The storm in the Herrscher of Evolution's eyes turned into substantial killing intent.
He didn't even check the result, simply waving his hand casually in the direction of the incoming bullet—the movement filled with the impatience of being provoked and the disdain of crushing an ant.
An invisible "command" was issued in the air.
In an instant, the walls, the ground, and even the tiny dust and basic particles floating in the air in that area, as if receiving the most efficient evolutionary edict, began a jaw-dropping wild transformation.
They didn't condense into a single monster, but instead frantically proliferated, mutated, and fused on the spot based on the medium they were attached to!
The brick and stone structure of the wall "grew" sharp bone spikes and sacs secreting strong acid.
The concrete on the ground "softened" into chewing moss covered with sharp teeth.
The free microorganisms in the air aggregated into dozens of abstract flying units, somewhere between insects and fungi, flapping semi-transparent wing membranes...
The sole purpose of existence for all these instantly spawned, highly aggressive aberrations was to destroy everything in that area!
There was no deafening explosion, only a death symphony composed of tooth-aching, dense sounds of tearing, chewing, dissolving, and piercing.
That architectural facade, ventilation duct, and debris pile covered by the eyeball fungus carpet were completely drowned, decomposed, and shredded by this "Disposable Evolutionary Killing Cluster" that emerged out of thin air within seconds!
Bricks and stones turned to powder, metals twisted and broke. Those squirming eyeballs were attacked with priority, bursting out large amounts of turbid fluid.
When this crazy, self-destructive attack subsided, that area had turned into ruins mixed with architectural wreckage, minced flesh, sticky liquid, and still slightly twitching limbs of aberrations, emitting a strong stench of blood and volatile acid.
However, right in the center of these ruins, one thing remained unusually "intact"—the sniper rifle that triggered all this.
The gun body was twisted and deformed in the attack, the barrel bent, the wooden stock blackened and shattered, but it was indeed still there, like a clumsy stage prop deliberately placed at the focal point of the ruins.
The Herrscher of Evolution's figure disappeared instantly from the spot and reappeared in front of that twisted sniper rifle the next moment.
He didn't even squat down, just swept over with a cold gaze.
No life residue, no precise remote control device, nor any energy fluctuation.
This was just a most ordinary, even crude sniper rifle, fixed by a simple mechanical triggering device, aimed at the general direction where he was before, the trigger activated by a delayed fuse.
Bait.
A crude, blunt bait that precisely stepped on his emotional minefield.
"Boring." The Herrscher of Evolution squeezed out two words through his teeth, but the anger contained in them was even more intense.
Been fooled. The opponent didn't even disdain to hide that this was a trap.
This contempt was more intolerable to him than a direct attack.
However, he immediately realized his loss of composure and the possible danger it brought. Reason forcibly suppressed emotions, preparing to leave this obviously abnormal area immediately and re-lock onto Kallen and Yae Rin—those were the more important targets.
Just as his thoughts turned and his figure was about to move—
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
From behind the surrounding eyeball walls not yet completely destroyed, from under the gravel on the ground, even from the dust not yet dispersed in the air.
Dozens of inconspicuous canisters were suddenly ejected by some catapult device, drawing arcs and landing precisely within a twenty-meter radius around him!
These canisters were detonated simultaneously by preset fuses in mid-air before even touching the ground!
Boom——!!!
There was no shock wave of high-energy explosion. What burst out was sticky special gel that burned violently upon contact with air, mixed with incendiary agents of magnesium powder and thermite!
Red-white, golden-yellow, and dark-red flames intertwined like blooming flowers of hell, instantly swallowing the area where the Herrscher of Evolution was completely!
Tongues of fire licked everything. High temperature twisted the air, burning the residual flesh mince and eyeball wreckage in the ruins sizzlingly, emitting a strong, nauseating stench of scorched protein and organic matter.
This temperature meant nothing to the Herrscher of Evolution, but that pervasive burnt smell drilling into his nasal cavity...
In this familiar scorched stench that seemed to penetrate the soul, he keenly captured a trace of extremely subtle sweet fishiness mixed within.
Like... cheap essence mixed with rust, or the cloying aftertaste of some old wood scorched by fire.
