"This feeling is..."
Kallen bit her lower lip tightly. She'd joined the Valkyries before adulthood, became a captain at sixteen, and was now hailed as "Schicksal's Strongest Valkyrie." She could certainly tell that the sky-obscuring blackness wasn't some mere "dark cloud," but the color manifested by highly concentrated Honkai Energy.
It was also the strongest Honkai reaction she had ever witnessed in all her years.
"Damn it, of all times..."
Kallen glanced at Otto, who remained relatively calm. Her tightly furrowed brow quickly smoothed out. Without further hesitation, she offered an apologetic smile:
"Sorry, Otto. You're not combat personnel, so it's best if you stay here. You can get acquainted with Vera too. Leave the front lines to me."
"Kallen!"
Otto narrowed his eyes guiltily, trying to hide his darting gaze. He had, of course, anticipated Kallen's reaction. Or rather, it would have been baffling if Kallen hadn't chosen to rush back to the front lines at this moment.
According to his original plan, he should have found ways to hold Kallen back. But when the moment arrived, he hesitated for just an instant. By the time he reached out to grab her, she had already utilized her superior Valkyrie physique to dash away, leaving Otto with only her rapidly shrinking back.
Otto took a symbolic step forward, slowly retracting his outstretched right hand, only to cover the lower half of his face. His fingers clenched needlessly hard, distorting his mouth and nose until he felt a twinge of pain. Pain? No, he wasn't some masochist. He couldn't quite explain the reason for the action; perhaps he just needed to feel the result of pain in that instant.
The logistics camp descended into chaos.
As the "dark clouds" on the horizon grew thicker, the mules, horses, and other animals sensed the danger. Their survival instincts fully ignited, they could no longer be suppressed by the soldiers' whips. Rearing up, they snapped ropes, broke through fences, and bolted wildly through the already crowded camp.
For a moment, the uproar of men and beasts was deafening, and no one even noticed Otto standing at the camp entrance.
["Not going after her?"]
The Void Archives, silent all morning, finally spoke, its tone laced with faint mockery.
"Why should I?"
Otto lowered his hand, adopting an air of indifference. He turned slowly, about to walk into the logistics camp.
"Kallen is Schicksal's Strongest Valkyrie. It's just a minor emergency; she can handle it perfectly. Compared to that, I'm actually more eager to meet that child, Vera... She is our adopted daughter, after all."
["And yet, if I recall correctly, this deviates from your original plan, doesn't it?"]
Otto froze mid-step. His brow furrowed inwardly, and he unconsciously glanced back at the dark clouds pressing down on the horizon. He retorted with sarcasm:
"If I recall correctly, someone claimed to have extremely high moral standards, vowing never to casually pry into others' minds unless facing an enemy. Right?"
["That's hardly my fault. Prying implies I actively look into your mind. But sometimes, if your own emotional fluctuations are too intense... it's like me walking past your house while you're shouting inside. If I happen to overhear a word or two, who's really to blame?"]
Otto scoffed twice. "Twisting words!"
Despite his retort, his feet remained planted. He neither advanced into the clamoring logistics camp nor turned to pursue Kallen.
"If you hadn't filled my head with those bizarre dreams, making me wake up nearly at noon, I would have had plenty of ways to delay Kallen."
["Tch, don't shift the blame to me. Couldn't you have stopped her just now? You simply didn't want to. You want to protect her, willing to challenge your own conscience and trample your bottom line for her sake. Yet, when it comes down to it, you don't want to stop her from living against her own will, preferring instead to watch her walk into danger. What kind of twisted personality is this?"]
Otto inhaled sharply. The Void Archives could, after all, directly perceive his thoughts, grasping his mentality with unnerving accuracy. Though, if a certain someone truly saw him thinking this way, they would likely just offer a wry smile and no explanation.
Otto stubbornly repeated, "It's fine. With Kallen's strength, it's nothing."
But even as he said it... "Valkyrie" wasn't truly "god." Despite possessing abilities far beyond ordinary people, they were still fundamentally "human." They could still be cut down by a common soldier's blade, or suffer irreversible corruption under overwhelming Honkai energy, ultimately becoming mindless Deadman.
