Bizarre Honkai, a Wife-Chasing Crematorium

Li Mo fell into a long silence.

The system is isolated and closed, and there can be no extra variables.

This variable, wasn't it referring to himself, who shouldn't have appeared in this world?

"So you mean, I should erase myself from the history of the Honkai world—my memories, my footprints, everything I've left behind."

"No, Mr. Detective has misunderstood. Not only do you not need to erase yourself, but on the contrary, you must record everything without reservation."

"What do you mean?"

"Literally. If history loses your footprints, then it will only stop at the moment fate was severed. Hasn't Raiden Mei already told you this in a practical way? Besides that one world, all the worlds where the Bizarre have spread are worlds with incomplete fates."

Bluish-purple light spots swirled around Irene. The light spots slowly moved around the two of them, converging into one planet after another.

Some planets were enveloped in black shadows, while others were always exposed to the light.

As time passed, the planets exposed to the light quickly shattered, becoming stardust wandering in the universe.

The planets shrouded in black shadows underwent indescribable mutations, but at least they remained alive.

Irene walked up to Li Mo and reached into his chest to take out the notebook.

"The story must be started by you personally. Do you still remember when you got the notebook?" Irene asked.

"The first time I died," Li Mo replied.

Hearing this, Irene's eyes lit up, and she turned to the last page of the notebook.

It was filled with—My name is Li Mo.

Irene showed the contents of the last page to Li Mo.

"The Bizarre have an instinct similar to 'hyperthymesia,' remembering every detail of their past experiences without omission. Can you still remember the scene of your first death?"

"I should… be able to," Li Mo said, closing his eyes and sinking his thoughts into the deep sea of his memory to find the memory of his first death.

…

…

Live on… this is what you must do.

You must live…

I will grant you the Rule of 'Exterminating the Bizarre'… It will not last forever…

When she sacrifices herself…

"Do you remember anything, Mr. Detective?" Irene walked up to Li Mo and waved her hand in front of his unfocused black pupils.

A long time passed before Li Mo pulled his thoughts out of the deep dive into his memory. He clutched his forehead and asked, "How long has it been?"

"Three days."

"…Is that so? I can't remember. Only a few sentences, and it seems to be my own voice… It's strange. My memory shouldn't be like this. My memory shouldn't be so blurry."

Irene pulled Li Mo into her embrace, her hand naturally sliding to the back of his head, gently running through his hair.

"Let me tell you the answer, Mr. Detective. you picked up the notebook after your first death."

"As for why you died, I think the voice in your memory has already revealed the answer."

"It was Li Mo who killed you. It was you who killed yourself."

"Now, there is only one way to save the dead from the severed past. Go back to the beginning, start from zero. Let all the particles in the universe return to their original state before the collapse of fate."

Li Mo pushed Irene away and pointed out the contradiction in the problem: "But the past has already been severed. Even with the Impostor's ability and 'Wish,' I can't go back to the past."

Irene took a step forward in defiance, pressing against Li Mo again.

Seeing Irene advance, Li Mo retreated.

"Don't you want to know the answer?" Irene said casually. Li Mo stopped retreating, allowing Irene to approach with the rich scent of rosemary.

Hugging was not enough. Irene opened her arms again, touched Li Mo's palms, and then slowly closed them, her fingers intertwining with his.

"That's too much," Li Mo reminded her.

"How could it be too much… This is one of the few times we have alone. Even doing something more excessive wouldn't be too much," Irene said, burying her head in Li Mo's chest and letting out a series of muffled hums. "This is how we were 'last time'."

Hearing "last time," Li Mo stopped resisting. He couldn't break the original balance…

Everything was to completely save this unsavable tragedy…

Irene: "Pfft…"

Li Mo: "Can't hold back your laughter, is that also something that happened 'last time'?"

Irene: "No, I never said that everything has to be the same as 'last time.' Many things will repeat, but each 'rebirth' will have more interesting things than the 'last time,' extending the incomplete fate a little, just like now."