This smell, along with the dancing fierce firelight illuminating the twisted scenery dimly and brightly before his eyes, and the scorching heat wave felt by his skin...
Like a rusty key, fiercely stabbed into a door deep in memory that had long rusted shut and been deliberately forgotten.
[Fire.
Fire everywhere.
The wooden inn collapsed amidst crackling explosions. Scorching air roasted the lung lobes.
Thick smoke rolled. The vision was filled only with jumping orange-red and devouring black.
He and Natasha had just escaped the pursuit of mercenaries from a multinational pharmaceutical group and shaken off the tracking of the Northern Soviet official secret police.
Using their last forged identities, holding a侥幸 mentality, they stepped into this underground inn located in a small town on the southern border of Shenzhou, which looked dilapidated but seemed to offer a trace of breathing space.
The boss was a taciturn middle-aged man who took five times the market price without asking anything and gave them the innermost room.
Shenzhou had extremely strict gun control. This place was far from the center of conflict. After the simplest, formalistic investigation, the two, exhausted to the extreme, almost thought they could finally close their eyes a little and replenish some nearly exhausted medicine and clean food.
However, just as their spirits relaxed slightly due to a brief sense of security, before they even had time to sit down and drink water—
Fire, from the corridor, from outside the window, from every corner they hadn't expected at all, burned crazily without warning!
Not an accident. The speed and direction of the fire spread showed that this was carefully planned arson, aimed at turning this area along with the people inside into ashes!
"No... no... why... even here..." In memory, Vakh slid down against the scorching wall, clutching a nearly melting medicine bottle in his hand, looking hollowly at the approaching flames.
Pursuers? Informers? Or pure clearance targeting "foreign troubles"?
None of it matters anymore.
The escape all the way, betrayal, sellout, desperate research, sister's frightened eyes... all the weight crushed him at this moment. Too tired. Maybe ending like this isn't bad. At least... Natasha might be able to take advantage of the chaos...
"Brother——!!!"]
The floodgate of memory slammed shut.
The Herrscher of Evolution—at this moment, the pain, despair, fatigue belonging to Vakh Cioara, and the complex reaction to that "Brother," collapsed the dam he used to maintain absolute rationality like a tsunami.
The surrounding fire, smell, heat... even the unique suffocating feeling of oxygen deprivation when fire burned, were exactly the same as that night in memory!
This was not a coincidence.
This was... a vicious and precise attack targeting his memory!
Smack!!
The Herrscher of Evolution suddenly pressed his hand on his face. Whether it was the back of his hand or his forehead, blue veins burst out everywhere the eye could see.
Muscles twitching from tension almost squeezed his blood vessels to explode, just as his hand gripping his head exerted force as if to directly crush his own head along with the brain carrying memories.
The Honkai energy around him began to show signs of losing control and going berserk. Faint purple-black energy turbulence condensed into substance, lashing the surrounding sea of fire like lightning.
The burning gel was splashed everywhere by this pure berserk Honkai energy. Even those stubborn eyeball fungus carpets became necrotic and peeled off in large patches under the energy impact.
His expression twisted. Behind the crushed glasses that had been squeezed to explode, his eyes were already full of bloodshot lines.
That was not pure anger, but pain, violence, and mania of old scars being uncovered.
And a trace of human fear and fragility hidden deep under the evolutionary consciousness that even he himself hadn't noticed.
The purpose of the trap was never to kill.
But... to make him "lose control."
Severe, self-inflicted tearing headache acted like the rudest brake, forcibly pulling back the consciousness about to slide into the abyss of complete loss of control.
"Calm down... analyze... eliminate interference..." He gritted his teeth, every word seemingly squeezed out with blood from between his teeth.
Using the extremely sharp pain brought by self-mutilation to maintain a sliver of clarity, his terrifying calculation and adaptation ability belonging to the Herrscher of Evolution forcibly started again.
His left hand suddenly waved outward at the same time.
This time, it wasn't a precise or violent attack targeting a certain direction, but an indiscriminate annihilation command to completely clear the field!
With him as the center, a large swathe of chaotic tiny creatures rushed out with a riotous buzz, turning into a storm around him that seemed to devour everything.
Then, as he irritably clenched his hand, everything around seemed to receive a huge impact and vanished into ashes in an instant.
