"In other words... if I truly enter Act IV: 'Elegy of the Holy Maiden', what awaits me is an absolute, unavoidable dead end!"
Facing Li Wu's deduction, the System fell silent for a long time.
Standing in the shadows cast by the buildings to escape the blazing sun, Li Wu waited patiently. He waited for an answer he absolutely had to know.
This was a catastrophic paradox.
In works of fiction, asynchronous time travel with synchronized subjective time was nothing more than a garbage plot device purely designed to artificially halt the story's normal progression.
What kind of protagonist returns home from the past, only to find that their closest friends, their lover, and their entire home have been reduced to a silent, desolate wasteland?
Even if he came back and just saw them all in their old age, at least aging in the Honkai universe could be reversed with advanced technology. But an apocalyptic catastrophe could not be reversed. Dead was dead. For those who had died, aside from rewinding time, there was absolutely no way to drag them back from the reality of death.
This was the overarching absolute rule in the original game's lore: The world allows consciousness to match with a new vessel, but it forbids a vessel from gathering dissipated consciousness.
Through various means, a consciousness could be copied, severed, transferred, or stored... But once a consciousness died, no matter what methods were employed, there was no way to force it back into a body and breathe new life into it.
Unless the tragedy could be averted before the point of death, opening a new timeline.
But clearly, that method didn't apply to him.
Li Wu was incredibly clear on one thing—
[Return by Death] did not allow him to die.
"You're not answering... is it because I have absolutely no choice? I have to complete the Main Quests of all the other Acts first before I can tackle Act IV. And while clearing the other Acts, I absolutely cannot die. The moment I die, I will instantly be transmigrated to the timeline of Act IV. And when that happens, I will meet the worst possible ending: an eternal loop of death."
[You do have a choice. Return by Death grants you infinite possibilities.]
"Possibilities? I don't see any. If I regress to the past right now, no matter how many times I die, I won't be able to change a damn thing!"
[If you choose to die right now and return to the timeline of the Middle Ages, the script would actually not progress the way you anticipate.]
Script?
This was the second time Li Wu had heard the System use that exact word.
The first time was in Siberia, regarding Ana.
The System had revealed to him that Ana did not belong to the roster of female leads in the story. According to the "script's" progression, Ana was absolutely destined to die in Siberia. If he hadn't relied on [Return by Death] and [Future Loan] to frantically alter the tragic timeline, there was absolutely no way Ana would be alive today.
Even possessing both of those abilities, he had paid a grotesquely heavy price, nearly plunging himself permanently into an eternal loop of agonizing death.
Fortunately, through sheer extreme limit-testing, he barely managed to evade the worst possible ending, paying the smallest possible price: dissociative amnesia.
"Tell me about it. I know you probably don't want to reveal too much. Your ability to see the 'script' is related to my [Future Loan], isn't it? If you reveal too much, it might inadvertently turn the possibilities within the script into established facts."
"Just tell me what you can. I'll make my own judgments."
Li Wu leaned against the wall bordering the street. The shadows completely enveloped his body. The sunlight spilled onto the ground mere inches away, creating a stark divide between light and dark.
Occasionally, a few pedestrians walked past. They would glance at him briefly before hurrying along on their own business.
[Have you ever heard of a manga called 'The 500-Million-Year Button'?]
"The 500-Million-Year Button? What's that? I've never heard of it. Is it related to the script?"
[You actually should have known it...]
The System's words carried a strange underlying meaning, but it rapidly shifted the topic.
[Suppose you are still the ordinary person you were before transmigration. A button suddenly appears in front of you. If you press it, you instantly receive one million dollars. The price is that you will be sent into an absolutely empty 'Void Space' to exist completely alone for 500 million years. During these 500 million years, you cannot die, and you cannot engage in any physical activity. You will be stripped of all physiological needs and changes.]
[Your brain will remain perfectly, unavoidably awake. You can only remain awake, consciously perceiving every single minute and second of those 500 million years.]
[At one month, you would still be counting the days, fantasizing about your life after you leave. You replay those imagined scenes in your head over and over again. You think about every conceivable thing you could possibly think about. The sheer volume of your thoughts would be enough to write a novel tens of millions of words long.]
