NOVEL WEB Chapter 333: Grains of Time Chase Light
"Hold on tight!" Ren, returned from the Imaginary Space at the last moment, tightly grasped the girl's hand. Under the effect of gravity's inertia, their bodies, like tightly intertwined spirals, drew closer and closer.
Finally, in the last second before impact, Ren pulled the girl into a tight embrace.
The instant their chests touched, a gray light erupted from Ren's heart. Invisible ripples swept across the island, dragged from the earth by the Herrscher of Rimestar, turning all color into an unchanging gray within the worn-out river of time.
Thump.
Adjusting his posture to make himself the impact cushion, Ren shielded Kiana beneath him, crashing heavily into the ground.
However, the ground wasn't the reinforced concrete of Coral Island, nor the frozen-solid sea, but the thick snow of Berlin.
As the two plummeted, the pine trees by the snowy field were startled, rustling and shaking down a shower of jade dust. Pure white snowflakes billowed several meters into the air, then gently fell, burying the two figures in the snowdrift.
The dark sky was stained pale gray by clouds. The skyscraper-filled Coral City transformed into quaint wooden houses with curling wisps of smoke, and even the cracked ground became a black brick-paved path of a small town.
This wasn't Coral Island, but Berlin.
Due to the unstable nature of the Time Crystal, Ren had always been unable to approach Kiana.
It wasn't just because the girl's memories resonated with the Time Crystal, and getting too close would increase her mental burden. More so, it was because if the Time Crystal lost control, the entire city would be dragged into the rifts of spacetime, becoming a part of the past.
But for Coral Island as it was now, ravaged by the Herrscher of Rimestar, even forcibly ripped into the sky, millions of civilians had no chance of survival, and the resulting tsunami would be enough to destroy all the surrounding islands.
Saving the world is no easy feat. What Kiana couldn't do, Ren didn't mind helping her with.
To save everyone, the only way was to drag this entire area, along with the Herrscher of Rimestar, into the spacetime of the past.
In fact, Ren consciously letting the Time Crystal lose control wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision, but something he had considered ever since Otto decided on the Divine Descent of Honkai.
Kiana was only one step away from fully mastering Flamescion, while the Grains of Time required a more stable energy source. And what could satisfy both was none other than the Will of Honkai, originating from the Honkai itself.
His main body was extremely fragile, and acting rashly might lead to his demise. But since Ren had decided to prepare this gift for Kiana, he was ready to take the risk.
Fortunately, he succeeded.
The effect of the Time Crystal didn't exceed Ren's calculations. He precisely contained it to the entire Coral Island, and excluded the gathered civilians. Moreover, this wasn't a dreamscape; there were no human consciousnesses within a Herrscher core here, just an empty city.
This was the perfect battlefield, and also a harbor for respite within the spacetime rift.
"Ugh…"
Ren, who had taken the full force of Kiana's impact, was buried in half a meter of snow, feeling an unbearable ache in his back. Snow obscured his vision, and all he saw was darkness.
He tried to struggle to get up, but the faint warmth pressing against him from his embrace made him somewhat lost and overwhelmed. He had just moved slightly when he felt himself being tightly hugged by a pair of arms.
In the dim and silent snowfield, only the sound of two hearts beating thump-thump could be heard.
"Kiana…" he sighed softly, letting the girl hold him. Fortunately, as Herrschers, they didn't need to worry about breathing.
The frozen spacetime granted them ample time for a tender moment. Ren lay flat in the snow, just like how he had looked when he first entered the dreamscape.
Warm tears streamed down the girl's cheeks, onto Ren's face, and dripped into the snow. But this time, they weren't tears of sorrow, but of joy after a long-awaited reunion.
"You're back."
"I never left."
…
An unknown amount of time passed. Even when the Herrscher of Rimestar in the sky began to impatiently destroy Berlin, Ren and Kiana quietly got up from the snowdrift. Keeping to the Herrscher of Rimestar's blind spot, they walked to a wooden cabin.
Kiana pushed open the cabin door. Inside, firewood crackled merrily in the warm fireplace. Kiana tiptoed and gently brushed the snow off Ren's collar, while Ren carefully wiped the dust from the girl's cheek.
"You remembered?"
"Yeah, it's like I had a very, very long dream. The dream was so vivid, but when I woke up, I couldn't remember it clearly." Kiana looked at the familiar furnishings of the cabin, a beautiful curve forming at the corner of her lips, rippling with a shallow smile.
She turned her head, looking into Ren's eyes, "But I remember a conceited idiot who was finally tricked by me and made a vow he could never break."
Was it really a vow made because he was tricked?
Ren didn't speak. His pale gray eyes gazed into the girl's sparkling lake-blue eyes. The cabin suddenly fell silent, with only the sound of the fire burning.
"W-what are you looking at me like that for?" Finally, Kiana couldn't withstand the strange atmosphere, her earlobes flushing crimson as she turned her face away.
"It's nothing. I just feel it's strange, having never looked at you so directly before."
He was right. Whether in ARC City or later in Nagazora City, Ren had mostly played the role of someone behind the scenes. What he had been watching was mostly Kiana's back.
"Okay." The girl turned back, softly saying, "There will be plenty of time in the future, lots and lots of it."
"Yeah."
Being within the spacetime rift, nothing that happened here would affect the outside world. Moreover, due to the spacetime distortion, the flow of time here was much slower compared to the outside. Therefore, the two weren't in a hurry to engage the Herrscher of Rimestar, but instead rested to recover their strength.
Kiana's Honkai energy and stamina were severely depleted, requiring a long period of recuperation. Even relying on Schicksal's medical equipment, she would probably have to lie in a sickbed for a week.
However, the "gift" Ren brought made up for this. The Will of Honkai, as the representative of Honkai, contained extremely vast energy. Ren filtered this chaotic energy through the Time Crystal, transforming it into gentle Honkai energy.
In the river of time, the girl finally found the grains of sand left by Ren—these were the Grains of Time, representing the Time Crystal.
Kiana leaned back on the soft sofa, slowly closing her eyes. Gentle Honkai energy flowed out from the Grains of Time, repairing the damage to Kiana's body and replenishing her depleted Honkai energy at a terrifying speed.
The dormant Flamescion embers flickered again. And this time, it had completely become Kiana's authority, quietly resting in the palm of her hand.
By the warm fireplace, Ren stood behind the girl, gently smoothing her messy white hair. The scattered silver strands became obediently gathered together in the boy's gentle hands, tying into a more mature and heroic high ponytail.
He shook out the cloak Kiana had gotten from Raven and controlled the silvery-white Domination Threads, which rapidly intertwined, like a skilled weaver, meticulously transforming the cloak thread by thread into a flawless white.
Only when Kiana had fully absorbed the power of Flamescion and the Grains of Time and opened her eyes again did he carefully fasten the new cloak onto the girl's shoulders.
"Let's go."
Pushing open the door, the Herrscher of Rimestar had already destroyed most of the city. Wind and snow raged, but Flamescion burned eternally.