"Mr. Detective was completely fooled by me, foolishly thinking that the balance couldn't be broken."

Li Mo: "Isn't it? Wait, you mean… each restart will extend fate?"

Irene: "Yes, each restart will add an uncertain amount of fate, maybe a few days, maybe a few seconds. The world where the Bizarre exists has gradually extended because of the infinite restarts of vanity."

"The 'last time' and the 'next time' don't have to be completely identical. This is not the eternal samsara of a time loop that you and I are familiar with."

"Rather, it is a continuously lengthening road. Your death at the hands of vanity is the signal to return to the starting point. Each revival will lengthen this road until it becomes infinitely long, just like the one and only normal world…"

Li Mo's pupils contracted, and he immediately asked the question that had been bothering him for a long time: "Then what does 'the three who never change' mean?"

Irene smiled. "It means the people who always retain the memories of 'every time' on this road."

Li Mo shook his head, a little unable to understand Irene's meaning. What Irene said contradicted what he had heard a few days ago.

"Wait… my death at the hands of vanity is the signal for a restart. Vanity is… the name of the Source of the Bizarre? No, the Source of the Bizarre cannot be called by its name directly. This might be a title, an alias, an incomplete name. Why can I restart time by dying at the hands of the Source of the Bizarre?"

Faced with many doubts, Irene unhurriedly cleared the haze in Li Mo's heart.

It confirmed what Mei had said.

His world would one day see the clouds part and the sun shine.

"Just dying at the hands of vanity is naturally not enough, but Mr. Detective seems to have forgotten what I said above—when a human's consciousness collides with a ghost's rule, the human can temporarily control their own body, right? And, Ekri was already dead. For humans, brain death means there's no saving them. But why, after being grafted by the head ghost, could she still act with human will even at the time of the head ghost's revival? Because the Bizarre is also contaminated by human consciousness during the confrontation. Memory and contamination are mutual. The Bizarre twists human will, and human will can also twist the Bizarre's rules, making them mistakenly believe that they are human."

Irene told Li Mo a lot of information he didn't know in one breath.

"But the Source of Vanity is an exception. If I directly call out the name of the Source of the Bizarre, my consciousness and rules will instantly fall into dormancy."

"You don't need to have an audience with Vanity, because He is within you."

Li Mo's brows furrowed. He stood there, placing his hand on his heart, feeling his normal heartbeat, without any mutation.

The Source of the Bizarre is inside me? What kind of joke is that?

"Please don't worry. He is just a chaotic mass with no consciousness. When your consciousness becomes more and more blurred, your memory more and more chaotic, and you can't distinguish between reality and dream, that's when you are closest to each other."

"During the confrontation between the rule and your lingering consciousness, that's when you seize His power and return to the starting point. The Bizarre is immortal, death and restart. He will not die, but you will. The rule of Vanity is especially special. He will mistakenly believe that he is you, and thus return to the safest time node."

"At the same time, you will also be able to recall the past memories of 'every time.' Only by using the rule of Vanity can you carry the vast, sea-like memory fragments. Otherwise, with the memory capacity of a human, it is impossible to store the memories of countless reincarnations. A person would go mad, just like when you were trapped in 'Shura'."

"If I hadn't intervened, your consciousness would have wandered back and forth between more and more worlds until it completely collapsed."

"At the moment everything returns to zero, He will peek into your memory, imitate your behavior, and make rule judgments according to your thought logic. In the end, He will definitely rewind time to the safest moment in his cognition—the day before any Bizarre was born."

"But the Bizarre will not disappear. You will still carry the contamination of the Bizarre, as well as—the primordial rule of the Bizarre—'Restart'."

"..."

The corner of Li Mo's mouth twitched slightly. He seemed to want to say something, but it got stuck in his throat.

Every word hit his heart like a heavy blow, stirring up ripples, and finally returning to a dead silence.

