Vill-V workspace

A blinding light filled Kouro's vision, and a buzzing sound appeared in his ears not only that a high-pressure shock wave threw him backward, but fortunately, he had time to turn Xuanyuan Sword into a large shield to protect himself. 

*BOOM!

Kouro who took refuge behind the shield still felt pushed back even to the point of smashing the wall behind him which in fact had extraordinary hardness. 

"Argh!" he was spewing blood, both of his hands holding the shield were reddened and swollen. 

[HP: 19,831/26,600]

[SP: 4,980/8,320]

Fatigue: 78

But even so, he didn't care about small injuries like this, he was more worried about Ragna, Ana, and Lin, the impact of the attack alone threw him away even after using the shield, let alone the three of them who had no protection at all. 

Wait, he remembered Alter Ji Xuanyuan had previously possessed Ragna's body, he hoped Alter Ji Xuanyuan had enough time to protect the two of them. 

... 

After enduring the impact of the attack for several seconds, the dazzling light began to fade before Kouro saw an astonishing sight. 

All the statues encircling this room had been shattered and had even melted along with the walls that had very long sword slash marks that filled the room. 

ELF Kevin seemed to have been crushed to nothing considering he did not sense ELF Kevin's presence. 

Kouro looked around before finding Ragna and the others, luckily they were safe, he saw Alter Ji Xuanyuan's horse protecting Lin and Ana while Ragna herself seemed to be carrying the same large shield. 

He then quickly approached 'Ragna', "Are Lin and Ana okay?"

'Ragna' looked riddled with burns her armor was even badly damaged, fortunately, her injuries didn't seem to be fatal. 

She turned to look at Kouro, "The two of them fainted from exhaustion but their bodies are fine."

"~Huff, thank goodness... Then how about you?"

"Fine, but this body is really fragile because it can't withstand the impact of the attack, unlike your body which has a high healing factor." 'Ragna' replied and returned the black Xuanyuan sword to him. 

After that, Ragna's eyes seemed to change color to fuchsia again, the black armor on her body seemed to glow with the black horse before slowly disappearing, and the intimidating aura she exuded also disappeared. 

She blinked her eyes a few times then stared at the Xuanyuan sword in Kouro's hand for a moment.

Kouro didn't pay much attention to her gaze, he turned to look at Lin and Ana who were lying unconscious on the floor before looking back at Ragna. 

"Ragna-san, you take care of the two of them here, I have to go somewhere deeper."

Ragna looked at him for a moment with a serious expression before nodding. 

"Understood."

Kouro then walked towards the large metal door, but what caught his attention was that this door did not suffer any damage at all even after taking the impact of the attack. 

He didn't know how hard the door was but there was definitely something very important behind the metal door. 

He first took a potion to restore his HP and SP, he also didn't forget to take an energy potion to reduce his fatigue. 

[HP: 26,600/26,600]

[SP: 8,320/8,320]

Fatigue: 0

After that, he then pushed the door with pure force, the muscles of Kouro's arms and back could be seen expanding under the weight. 

"*Huff...*Huff... Damn... I'm now very curious about the thing behind this door... I hope the owner of this temple won't give me a bad joke like 'Good luck'."

After pushing until the door was fully opened, Kouro was full of sweat, he was really curious about the owner of this ancient temple, how could the person open this door? 

Oh, right he almost forgot, the owner of this temple is a MANTIS... And it seems that the physical strength of MANTIS is more extraordinary than what he imagined if other MANTIS alone have such a strong physique... What about Kevin who was called the strongest MANTIS? 

Kouro didn't dare to imagine, it was still far away for him. 

After eliminating the irrelevant thoughts, he then entered the room, the room inside was not what he thought... Due to the dim lighting, it took a while for him to recognize the objects in this room, from what he observed this room seemed to be a workspace. 

The room was not too big, only enough for one person to stay, there was a wooden bed that had been damaged by time and a rusty iron desk. 

Kouro saw some strange but cool-looking gadgets scattered on the floor and even some on the desk. 

He approached the objects but didn't touch them, after all, he didn't want to be careless, he walked for a while before finding a small table. 

On the table was a black fedora hat covered in dust and a mask without eye holes and a plain black mouth, he looked at the objects with an interested gaze before picking up the hat. 

He dusted the hat off before putting it on, by the way for your information his fedora hat had been destroyed by fire due to Kevin's ELF attack. 

Kouro didn't know how long it had been here, probably tens of thousands of years or more, but somehow it was still in pretty good shape. 

He didn't think too much about it, maybe the hat and mask on the table were the equipment of the MANTIS who owned this temple... 

He took the mask but didn't put it on right away, he first walked around to look for objects that caught his attention. 

And sure enough, Kouro found a book with a cover of machine gear under the pillow of the bed. 

He opened the book which turned out to be filled with a language he didn't recognize at all. 

"This book... Is it a diary? " 

But miraculously even though he didn't recognize the language used in the book he was able to read the letters fluently as if it was a normal language. 

(xx, xx, 433 A.D) 

[I feel bored in this not a fully developed world, so I want to write a diary... ahh... Why did I... The greatest inventor Vill-V live to see this world... No! You can't be pessimistic Vill-V! You must find 'He'!"]

Kouro raised his eyebrows, it turned out that the owner of this temple was a MANTIS named "Vill-V", he didn't know if this was really a real name or just a code name, and then from what he learned from this diary writing... He felt that this Vill-V was a girl, well... Somehow his intuition told him that. 

And finally, there seemed to be someone very important to Vill-V, she didn't mention a name, she just referred to someone as "He".

