The wooden door to the convent's back room let out a muffled creak of friction as it was pulled open from inside.
Su Yu, standing beneath the stained-glass window in the nave, turned at the sound.
His movement caught, visibly, mid-turn.
It was a purely physical freeze, triggered by nothing more than the sheer visual impact.
Aponia stepped out from behind the door.
The nun's habit that had swathed her from head to toe was gone.
In its place, she wore a pure white sundress with thin straps, cut from exquisite fabric.
No elaborate lace, no unnecessary tailoring.
The slender straps rested against skin so pale from years without sunlight it looked almost cold to the touch.
The hem stopped just above her knees, baring calves so flawlessly proportioned there was nothing to fault.
On her feet were a pair of simple flat sandals; her rounded toes, bare of any polish, held a healthy pale-pink hue, with the faint blue tracery of veins just visible along the tops of her feet.
The outfit stripped away all trace of the ascetic remoteness of someone enthroned on a holy altar; instead she looked like the kind of mature, languidly alluring girl-next-door you might happen to bump into on a summer afternoon.
And not just any girl-next-door — the kind whose eyes held no trace of guardedness at all, the kind who'd probably say yes even if you asked for something a little too much.
Summer. Watermelon. A sleeveless dress. The girl next door.
Yeah. That sense of déjà vu.
"Su Yu?" Aponia stopped in front of him.
Su Yu forced his gaze away from those two slender straps, which looked as though they might snap at any moment under a weight they had no business bearing.
"Let's go," he said.
Aponia's car was parked in the shadow outside the convent's back wall.
An unmarked black sedan.
Su Yu pulled open the passenger door and got in.
Aponia settled into the driver's seat and started the engine. Cold air poured from the vents, chasing off the heat that had built up under the sun, carrying with it a faint scent — something like iris — that drifted into Su Yu's nose.
"Sister Aponia," Su Yu said, watching the streets slide past outside the window, "lend me your phone for a moment."
Aponia didn't ask why. One hand on the wheel, she reached over with the other, popped open the center console, and handed him a white phone.
Su Yu took it and lit up the screen.
The lock screen was bare — no passcode set.
The current date and time sat squarely in the center.
Today was the final day of the countdown to the Wotan Project's first activation — and also the last day of leave for those greenhorn recruits back at the Starfire Furnace training base.
The timing worked out perfectly; he hadn't lost a single day.
He handed the phone back to Aponia and settled against the leather seat.
The car cruised smoothly through the tail end of Arc City's morning rush hour.
Su Yu closed his eyes.
At the edge of his vision, the Tarot Array quietly unfolded.
His attention fixed on the card that had achieved Reversed Awakening — The World, Welt Yang's card.
Beneath its original stat bonuses, a new line of shimmering gold text had appeared.
[Special Skill: Eye of Deconstruction.]
He reached out mentally and tapped the skill icon.
A low hum.
No grand light show, no sound effects.
But in that instant, something in Su Yu's perception flipped inside out.
He felt himself pulled into a microscopic world made entirely of lines and data.
The luxury sedan they were riding in no longer registered to his eyes as metal and leather — it became countless precisely meshing gears, combustion chambers doing their fiery work, even the underlying code streaming through the onboard computer.
Every parameter laid itself bare in his mind, down to the finest detail.
This was one of the core abilities of a Herrscher of Reason — Comprehension of Creation.
"Wonder if it works on people, though."
The thought had barely surfaced when that invisible high-frequency band extended outward on its own, sweeping over Aponia in the driver's seat.
The next instant—
Su Yu's eyes flew open, his pupils contracting violently.
What he saw hit him like a shockwave.
At their core, human beings really were nothing more than intricate, fragile machines built of carbon, protein, water, and a web of intricate neuro-electric signals.
They, too, fell within the category of Creation.
Under the sight of his Deconstructing Eyes, the white sundress covering Aponia lost all meaning as a barrier.
Bone density, blood flow rate, heartbeat frequency, even the faint electrical signals firing between her neurons.
A flood of physiological data crashed over Su Yu's mind like a waterfall.
It explained, too, why Old Yang had been able to forcibly restore his own body within the Sea of Quanta — because at bottom, a human being was simply another kind of precise, organic Creation.
As the data resolved deeper, Su Yu noticed something out of the ordinary.
At the junction of Aponia's cervical and thoracic vertebrae, and at several points along her lumbar spine, there were clear signs of stagnation and blockage.
Her muscle fibers had been locked in chronic overload for so long that localized blood circulation had begun to seize up.
It was the kind of hidden ailment that came from holding some fixed posture for years on end — or from bearing a weight that had no business being carried.
A sudden blow struck Su Yu's temple, as if from a heavy hammer.
The stream of data in his vision collapsed in an instant.
He sucked in a sharp breath and cut the skill off.
The deconstructed view before him shattered and vanished like broken glass.