No explosion, no loud noise, only a creepy "rustling" sound as if everything weathered and dissolved instantly.
The fire extinguished, the ruins leveled, those tiny creatures disappeared, and even the smell seemed to be forcibly "erased" mostly by this force.
Within vision, only a strange circular area with a diameter of one hundred meters, forcibly flattened by some force and smooth as a mirror, remained, like a huge scorched scar just ironed by an iron, branded in this eyeball hell.
The moment environmental interference was violently cleared, the high-speed operating mind of the Herrscher of Evolution simultaneously reached a conclusion: that trace of sweet fishiness was an extremely rare composite hallucinogenic pheromone with no relevant record in his memory.
It could bypass conventional physiological defenses, resonate directly with deep memory and emotional centers, simulating and amplifying specific painful memories.
Not poison, but a medium for mental attack!
"Damn it!" A surge of rage and chagrin rose in the Herrscher of Evolution's heart for falling into the trap.
He just wanted to return immediately to where Kallen and Yae Rin fell just now to confirm whether those two "anomaly" cores had been completely annihilated in his unconscious energy berserk just now—he had no doubt about this.
The energy leaked in that state was enough to tear ordinary people into atoms.
However, just as he suppressed the severe pain and residual mania, preparing to turn around—
A clear, loud broadcast voice with the unique current noise of military channels sounded from all directions of this scorched area just razed to the ground without warning:
"Warning! Warning! This airspace has been designated as a military exercise restricted zone! All unauthorized aircraft and personnel, please evacuate immediately!
"Repeat, this airspace has been designated as a military exercise restricted zone! All unauthorized aircraft and personnel, please evacuate immediately!
"The exercise is about to begin. Not responsible for accidental injuries!"
The content, tone, and even that bit of background noise of this broadcast...
Matched exactly with the announcement in memory that led to everything taking a turn for the worse...
Not a bit of difference!
The Herrscher of Evolution's body stiffened abruptly. The force of his hand gripping his head increased uncontrollably again, nails almost embedding into the bone.
Immediately after, sharp whistling sounds tearing the air came from far to near.
Not one, but a patch.
It was a saturation strike—
...It was the strike in memory!!
In the sky, several surface-to-air/air-to-ground missiles dragging striking tail flames were shrouding down precisely towards this "flat open space" where he was with standard saturation attack trajectories!
Their guidance signal source seemed to be mixed in the broadcast!
The floodgate of memory was violently crashed open again. This time, not because of drugs, but because of environment and situation.
The forcibly leveled, open and flat area looked extremely like an airport runway. The terrifying reproduction of broadcast warning and missile attack, combined with his emotional defense line already on the verge of collapse—
[Violent bumps inside the cabin.
Ear-piercing alarms filled the ears, along with desperate crying and cursing of passengers.
Outside the window was the rapidly approaching ground, and the signal flares and searchlight beams representing military control rising from the direction of the distant airport.
He and Natasha sat by the window in economy class, faces uglier than dead people.
After narrowly escaping from that big fire in Shenzhou, they exhausted almost all resources to get on this flight to a small country in Western Europe known for neutrality and secrecy.
There was an underground research institute he contacted last that might be willing to provide shelter.
The plane was about to land, even runway lights could be seen...
Then, that cold broadcast resounded through the cabin.
Immediately after came the pilot's frightened-to-deformation communication interruption report, and the glaring red light suddenly appearing on the radar representing being locked.
"Why... won't let us go even here... We just... want to live... do research..." Vakh gripped the armrest tightly, knuckles turning white. This time, in the abyss of despair, unprecedented unwillingness and hatred burned like poisonous fire.
Those pharmaceutical giants high above, those hypocritical official institutions, those mercenaries selling lives for money...
They drove them like rats, giving no way to live, wanting to crush the last hope of him and his sister along with their bodies completely in the sky of this foreign land!
Destroy.
Destroy everything.
If this world can't tolerate a bit of alien, can't tolerate their humble way of survival... then together...
Crazy thoughts grew like weeds, almost swallowing his last humanity.
"Brother——!!!"]
"Pfft——!"
The Herrscher of Evolution in reality suddenly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood. Not only from his mouth, but scarlet blood streaks seeped out from his ears, nasal cavity, and even corners of his eyes due to the extreme pressure borne by his head and intense emotional impact!
