible."
Elias sighed. To completely kill an [Idea]? He thought it might be easier to take down the Herrscher of Binding instead…
—
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