Chapter 640 The Last Interlude 2: Xilin, Cecilia, and Jizi

Wow - Wow -

This is...where?

The girl seemed to have fallen into a dream that was difficult to wake up from.

Wow - Wow -

It was like the sound of water constantly colliding, but it was a little different. It seemed like something I had never seen before.

Wow - Wow -

Oh, right.

This is the sea. The legendary sea.

Although in those years that really belonged to Siren, she had no chance to come into contact with the "sea" at all. She only learned from countless narrations and texts that it was a lake that had no end at all and was directly connected to the sky.

After becoming the Second Herrscher, there were endless battles. Even though he went to the back of the moon to gain power, he still had no chance to see the sea.

However, this wish came true, in another way.

When he was in St. Freya, that idiot seemed to have been on vacation at the beach. Although he didn't experience it personally, he also used her senses to spy on it.

But that's it--that's what she felt.

The sea is indeed vast, and the color of water and sky is indeed magical. However, from the perspective of an onlooker, she was just more interested in the barbecue on the beach.

After all, there is nothing unusual about the so-called sea.

Wow - Wow -

The sound of water is still ringing.

If you are not interested in the sea, the sound of waves is just an annoying noise.

Wow - Wow -

“▆▆…▆▆…”

There seemed to be something mixed in with the sound of the waves.

"Sirin...Sirin..."

ah?

Are you calling...me?

This voice...

"Celine? Are you okay?"

Cecilia's voice lingered in her ears, and Sirin thought it was her imagination for a moment.

But then consciousness begins to piece together memories on its own.

"I... ah, I remembered it. It seems that my dad specially made that toast pizza for me... What happened to me? Did I faint because it tasted too bad?"

Siren tried hard to open her eyes, but she seemed to be bound by some kind of force.

That kind of power...it seemed like a voice was constantly reminding her not to wake up.

But Siren's eyes still opened.

The moment her vision found light, Sirin also found the correct memory.

Cecilia is dead, Siegfried... He has even forgotten her existence and that short and unpleasant dream.

As for the toast pizza baked by the Heavenly Fire Saint, it was only baked by Siegfried for Kiana to eat, so she thought of it immediately when she was imagining it.

In fact, it doesn't belong to her at all.

The fantasy before death...I thought I would be calmer when facing death again.

Her eyes were fully opened, and the sunlight that caught her eyes was a bit too dazzling, so Sirin quickly squinted her eyes again.

Of course, the dazzling sunshine also brought a different kind of warmth. My whole body felt warm, especially when wrapped in sand, I felt so comfortable that I didn't even want to move.

If you don't want to move, just don't move. If a dead person moves at will, it will frighten the living. If she got up again and suddenly appeared in front of that idiot Kiana, she would definitely be shocked.

"..."

etc……

It seems...something's not quite right.

"Celine?"

Someone was gently shaking his body aside, and whether it was the bright sunshine or the sound of the waves, it was all too real.

Siren turned over and sat up.

She put her palms in front of her eyebrows, opened her eyes wide, and saw an endless sea of ​​red.

As the waves surged, thin lines of snow-white appeared on the red seawater, like a giant net covering a sponge, and it continued to sway with the seawater.

There should be seagulls on the sea...? But Siren didn't see it.

The ocean...according to the knowledge Kiana learned, it should be the place that gave birth to all life, but this sea is so dead and silent, with nothing else except the never-ending sound of waves.

"Is it the world after death?"

Xilin couldn't help but curl up her legs, hugged them with her arms, and gently knocked her chin on her knees.

Everything here is so lifeless, yet so lifelike.

You can feel your own existence, but you can hardly feel more life. Even the so-called afterlife, it seems that it shouldn't be like this.

Xilin looked at the blood-red tide coming and going. She was so absorbed in thinking that she was so distracted that she forgot one of the most important things.

"Pah——"

He received a moderate blow on his head, and then someone hugged him from behind.

Xilin's body tensed up for a moment, but when she smelled the scent of the person behind her, incredible and unconcealable excitement appeared on her face at the same time. She didn't make any sound, but just curled her body closer into a ball, like Like a kitten, it shrank into the arms of the woman behind her.

"It turns out...it turns out that the voice I heard earlier was not an illusion...it turns out...Cecilia, you have always been here..."

"Yes. This is really distressing. You can see everything, but you can't do anything..."