After a long time, Li Mo asked the last question: "But the past has already been severed. Is restarting still useful? Was the 'last time' really brought back this way?"

Irene did not choose to answer directly.

She raised her head, brought her lips to Li Mo's ear, and said what MEI had said to Li Mo back then: "Can God create a stone that He cannot lift?"

"If he can, why can't the omniscient and omnipotent He lift a stone? If he can't, why can't the omniscient and omnipotent He create such a stone?"

Not a single word was different.

Li Mo's eyes widened at that moment, his pupils focused. All his thoughts froze at this sudden news.

His expression changed from calm to stunned, and then to disbelief.

This was the topic MEI had discussed with him, about the "ultimate."

Seeing Li Mo not speaking for a long time, Irene added, "As long as He wants, God can create a stone that He cannot lift, and He can also lift the stone that He created that He cannot lift."

"It's just like rock-paper-scissors. Whoever goes last wins. It only depends on the order of time. Ordinary time reversal cannot succeed because all Bizarre rules are essentially incomplete. Whether it's you, or me, or Kiana Kaslana… even if the time we have experienced is long enough, it still can't be considered eternal."

"The only one who can change the rule of Vanity is He himself. The moment He revives in your body is the moment He breaks his own rule. All things restart, and the cycle begins again."

"The only thing you need to do is to kill your human self, and then project yourself. This is the ability of Vanity, and also the beginning of everything."

After hearing this, Li Mo nodded and lowered his gaze. His black eyes were like an abyss that swallowed color.

He understood.

He understood MEI's reason for doing so.

He understood why he had accepted the Bizarre rule of "Restart" without any reservations.

He understood the true use of "Projection."

He understood the reflection he saw in the golden stream that day…

Now, the only thing he could do was wait.

Wait for Vanity to kill him, return to the starting point, and then he would kill his human self to start the story of "this time."

"Ha… hahaha…"

Li Mo suddenly laughed in relief.

He swayed back until he could retreat no further, collapsing against the wall of the hall, covering his eyes and laughing bitterly.

"Is Mr. Detective afraid? Indeed, after all, for you, every time you wake up, most of your time is spent in despair and depression. This pain has not ended in the past, and there will be no end in the future."

"Just like—"

"Avici Hell," Li Mo interrupted Irene for the first time, saying it first.

He had heard that there were eight great hells in the world. Avici Hell was the eighth and the most painful of them all.

In Avici Hell, there is never any hope of liberation. Besides suffering, there are no other feelings.

Endless suffering, endless body, endless time, endless form…

The pain is endless, without interval.

Whether Li Mo accepted it or not, after the restart of Vanity, he would do his best for that ethereal happiness and hope, stand up in blood and death, and advance amidst the bones and cries of his companions.

"If you are unwilling, Mr. Detective can directly call out the true name of the Source of the Bizarre. If you want to know, I can tell you."

"No."

Li Mo decisively rejected Irene's proposal, slowly stood up, and drew a crack in the space in front of him.

On the other side of the crack was the Eigenworld.

"If I give up here, what was the point of all the effort before? What was the point of her effort? Death is indeed a kind of release for me now."

"But there are always things greater than life, greater than self-liberation."

"Indeed, facing the Bizarre endlessly, one will feel a lot of unbearable pain. Hesitation, fear, loneliness, desolation, anger, despair… having your internal organs scooped out, your spine broken out of your body, your brain instantly exploding, your body torn apart…"

"But along the way, I have also encountered treasures far more precious than my life…"

Li Mo gently lowered his eyelids, as if having a silent conversation with a corner deep in his heart.

A faint smile unconsciously appeared at the corners of his mouth, intertwined with deep relief and indescribable gentleness, slowly blooming on his face.

"There are all kinds of people. Some are full of malice toward me, some treat me like family. Some admire, some despise, some mock, some praise…"

"I have made many companions and confidants who have shared life and death with me, and… an inseparable lover."