Michael didn't know when he had collapsed to the ground. He knew the other Michael wasn't lying.
To get one chance to meet Elysia, he had personally destroyed human civilization hundreds of billions of times, even when that civilization contained others he admired, felt close to, and loved.
All of it was real, an undeniable sin.
Although he could argue in his defense—the entire universe's time was stagnant, no one knew hundreds of billions of civilizations had perished here.
But in the world, anything that has truly happened will inevitably leave a trace.
The Finality Crater and the Sea of Quanta faithfully recorded every cycle… Besides, even if truly no one knew, does an unknown sin cease to be a sin?
He could also argue that these were the sins committed by the other Michael. He was a new personality, a new Michael, and these sins had nothing to do with him.
But was that really true? He was split off as the other side of the personality, becoming a unique individual within this era. But in the far more distant past, during those hundreds of billions of cycles, he had always been a part of the original Michael.
Even if, even if this obsessive plan was proposed and executed by the other personality facet—the one Finality Michael currently embodied—did he, as the other half, truly have no part in the decision? He must have either tacitly agreed or secretly supported it…
No matter how he spun it, he couldn't absolve himself of this portion of the sin.
With that thought, the boundaries of his self began to blur. He could no longer tell which Michael he was… He wasn't even sure if he was Michael anymore.
Seeing his utterly defeated state, Finality Michael let out a contemptuous sneer:
"Your kind of personality is truly detestable. I don't know what kind of rotten luck it was that the world's rules erased me back then… You were the dominant consciousness controlling this body at the time, it's truly illogical!
"If it had been me! If I had become the Herrscher of Reason from the start… Heh, forget it, talking about this is useless now."
Seeing Michael still unresponsive, he grabbed Michael's arm, roughly hauled him up, and then punched him down again:
"Do you want a repeat of what happened during the Seventh Honkai Eruption, you waste!"
Even after being knocked to the ground, Michael's head was still swimming. What should he do now, what was he here to do? All his wishes, all his dreams, all his obsessions blurred into obscurity at this moment.
"Waste! Waste! Waste! Waste! Waste!"
Finality Michael straddled him, pummeling his face, perhaps venting the resentment accumulated over hundreds of billions of fifty-thousand-year cycles of solitude, or perhaps it was pure disgust for the personality facet he inherently disliked.
But was this really Michael? Was this truly the original Michael?
No, it wasn't. The one who inherited the original Michael's authority now was likely the so-called Michael No. 2. If so, his resentment and disgust towards Michael weren't strange at all.
Smack!
After taking countless blows, Michael finally raised a hand and caught the other Michael's fist.
"Hmph! What, feeling a bit clearer now?"
Michael, his face swollen like a pig's head, opened his mouth futilely.
Just as the other Michael raised his fist again, ready to make him even clearer, Michael finally spoke—
"So… what do we do next… so we can save Ely, save the whole world?"
"Hmph! Finally…"
Michael was yanked up again. After the sudden burst of rage, the other Michael's mental state seemed to stabilize somewhat, at least enough to patiently explain things again.
Of course, for the sake of his so-called "final step," he had to explain.
"Simple. Let me be blunt—the path you envisioned has absolutely no chance of success!"
"What do you mean…"
"To save the world, Elysia must be sacrificed. Only by wanting to save Elysia can the world be saved."
Finality paused, speaking again before Michael could ask:
"Actually, for the me before this era, if I wanted to, I could control the Honkai. With Mei's intellect, making Honkai Energy usable by humanity was just a matter of time—but in this era, I can no longer do that, and you cannot obtain the true power of Finality either."
"Why…"
As the word left Michael's mouth, he belatedly understood.
"Because… Ugh! Hmph…"
Finality suddenly slapped himself twice. The force was so great it made Michael's eyelids twitch—he hit himself harder than he had hit Michael.
But before Michael could ponder the reason, Finality grabbed his collar, lifted him up, and roared hysterically at him:
"I said before… Because of what? Because of what! Because of Elysia! Origin is part of the Cocoon of Finality, her body is part of the Cocoon of Finality! Only when she returns to Finality will this power be complete! And she… even if she doesn't want to, due to the powerful centripetal force between Origin and Finality, she will inevitably return here, becoming part of Finality again—that is her inescapable fate! Do you understand!"
"I…"
Michael managed only one word before being violently interrupted again:
"If you want to become Finality to save this world, you don't need to make any sacrifice at all! Because you, because I, as Finality, cannot die even if we wanted to! The only one who truly must be sacrificed is Elysia!"
"Then… what if… we choose to save Elysia?"
The smile on Finality's face instantly bloomed:
"Guess why you exist?"
