The air on the stone steps was cold and damp; droplets weeping from the stone walls had crusted into mineral scale, trickling down along the seams between the bricks.
Su Yu's footsteps were unhurried as he picked his way over the uneven flagstones.
His body was still working through the aftershocks of recovery from his second-stage Genetic Lock.
"Su Yu."
Deep in his mind, from the channel that had lain silent for so long, Fenghuang's voice suddenly came through.
Faint, but clear enough.
Su Yu stopped in his tracks, leaned against the rough stone wall, and let out a heavy breath.
"Squad Monitor. You're finally back online."
"Thank goodness you're all right." Relief was plain in Fenghuang's voice. "That spatial collapse was so violent I nearly burned through every last drop of my spiritual power just holding onto our Yu Ducheng link. And just now... I saw Su too."
"I know," Su Yu said, unsurprised. "He stopped to chat with me for a while. Dropped a few hints, too."
"About that higher-dimensional existence?" Fenghuang asked. "Did he tell you what it actually is? Whether there's some conspiracy behind it?"
"No. He's your standard riddle-speaking type." Su Yu shrugged and kept climbing.
"So do you have any leads?"
"None." Su Yu's answer was blunt and clean.
He stepped over a broken flagstone, speaking to Fenghuang in his mind. "Squad Monitor, for something this far beyond comprehension — in web-novel logic, there are usually three go-to explanations."
"First: proof eternal once proven. Maybe on some future timeline I've cultivated the supreme Dao, become some unspeakable sovereign, and I'm projecting power backward through time to help my past self — a closed causal loop."
"Second: narrative-level higher-dimensional intervention. Think of it as some invisible hand holding a pen, writing our lives — every unreasonable thing in this world, the System, my body's inexplicable adaptability, that hand can wave it all away with a convenient excuse."
Fenghuang fell silent for a moment. "Both of those sound completely baseless."
"Right. So we've got a third option."
Su Yu's foot found the last few steps; above, a wooden door stood ajar, light spilling in from beyond it.
"Don't guess."
Su Yu's gaze fixed level on that sliver of light.
"When you're down so low you might as well be a stray dog on the side of the road, one wheel-turn away from getting run over by the apocalypse — and someone suddenly tosses you a meaty bone and gives you a kennel out of the wind — it doesn't matter if you suspect she might be raising you as a Zombie, or planning to make you into hotpot."
"Who cares which slaughterhouse the meat came from?"
Su Yu pushed open the wooden door.
"Whichever higher-dimensional being this power ultimately comes from — whether it's some god's idle amusement or a devil's bargain — I don't know, and I've got no interest in arguing over conspiracy theories that vague."
Arc City's morning light refracted down through the stained-glass patterns of the dome overhead, spilling across his black coat.
"All I know is, I've got no choice but to keep moving forward and kill every last one of those monsters that need killing."
"Meowww—!"
A shrill cat's yowl cut through Su Yu's hardboiled inner monologue without warning.
Before his eyes could even adjust to the light inside the main hall, a nimble white shape shot out from under a nearby pew.
It carved an arc through midair and landed square on Su Yu's chest with unerring precision.
Two rows of sharp claws hooked straight into the fabric of his coat, and a furry head began rubbing frantically against his chin and neck.
Su Yu focused his eyes on it.
One eye was a clear sky blue; the other, an amber gold.
"Chongchong?!"
Su Yu caught the frantically squirming ball of fur in his arms, his expression flipping instantly from grim apocalypse savior to bewildered cat owner.
"How are you here?"
Chongchong ignored him entirely, purring like a motor and kneading his chest with all four paws, occasionally nudging his chin with a damp little nose.
The little creature's excessive affection left Su Yu completely at a loss.
These past weeks, he and Kiana had been run ragged.
Kiana had motion-capture sessions and training to deal with, and he himself had wished he could split into eight copies of himself just to keep up.