Cecilia hugged Siren tightly, not forgetting to free up a hand to comb her messy long hair.

"I'm sorry... I seem... after that, I did more stupid things. I almost destroyed the world."

"But you finally chose a different path from seventeen years ago, didn't you? Siren, this time, you saved the world."

"That - that is Kiana's choice, what does it have to do with me..."

Siren's eyes wandered aimlessly, and her cheeks quickly puffed up, but she was not angry.

Cecilia chuckled lightly, and then hugged her tighter.

Xilin bit her lower lip, her body gradually relaxed, and she quietly enjoyed this moment of happiness that almost became eternal.

However, it is always hard not to think of more such actions, such as...

Seventeen years ago, when facing the final missile strike, they embraced each other in this posture and welcomed each other's end.

"Um... Cecilia, have you forgive me..."

"Forgive you for what?"

Siren is down.

It's not that she didn't think about Cecilia's possible answer, but she didn't think of this.

"You...don't you hate me? It was me who ruined everything for you. If it weren't for me, you could continue to live happily with Siegfried, and you could grow up with the real Kiana, and ruined everything. I am the one..."

"But what did you do wrong?"

Feeling the constant warmth of the embrace behind her, Xilin's tears fell from the corners of her eyes.

"It's not your fault that you were born with Honkai adaptability. It's not your fault that you were tricked into the Tower of Babel. It's not your fault that you chose revenge after being treated like that... In the end, you're just a poor child. Wrong It’s Honkai, and it’s us adults, but you, the kid, will bear the consequences of all these mistakes.”

"I...I...but...but that idiot was right. If only I had been more sober and rational at that time, and not implicated the whole world after completing my revenge..."

"There are not so many ifs in this world. If I insist on being wrong, then I will bear half of the responsibility for the second collapse - I was the only S-class Valkyrie in Destiny at that time. As long as I am willing, I can discover Babylon It’s not impossible to live in a hell like Tower, but I indulged myself in false victory and short-term happiness, and eventually became an accomplice of allowing evil to flourish.”

"..."

"Don't be so downcast, Siren. The past things, no matter how much you regret, no matter how unwilling to admit them, are things that have passed long ago and cannot be changed. It is precisely because the past cannot be changed that the future is precious. And this was not long ago In the frozen [future], it was your choice that saved Kiana twice, and thus saved the world. Although I don’t like the idea of ​​good and evil balancing, to be honest, you have redeemed yourself with your choice. You’ve made mistakes in the past, right?”

Siren closed her eyes again. She didn't say "yes" or "no". But in the silence, his breathing became steady again, as if he was about to fall asleep.

It's really better to take a nap.

Been awake for too long, too long.

It has been painful for too long, too long.

Although it was unclear what was going on right now, as long as Cecilia was here, she could relax enough to drop all her defenses and just fall asleep in her warm embrace.

However, this wish could not be realized, because another familiar voice sounded in her ears:

"Hey! You two are basking in the sun here! Senior Cecilia, would you like an ice-cold cocktail? I made it myself, I guarantee it tastes good."

"Ahhhhhh!"

Xilin jumped up and looked at the familiar red-haired aunt next to her with a face full of shock and screamed.

"Why are you here too!!"

"What, don't you welcome me, Miss Siren?"

"Well……"

The red-haired woman smiled slyly, then held a cocktail in one hand, propped it up on the beach with the other, and sat down next to Cecilia.

"Speaking of which, this is the first time we have met, right? You should know me, right? After all, you and Kiana share the same body... Forget it, let me introduce myself again, the former A-level Valkyrie of the East Branch of Tianming, Wuliangta Jizi is also Kiana Kaslana’s teacher.”

"Of course I know who you are, but why are you here!!"

Siren screamed frantically, and the silky hair that Cecilia had just combed became as messy as a cat with fried hair.

Cecilia first smiled at Jizi, then stood up, pressed Sirin's shoulders, hugged her again before sitting back on the beach.

Then she looked at Jizi with a smile again and asked:

"So, Teacher Himeko, should you explain it, or should I explain it?"

"Senior Cecilia, you don't have to call me teacher, right?"

Jizi smiled bitterly and took a sip of her wine. She knew very well that the teacher was shouting from the identity of "Kiana's mother", although Cecilia should know very well that she was not her biological daughter.

But no matter what, Jizi felt that this kind of title was weird and she couldn't bear it.

