The thunderstorm was about to fall. With no time to explain anything to Penglaiji Ryn, Ryn could only charge back into the sky to stop it.
Raiden Mei never showed her face, whether out of fear that Ryn would kill her, or something else.
But the electromagnetic field she left behind could, to a certain extent, interfere with gravity and hinder the formation of a black hole. Right now, Mei's accumulated magnetic field was stronger, and the speed of Ryn's black hole generation was greatly reduced.
There was no time to generate a new black hole. Ryn could only use the Star Sword as a lightning rod, trying to divert the thunderstorm's trajectory.
"NO!!" Seeing Ryn charge towards the storm with his sword, Penglaiji Ryn screamed and ran towards him from the ground.
But the fear from her recent brush with death still lingered in her heart, and her legs were so weak that she fell after just a few steps.
Whether she hit her head or fainted from shock, Penglaiji Ryn felt the ground beneath her tremble...
First, sand and dirt began to float up, rising towards the sky. Then, piece by piece, rubble accelerated into the heavens...
Next, entire chunks of the earth began to float. In that moment, it was as if heaven and earth had reversed...
The tectonic plates formed a shield that covered the sky. The thunderstorm crashed against it, sending countless flecks of black dust into the air...
Using a single sword to draw the lightning was a bit too fanciful. Ryn had pulled all the soil from hundreds of miles around to form a barrier above the train convoy and Penglaiji Ryn's group, shielding them from the storm.
——————————————
The train left, gradually disappearing from Penglaiji Ryn's view.
Right... after all, once it starts, it doesn't stop easily...
What about us?
Penglaiji Ryn looked at the few combat personnel around her, and at the wounded who couldn't board because Himeko had closed the hatch.
In other words, to save the majority on the train, they had been abandoned by Himeko...
Ryn landed beside Penglaiji Ryn, silently looking at the dozens of people. They were not beings that existed in the material world; Authority had no effect on them, which meant Ryn couldn't take them all away at once.
And it seemed they had no intention of leaving either...
The people who were left behind gathered together, but they ostracized Penglaiji Ryn. They all looked at Ryn with a mixture of gratitude and fear.
"Are you... a Herrscher?" a member of the Gray Moth Squad stepped forward.
Before Ryn could answer, the others had already started whispering among themselves.
"That kind of power... must be a Herrscher..." "We should have guessed. Even with experiments, how could a human fly... Free flight is one of the symbols of a Herrscher..." "A Herrscher has been hiding among us... What does she want..."
"No, my brother is not a bad person! He's not like the Herrschers you're thinking of!" Penglaiji Ryn shouted, trying to explain on Ryn's behalf.
"Enough. Let me handle this."
Ryn put a hand on Penglaiji Ryn, shaking his head at her.
Even if not all of them had seen a Herrscher, they all knew that Herrschers had destroyed everything, that they were the culprits who had ruined this world. That fact alone was enough to make Ryn unacceptable to them.
"I was not one of the culprits of that Great Honkai Eruption. I have never killed an ordinary person. In fact, I have saved you many, many times, including this time...
Can you try to trust me? I will take you back to the Hyperion..."
Ryn looked at them sincerely, wanting to earn their trust.
The survivors talked amongst themselves for a long time before the same Gray Moth member stepped forward again.
The girl looked at Ryn for a long while, then bent down and bowed deeply. The dozens of people behind her also bowed to Ryn. Even the patients on stretchers who couldn't move gave Ryn and Penglaiji Ryn an apologetic look.
"We're sorry. We have seen what you've done. We know you are good people, and we are incredibly grateful that you saved us... but when it comes to a Herrscher, we just can't let go of our apprehension..."
"I understand... After I take you back to the train to reunite with the main group, I will leave on my own."
The girl shook her head. She took out her pistol, ejected the remaining rounds from the magazine, and left only a single bullet.
Not just the girl, but everyone else did the same.
"What are you trying to do!! I can really take you back!"
Ryn shouted nervously, but they pressed the guns to their own heads, forcing him to keep his distance.
"Perhaps we could go back with you, but the end result would just be dying on the road while running for our lives with the train group...
We've already been abandoned. In their eyes, we are already sacrificed.
Instead of going back alive to compete for the few remaining resources, being stared at with strange looks, and cursed behind our backs...
We'd rather die like heroes right now..."
Ryn: "What kind of damn logic is that? When you're dead, there's nothing left! We don't have to be heroes! As long as we're alive, anything is possible!"
Penglaiji Ryn: "We can protect you! We can definitely leave the train group and survive on our own! Don't do this..."
"We're sorry. If it were any other time, we would have properly apologized for misunderstanding you... but now, this is the only way we can express our regrets.
Living in constant fear every day, hungry, unable to sleep or eat well... the pressure, both physical and mental, is immense...
Don't try to stop us... We're tired. We are not afraid of sacrifice. Death is more like a release for us...
Leader Bronya always told us to respect our own lives, to protect ourselves... I'm so sorry to her now...
And even though Captain Himeko always has a stern look on her face, she remembered every single one of our names, hobbies, and dreams...
Oh, right... don't tell them we committed suicide! Tell them we sacrificed ourselves to clear a path for them... And don't say the wounded were abandoned. Say they deliberately chose not to board, giving their spots to others...
It's a bit hypocritical, but please let us be willful this one time..."
The girl took one last look in the direction the train had left and turned around.
"Please, you two turn around as well... What happens next won't be pretty..."
BANG—
BANG—
The sound of continuous gunshots rang out... followed by the sound of bodies falling, one after another...
——————————————
Ryn and Penglaiji Ryn solemnly buried them and collected their belongings...
Oh, there were no belongings... only the ammunition they left behind...
Their remains were buried by Ryn in the Fire Moth's cemetery. There were countless tombstones here, each marking someone who had sacrificed themselves to save their teammates.
Most had left no body behind, so only a tombstone with a name could be erected in their memory...
Unfortunately, for the people Ryn buried, though they had complete bodies, he and Penglaiji Ryn did not know their names.
「Here lie the heroes who chased the fireflies.」 — Ryn and Penglaiji Ryn