Finality turned around, opening his arms wide as if embracing this hard-won victory:
"That's right! Your birth, from the very beginning, was to replace Elysia, to become the sacrifice that completes Finality's authority! Yes, yes! Aren't you the same as her? You are both halves of Finality—she is the physical half of the Cocoon of Finality, and you are the personality half of Finality!
"Originally, you weren't qualified. But, just as I planned, completely unaware of her own authority, she bestowed her ability upon you—yes, the Authority of Origin is to act as Finality's heart, connecting the other Herrscher authorities. She used her ability on you, making you the vessel capable of containing all twelve Herrscher authorities. Although the Authority of Corruption hasn't arrived yet… it's close enough."
"Yes, yes, yes, yes! You are the new Cocoon of Finality! As long as your body completes the part Origin took away, and your consciousness pays the price to sever the threads of fate, I can regain complete control over the Authority of Finality. Then…"
Finality turned back, his face radiant with a blissful smile:
"Then, I can create a world without Honkai, but with Elysia. Then, I, as Michael, as Finality, will be with her, the Origin, forever, living eternally…"
"And the only price for all of this is the dissipation of your personality and consciousness. Besides you, no one will know what happened here, nor will they be affected. Elysia won't be sad either, because we are fundamentally one; she could never tell the difference…"
Perhaps due to nervousness, perhaps due to excitement, Michael began swallowing frantically.
But Finality was already impatient. He lunged forward, grabbing Michael's shoulders, shaking his body, roaring anxiously:
"You're willing, right? You're definitely willing, right! Weren't you prepared to sacrifice yourself from the start! Elysia is saved, and the world is saved too! Isn't this the perfect win-win solution you've always dreamed of? What are you still hesitating for? Agree quickly! Agree quickly! Hurry up and say you're willing!"
Michael's body swayed back and forth, but he remained unmoved, simply lowering his head silently.
Memories of the past twelve years flashed through his mind like a fleeting shadow. Compared to the memories that had previously flooded his brain, these twelve years felt too short, too insignificant, too weightless.
But, these were the easiest, happiest, most beautiful twelve years since the personality "Michael" was born from the Cocoon of Finality.
Just the thought that, from now on, he would lose everything he possessed, that these twelve years of beautiful memories would no longer have any connection to him but be taken over by another self, made him tremble with fear.
His vision blurred instantly. Not wanting the other Michael to mock him, he quickly shut his eyes, locking the tears welling up from his stinging tear ducts within his eyelids.
Although he had resolved to sacrifice himself before coming here, the longer time dragged on, the more he felt just how cruel sacrifice truly was.
Right. Humans were inherently selfish animals. Only gods could achieve selflessness, and neither the Finality before him nor he himself, Michael, had ever become gods. They were just intensely selfish humans.
One, out of his own selfishness, had overturned and destroyed human civilization hundreds of billions of times.
And the other selfishly regarded the memories of these twelve years with Elysia and the Flame-Chasers as his own, not as possessions under the grand concept of "Michael."
However… as a sacrifice, it was indeed hard to accept, something to be faced with fear.
But if the outcome of the sacrifice was acceptable… was what he had always hoped for…
Thinking this way, sacrifice became acceptable.
After all, sacrificing only himself in exchange for everyone else's happiness—that was the ending he had always pursued, yet one so beautiful he hadn't even dared to dwell on it!
His right hand loosened and clenched, clenched and loosened, repeating three times before gripping tight.
Michael let out a long breath, raised his head again, and met the other Michael's gaze—
"Alright. I'm willing. Let's begin."
As the words fell, blissful smiles appeared simultaneously on both Michaels' faces.
Immediately after, the Imaginary Space they occupied began to rapidly twist and disintegrate.
The once vast sea of stars died out in an instant. Space developed fine cracks like peeling paint, then flaked away in the blink of an eye.
Michael felt the ground beneath him vanish. Before he could react, his feet landed on soft sand.
He looked down to see a sea of blood-red sand. Looking up, he saw a tree far taller, more majestic, and more luxuriant than any he had ever seen before.
The Imaginary Tree radiated a golden light, holy and brilliant. The arrival of the two Michaels, beings close to Finality, only stirred a faint, almost imperceptible breeze, causing its leaves to tremble slightly. The entire space filled with the sole sound of rustling echoes.
But listening closely, one could hear more within the rustling leaves—sometimes joyous laughter, sometimes sorrowful weeping, sometimes despairing silence, sometimes furious roars.
Each fleeting, minuscule sound was proof of the existence of every insignificant life in the three thousand worlds.
This was the true Imaginary Tree, the foundation of the three thousand worlds. Apart from the Sea of Quanta, no force could shake its rules, not even Finality.
As for the one Michael saw after his first metamorphosis, it was merely an illusion created by the other Michael to ensure the plan proceeded smoothly, encouraging him to gradually collect Finality's authorities. Back then, lacking the Authority of Sentience, he naturally couldn't tell the difference.
