At the edge of the rooftop, the figures of Ana and Chen Tianwu flickered slightly like a holographic image with an unstable signal.
Their silhouettes blended into each other. They were not two people existing simultaneously, but rather presenting a stranger, superimposed state.
"Both Ana and Chen Tianwu."
In the "predestined" river of time of the main world, Ana was the one who should have died.
It was Chen Tianwu who, in a future that should have become set in stone, gathered the authority of a full six Herrschers and forcibly twisted the script with a mighty power that bordered on tampering with causality.
He grafted the branch where "Ana survives" into the new "main trunk," leaving the world where "Chen Tianwu survives" as a pruned, abandoned possibility.
Regardless of which possibility it was, they were originally there, never having been changed.
This monumental feat of stealing the sky and changing the sun tore a "rift" at the base of the world—tiny, yet extraordinarily significant.
It proved that history was not a monolith, nor did the future flow in a single direction.
The world was not an inevitable main trunk, but more like an "Imaginary Tree" with infinite branching possibilities.
Every choice, every miracle, every cry of unwillingness could potentially spawn a brand-new branch.
And the two people in the superimposed state before her eyes were the living wound left by that "grafting," walking proof of the truth that "the past is not immutable!"
Lying on the buffer net, when Yun Mengxi's gaze penetrated the glow of that superimposed state and touched the fear and confusion nearly overflowing in their eyes, the perception belonging to a "Herrscher" and her reviving memories instantly connected, allowing her to understand their state and origin.
Meanwhile, what flashed through her mind was Shu, whom Fu Hua had once mentioned to her.
That pioneer in another world who, for the grand and nearly impossible dream of "reforging civilization," had almost burned his own soul and existence to ashes.
Initially... wasn't that the very posture she admired?
Not because of how great the dream itself was, but because of that resolution to pour everything into what one believed in without looking back.
Her brother Yun Feng gave up his personal dream for family responsibility; that was a sacrifice.
But Shu staked everything he had for a slimmer, more distant "possibility."
The former made her heart ache; the latter... had ignited a small flame in the bottom of her heart.
Fortunately... she was still that Yun Mengxi who believed "If one hears the Way in the morning, one can die in the evening without regret."
Now, that small flame was blown into a raging fire by the possibility represented by the "superimposed state" before her.
Her original plan was that after sending away Himeko and the other "foreign variables," she would act like an old person who had fulfilled their last wish, quietly accompanying this "branch of dreams"—which she had meticulously constructed but was destined to wither—to dissipate silently into the shadows of the Imaginary Tree together.
This was the final act she had written for herself as both creator and prisoner.
But the appearance of the "superimposed state" was like lightning splitting chaos, shattering the future she had arranged into dust.
If... if even the "determined" main trunk history could be grafted with a brand-new, more beautiful branch...
Then could her "world branch," born of "unwillingness" and solidifying the most beautiful moment...
Also possibly not be a "falsehood" destined to wither, but a "real" new possibility that could be grafted back onto the main trunk, allowing that "beauty" to truly continue?
This thought made her shudder all over. It was a near-suffocating ecstasy and hope.
She wanted to try to anchor and send Sapphire City—this "bubble universe" formed by her obsession—back through the living "grafting port" of Ana/Chen Tianwu before her, and even graft it onto the Imaginary Tree of the main world!
Not as a phantom about to dissipate, but as a small yet real new bud carrying the "tonight" and "tomorrow" of countless people!
However, when she focused her gaze on the superimposed pair themselves, the emotions she read were not the enlightenment of any "mission bearers."
In their perspective, at the end of the first loop, they were struggling to move the survivors from the police station along the path cleared by Fu Hua and the others.
But the world seemed to be suddenly wiped by an eraser. Everyone around them, including each other, vanished in an instant.
The world left only them standing alone on the strange yet familiar streets of the second loop, watching helplessly as the Honkai descended without warning, turning the city into purgatory before their eyes.
Before they could recover from the shock, the third loop reset again. They "saw" the Herrscher of Evolution erupt, and the horrific sight of Sapphire City being reduced to powder by the aftermath.
Finally, they appeared abruptly at this moment in the fourth loop, seeing Yun Mengxi's city-shaking livestream on the large screens in the streets.
There was no mystical connection, no innate sense of mission.
They were just two ordinary people terrified by the continuous, incomprehensible horror of the loops.
In the future Ana's memory, she had "cowardly" abandoned Chen Tianwu.
The current Chen Tianwu had not yet experienced that desperate journey of the future where he would spare no cost, even erasing his own memories repeatedly, to save Ana.
The "two" in the superimposed state right now shared a core of fear and cowardice.
Finding Yun Mengxi was the most primal instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm. She was the most conspicuous target in this massive anomaly, the most likely "source" or "insider."
Finding her might mean finding shelter, finding an explanation, finding... a way to survive.
They were different from Himeko and the others... right now, they were just ordinary people.
Yun Mengxi slowly sat up from the buffer net, looking up at the flickering figures on the edge of the rooftop.
The night breeze blew her messy long hair. The confusion and fatigue in her eyes had faded, replaced by a trace of apology.
"I see it." She spoke, her voice not loud, but strangely penetrating the wind and the distant noise to reach the bottom of their hearts. "Your 'state,' and your... fear."
The superimposed figures of Ana and Chen Tianwu seemed to fluctuate.
"I have a request... no, it's a 'delusion' that can only be realized with your assistance."
Yun Mengxi stood up, patting non-existent dust from her gown, her movements carrying a steadiness accumulated over several reincarnations.
"I want to make an attempt using that special anchoring power from the 'main trunk' in you, combined with all my authority as the holder of this world's 'branch.'
"I want to truly, permanently fix this city, everything that happened tonight, and this 'beauty' that so many people fought for.
"Not in this looping cage, but by grafting it onto the 'real' World Tree you came from."