The force of his right hand gripping his head had lost control.
Eyeballs under huge intracranial pressure caused capillaries to rupture one after another, turning those originally gray-blue eyes into horrifying blood-burning pupils, crimson red, as if flames were burning inside!
However, it was precisely this pain exceeding the limit and self-mutilation-like reason maintenance method acting like an iron pile firmly driven into the rock layer in a violent storm.
Allowing him to maintain the last trace of twisted but tough reason under the violent impact of two consecutive memory flashbacks and before the death threat of missiles' sharp whistling already close at hand!
He saw it...
And understood!
Sniper! Fire! Missiles!
All were... precise strikes targeting "Vakh Cioara's" memory!
It was a trap! Torture!
It was that rat hiding in the dark, deliberately tearing open his old scars, enjoying his pain and madness!
"Haa... Haa haa..." The Herrscher of Evolution let out panting like a broken bellows. The blood-burning eyes stared fixedly at the rapidly enlarging missile light spots in the sky.
Boiling inside was no longer just Vakh's pain, but also the extreme rage of the evolutionary consciousness being toyed with like this, forced to relive the fragile emotions of lower creatures, and a cold killing intent to drag the mastermind out and "evolve" him inch by inch into the ugliest form.
He still gripped his head, bleeding from seven orifices, looking like a mad demon, but the core of his thinking had condensed into the only goal under the tempering of severe pain and fury:
Find that rat.
Then...
Let him experience true... "evolutionary" hell.
Facing the whistling missile group that once symbolized despair and death, an unprecedented light mixed with pain, fury, and a twisted ecstasy erupted in the Herrscher of Evolution's blood-burning eyes.
"Just with these... obsolete toys?!"
He roared, suddenly releasing the hands gripping his head, spreading his arms wide towards the sky on both sides as if breaking free from shackles!
No complex energy barrier, no teleportation evasion.
At the moment the missiles were about to hit his body, the air around him, the scorched ground beneath his feet, and even the metal fragments and propellant embers carried by the missiles themselves became the extension of his will and the hotbed of "evolution"!
Countless fine purple veins like nerve bundles suddenly "grew" on the outer shells of the missiles. These veins attached to the missiles, instantly seizing control of the guidance system, causing the missiles to crash into each other in mid-air and detonate prematurely.
The firelight of the explosion was not a threat but became new material!
Splashing high-temperature fragments and shock waves were forcibly "kneaded" and "catalyzed" under some power transcending physical laws, turning into groups of hideous disposable energy life forms composed of fire, metal, and impact energy.
Like a meteor fire rain flying backward, actively pouncing on the missiles not yet exploded higher in the sky, triggering more sympathetic detonations!
Boom boom boom boom boom——!!!
Continuous explosions shook this eyeball hell. Blazing firelight illuminated the sky like daylight, then was quickly filled by more explosions and weird purple energy creatures.
The Herrscher of Evolution stood in the center of this destruction symphony ignited and controlled by his own hands, arms spread wide, head raised, face stained with blood unknown whether his own or the enemy's.
Against the background of falling, exploding, tearing flames and deformed energy bodies filling the sky, a crazy and beautiful apocalyptic picture was composed.
As if the figure embracing freedom on the poster of "Homu's Redemption," but what descended was not the rain of redemption, but the fire of destruction burning away the past, symbolizing his absolute power now.
Under absolute emotional fluctuation, he completed "evolution" once again!
Following silicon-based life and carbon-based life—energy life!!
"Haha... Hahahaha!!!" The Herrscher of Evolution laughed wildly, his voice hoarse but filled with unprecedented carefree pleasure and madness.
"See that?! This power! It's different from before! The current me... can do anything! Will never... be by you ants..."
His words were interrupted by a sharper, more unique engine whistle!
Not a missile, not an energy attack.
An Arahato Unit-02, slightly smaller than the previous Arahato, with smoother lines and painted in striking red, orange, and white, like a red comet tearing the fire curtain, swooped down brazenly from above the explosion smoke cloud at an almost vertical angle!
Its right fist clenched tightly. Highly compressed azure Honkai energy condensed at the fist peak. With an indomitable momentum, it blasted straight towards the Herrscher of Evolution's head standing in the explosion embers!