With no other option, they'd left the kitten in the care of Himeko across the hall — a heavy drinker, but reliable enough.
But not long after, Arc City University's semester had begun, and Himeko, a professor there, had ended up run off her feet as well.
In the end, the odd-eyed kitten had been forced to move again, packed off to live alongside Can, under the care of the perpetually idle Pardofelis.
By all rights, the cat should have been sunbathing and napping in the grass of some Arc City park right now.
So how had it ended up here, in this convent?
While Su Yu was still puzzling over it, hurried footsteps came from the side door of the chapel.
"Chongchong! Slow down! Even Can wouldn't run like this!"
A girl's voice rang out along with the scuff of shoe soles against the marble floor.
Su Yu looked up.
She wore an oversized short-sleeved T-shirt, a jacket tied loosely around her waist, and her signature pair of cat-ear hair clips perched on her head.
Pardofelis, out of breath from running, bent over with her hands braced on her knees.
When she looked up, she spotted Su Yu standing there motionless, Chongchong still happily kneading away in his arms.
Pardo blinked in surprise, and then her eyes lit up.
"Brother Su Yu?"
She straightened up, her face full of pleasant surprise.
"What are you doing all the way out here at Sister Aponia's convent? I never see you here — did you come to volunteer?"
Faced with Pardo's guileless, crystal-clear eyes, Su Yu gave a dry cough.
"Ah, yeah." He improvised a quick lie. "Happened to have some free time today, thought I'd swing by and take a look."
Here, within the peaceful world of the Golden Courtyard, Pardo was just an ordinary girl who liked to find a comfy cardboard box to nap in and occasionally hunt for bargains at the flea market.
All that tangled mess — the apocalypse countdown, the opening of Genetic Locks, the life-or-death battles inside Spatial Rifts —
those brutal truths had no business touching her.
Watching this brightly smiling cat girl before him, Su Yu felt a faint tightness settle across his back.
He was almost afraid that if the disaster called Honkai truly arrived, this girl might end up walking toward the same fate — throwing open some door of certain death for the sake of her comrades.
"By the way, how did Chongchong even end up here?" Su Yu asked, gesturing at the cat still pawing at his buttons.
"Ah, now that you mention it, I thought it was strange too."
Pardo straightened up and brushed the dust off her hands.
"Chongchong and Can and I were out in the front courtyard playing with the convent kids. Can found a sunny spot and passed out ages ago, and Chongchong was chasing butterflies."
Pardo pointed at Su Yu.
"Then all of a sudden, it was like it caught a scent — its ears shot straight up and it took off running toward the nave here."
Pardo eyed Chongchong in Su Yu's arms with a hint of envy.
"So it caught your scent, Brother Su Yu." She pouted. "Honestly! Why can't that fat lump Can learn something from Chongchong? Every time I get home it won't even lift an eyelid for me, doesn't pay me any mind at all — a total lazy lump of a cat!"
Listening to Pardo's complaint, Su Yu looked down at the kitten.
Those blue-and-gold eyes gazed up at him, pitiful and pleading.
Su Yu's throat bobbed.
A wave of bittersweet guilt welled up in him.
Before Kiana had come to this world, before all the gears had started spinning out of control —
it had been this little cat that stayed by the white-haired girl's side through the hardest days and nights, while she was still trapped in that state of trauma.
But now, he, its nominal owner, couldn't even spare the time each day to go home and refill its food bowl.
He was doing a spectacularly poor job as a cat owner.
"All right." Su Yu drew a deep breath. "I've decided."
"Hm? Decided what, Brother Su Yu?" Pardo tilted her head, curious.
"I'm taking Chongchong to the studio."
"Oh, right!"
Pardo's eyes went round, and she clapped her hands.
"That's actually a great idea! Chongchong's been napping with Can every day lately, barely getting any exercise — at this rate it's going to turn into a furball too."
Pardo reached out and teased Chongchong's chin with a fingertip.
