"But I'm not sure what effect this will have on you personally...
"You might be consumed as part of the passage, you might be thrown into unknown temporal turbulence, or... nothing might happen at all.
"What will happen during the process? What will the result be? I don't know either.
"With my authority, I could actually just start directly without regard for your wishes, but—"
She bowed slightly, an ancient and solemn gesture of courtesy.
"I ask for your consent."
The two who had found their way here out of fear fell silent.
That gesture had thoroughly clarified Yun Mengxi's attitude. It was a clumsy yet incomparably sincere "plea."
The silence lasted for several seconds.
Amidst the radiance of the superimposed state, it was hard to distinguish who spoke first, or if it was their shared consciousness asking.
That overlapping voice trembled, yet was exceptionally clear.
"Are you... confident it will succeed?"
...
Yun Mengxi was stunned.
She hadn't expected that their primary concern wasn't their own safety, but the success or failure of the endeavor.
Immediately, a scorching current surged from her heart—still beating like a human's—to every limb and bone.
She straightened her back, her face revealing the most brilliant, unclouded smile of the night. That smile contained all the resolve precipitated through her reincarnations.
And her most paranoid faith in "beauty."
"On this matter alone—!"
Her voice was resolute, echoing in the night sky:
"I will absolutely! Absolutely succeed! I swear it on my entire 'existence'!"
This was the firmest declaration she could make as the "Herrscher of the Past," after realizing the true potential and cost of her authority.
She would "reject" the fate of this branch withering, "reject" that this beauty was merely a fleeting flash!
Even if she had to bet everything.
The glow of the superimposed state flickered violently.
Immediately following, with almost no hesitation, two voices rang out simultaneously:
"Okay."
Sometimes, shrinking back and compromising... is not due to incompetence or cowardice.
It's because the path ahead is pitch black, with no sight of what success looks like, and no direction for effort.
Now, she had laid the 'result' and 'confidence' right out in the open... so what reason did she/he have to retreat?
Of course, the mere possibility of success wasn't enough for two ordinary people dominated by fear to so easily hand over their lives.
What truly made them nod without hesitation was that, in this very moment, they could sense with incredible clarity...
The other person was right here.
The reincarnations they had experienced were far too short, so short they couldn't even see the entirety of each other's lives.
But just now, in that moment of hesitation, the two finally distinguished each other.
Ana could "see" her own reflection in Chen Tianwu's eyes, could "sense" the fine sweat seeping from his palms due to nervousness, and could "read" the fragmented images of the future within his memories.
She saw the countless inhuman torments that "Chen Tianwu" endured to save "Ana," and the desperate journey of having to erase his own memories repeatedly to maintain the purity of the "resurrection."
She could see the loneliness and pain that penetrated deep into his marrow.
Similarly, Chen Tianwu could "feel" in Ana's memories the resolution and fear of the "future" Ana when she pushed him away at the last moment to face death alone.
And the guilt she buried deep within herself after realizing she had survived, believing she had "cowardly given up."
This guilt was great precisely because of that fear.
Those tragic and deeply affectionate memories belonging to the "future" surged like a tide into the hearts of the currently "cowardly" pair.
They saw what price the other had paid for them in another timeline.
They touched that scorching emotion that crossed world lines and twisted causality without ever extinguishing.
Fear still existed; the dread of the unknown hadn't diminished in the slightest.
But...
If it was to truly stand side by side again...
If it was so the "self" in the "future" who chose the other wouldn't have sacrificed in vain...
This little bit of risk...
Just this trivial risk—
How could it possibly stop their determination to see each other one more time?!
"Tell us—" They spoke in unison, burning their boats behind them: "What should we do?"
Yun Mengxi suddenly felt a stinging in her eyes. She was never some cold-blooded creature with a high tear threshold.
It was for the courage born from fear, and for this bond that spanned across world lines.
She nodded vigorously, then raised her hand and placed it gently on her chest, which began to twinkle with crystalline starlight.
That was the sign that her authority as the core of this world's "branch," named [The Past], was beginning to boil over completely.
"Please, stand where I can see you."
"Then, trust me."
She clasped her hands together in front of her chest, as if holding an invisible heart, aiming at the warm and firm glow of the superimposed state at the edge of the rooftop.
Outside the city, the roars of Honkai Beasts and the boom of battle grew more intense.
Inside the city, the "carnival" continued, ignorant of the ultimate metamorphosis about to arrive.
The surgery to graft reality and hope—
Began with fear, was achieved through courage, and concluded with a shared greed for a "beautiful tomorrow."