And Kallen... Otto never doubted her combat prowess as the "Strongest Valkyrie," but how strong could one human truly be? Does strength grant immortality? Does it negate the need for worry?
Besides, Kallen carried the name "Kaslana"—a surname that felt almost like a curse.
It seemed a brazier had been overturned within the camp. Otto didn't know what had caught fire, but a faint whiff of acrid smoke reached his nostrils. The muscles in his face twitched rapidly, and a wave of nausea surged from his stomach, making him want to gag.
He hated that smell of burning. It reminded him of the strongest human he had ever known growing up—Francis Kaslana, Kallen's father.
Otto vividly remembered the scene: Francis standing protectively before him and Kallen, effortlessly slaying a giant Honkai Beast with the Kaslana family's heirloom, the Cleaver of Shamash. But what good did that memory do?
Francis lay in a small coffin, surrounded by flowers. The soft, colored light filtering through the church windows and the choir's holy hymns enveloped the casket, yet they couldn't completely mask the lingering smell of burnt flesh emanating from within.
The mere thought that Kallen might one day wield the Cleaver of Shamash, incinerating herself along with her enemies, sent shivers of fear down Otto's spine, churning his stomach with nausea.
Thankfully, the Judgment of Shamash had been damaged after that incident and remained unrepaired.
Perhaps that was a blessing for the Kaslana family? No, even without the Judgment of Shamash, the Kaslanas were still bound by the curse of dying in battle. Just as William had said yesterday, Francis's children either died fighting or succumbed to illness, leaving only the disabled Wilhelm and the still-intact Kallen.
"So... you absolutely cannot let anything happen to you, Kallen..."
Otto's feet shifted slightly to the side. Yet, he still hesitated, deceiving himself with a fragile hope.
Perhaps, without even realizing it, he had begun treating the Void Archives as a friend with whom he could openly discuss his inner thoughts. Lost in his confusion, he laid bare his plan, although... he knew none of it was truly a secret to the Void Archives:
"According to the plan, Eleanor will deploy the modified serum around the Ming army camp. It's a byproduct of my Black Death treatment research; it will induce Honkai energy accumulation within half an hour. That should give Eleanor and the others enough time to withdraw back to the Schicksal camp. The accumulation will last about ten minutes, enough to turn most of the ordinary Ming soldiers into Deadman. Their rangers will be bogged down fighting the Deadman. That's when Eleanor leads the Valkyries back for a counterattack...
"Yes! That's right! Exactly! The Ming will be powerless against the Valkyrie assault! The reason I wanted to keep Kallen here, to prevent her from participating, wasn't because I doubted the plan's success! Nor was I worried Kallen would be in danger! The Ming main force would already be in disarray, posing little threat. I wanted to keep her here simply because I didn't want her...
"I wanted to keep her here just so she wouldn't have to witness that kind of carnage. I know it would pain her... I..."
Despite his words, Otto had already turned completely, looking towards the "dark clouds" that were beginning to dissipate.
Generally speaking, he considered himself a rational person. But lately, he found himself relying more and more on intuition.
Unfortunately, ever since that dream—which he stubbornly insisted was merely imposed upon him by the Void Archives—his intuition had been screaming against his actions, constantly feeding him a sense of foreboding. This directly contradicted his rational analysis, leaving him increasingly confused—
"What is the source of all my bad feelings? Is it distrust in the plan I devised, distrust in myself? Or is it purely concern for Kallen, fear for her safety, fear of whether she could accept such darkness? Or perhaps, is all this hesitation simply a result of the psychological suggestion implanted by the Void Archives through that dream?"
For the first time, Otto experienced the sensation of his mind being a tangled mess. No, this was worse than ordinary confusion; it was so chaotic he couldn't even grasp what he should be thinking about—
He started out worrying about Kallen, so how did he end up agonizing over the origin of his own premonition?
["So, are you just going to stand here pondering indefinitely?"]
The Void Archives let out an undisguised scoff:
["Hey, hey! You're not seriously planning to stand here thinking forever, are you?"]
"Then what do you think I should do?"
Even in his current state, Otto didn't forget to fire back at the Void Archives. But it wasn't intentional. If anything, he desperately hoped this enigmatic entity could provide an answer, tell him what he should do.
Yet, he resisted the thought fiercely, so much so that his own consciousness instinctively recoiled before he could even fully form the request for help.