"If it lived at your studio, Brother Su Yu — I heard your new place is huge! It could run all over, and it'd get to see you and Sister Kiana every day. It'd be over the moon!"
Pardo was warmhearted to a fault, quick to act on any idea.
She spun around at once.
"Brother Su Yu, wait here for me! I'll go get Chongchong's food bowl and the unopened bag of litter from the courtyard!"
Before Su Yu could get a word out, Pardo was already gone in a flurry, vanishing through the side door.
The chapel's nave fell quiet again.
Only the light patches from the stained-glass windows crept slowly across the floor with the passing time.
A faint rustle of fabric sounded from the shadows behind Su Yu.
Aponia had, at some point, come to stand at the edge of the shadows near the confessional.
She still wore that nun's habit, wrapped tightly around her from head to toe.
The look in her eyes as she watched Su Yu carried something beyond the heavy compassion he'd seen from her in the basement earlier — something more had crept in now.
It was the kind of reverence one might show a traveler who strode boldly forward even knowing a cliff awaited him.
"Su Yu, you left this behind."
She stepped out of the shadows, her pale, slender fingers cradling a cracked-screen phone and a set of keys, and held them out to him.
With one arm still cradling the cat, Su Yu took the phone and keys with his free hand and tucked them into his pocket.
Earlier, in his hurry to put on that death-defying air of resolve on someone else's turf, he'd left the things on the bedside table behind.
His performance had had a bit of a flaw, honestly.
Couldn't be helped — he wasn't exactly practiced at this.
"I'm sorry."
Aponia drew her hand back, folding it habitually over her chest, cupping her elbow.
"I've seen the futures of many people. Those images play out before me like a script already written, scene after scene."
Aponia's voice carried a faint echo beneath the empty dome.
"In the vast majority of cases, all I can do is watch, helpless, as they walk toward the ending that belongs to them."
She lowered her eyes.
"Gradually, I lost any desire to change those [fates]."
She lifted her head again, her violet eyes fixed on Su Yu.
"But ever since I met you, two clearly divided paths have appeared before me."
There was something almost devout in the conviction of Aponia's tone.
"This has never happened before. It's what's called the right to choose."
She took a small step forward.
"So back in the basement, when I wanted you to leave, wanted you to live — that came from a selfish thought of mine," Aponia said softly. "Because I believed that, at the very least, this way... I could save just one life from that irreversible tide."
Su Yu kept his head down, fingers idly smoothing the fur along Chongchong's back.
He opened the channel to Fenghuang in his mind.
"Squad Monitor, what do you think?"
Fenghuang let out a long sigh on the other end.
"In our world, Aponia once held this same power to see the course of fate," Fenghuang said, her voice heavy with resignation. "But for someone with as kind and compassionate a heart as hers, that power of foresight was never a blessing."
"It was a blade — one that brought her nothing but a pain worse than death."
"Please don't blame Aponia for her stubbornness in this," Fenghuang said quietly. "She just... wants so badly to save you from this tragedy that's supposed to be fated."
Su Yu's fingers paused at the back of Chongchong's neck.
Of course he wouldn't blame her.
He'd never despised people willing to bear pain for someone else's sake.
"A friend once told me something."
Su Yu raised his head, meeting Aponia's gaze.
"A person's character is their fate."
Aponia blinked in surprise.
"We always like to fool ourselves into thinking that if the heavens gave us another chance, sent us back to that crossroads of fate, we'd surely make a better choice."
Su Yu looked at the nun, burdened with far too many heavy chains.
"But the truth is, if we went back empty-handed, without carrying these memories of pain and regret with us..."
Su Yu's tone stayed calm.
"then in the end, every choice made at that same point in time would turn out exactly the same, unchanged."
He looked at Aponia's eyes, widening slightly.
"Let yourself off the hook, Sister Aponia — the self that keeps trying to change other people's fates."