The light started as fireflies, then became like moonlight, and finally flowed into a silent silver waterfall, flowing upstream to gently wrap around the glow of the superimposed state at the edge of the rooftop.
The figures of Ana and Chen Tianwu trembled slightly within the light, as if becoming two keys dropped into water, rippling outward endlessly.
There was no earth-shattering boom, no hideous cracks of shattered space.
The change began with the stripping away of sound.
The roar of artillery at the city's edge, the shrieks of Honkai Beasts, the clear whistle of Fu Hua's sword qi cutting through the air, even the lingering laughter and music on the streets...
All these sounds belonging to "tonight" in this world began to fade layer by layer, gently covered and absorbed by a grander "silence."
Like a drop of ink falling into the deep sea, rippling out circles carrying memories.
Next came the weaving of light.
The stardust-like points of light dissipating from around Yun Mengxi no longer flowed only toward the rooftop.
Like reverse snow, they drifted over the entire city.
Beneath the Pearl of Sapphire tower, a young man looking up at the sky suddenly blinked.
He seemed to see a phantom of a slightly older, worn tower vaguely overlapping the edges of the giant tower above him, which was flashing with the lights of the "Project Dreamweaver."
The new and old tower shadows rotated slowly like twin flower petals. The new gradually solidified, while the old slowly faded, the process as gentle as alternating butterfly wings.
This change centered on the Pearl of Sapphire, silently blooming outward.
Within the textures of the streets of the old world, tiny cracks and repair marks of the new world quietly grew.
The brilliant but slightly floating neon of the old world was gradually dyed with the years of smoke and fire and the dim mottling of energy shortages from the main trunk world.
Inside the windows of office buildings empty due to the "mandatory holiday" in the old world, the scattered lights that should exist in the main trunk world at this moment, and the weary figures bent over desks, slowly emerged...
This was not a crude overwriting, but an exquisitely marvelous tapestry weaving.
Using the superimposed pair as the warp and weft, and Yun Mengxi's entire obsession and authority as the silk thread.
Weaving, inlaying, and fusing this branch carrying the "most beautiful moment" and "all the struggles of tonight" into the historical canvas of the Sapphire City of the main trunk world—a canvas tattered by the Honkai and worn by time.
The "perfection" of the old branch gently repaired the "scars" of the main trunk.
The "reality" of the main trunk steadily anchored the "existence" of the branch.
And Yun Mengxi's figure gradually became transparent in the center of the silver waterfall of light.
She could feel her "connection" with this world being gently severed.
It was a return—her will and authority as the core of the "branch" were transforming into the purest "blessing" and "information," merging into the fundamental laws of the main trunk world along with the grafting process.
She saw Sister Himeko wake up, confused but safe.
She saw Senior Fu Hua sheathe her sword, returning to tranquility.
She saw Natasha clutching the pocket watch, relief in her tears.
She also "saw" that in the Sapphire City of the main trunk world, the blocks once destroyed by the Honkai were being gently repaired by the "intact blueprint" from her branch.
The "traces" and "possibilities" of existence for those lives lost in the disaster were woven more gently into the memory folds of the world.
The courage, sacrifice, love, and hope that happened here tonight... all of it fell like invisible seeds into the soil of the main trunk world, to sprout in the future.
Her body became lighter and lighter, but her consciousness expanded wider and wider.
Finally, she looked toward the night sky that accepted all of this, seeming to penetrate dimensions to see that more solid, yet crueler "main trunk" timeline, seeing the people there continuing their struggle and advance.
No regrets, only overflowing, limpid gratitude and well-wishes.
She used the last shred of her clear consciousness to turn her blessing into words unheard by anyone, but branded deeply into the bottom layer of the world.
"May your dawn always be guided by starlight."
"May your long nights always have an unextinguished lamp."
"May scars eventually become medals, may partings all have echoes."
"May this moment of brilliance I stole..."
Her figure completely dissolved into light dust flying through the sky, like billions of awakening fireflies, spiraling upward, finally gently seeping into every inch of air, every ray of light, and every heart beating for tomorrow in this world where new and old blended.
"...be able to light your way, on a very, very long road."
The light dust dispersed.
The night wind flowed.
A city both familiar and brand new, after a silent ritual known to no one, ushered in its first true—
Tomorrow.
Connected to infinite possibilities.
...
"In the end... I really have to thank you..."
"You really trust your partners, don't you~"
The little girl's whisper slowly faded in the wind, and Shu, the only one who could hear these words, slowly opened his eyes, silent without a word.