["Otto, you think yourself far more mature than your peers, but in my eyes, you're just an incredibly naive child. I admit, idle contemplation can yield insights; the seeds of growth sometimes lie dormant within. But is your current deliberation truly meaningful? It only serves to waste time. Perhaps decades from now, you'll realize how weak you were today—whether it was holding her back to shield her from darkness, or chasing after her to face the consequences of your 'crime,' you made no choice at all. Because you are evading responsibility.]
["Yes, let me be blunt: you are simply running away, Otto. You feel guilt, remorse; you believe that having committed such errors makes you unworthy to face Kallen—that's why you didn't want to keep her here. You're afraid she'll discover everything, expose your hypocrisy to your face... You're even afraid to witness the full, terrible consequences of your own 'crime'—that's why you dare not chase after her. You are simply running away. Nothing more."]
"Yes... Yes, yes, yes!! I am running away, so what!"
Otto stumbled forward a few steps, crouched down, clutching his head, his body trembling uncontrollably with emotion.
"You couldn't possibly understand! At the end of the day, you're just some cube, neither human nor ghost! Do you know how much blood I spilled developing the cure for the Black Death? Do you know how terrified I am of Kallen finding out? I wanted to give her what she desired, but first, I had to become someone she wouldn't desire, commit sins she could never accept... Do you understand that kind of pain?"
Heedless of who might hear, Otto roared out the words. But for a long moment, he heard no response from the Void Archives.
In a daze, he thought he heard the Void Archives sigh, but the sound was impossibly faint, as if crossing countless eons, vast distances, perhaps even transcending space-time itself, whispering past his ear like a fleeting illusion.
After what felt like another long pause, it finally spoke, its voice tinged with an unprecedented weariness:
["Good. Good."]
It repeated the word of praise twice, though Otto detected no actual praise in its tone.
["You are, at least, stronger than another person I once knew. If he were in your place, he probably would have hidden away somewhere long ago for a good cry."]
The Void Archives hummed softly, as if recounting the tale of someone completely unrelated to it.
["Speaking of which, perhaps your original personality wasn't quite so twisted. But what can you do, when that person was your ancestor?"]
"Ancestor?"
["Alright, let's return to the matter at hand. Otto... do you truly believe your plan is foolproof? Do you truly believe... the Ming will be helpless against such large-scale Honkai corruption? Otto, oh Otto, your greatest weakness, directly proportional to your genius, is your arrogance and self-absorption. Your gaze has never left yourself and Kallen. But what makes you think your plan is guaranteed to succeed?"]
"What do you mean? I reviewed numerous records from the Ming Empire before coming here. They shouldn't have experience dealing with Honkai on this scale..."
"Tsk. You said it yourself: 'shouldn't.' Which means you know perfectly well that compared to the vast ocean of Shenzhou's historical records, what you could read from thousands of miles away is but a tiny fraction. Who gave you the audacity to be so confident?"
"That... That..."
["Wake up, Otto. Honestly, I don't know if the Ming possess the capability to handle Honkai of this magnitude independently. But I do know that she certainly does..."]
"She? Who is she?"
["Pfft... Hahaha! Do you realize, Otto, that all your self-righteous actions have led to only one outcome—forcing someone who originally had no intention of interfering to now have every reason to step in? And compared to her, the so-called Schicksal's Strongest Valkyrie is nothing but a joke. After all, at this moment, in this world, she is undoubtedly the strongest 'person'..."]
Otto couldn't tell if the Void Archives was telling the truth or lying, but he could find no reason for it to deceive him. And so, he finally pushed himself to his feet and broke into a sprint towards the horizon where the black clouds were slowly dissipating.
"Yes, that's right, just like that... Run quickly now, my descendant... Use the love between you and her to forge a possibility for 'us' to reunite at a new point in time. Use your love to illuminate the path for the 'lone traveler,' clear the way, help him... help me, find the road that leads everyone 'home'."
Within the mental world invisible to Otto, a man with skin as pale as paper lounged lazily in a chair. He waved a hand, conjuring a mirror. Gazing at his reflection, at the pair of incongruous, oval, pink pupils staring back, he let out a self-deprecating laugh—
"I couldn't possibly understand? Ridiculous!"