"Everyone who makes a choice at the edge of despair is helpless and lost in that moment too."
"But that choice is still the best one they could possibly make."
Aponia's pearly teeth bit hard into her lower lip.
Her hands, folded over her chest, twisted tight.
After a long moment, her hands finally loosened, and she let out a sigh that seemed to release every knot of grief pent up in her chest.
"If there's ever anything you need from me—"
Aponia set aside that pessimistic prophecy; her eyes turned unusually resolute.
"please, just say the word."
She looked at Su Yu.
"Since I can see two possible futures where you're concerned, then perhaps that means there's a third possibility as well."
Aponia gave a bitter little smile.
"Though there's only so much I can do — and this is about as far as it goes."
She stepped forward, coming to stand right in front of Su Yu.
Chongchong, sensing the moment, gave a knowing "meow," kicked off with its hind legs, and hopped straight onto the velvet-cushioned confession chair nearby.
High above the chapel—
morning sunlight pierced through the rose window at the very top.
The riot of colors poured down, falling precisely onto Aponia, gilding her nun's habit with a sacred, untouchable rim of light.
Aponia raised both hands.
She pressed her palms to either side of Su Yu's face.
Her long fingers were cool to the touch, but the moment of contact brought with it a strange sense of calm.
Aponia closed her eyes, her long lashes casting shadows in the sunlight.
Her lips moved, murmuring a low, slow prayer whose syllables he couldn't make out.
The next instant—
Su Yu felt the mindscape deep within his brain — parched utterly dry and cracked from forcibly emulating "Su's" consciousness and then enduring the spatial fold-jump —
engulfed by a vast, warm current.
It felt like a traveler baked under desert sun for three days and three nights, throat nearly split from thirst,
suddenly plunged whole into a spring of sweet water.
Damaged synapses were being smoothed and mended, little by little, by this outside spiritual force.
"This is...?"
In his mind, Fenghuang's voice instantly sharpened from faint to loud and clear, edged with unmistakable shock.
"Unbelievable. I never expected that in a world with no Honkai energy at all, Aponia would still possess spiritual power this overwhelmingly strong."
Fenghuang immediately issued Su Yu an instruction over the channel.
"Su Yu, don't resist it! Empty your mind, close your eyes, and feel this power circulating through you — this could very well become the inspiration you need to push your spiritual power through and cross the threshold into the third-stage Genetic Lock."
Su Yu obediently closed his eyes.
Aponia's spiritual power carried no aggression whatsoever.
It was gentle beyond measure, forgiving beyond measure.
Like a mother's hand laid across a child's forehead on the quietest of nights, warding off nightmares.
Quietly, without fanfare, it filled the parched sea of Su Yu's consciousness.
It smoothed away, too, the strain of that night's carnage in the ruins, the extreme brinkmanship against Judgment of Shamash, and the severe aftereffects of forcibly opening a mental simulation.
He had no idea how much time had passed.
When Su Yu opened his eyes again—
his vision was filled entirely by a sweep of black-and-white fabric.
A faint scent of milk and some unnameable, austere floral fragrance flooded into his nose without warning.
The side of his face was completely covered by something full and soft beyond description.
Its startling scale was such that even through the thick fabric of the nun's habit, he could feel the strain pulling taut at the buttons.
A gentle hand rested on the back of his head, stroking through his hair again and again.
Su Yu's body went rigid as a plank of wood.
Only then did he realize—
he had somehow, at some point, ended up wrapped in Aponia's arms.
his face pressed directly against a bust generous enough to make any other woman despair.
It was, without question, a wildly inappropriate position.
Under normal circumstances, Su Yu would have sprung away like he'd touched a live wire.
But right now, the extreme relaxation left by that spiritual communion, and the way she offered herself so completely without ulterior motive, had — to his shame — left the nerves he'd kept wound tight for months feeling a treacherous kind of attachment.