Back then, he didn't even have a clear concept of Finality versus the Imaginary Space, simply assuming Finality and the Imaginary Tree were equivalent. Naturally, he wouldn't have found it strange—after all, the spatial manifold resulting from the inversion of two Herrschers would surely point to the unique Imaginary singularity, the Cocoon of Finality.
But what meaning was there in dwelling on these things now?
Michael simply tilted his head back, gazing at the Imaginary Tree. He was searching, trying to find the specific leaf corresponding to the world he loved among the countless branches, for no other reason than to bid it, her, and them one last silent farewell before dissipating.
Even if it was a one-sided farewell.
But he was disappointed. The leaves on the Imaginary Tree were innumerable. Even spending thousands of years, one could only glimpse maybe ten million worlds, a mere drop in the ocean compared to the so-called "three thousand worlds." How could he possibly find the specific world he sought in just a few breaths?
"I didn't expect… to leave with regrets at the very end…"
Like him, the other Michael was also looking up at the Imaginary Tree. Between the endless cycles, this was the only eternally unchanging thing that could accompany him.
But growing tired of seeing each other was ultimately just a beautiful fantasy. He had probably long grown weary of this tree's existence.
No… more than that. Michael could sense a fiercely suppressed anger radiating from the other Michael.
And he had reason to be angry. If not for the constraints of the Imaginary Tree's own rules, why would he have painstakingly created another self, diverting what should have been his?
If not for the constraints of the Imaginary Tree's own rules, he wouldn't have felt the despair of realizing that even as Finality, there were still too many things he couldn't do.
But beyond the anger, there was gratitude—after all, without the struggle between the Tree and the Sea, perhaps there would be no Honkai. As the external Finality, he would have influenced the world in other ways, but… perhaps there would have been no Elysia.
"Aren't you starting yet?"
Uncharacteristically, it was Michael who urged this time.
Because he was deeply convinced of his own cowardice. The longer he delayed, the more he felt he would regret it out of reluctance.
Finality didn't answer. Instead, he walked to a section of the Imaginary Tree's roots, bent down, brushed away the accumulated sand, and picked up a twig still emitting a faint glow.
He clenched the twig tightly in his hand. As Imaginary Energy surged, the twig rapidly grew into a long spear. The two small branches forming the "Y" tip sharpened while rotating countless times around the main shaft, leaving swirling patterns at the spearhead.
Just as Michael was about to ask what this was for, he saw Finality point a finger at him. His body immediately floated up uncontrollably.
Finality's finger pointed towards the Imaginary Tree, and Michael's body slowly yet steadily drifted towards the massive trunk, which resembled a large building.
Finality's finger waggled. Michael's body flipped over, his feet coming together, arms opening wide automatically—
"Just like being nailed to a cross."
Michael thought inwardly. He saw Finality's body float up too, finally stopping a step away in front of him.
"Ah!"
Finality thrust his palm towards Michael. The latter felt a sharp pain in his limbs, truly pinned to the tree trunk as if by crucifixion.
Finality released his grip on the spear, but it remained floating in mid-air. As his palm pressed towards Michael, the spear aimed its tip at Michael's eyes, then slowly but firmly thrust forward.
Driven by the instinctive fear of sharp objects, Michael shut his eyes, trembling.
But before the spear could pierce his eyes, he quickly opened them again. Ignoring the pain, he forcibly wrenched his right arm free from the unknown binding force, reaching out tremblingly towards the other Michael.
"Hmm?"
The spear tip almost brushed Michael's eyelashes but paused at that moment.
Finality closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
He was, after all, about to kill a part of himself.
He had controlled this other self's entire life, arranging everything from birth to death, and would inherit everything he once possessed.
He felt no guilt, no pity. Hundreds of billions of fifty-thousand-year cycles had eroded almost all the softness within him. And the part he cherished, buried deep within, untouched by time, he had personally given away to the personality before him twelve years ago.
By now, he no longer knew the meaning of guilt or pity. His sole purpose was to ensure Elysia lived.
Today, never mind letting another self die in her place, even if it were his own consciousness dissipating, he felt he wouldn't hesitate.
But… as the same yet different individuals, he could feel Michael's pain, unwillingness, fear, and of course, his resolution and acceptance.
So, he finally decided to pause for a moment:
"It will be over soon… Don't worry, there won't be any pain."
Finality opened his eyes again, about to manipulate the spear made from the Imaginary branch to complete the final step.
But his eyes met Michael's.
The gaze in those eyes wasn't directed at him, but behind him.
The outstretched hand wasn't reaching for him, but behind him.
After hundreds of billions of cycles, hundreds of billions of fifty-thousand-year waits, Finality finally heard the voice he had yearned for in his dreams, also coming from behind him—
"You! Give Michael back to me!!!"