This sudden, targeted attack did not panic the Herrscher of Evolution, but instead made the madness in his eyes even more intense!
"Just with this?!"
He didn't dodge or evade, even putting away all fancy "creation" abilities.
This time, he merely bulged the muscles of his right arm, which had evolved to an unimaginable degree. Purple-black flowing light faintly darted under the skin. Five fingers clenched into a fist, meeting that mechanical heavy fist falling from the sky head-on in the most primitive and barbaric way!
Thud——————!!!!!!
A circle of shock wave visible to the naked eye exploded fiercely at the intersection of the two fists, pushing away the surrounding flames and dust violently!
The scorched ground underfoot cracked and sank inch by inch like fragile biscuits under heavy pressure!
The result was without suspense.
The swooping punch of Arahato Unit-02, seemingly carrying the weight of a thousand jun, felt like hitting an eternal steel mountain.
Starting from the fist peak, the mechanical arm emitted tooth-aching metal twisting wails. Armor plates shattered and flew off. Internal hydraulic rods and transmission structures overloaded and burst instantly!
The entire machine was bounced off fiercely by the reaction force at a faster speed than it came, like a baseball hit with full force, smashing a concrete wall not yet completely covered by eyeballs in the distance outside the flat ground, dust filling the air.
"You think you can defeat me?!" The Herrscher of Evolution took a step forward. The ground under his feet rose and shattered like waves.
He instantly appeared in front of Unit-02 which hadn't crawled up yet, blood-burning eyes staring firmly at that red optical lens. "You think you can kill me?!"
Answering him was the high-frequency vibration particle blade ejected from Unit-02's left arm, drawing a mournful arc of light, slashing towards his neck.
The Herrscher of Evolution just casually raised his left hand. Index finger and middle finger precisely clamped the blade edge enough to cut tank armor.
The next moment, purple light flashed on the Herrscher of Evolution's fingertips. The high-frequency vibration of the particle blade stopped abruptly. The blade body seemed to instantly "age" and "rust," turning into crumbs.
"Just some maggots! A bunch of waste living less than a hundred years! A group of inferior lives unable to break away from life boundaries!"
He roared, his right hand shooting out like lightning, grabbing the leg Unit-02 tried to kick with.
Five fingers embedded into the armor like a hot knife cutting butter, then exerted force fiercely, swinging the entire mech like a rag sack, smashing it ruthlessly against a low building nearby!
Rumble! Half of the building collapsed, burying the mech.
But the next second, the red figure rushed out from the ruins. The chest armor plate opened, revealing several small missile launch nests.
"Boring!" The Herrscher of Evolution didn't even move. Just with a thought, those micro-missiles just launched "evolved" reverse thrusters on their own in the air, turned around, and shot back into the launch nests at a faster speed!
Bang bang bang bang! A string of sparks burst out on Unit-02's chest, the body staggering back.
"See that?! This perfect life form! These infinite possibilities! This is the endpoint of evolution! This is the domain of 'God' transcending the cognition of you ants!"
Laughing wildly, his figure flashed and disappeared again, appearing behind Unit-02. A seemingly understated elbow strike, containing power to crumble mountains and crack rocks, smashed fiercely onto the engine on the back of the machine!
Crack! The engine casing severely deformed, nozzle flaming out.
Unit-02 fell forward, plowing a deep groove on the ground.
The Herrscher of Evolution followed like a shadow, stepping on the broken chest armor of Unit-02. Huge force made the ground sink again.
The heavily damaged body spasmed violently a few times, seeming to still want to launch a counterattack.
But the Herrscher of Evolution just raised his foot again, stepping fiercely on the deformed cockpit armor on the mech's chest, leaning over, and issuing the final, deafening question to that seemingly completely silent steel tomb.
His voice was full of fanatical belief in his own eternal life and extreme contempt for short fragile existence:
"I will live on! Live on forever! Live until a hundred years, a thousand years, ten thousand years later! And you, cheap rotten life inside this broken iron shell..."
His foot increased force, the cockpit armor groaning overwhelmed, "In ten thousand years, what will you still have?! Dust?! Void?! Or completely forgotten—without even a record left?!"