The cold air in the cabin, the sunlight outside the window, Aponia's hands on the wheel — all of it snapped back into the normal physical world.
That brief deconstruction, lasting barely a dozen seconds, had drained nearly a quarter of his spiritual power.
And that was after Aponia's "spiritual nourishment" — his spiritual power reserves currently stood firmly at the threshold of a third-stage Genetic Lock.
Parsing the complexity of a living person simply wasn't on the same order of magnitude as parsing a car.
That kind of Herrscher-tier computational load was still too much to ask of a body that hadn't yet fully transformed.
Still, Su Yu didn't feel it was much of a loss.
As the old saying goes, information alone can be an unbeatable weapon.
With a pair of eyes that could see through any material's weak points and hidden flaws in an instant—
whether he was trading blows for his life against some high-tier Honkai Beast, or backed into a corner and needing to find an escape route—
he now had one more absolutely reliable trump card in hand.
If the game company ever went bankrupt, he could probably open a traditional Chinese massage parlor and still make a fortune in Arc City on this blockage-spotting skill alone.
Su Yu turned his head.
Aponia happened to be waiting at an intersection for a ninety-second red light.
She held the brake and turned to look at him in the passenger seat.
"You look," Aponia said softly, "like you're in a pretty good mood."
Su Yu pulled his gaze back from the window and met her eyes.
"Sister Aponia," Su Yu said, not answering her question directly, "lately, has your sleep been bad? And do you often feel like there are a thousand needles jabbing into your neck and shoulders?"
Aponia blinked, caught off guard for a moment.
"Hm?"
A rare flicker of surprise crossed her eyes.
She had never mentioned those symptoms to anyone.
They were the price she paid for choosing, year after year, to hold the same fixed posture in prayer.
To her, that pain was a kind of penance for the fates of others she carried.
"You know medicine?" Aponia asked, curious.
Su Yu didn't explain. He simply raised his right hand.
The power of Tai Xu Sword Qi gathered at the tips of his index and middle fingers, condensing into a needle of qi invisible to the naked eye.
He leaned over and pressed his fingers precisely onto a blocked point at the back of Aponia's neck.
A brief press, a light tap.
"Mm—"
A short, muffled sound escaped Aponia's throat.
Her body shuddered violently, beyond her control, the instant his fingertip pressed down.
Her slender neck arched back, and the eyes that had always held that compassionate sorrow snapped wide open.
A piercing surge of heat traveled from the point his finger pressed, cutting straight through the neural pathway that had been blocked for years.
The muscle groups that had been rigid for so long were forced to relax and unfurl under the impact of that power.
A few seconds later.
Su Yu withdrew his hand.
Aponia's breathing had grown quick and shallow.
She leaned back against the driver's seat, her chest rising and falling hard.
Sweat trickled down her pale cheeks, and an unnatural flush had risen across her fair skin.
But in the wake of that sudden jolt came a wave of relief unlike anything she'd felt in years.
The aches and heaviness that had felt rooted in her bones simply vanished in that moment.
"What was—"
Aponia turned her head, staring at Su Yu with disbelief written across her face.
"Call it part of a new ability I just picked up," Su Yu said, fastening his seatbelt. "Sister Aponia, the reason your spine's giving you trouble is—"
His sentence broke off halfway.
The words caught in his throat.
His gaze, without meaning to, swept across the sight before him — Aponia, still arched back from her earlier shudder, the thin straps of her white sundress pulled taut, framing a proud, overwhelming curve that looked ready to spill straight out of the fabric.
Realization struck him at once.
He now knew exactly what was responsible for this holy sister's bad spine.
You've got to be kidding.
His voice caught in his throat, and he swallowed the rest of the sentence whole.
You've got to be kidding.
Carrying two water balloons that terrifying on her chest every single day — of course her spine was wrecked.
Aponia followed the sudden stillness of Su Yu's gaze and glanced down at herself.
She wasn't offended by the presumptuous look. If anything, a hint of indulgent amusement rose in her eyes.
"Truth be told, I've had my suspicions too."
She calmly traced a finger over that startling silhouette, not quite touching.
"It really does get in the way of daily life sometimes."
She said it without a hint of shyness, right on the sore point.
Her tone even carried a note of resigned helplessness.
The air in the car suddenly turned thick.
Su Yu coughed awkwardly, twice, and whipped his face toward the window.
If the nun's habit that wrapped her up like a rice dumpling had, on a purely physical level, restrained and suppressed Aponia's... scale to some degree—
then this thin summer dress, held up by nothing but two flimsy straps, had utterly, completely unleashed the terrifying full extent of what everyone at Golden Courtyard agreed was its strongest combatant.
So it was true — Aponia really was the strongest woman in Golden Courtyard!
The light turned green.
The car behind them honked once.
Aponia eased off the brake, and the sedan rolled smoothly through the intersection.