"If you ever feel tired..."
Aponia's voice came from above his head.
Resonating through her chest, her voice carried a faint tremor that traveled straight through the side of his face into his eardrum.
"please, call my name — any time."
Her fingers threaded through his hair.
"Whatever joy or sorrow you carry, I'll accept it without hesitation."
Aponia tightened her embrace, pressing that softness more closely against him.
"[Please] let me share your pain and your worries."
"Your weakness, your fear — I'll take those too."
A single cold drop fell silently against the nape of Su Yu's neck.
"So please — let me bear witness to your defiance. Until the very last moment."
Su Yu said nothing.
His hands hung at his sides, not resisting the softness against him.
nor did he greedily respond to it.
He simply let his face stay buried against that warm, fragrant chest, letting her hand keep stroking his hair.
He accepted the weighty, selfless kindness she offered.
"Mm."
Su Yu's voice came out muffled.
"Sister Aponia."
[Ding!]
With Su Yu's response—
at the edge of his vision, that familiar golden tarot-flip effect flickered to life again.
The System's virtual panel — always eager to see the drama play out — popped up right beside him.
[Emotional resonance fluctuation detected.]
[Tarot Bond established successfully.]
[Target: Aponia.]
As the light faded, a card depicting a blindfolded nun holding a set of scales settled firmly into his Bond card slot.
[The Judgement — Reversed: Redemption and Forgiveness]
[Position: Spiritual Therapist / Chief Listener]
[Bonus provided: Spiritual power recovery speed increased by 300%; stress-resistance threshold significantly raised.]
[Special Bond skill — [Cleric's Sanctuary]: through physical contact with Aponia, gain sustained nourishment and restoration of spiritual power. The greater the contact area and the longer the duration, the more the recovery effect grows — exponentially.]
The System's text scrolled frantically across the light screen.
[Ahem ahem ahem!]
A mechanical voice, dripping with obvious mockery and asking to be smacked, rang out directly in Su Yu's head — complete with built-in amplification.
[Host, your foster father simply must educate you here.]
[This "physical contact" business is a VERY, very broad concept, in both biological and ethical terms~]
A goofy emoji sprouting devil horns popped up on the light screen.
[If, over the next five months, you get just a little more devious in the name of rapidly restoring your combat strength, Host — perhaps you could try proposing something a bit more... mm, deeply physical to this compassion-filled Sister of yours.]
[Trust your foster father — that kind of "recovery effect" absolutely will not disappoint you! Hehehehe....]
Su Yu rolled his eyes without mercy inside his own head and flipped the System off, middle finger and all.
"Your backend better actually be source code Aha wrote for you, or I'm going to have to write you a letter of recommendation, get you recruited as the Emanator of the Aeon of Elation."
The System ignored his mockery entirely; the interface on the light screen shifted, going from a pink hue to a crisp, businesslike black in an instant.
[Beep — Reward Settlement Channel now open.]
[Special Challenge Quest "An Actor's Self-Cultivation" has been settled.]
[In light of an acting performance so flawless it fooled even Kevin himself — successfully, at the very last critical instant, saving the barrier between the two worlds from total collapse under Judgment of Shamash —]
your foster father has decided to award you a marvelous item, one capable of turning around your currently disadvantageous situation.]
At the center of the light screen appeared a silver metal disc, about the size of a pocket watch, its surface etched with spatial gradations.
[See the Emotion Point Reserve Gauge on this device's panel?
The System dropped its pimping tone and turned suddenly very professional.
[Once, through your actions in this world, you've gathered enough Emotion Point currency to fully charge this gauge—
you will gain a one-time authorization to physically teleport your Fool — Kiana Kaslana — safe and unharmed, one-way, back to a designated set of coordinates in the Honkai world!]
[And—]
The System's voice paused heavily.
[The instant the teleportation completes, a hidden Anchor backdoor will be left behind at that Imaginary coordinate — one she can use to fold-jump right back to this world, back to your side!]
