There was actually one more thing Xin Yu hadn't mentioned, and it was because of this that he didn't believe the girl on his back was thoroughly evil.
On the moon, in the future, Xin Yu had seen this girl. Although there were some differences, it was definitely the same person. Xin Yu had witnessed Kiana laughing and joking with her.
Kiana and Raiden Mei would definitely survive. And since they could happily interact with Bronya, it proved that Bronya absolutely wasn't a bad person, nor was she the mastermind behind this disaster.
Though they hadn't spent much time together, Xin Yu could tell that Kiana was fundamentally a good person with her own moral compass. Such a person would never become good friends with someone utterly evil.
"Bronya, can you tell me more about the Honkai? I don't know much about this subject."
"Okay."
As Bronya explained the basic knowledge about Honkai, she couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with herself. Why did her heart become so fragile after just one mission failure?
Why did she, the renowned Silver Wolf of Urals in the assassin world, act as weak as an ordinary little girl just now?
"Could it be brain damage caused by the electric shock?"
Bronya considered the most likely possibility. After all, she had endured high-intensity electric shocks during the battle with the Herrscher. It was highly plausible that her brain had suffered some lesions or changes as a result, causing her emotions to become more pronounced.
After Bronya's roadside lecture, delivered in a slightly milky-sweet tone, the pair finally arrived at their destination.
Xin Yu looked at his collapsed and ruined house, a sudden emptiness welling up inside him.
His only home in this world was gone, just like that. Initially, it was just a place to stay, unimportant. Later, as he grew familiar with it, as he left his own warmth in that cold place, and then took in a disciple, it gradually transformed from mere lodging into his home in this world.
Now it was gone, reduced to rubble.
Nothing remained, and nothing would remain. Those memories of his previous self stored on the computer were gone too.
His bedroom, the place where he had lived and left sufficient traces of his life, was also gone.
Perhaps even... the disciple he had taken in not long ago was gone too.
Xin Yu didn't cry. He didn't scream out in anguish. He didn't grab Bronya, questioning or blaming her.
He simply walked to the ruins, slowly knelt down, picked up a relatively small fragment, and tucked it into his pocket.
"...Are you okay?"
Bronya didn't know why, but she suddenly asked this question, only realizing she had spoken after the words left her mouth.
"My home... collapsed."
"...It can be rebuilt. Find another place, you can build a better one."
"A collapsed house can be rebuilt, but the past within it... cannot return."
"I'm homeless again. Well, fine. I never belonged here anyway. Now I can leave unburdened. Let's find a nearby clinic first. You need medicine."
"...I'm sorry."
"...It doesn't matter anymore. It really... doesn't matter."
Xin Yu could feel the emotions surging within him now – anger, sadness, confusion.
Just moments ago, he had confidently promised to give someone else shelter, a home. Yet now, his own home was gone, and he himself had nowhere to go.
Travel the world? But if there's no place to return to, it's not traveling; it's just wandering.
As Xin Yu passed by a shop, he saw his reflection in the glass. He saw his own eyes – gray-white, like a blind man's.
Within those gray-white pupils, there seemed to be only dead silence.
Ōno Nao was led by the child he'd met earlier to their hiding spot in the sewers. He also saw the boy suffering from a high fever.
Fortunately, he knew the nearby area. He just needed to find a pharmacy nearby to get some fever-reducing medicine, and the boy could be saved.
Ōno Nao told the children to wait obediently underground. He would go to the pharmacy to find the medicine and also grab some food from somewhere else on the way back.
He carefully pushed open the manhole cover with his head, then cautiously surveyed the surroundings. After confirming there were no monsters nearby, he quickly climbed out of the sewer and sprinted towards the small clinic he remembered.
It didn't take long. Relying on his now superhuman physique, Ōno Nao quickly reached the small clinic and found fever-reducing medication inside.
He found a small handbag on a nearby desk, emptied out the various ID cards and cosmetics, and stuffed it with the fever medicine along with some other common drugs.
Then, carrying the small bag, he quickly ran out of the clinic, planning to grab some instant food from the small shop next door on his way back.
However, just as he opened the shop door, he suddenly found a monster inside. The monster was dressed entirely in white, wielding a long blade in each hand.
The moment Ōno Nao noticed it, it seemed to notice him too. Before he could even think of running, the monster vanished in an instant.
Before Ōno Nao could react, he saw the monster suddenly appear right in front of him, its long blades slashing down fiercely towards him.
In his haste, he only had time to raise his arms to block the slash, then immediately sprinted backward.
He didn't know how long he ran. Only after finding a hidden spot and tumbling back into the drainage system through a manhole did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
It was only then that Ōno Nao suddenly realized – he had clearly been hit by the long blades. Even if adrenaline had numbed the pain earlier, now that he had relaxed, why did he still feel absolutely nothing?
Ōno Nao looked down at his hands in confusion. He found that his hands had become abnormally pale, with faint purple lines subtly visible on them. And where his arm had been struck by the blade, although there was a wound, no blood flowed out.
What was exposed beneath the wound wasn't flesh and blood at all, but rather something like white, extremely hard yet flexible silicone.
Ōno Nao stared blankly at his hands.
He... was slowly turning into one of those monsters.