The lingering sound of fury echoed in the dead silent ruins and the gradually spreading eyeball hell.
Then.
An extremely weak, almost whispering breathy sound, seemingly about to scatter in the wind at any time, drifted out faintly from inside that severely deformed cockpit that should have long lost all signs of life underfoot.
It penetrated the metal barrier, penetrated the distance between the two, penetrated the world sandwiched between two "lives"—hell and heaven.
Precisely falling into the memories and heart of the Herrscher of Evolution that had unwittingly opened completely.
"You..."
That voice was so weak, so hazy, like sleep-talking.
But it carried a strange calmness penetrating all mania and destruction, even...
An indescribable attachment.
Attachment existing only in memories.
"...I still have you..."
All the violent, disdainful, crazy expressions on the Herrscher of Evolution's face completely solidified at this instant, like a lake surface frozen by absolute zero.
The force of his foot on the cockpit loosened unconsciously.
In the blood-burning eyes, that boiling purple-black madness receded like a tide, leaving only disbelief, blank bewilderment.
This voice...
As if pulled by an invisible thread, he bent down stiffly and slowly. Blood-stained fingers tremblingly gripped the edge of that twisted and deformed cockpit cover.
He didn't use any "evolutionary" power he was proud of at this moment, only relying on the residual brute force belonging to a human.
Accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of metal tearing, he roughly, yet exceptionally carefully, lifted Arahato's faceplate.
Inside the cockpit under the faceplate was a mess.
Shattered dashboard, broken cables, leaking hydraulic oil... and, that familiar blood-soaked face inside the severely deformed armored helmet.
Her face was covered in blood. There was a deep wound on her forehead, blood dyeing half of her pale cheek red.
Her eyes were tightly closed, breath so weak it was almost undetectable. Obviously, in the series of terrifying blows just now and the final tear, she suffered unimaginable heavy damage and had long lost consciousness.
She—was Natasha.
'Vakh's' pupils contracted suddenly to the size of pinpoints.
His brain roared. All the high walls built by power, by evolution, by anger, crashed down in front of this face familiar to the bone but scarred at this moment.
Just then, as if sensing the canopy being opened, sensing that familiar yet strange aura close at hand, Natasha, on the verge of death, frowned unconsciously and extremely slightly.
'Vakh' watched her blood-stained lips move slightly, emitting a softer, blurrier breathy sound that seemed to exhaust the last trace of life instinct, carrying childlike dependence, deep longing, and a trace of almost imperceptible, aggrieved crying tone:
"...Brother...?"
Brother?
Is it you?
This word, like the final heavy hammer, smashed ruthlessly into the deepest part of the soul of the Herrscher of Evolution—or rather, Vakh Cioara who was hidden deep under the evolutionary shell and never truly disappeared.
All scenes began to spin, blur, fade...
[The world was forcibly stripped of color and sound, leaving only cold, damp air permeated with disinfectant and faint bloody smell.
The pointer of memory didn't point to those desperate moments of displacement and burning fire, but went against the river of time, piercing precisely into the darker childhood abyss burying the initial pure warmth.
Location was some sunless underground facility.
In the small, cold "reward room," two hard chairs faced each other.
The pungent aftertaste of chemical reagents remained in the air, traces left by the just-finished "lesson."
For twelve-year-old Vakh, that wasn't an experiment, but locking two children of the same age together, using limited, highly toxic materials to game with each other, making poison, detoxifying.
The one who couldn't hold on fell first. The one who survived gained the qualification to walk out of that "poison room," and... the "reward" of briefly meeting family.
Vakh won, again.
But he felt no joy of victory, only continuous spasms in his stomach due to tension and fear, and slight tremors at his fingertips hard to suppress.
He could "smell" the weird sweet fishy smell mixed with various toxins stained on his body, and could also "feel" the weakness and nausea brought by large consumption of alkaloids in his body to neutralize those toxins.
The door opened.
Another equally thin, pale figure with lingering fear and fatigue in her eyes was brought in. It was Natasha, two years younger than him.
She just temporarily escaped from another dimension of "hell"—harsh killer training. There might be no obvious chemical pollution on her body, but that mental high pressure and fatigue from physical training were equally carved into her tense limbs and dim eyes.