Su Yu's pupils contracted sharply, still pressed against Aponia's chest.
He shot back at once in his mind: "Wait a second. Didn't you say back in the basement that once the Spatial Rifts appeared and the World Barrier cracked, people like Rita and Kiana — who originally belonged to that world — could just go straight back?"
The System let out an infuriatingly smug snicker.
[Host, are you treating cross-dimensional world travel like a trip to the corner store for Iced Black Tea?]
[Did you forget something?]
The light screen pulled up footage from the recent battle in the recycling-plant Rift.
[Forcing your way through a broken World Barrier on physical strength alone means throwing every ounce of power in your body against turbulence violent enough to grind steel to powder.]
[And that's not even the half of it — did you think the far side of the Rift was some birdsong-and-flowers garden?]
[Zombies and Honkai Beasts will keep pouring out of the Rift like a tide — those things will come at her like sharks that just caught the scent of blood.]
[If Kiana had to force her way through purely on her own strength, by the time she reached Arc City in the Honkai world she'd already be completely drained — possibly badly wounded, too.]
A Herrscher of the Void with no capacity left to defend herself, not even enough strength to resist — dropped into an Arc City crawling with World Serpent officers and Schicksal pursuit squads.
[What do you think would happen to her? And that's before even accounting for the fact she'd still have to stop Project STIGMA.]
Su Yu fell silent.
This was the fatal blind spot in his reasoning he'd been avoiding all along, even as it gnawed at him.
If sending her back only meant sending her to her death, then everything he'd sacrificed would become a joke.
"Well then."
Su Yu let out a long breath inside his mind.
"Playing seasoned actor in front of Kevin, at the risk of blowing a blood vessel, just now—"
"that was actually a solid deal. Worth it."
The System didn't respond to his sentiment.
Instead, it abruptly changed tack, its tone sliding back into that smarmy register.
[Host, your foster father feels obligated to give you one friendly little reminder.]
[Sure, Sister Nun's embrace is nice and soft, and she smells lovely too—]
but there's someone at the side door behind you whose jaw's about hit the floor watching you two~]
Su Yu's nerves jolted.
Whatever laziness had crept in from that extreme comfort vanished on the spot.
He immediately used the leverage of Aponia's arm to pull himself back out of that suffocating embrace.
He turned around, feigning nonchalance, and looked toward the side door behind them.
Pardofelis stood there.
In her arms she held a massive plastic litter box, piled high with a bag of cat food, a feather teaser wand, and several brightly colored balls.
Right at that moment, the bell-tipped teaser wand on top of the pile slid free with a clatter, dropped onto the marble floor, and rolled a couple of turns.
Pardo's mouth hung open.
Her lively eyes had gone perfectly round.
She might as well have turned to stone.
Her gaze darted wildly back and forth between Su Yu and Aponia, standing behind him with her clothes just slightly disheveled.
A visible flush of red raced up from the cat girl's neck all the way to the two fuzzy cat-ear clips on her head.
"Ah...! Sorry, sorry, sorry!"
Pardo snapped back to her senses.
She stammered, backing away in a hurry.
"I— I didn't see anything! I don't know what you and Sister Aponia were—"
She trailed off mid-sentence, then stopped abruptly, as if suddenly struck by realization.
"Ahem." Pardo cleared her throat and declared, loudly, in the tone of someone who'd been through it all before: "So this is the kind of relationship you two really have behind closed doors!"
Her expression turned knowing, suggestive.
"That's exactly what I figured! Why else would you show up here first thing in the morning, Brother Su Yu — you totally came here just to... go on a date with Sister Aponia!"
Pardo balanced the pile of things with one arm and used her free hand to fan at her burning cheek.
"Ahem! I get it, I totally get it! I mean, you and Sister Aponia are both mature adults after all. It's totally normal! Mm! Super normal..."
