Chapter 1307

Honkai 3

Xilian

Eden momentarily thought she had misseen, even doubting whether the tiny pink-haired girl might be her own hallucination. But she knew that voice too well—after all, Ailixiya was right beside her...

Oh dear, my sweet Eden, you look so surprised♪

Before Eden could snap out of her confusion, a pair of soft arms wrapped around her waist from behind. Ailixiya had somehow come up beside her, resting her cheek lightly against Eden's shoulder, her voice brimming with uncontainable excitement.

Xilian isn't dead~ she's doing just fine♪

Eden turned her head, looking at Ailixiya's face so close yet hinting at mischief, her doubts deepening. She reached up to touch Ailixiya's hair and asked softly, 'Ailixiya… if Xilian isn't dead, then how did she get killed by the Fire Thieves earlier?'

Could it be a fake death or something?" Padou suddenly interjected from the side, "For example… did Xilian fake it on purpose? Or… perhaps the Xilian we see now is merely an illusion in Bai'e's eyes?"

It probably isn't a fake death, but judging from Laigushi's reaction… it's not an illusion either.

Kevin's voice silenced the previously noisy discussion for a moment. He crossed his arms, his eyes reflecting Xilian's familiar yet slightly unfamiliar figure.

Have you considered what would happen to Mimi if Xing and Danheng left Wufolou?

Mimi… oh right!" Padou exclaimed, realizing, "Mimi said she was gathering memories related to Wufolou, but she's a creation of the Star God Fuli, right? If Xing leaves Wufolou, Mimi should leave too.

Kevin nodded: 'Hmm, so the Xilian before us is likely a 'memory' restored by Mimi using the power of ages.'

No, Xilian never came to the Genesis Vortex Core; judging from her time of death, she hadn't even left Aolixie before the Fire Thieves killed her." Eden lowered her head in thought, then suddenly her brow smoothed and she lifted her head as if realizing something.

Unless… there's another possibility here… the Xilian before us might not be a memory of this reincarnation.

——

Xing's phone suddenly vibrated; she picked it up and discovered she could actually receive a message from the Astral Express.

Himeko: 'Everyone, the carriage entering Wufolou remains out of contact, and March 7th's symptoms look even worse.'

Xing quickly sent a message in the group: 'Himeko! Walter! Look at me! Look at me! Can you see my message?!'

Himeko: 'Walter, how's your side?'

Walter: 'Progress is going smoothly. Black Tower invited Screwgom to assist; we had a detailed discussion in the sealed cabin. The two geniuses, well-versed and knowledgeable, are now a step closer to dispelling Wufolou's mist.'

'But… there's a lot of unexpected information that's hard to convey clearly in a text. I'll immediately send you the meeting record as a video transmission.'

Although Xing also wanted to see the video data, her messages simply couldn't get through.

……

The sealed cabin beforehand.

Walter frowned: 'According to Ms. Black Tower's account, the sentient machine named Laigushi also received a glance from the Revered Sage. Having such a figure guarding Wufolou, our plan might face difficulties.'

Black Tower, however, was quite confident: 'Don't worry, I've prepared. To defeat magic with magic, science with science…' She glanced at Screwgom beside her, smiling, '…to defeat a machine mind with a machine mind.'

'Thanks for Black Tower's trust. But before we begin discussions, I still have a question I'd like to ask.' Screwgom paused, then continued, 'Ms. Black Tower, did you truly enter Wufolou's world?'

……

Black Tower's expression shifted instantly, as if feeling slighted, showing some annoyance.

Xingqiri keenly sensed the woman's emotional change and quickly explained, 'Mr. Screwgom means that the Wufolou Black Tower entered might be a cognitive obstruction constructed by Laigushi… similar to the power of Harmony?'

'To affect my cognition without me noticing… even an envoy of Harmony might not manage that.' Black Tower said lightly, 'Screwgom, are you suggesting the world I reached… is merely a firewall?'

'Exactly. And it's probably not a simple firewall. Wufolou uses space as its first barrier; for Black Tower, crossing it is as easy as turning over one's hand.'

'But the second barrier… is called time.'

——

Assassin Wu Liuqi.

Time… seems to be that as well.

Wu Liuqi rested his chin on his hand, recalling the earlier experience when Xing was glanced at by Fuli.

Back then, Xing was glanced at by Fuli quite early, but it took a long while before the Black Swan on the train sensed that glance; if we calculate that way, the internal time flow of Wufolou is probably over ten times faster than the outside!

Only ten-something times? I think it's far more than that.

Ji Daobao somehow pulled out a cigar, expertly clenching it in his mouth, 'The time flow is at least a hundredfold; the current external discussion might have occurred only a few days before the train lost signal, but inside Wufolou… it has actually experienced hundreds of days of time!'

If we can't synchronize the internal and external time flows of Wufolou, then Danheng and Xing will be in big trouble." Luanminghua furrowed his brow, wearing a bewildered expression, "But the problem is, the Imperial Scepter's interior should be countless precision mechanisms—how did those two even get in to begin with?

Too bad there's no one from Siguo here… Siguo should know more about the 'Scepter' than we do, right?

……

No… I also completely don't understand.

The Siguo prince's eyes kept flashing with various data panels, as if he were rapidly mobilizing the nation's top technical resources to analyze the scepter.

Huh?

Kele placed her hands on her hips, 'How can you not understand this or that? Last time the anti-organic equation almost destroyed Siguo, and the essence of the scepter is a supercomputer—don't you Siguo folks have computers too?'

The Siguo prince couldn't help but break into a sweat: 'Kele, you might not realize, but there's a world of difference between computers. Moreover, that's Rupert II's scepter—a planetary-scale stellar computer… it's hard to believe just how astronomical this machine's computing power could be.'

Could even the combined computing power of all Siguo fall short?

The Siguo prince shook his head solemnly: 'If we compare the Revered Sage's computing power to a vast sea, then a scepter's power is like a ripple on the ocean's surface. And our Siguo's computing power… is probably just the tiny spray flung from that ripple striking a reef— the gap is truly immense.'