The two sat down on cold chairs, separated by an empty small table.
No hugs, no crying complaints, not even much speech.
In that environment, excessive emotional expression was dangerous, inviting "extra attention" and "correction" from monitors.
They just looked at each other quietly and greedily, confirming each other was still alive, missing no arms or legs, light in eyes not completely extinguished.
Then, Natasha's hand, bit by bit, tentatively extended from under the table. Cold fingers gently touched the back of Vakh's equally cold hand. Vakh's fingers moved slightly, then backhandedly held his sister's hand.
Very hard, as if to pass over his insignificant body temperature and strength.
Natasha's tense shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly a little bit.
"Brother..." She called out extremely lightly with a breathy sound, not a question, just a confirmation.
"Mmh." Vakh also responded extremely lightly, his gaze quickly sweeping over possible scars on her face, "...Hurt?"
Natasha shook her head, then nodded, eye rims reddening instantly, but she bit her lip tightly, not letting tears fall.
Vakh's heart tightened. He knew the cruelty of the "training" on his sister's side was probably no less than the "poison game" on his side.
Silent for a moment, Vakh used the other hand not held to fish out half a piece of carefully preserved, somewhat dry and hard dark chocolate from his pocket—this was secretly hidden from "excellent performance" last time.
He broke off a small piece and quickly stuffed it into Natasha's hand.
Natasha froze for a moment, then quickly put the chocolate into her mouth. Bitter with a trace of sweetness melted in her mouth, as if even the tense nerves relaxed a sliver.
Just this tiny insignificant sweetness was like the last straw breaking the camel's back.
The fear, grievance, and dependence on the only family member in front accumulated in cruel training that Natasha had been enduring could no longer be suppressed.
Big teardrops rolled down silently. She slid down from the chair fiercely and threw herself into Vakh's arms.
She buried her face in his equally thin clothes smelling of chemicals, sobbing suppressively and violently, her thin shoulders shaking constantly.
Vakh's body stiffened for a moment, then he hugged his sister tightly in a flurry, one hand clumsily patting her back, the other gently stroking her soft hair.
He wanted to say "don't be afraid," wanted to say "I'm here," wanted to say "we will definitely escape"...
But all language seemed pale and powerless in such a desperate environment.
He could only hug her tighter, using his equally thin but trying hard to straighten back to separate a little bit of imaginary monitoring gaze for her, providing a relatively safe corner for a brief cry.
Unknown how long passed, Natasha's crying gradually subsided, leaving only intermittent sobbing.
She didn't leave Vakh's embrace, just changed posture, like a small beast seeking shelter, with red eyes, sticking her face on Vakh's leg, gazing somewhat unfocused at the cold ground.
Silence descended again, but this time, carrying a warmth of depending on each other for survival after a disaster.
Then, Natasha used a voice with thick nasal sound, extremely light, like talking to herself, or asking a distant dream:
"Brother... say, if... if we can live until ten thousand years later... what else can we have?"
Vakh in memory opened his mouth, a thoughtful expression on his young but precocious face.
Ten thousand years? That was too distant, far beyond the boundary of their meager imagination.
They didn't even know if they could survive tomorrow.
He wanted to say "maybe there will be freedom," wanted to say "maybe can live in a place with sunshine," wanted to say "maybe don't have to learn these terrible things anymore"...
But he couldn't say the answer.
Because young Natasha lying on his leg seemed to sense her brother's hesitation and the depression brought by that overly heavy topic. She raised her head slightly with some doubt.
'Vakh' saw pure confusion on Natasha's tear-stained small face, and those eyes similar to Vakh's clearly reflected his complex expression.
She called out again gently, with a nasal sound:
"Brother...?"
This "Brother," like a key, instantly opened the layers of floodgates deep in memory!
Scenes began to flash back crazily—
It was at two years old, just learning to speak, stumbling over with indistinct pronunciation, carrying milk scent and candy smell: "Brother!"
It was at four years old, family happy, riding on father's shoulders to the amusement park, proudly pointing and announcing to little friends "My brother bought it for me!", that happy-to-shining: "Brother!"
It was at six years old, at parents' funeral, wearing a small black dress, tightly grabbing his hem, face full of tear stains, repeating helplessly again and again: "Brother..."