Su Yu could feel a cluster of exasperated lines sprouting across his forehead.
This had gone completely off the rails.
"No, wait, Pardo, let me explain — this is actually more a matter of spiritual power—"
"Ah! I'll just set Chongchong's things down on this bench here!"
Pardo gave Su Yu no chance to defend himself at all.
She dumped the litter box and cat food onto the nearby chair in one motion.
"I, um, I won't intrude on your little world for two, then!"
"Wishing you happiness!"
With that devastatingly awkward blessing tossed out behind her—
Pardo took off running, faster even than Chongchong's earlier dash, and vanished down the side-door corridor in a blur.
In the vast, empty nave of the chapel—
nothing remained but a somewhat windswept, ruffled Su Yu—
Aponia, standing behind him, a faint, helpless smile ghosting across her lips—
and the odd-eyed kitten Chongchong, perched on the confession chair, licking a paw to wash its face, occasionally shooting Su Yu a look like he was some kind of idiot.
"Well..."
Su Yu turned around, scratching the back of his head.
No matter how thick-skinned he was, even he couldn't quite hold a straight face right now.
"Sorry about that, Sister Aponia."
"I think I'd better head back — things are probably getting busy at the studio too."
Aponia dipped her head slightly, smoothing out the creases at the front of her habit.
"Let me drive you," she said, looking at Su Yu, her voice still gentle. "You've got all this pet gear to carry, and this place is out of the way — hard to call a car."
She gestured toward the rear of the convent.
"Let me go change into something easier to travel in. Please wait here for me a moment."
"Sure." Su Yu nodded.
He watched her graceful figure disappear through the door toward the back room.
Su Yu let out a long breath.
Deep in the sea of his consciousness—
Fenghuang's voice sounded again.
Compared to before, her voice now sounded full of vigor, all trace of that earlier weakness swept away.
"Unbelievable," Fenghuang marveled. "Thanks to that pure infusion of spiritual power from Aponia just now, my consciousness — which had been on the verge of shattering from overexertion — hasn't just recovered, it's actually more stable than it was before."
"That spatial tremor, that turbulence violent enough to tear dimensions apart — it nearly severed the one Yu Ducheng link between us completely, and very nearly drained my last remaining reserve of strength."
A note of apology crept into Fenghuang's tone.
"I'm sorry, Su Yu. For the next few hours, I'll need to enter deep self-hibernation to digest and integrate this power."
"I won't be able to help you reach across worlds to contact Kiana for the time being."
"It's fine, Squad Monitor," Su Yu replied in his mind. "Get your rest first — recovering your strength matters more than anything else right now."
"Still, every cloud has its silver lining."
Fenghuang left one last remark before slipping into slumber.
"That turbulent power in Imaginary Space, in a way, tempered the very essence of Yu Ducheng."
Fenghuang's voice gradually faded.
"Once I've fully integrated this power, maybe I'll be able to do even more for you."
The link cut off.
Quiet returned to his mind.
Su Yu stood in the middle of the hall.
He pulled the phone Aponia had just returned to him out of his pocket.
Fingerprint unlock.
The screen lit up, but beneath the fine web of cracks, the signal bar in the top right showed a large red X.
Stubbornly, he pressed the power button and the dial key a few times.
The screen froze on the dial pad, then went completely black and refused to wake up again.
Su Yu fished the tactical headset out of another pocket.
The tiny integrated circuits inside were already giving off a scorched, metallic smell.
"Completely fried."
Su Yu tossed the lump of scrap metal into a nearby trash can.
It seemed that, forcing his way bodily through that damned Spatial Rift, the raging electromagnetic pulses and spatial shearing forces had shaken every one of his delicate Earth-made electronics into junk.
He'd just have to borrow Aponia's phone on the ride back later.
Get in touch with the Anti-Entropy base right away.
That whole crowd—
right now—
they were probably losing their minds with worry.
____
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