[At one year, you stop counting the days. It's not that you've given up; it's that your mental state has deteriorated too drastically. Your consciousness is awake, but incredibly heavy, unable to engage in meaningful cognitive activity. In the 'Void Space', there is no day or night, no hunger, no fatigue. Your consciousness is like an infinitely stretched rubber band—stretched so thin it's practically invisible, yet eternally taut, refusing to snap.]
[You begin trying to talk to yourself. At first, you speak into the void. Then, you murmur to yourself. Later, it devolves into meaningless syllables. To pass the time, you even invent a language that only you can understand. Although it is derived from your rudimentary native tongue and riddled with logical flaws, it adds a tiny bit of amusement to your existence in the 'Void Space'. You name this crude language 'Dead Speech', trying to combat the absolute nothingness.]
[At ten years, you have forgotten who you are. Your name has no meaning. Your past has no meaning. You have long since forgotten about the one million dollars. The warm sunlight and cool breezes from your memories have lost all their color. The language is still in your brain, but the words have become hollow symbols. Like tombstones carved with objective names, they hide deep within your consciousness, commemorating things you can no longer comprehend.]
[At one hundred years, you learn 'Stasis'. You think of nothing, perceive nothing, expect nothing. Time becomes less sharp, but it still exists. It exists eternally, slicing your will apart second by second, even though you no longer care about the mental trauma.]
[At one thousand years, there is practically no discernible difference between you and 'death'. Occasionally, scattered fragments of memory flicker in your mind, then rapidly dissipate.]
[At ten thousand years, you begin to accept the 'Void Space', gradually merging with it.]
[The remaining 499,990,000 years are simply the process of you and the 'Void Space' completely becoming one.]
[Until the full 500 million years are up. You instantly return to your original point in time, and every single memory and all mental trauma from those 500 million years are completely erased.]
[In other words, for the 'future you' that emerges, it's equivalent to receiving a massive 'return on investment' without paying any price whatsoever.]
[But for the 'present you' pressing the button... it is no different from committing absolute suicide.]
"What does this have to do with me returning to the Middle Ages? Furthermore, I live in the present. My consciousness is continuous. There is absolutely no way I would ever make a choice like that," Li Wu stated firmly.
[Then what if, upon pressing the button, the 'past you' enters the 'Void Space', and upon emerging, their 'memories' are wiped clean? The 'present you' would not perceive any of it.]
[Just like when you use [Future Loan] right now. To instantly acquire items out of thin air, you wouldn't just need an equivalent exchange of value; you would normally need to walk, select, think, purchase, and perform a whole series of actions. Even if you ordered it online, you'd still have to walk to the door to pick it up, wouldn't you?]
[But all those processes are streamlined and converted into a general equivalent exchange. You don't have to perform any of those actions at all.]
"Wait. Are you saying—"
Li Wu suddenly felt a horrific chill run down his spine. An unprecedented terror surged from the absolute depths of his soul.
"'[Future Loan]' isn't me borrowing power from the future... It's the 'present me' taking the equivalent items from the 'future me', and 'loaning' them to the 'past me'?!"
"Are you saying I have already experienced the equivalent of 500 million years of isolated void existence, but because my brain fundamentally couldn't handle that span of time, I was forced to forget it?!"
"500 million years alone in the void... Are you fucking kidding me?!"
If the price truly didn't need to be paid by his "present" consciousness, then even if he pressed the button, nothing would change. For the vast majority of people, that would be a guaranteed profit with zero downside.
What is past is prologue.
The past has already passed. A person cannot actually feel the feelings of their past self. Even when recalling the agony of childhood trauma, it's built upon the foundation of their present consciousness.
[The 500 million years is merely an analogy. You do not currently feel that overwhelming powerlessness, do you?]
[Since you have grasped the underlying principle, you should know that if you choose to die right now and go to the Middle Ages... then within that eternal loop of death, sooner or later, you will become the 'past you', enduring the unimaginable torment of endlessly repaying the debt.]
[Kallen, who also possesses [Return by Death], might eventually accomplish the nearly impossible task in your stead during one of her regressions. She wouldn't know your plans, nor would she truly understand what she's supposed to do. She would only know that if she doesn't change things, if she doesn't try, the loop will never end.]
[Therefore, given infinite time, she would try every single conceivable action until the loop was finally broken.]
[However, the moment you used [Future Loan], both the past and the future were firmly anchored.]