"Then...just let me do it."

After a moment of silence, Jizi picked up the topic again.

"To put it simply, the place we are in is the core of the Herrscher."

"Core? No, isn't it? I remember that I should have been...dead. Besides, I can still understand in Kiana's core, Cecilia and you...what the hell is going on?"

"Be patient when listening to the teacher!"

Jizi drank leisurely, while Cecilia kept stroking Xilin's head with a bit of mischief.

"In short, this is the deepest part of the Herrscher core. You should have completed the communication with Meiyi in the Herrscher core before, and you should understand that all the Herrscher cores actually point to the same intersection singularity, and we are in such a place."

"Uh... I can barely understand it."

Xilin held her forehead and felt a little overwhelmed. Fortunately, Jizi did not cite a bunch of difficult terms, but gave the answer in the simplest and most direct way.

Even so, she still didn't quite understand--

"But as for the Herrscher core...am I not the only Herrscher here?"

Xilin pointed at herself in confusion, and then glanced at Cecilia behind her with her peripheral vision, fearing that she would expose some kind of [reality], so that this Cecilia, even if it was just an illusion, would disappear.

Coincidentally, Cecilia moved her hand away from the top of Xilin's head at this time, and the latter was frightened by this action. However, the next moment, Cecilia's hand moved to Xilin's cheek and began to rub her round face.

"Don't worry Xilin, I have been here with you in the past, and I will always be here in the future. But you are wrong about one thing, Teacher Jizi is also a Herrscher."

"Huh?"

"Senior Cecilia is right."

Jizi spread out her left hand, and a ball of fire appeared in the palm of her hand.

"I don't know how Senior Cecilia appeared here. We had a brief chat before you woke up, and she had no idea that she could have been in the core all this time. Of course, she couldn't be a Herrscher. Maybe it was because you hugged each other at the end, or maybe it was because... she was a [Shaniat] after all. The blood and stigma behind this surname, since it could give birth to an [Eleanor], then it's not worth making a fuss about such a thing.

"As for me... Actually, the moment I put on the True Red Armor, I realized that I might not be able to complete the combat mission at all. In a very short time, the erosion of the Honkai energy that I had suffered was re-covered in my body, as if the Honkai energy had left a hole in my body before, and even if it was emptied, it would be filled again when it was touched again. The reason why I was able to fight to the last moment was that I suddenly established a connection with the Plague Gem. Although the synchronization rate was not too high, at the last moment, although it was only a brief moment, I still became a Herrscher and successfully saved my consciousness in the core.

"It's just that the power of the Plague Gem is destruction, and it doesn't have the ability to reshape the body like the Serenity Gem and the Law of Reason Core. I can only exist in this way."

"Then...why didn't you tell Kiana before? If she knew you were still alive, she would be very...tsk, what does her life have to do with me? But, that Bronya, with Seele and Eleanor, it is not impossible to rebuild a body for you?"

"You are right, it was originally possible, but now it can't be done?"

"What?"

"From the moment my consciousness entered the core, I seemed unable to leave here, even if I reshaped my body. I think it was him who took action. Of course, your current situation is the same as mine. It seems that in his script, we don't need to appear again in the end."

"...Is it the end?"

Cieren lowered her eyes and sighed.

Crossing 380,000 kilometers of darkness to reach the back of the moon, moving forward firmly in the violent dust, and finally finding the [God] nailed to the cross, the scene of getting power from him is vaguely like yesterday.

However, the play was almost coming to an end.

It was somewhat touching.

But...

"But since it is in the Herrscher Core, why is it the seaside?"

"This..."

Jizi stretched out her voice and pointed at the figure behind Silin.

"Because she said you have never seen the sea in person, so the two of us constructed a beach with our memories, but it seems that something went wrong, and the sea turned red, and something was missing."

"But the sun is still as hot as before!"

Cecilia, who had been silent for a long time behind her, suddenly spoke, and then Silin exclaimed.

"Oh!"

Cecilia lifted Silin up by the armpits.

"Let's go, Silin, I'll put some sunscreen on you first."

"I don't want that kind of thing! Isn't this place constructed by consciousness? It doesn't matter whether you put on sunscreen or not!"

"Come on! Come on! If you don't put on sunscreen, you won't feel involved anymore..."

"Ahhh don't touch there... ah ha ha ha ha... don't touch... ah ha ha ha..."