It was at eight years old, temporarily released from cruel "basic training" for the first time, covered in bruises, throwing herself into his arms crying loudly, the collapsed: "Brother——!"
It was at ten years old, desperately rescued by him from that hellish training camp, hiding in the dark truck compartment, shocked but full of huge surprise, hugging his neck tightly, the trembling: "Brother!"
It was at twelve years old, encountering an attack on the escape route. He was injured protecting her. While clumsily helping him bandage, holding back tears, she encouraged flustered but trying to be firm: "Brother! You'll be fine!"
It was at fourteen years old, in the burning inn, facing his despair on the verge of collapse, she grabbed his hand tightly, screaming with all her strength: "Brother——!!!"
It was at sixteen years old, on the falling plane, seeing the terrifying dark hatred surging in his eyes, she tried to grab him in panic and subconsciously, that "Brother..." carrying trust and fear.
It was at eighteen years old, shot in the head, snatched back from the brink of death by him using all means without sleep or rest. At the first moment of regaining consciousness, seeing him with stubble all over his face and sunken eye sockets by the bed, she weakly moved her lips, finally turning into a reassured and incomparably dependent: "...Brother."
Finally...
Fixed in reality.
It was twenty-year-old Natasha, driving the broken Arahato Unit-02. At the last moment of losing consciousness, using the last instinct of life, facing that face of "Brother" both familiar and strange, written with madness and power, emitting that dream-like whisper penetrating all noise and destruction, mixed with longing, attachment, grievance, and endless dependence—
"...Brother...?"
The flood of memories stopped abruptly.
Reality flooded back into senses—beating him to pieces.
Broken mech underfoot, dying sister in arms, surrounding wriggling hell and not yet dispersed smoke.
The Herrscher of Evolution—Vakh Cioara—stood stiffly in the ruins.
Those blood-burning eyes had long lost all mania and coldness, leaving only a blank bewilderment washed by a huge emotional flood, and under that bewilderment, a rapidly cracking, collapsing fragile core.
That furious question full of pride in eternal life just now, like the most vicious curse, echoed in his own mind:
"In ten thousand years, what will you still have?!"
And at this moment, overlapping with Natasha's distant question full of a slim hope in despair in memory:
"If we can live until ten thousand years later... what else can we have?"
The answer... the answer had been given in Natasha's whisper of losing consciousness just now.
With her last will, she gave the answer that wasn't waited for in the darkest moment of childhood, which was also the purest, most instinctive answer at this moment.
"I still have you."
Then... what about him?
If evolving to eternity, living until ten thousand years later...
What did he still have?
Natasha, ten thousand years later, in memory, in soul, might still have the shadow of "Brother Vakh," even if that shadow might have long been twisted and deformed.
But he... Herrscher of Evolution, Vakh Cioara... ten thousand years later, in that endless time long enough for stars to fall and civilizations to reincarnate...
He wouldn't have "Natasha" anymore.
Wouldn't have the sister who would call from two years old to twenty, calling out different emotions in different situations, but always tightly binding the syllable "Brother" with him.
Eternal life, endpoint of evolution, invincible power... at this moment, compared with that dependent whisper of the dying girl, suddenly became...
Hollow to suffocation!
Cold as abyss!
"Haa... Ugh aaaaaahhh————————!!!!"
Not a roar of anger, not a scream of pain, but a collapse screech filled with endless despair and self-negation as if the soul was torn from the deepest part and all foundations of existence collapsed!
The Herrscher of Evolution hugged the weakly breathing Natasha in his arms tightly, knees going soft, kneeling on Arahato's wreckage and the sticky eyeball fungus carpet.
The Honkai energy around him completely lost control, violently washing everything around, but no longer carrying any aggressiveness, leaving only pure, devastating sadness and chaos.
Those squirming eyeballs became necrotic and burst in large patches because they couldn't withstand this emotional storm-like energy. The surrounding ruins were stirred and shattered by invisible power again.
He hugged her, like hugging the last spark about to extinguish, and like hugging his already fragmented past and future, emitting a silent wail that seemed capable of tearing the whole world apart.
The shell of the Herrscher of Evolution, at this moment, along with his pride and reason built on "absolute evolution"...
Completely collapsed.