Su Yu cleared his throat, about to call Bronie first to let her know he was safe.
Right in the center of his vision, a golden pop-up window slapped itself across his face.
Accompanied, insufferably, by a burst of firework sound effects.
[Ding-dong!]
[Detected: Host's vital signs stable, mental state good, and — a beauty by his side, no less! Living the good life, aren't we!]
[Today's fresh new Daily Quest has arrived! Please check your inbox~]
[Quest Name: "One-Man Elbow Drop on All of Anti-Entropy"!]
The System's synthesized voice rang out in his mind, its tone brimming with the gleeful excitement of someone who lived for chaos.
[Host, as the old military saying goes: the arrogant army loses, the grieving army wins.]
[That little vanishing act you pulled in the ruins last night has left all of Anti-Entropy and the entire miHoYo Studio in an absolute maximum-grief state right now.]
[Aren't you even a little curious? That white-haired Paramecium who'd overcook instant noodles the second you're not around, that ice-faced type always itching to torch the whole mountain, and that hacker l0li forever chewing bubblegum—]
The System paused.
[What have they turned into, while you were gone?]
[Are they crushed, sobbing wrecks — or have they picked themselves back up, shame turned to fresh resolve?]
The golden text refreshed.
[Quest Description: Using the infiltration techniques you learned from Rita, sneak separately into the miHoYo Studio and the Anti-Entropy underground entertainment lab.]
[Go see what your little companions are up to right now! Go put their current strength and resolve to the test!]
Four red-highlighted coordinate points popped up on the display.
[Kevin Kaslana.]
[Rita Rossweisse.]
[Kiana Kaslana.]
[Welt Yang.]
[These four individuals' real-time coordinates have been marked for you on the System map.]
[Host, please go elbow-drop them!]
[Give each of them a great, great, GREAT big surprise———!!]
[Special Note: Given that they're currently in a state of extreme grief and rage, their combat power may have surged explosively. Host, please try your best not to get beaten to death on the spot while delivering the surprise~~]
[That is all.]
Su Yu read the description, and the corner of his mouth twitched twice.
This System really didn't have a shred of human decency.
This wasn't giving a surprise — this was walking straight into a powder keg with a lit match.
He kept reading, down to the quest rewards.
[Quest Rewards:]
[1. System-bound weapon storage slot evolution — a Ring of Holding (just kidding, it's really just spatial storage tech~).]
[(Don't get any ideas — this is purely a product of spatial storage technology! You didn't seriously think some fantasy-novel ring would come with an old man living inside, teaching you to play with fire and become an alchemist, did you?)]
[2. Based on your performance and completion rate during the infiltration test, additional rating-based rewards will be issued.]
[3. Here's the important part!]
Those four words appeared bolded and enlarged.
[Furthermore, the System has classified this quest as a High-Tier Tarot Bond Quest!]
[During quest execution, based on the intense emotions your bond targets experience upon seeing you "risen from the dead" — including but not limited to shock, ecstatic joy, fury, the urge to beat you to death, and wounded grievance — Emotion Point conversion will be settled at double rate!]
The System wrapped up with a voice dripping with temptation.
[Just so you know, at this doubled harvest rate—]
[That Stigmata sequence you had your eye on in the Store — the outrageously expensive one that could rewrite Rita's fate against all odds—]
[And that other item — the special enchantment tool that could apply a higher-dimensional enchantment to Kiana's cat-paw-print alloy bat—]
[If you just grit your teeth and push a little harder, you might just be able to pay for both in full once this quest settles~]
[Ah well, for Kiana, for Rita, for your beloved Valkyries — guess you'll just have to suffer a little for their sake~ hehe~?]
The pop-up slowly faded from his vision.
Su Yu sat in the passenger seat.
He covered his face with one hand and let out a resigned sigh.
He'd pulled a vanishing act for an entire night — everyone must be in an absolute panic by now.
And now, instead of just quietly slipping back in, he had to run some kind of midterm exam on top of it.
If he got caught, his career as miHoYo's Game Director and head of the Meteoric Salvation project would be over right then and there. (sob)
But that fat carrot dangling in front of him — he just couldn't say no.
Su Yu turned his head and glanced at the streets sliding by outside.
"Fine."
He cracked his knuckles, one after another, each joint popping crisply.
He stretched his arms slowly, feeling the fullness of the spiritual power surging inside him.
"Kids."
He murmured it silently to himself.
"For the Stigmata Rita's going to need.
"For a brand-new bat for Kiana."
In the shadows of the car, Su Yu's eyes gleamed with an unsettling brightness.
"Sorry, kids."
It was the predatory glint of an unscrupulous capitalist about to step in and squeeze every last drop out of his workforce.
"Elbows out, here I come!"
One man, one elbow, taking down all of Anti-Entropy, man!!
____
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