[All gifts bestowed by fate have already been secretly priced.]
The System cited a classic quote.
"...I understand. If I truly hit a dead end, I would definitely try to use [Future Loan] to break out of the predicament. But that would only plunge me deeper into debt, until I was completely and utterly crushed by it."
"One month, one year, ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years, ten thousand years... If [Future Loan] is akin to an ever-deepening debt, once I open that door and fail to repay it in time, the accumulating interest would be more than enough to reduce me to the exact state of that guy trapped in the void for 500 million years."
Li Wu held his forehead, his brows knitted tightly together.
He originally thought that acquiring S-Rank combat strength would allow him to easily sweep through the vast majority of the story arcs. But reality was infinitely crueler than he had anticipated.
The so-called "margin of error" was, in itself, the greatest crisis.
If he didn't prepare thoroughly in advance and just blindly threw himself into Medieval Europe, he would absolutely usher in the worst possible ending.
Li Wu violently shook his head, forcefully purging the chaotic thoughts from his mind. He then looked down the street toward the distance.
Down that way lay a familiar alley. Without the veil of rain, the simple architectural style carried a hint of dreamcore aesthetics.
Kiana was currently acting as the proxy manager of Nene Books, waiting for him to come over and explain everything she didn't know.
Li Wu's expression was grim. He had thought that growing stronger and acquiring new abilities would make averting these tragedies easy.
Instead, the crises he had to face had become vastly more complex and punishing, offering him an incredibly thin margin for error.
"I must establish contact with all the female leads as quickly as possible, initiate their Main Quests, and eliminate their potential death flags."
"I cannot rely on [Return by Death] for this process. I must proceed with absolute caution."
"Act I: 'Their Unknown Other Side'. The target is Raiden Mei. The crisis depicted in the manga has already been neutralized. Neither Schicksal nor World Serpent will target her anymore. Only Cocolia and Otto remain, and they might make other moves."
"I don't need to worry about Otto for now. He excels at subtly manipulating the situation to develop exactly how he wants it to. I need to focus more of my attention on Cocolia."
Li Wu rapidly analyzed and categorized the plot points from his memory.
A straightforward villain is easy to guard against. As long as you can predict their motives and remain vigilant, there's a high probability you can avoid their traps. And even if you fall for one, the damage usually isn't fatal.
But a stupid villain is impossible to guard against. Because you can never predict what utterly irrational, logic-defying bullshit they might pull the next second.
Otto belonged to the former category. Cocolia belonged to the latter.
"Ruslan said Cocolia has already arrived in Deep City. According to the manga's plot, she only goes to Deep City as the absolute final step in her plan to rescue Seele. Does Cocolia already know the Herrscher of Thunder is completely out of her reach, so she just gave up?"
Li Wu pulled out his phone and called Ryoma Raiden.
Because he needed to constantly monitor Raiden Mei's status, he had never deleted Ryoma's private contact number.
A few minutes later, Li Wu received a definitive answer.
A few days ago, amidst Anti-Entropy's internal factional conflict, Ryoma Raiden had utilized the backing of globally renowned corporations to defeat Cocolia. He had rightfully assumed the position of Anti-Entropy's Supreme Executive, ranking a full tier above all other Executives.
Furthermore, Ryoma guaranteed him that as long as he was in power, Cocolia would not be able to lay a single finger on Raiden Mei.
"There are way too many suspicious points here. 'Globally renowned corporations'? This is a development entirely outside the plot. Ryoma just glossed over it in one sentence without elaborating."
"This reeks of Otto's style..." Li Wu analyzed calmly.
Having dealt with Otto so many times, if he still couldn't spot the anomalies, he would have suffered all that torment for nothing.
You learn from your mistakes.
His and Ana's "global tour" had been one of Otto's proudest masterpieces. Whether it was the private photos or the intimate photos, Otto had maximized their utility to thoroughly obliterate Raiden Mei's sanity.
Now, Ryoma Raiden suddenly experiencing a massive career resurgence right out of prison? It was impossible not to be suspicious.
"I'll just have to trust Ryoma for now. I have absolutely no way of guessing what Otto is actually scheming anyway. Only by returning to the Middle Ages and clearing Act IV will I be able to fully understand everything."
"If I march straight up to him and demand answers right now, I'll probably just end up falling into an even deeper trap."