Kouro tried to recall all the appearances of the MANTIS statues, apart from, Fu Hua, Eden, SAKURA, Elysia, Mobius, and Griseo he did not recognize any other female MANTIS. 

From what he remembered there were 3 remaining statues that had a female gender, a nun with a hood so he couldn't see her face clearly other than her large 'boobies', then a cat-eared girl in thin clothes, and a girl wearing a Victorian dress showing her 'boobies' in a magic hat full of machine gear accessories. 

He felt that the girl wearing the Victorian dress was Vill-V, considering she had a lot of serrated accessories on her clothes and even her hat. 

The next few pages only explained her travels to various worlds, such as Egypt to meet Kevin and Su, going to Shenzhou to meet Hua, Fuxi and Nuwa, going to the America to meet Mobius, before going to Europe to meet some people named Aponia, Kosma, Griseo, and SAKURA. 

In the next few pages, he found interesting information. 

(xx, xx, 455 years A.D) 

[I don't know why but it seems that Honkai is evolving faster than expected, I heard from Hua that there is an island-sized Honkai Beast that she named 'Chiyou', but that's not important! Honkai apparently besides taking the form of a Beast also takes the form of a natural disaster!]

[I found out that there's a giant volcano here, what's important is that it's releasing an outrageous concentration of Honkai energy! At first, I wanted to leave this alone... But I found a human settlement in this place, so I can't just leave it alone!"]

(xx, xx, 455 A.D) 

[I tried to contact the MANTIS who could help me... Only Kosma, Griseo-chan, and Aponia can help me... The others are busy taking care of their own projects.  Well! It's okay! With all of them I can definitely stop the volcano disaster!]

[Hmm... It's really hard to stop this disaster! How should I call this catastrophic eruption? 'Krakatoa'? 'Tambora'? 'Toba?', that's it! I will refer to this volcanic eruption as the 'Toba volcano' eruption!"]

[Fortunately, we were able to stop this volcanic eruption, but even so, we were unable to completely stop it... From what I've calculated about 30% of the current era's human race have become a victim... Well at least humanity wasn't wiped out, right? Fortunately, it seems like the 4th Divine key is still working so I used it to repair the nature damaged by the Toba volcanic eruption... ~Hahahah!]

Kouro's eyebrows twitched, this Vill-V's personality seemed to be a bit twisted, seeing as she didn't feel guilty when 30% of humanity being killed... Well maybe all MANTIS have twisted personalities? 

He also remembered the 4th Divine key which was a satellite that had the ability to restore and eliminate the Honkai radiation. 

(xx, xx, 525 years A.D) 

[I can't wait! Ten years have passed Kevin called the remaining MANTIS including me to Tamesis, apparently, he wanted to see the progress of our mission... As usual, he was a boring person... This made my enthusiasm for making the "Kevin Killer series" die out... Well never mind, after all the focus of my search is to find "Him"].

Kouro raised his eyebrows, this page gave him some idea of the past history although it was slightly different from what he remembered, it was still the same as the original plot. 

If he was not mistaken, this place called "Themis" was where the conflict between Kevin and Su began. 

He wondered if the conflict was resolved differently... He then flipped to the next page before being surprised, it was blank... He flipped again, and again, and again, but it was still blank. 

Page after page he went through before getting to the last few pages, he found shocking information. 

[I heard a surprising thing from Su who was given the mission of Valuka's project, which was to find the world that had defeated Honkai using the second key. Su said that in other worlds he couldn't find any variants of "He", Su also said it was like the existence of "He" had been erased in other worlds and even if he found variants of "He" in other worlds, "He" would immediately DIE either due to illness, accident, and so on.]

[Although that sounds shocking, I don't really care as long as it's not directly related to "Him"...]

Kouro felt strange that the last part was so short, but after reading this page he finally confirmed that this "He" was likely his senior. 

After thinking about this he then turned to the last page. 

["HE" IS DEAD. NO "HE" IS NOT DEAD! "HE" IS DEAD. NO "HE" IS NOT DEAD! "HE" IS DEAD. NO "HE" IS NOT DEAD! "HE" IS DEAD. NO "HE" IS NOT DEAD! "HE" IS DEAD. NO "HE" IS NOT DEAD! "HE" IS DEAD. NO "HE" IS NOT DEAD! "HE" IS DEAD. NOT "HE" IS NOT DEAD! "HE" IS DEAD. NO "HE" IS NOT DEAD! I DON'T BELIEVE THAT KOURO IS DEAD! I WILL LOOK FOR HIM BY MYSELF EVEN IF IT'S GOING TO ANOTHER WORLD!!! ]

Kouro was standing still with his head hanging down while looking at the last page, behind him then came someone's voice. 

"Kouro-kun, Lin, and Ana have woken up from their stupor- Kouro...? Are you okay?" 

Ragna could not see his expression but she could feel his aura changing... 

Kouro didn't answer but the diary in his hand suddenly turned to dust. 

He then turned around and smiled at Ragna, "I'm fine."

"Kouro-kun, are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm fine really." he said with a casual smile. 

"Ok... Ey... Then I'll go check on them again. See you later." Ragna felt goosebumps when she saw Kouro's smile so she quickly walked away leaving him alone in the room. 

Kouro was just standing still with his face still smiling, no, his smile now looked a little crooked. 

He then looked down at the plain black mask in his hands before putting it on. 

His aura suddenly changed to a calmer one.

With the diary, a question that had always been on his mind was finally answered. 

Why were there two reincarnators in this world? Why did his senior change the future but left no trace for the next reincarnator? 

He should have realized when Fu Hua looked at him with a strange gaze, and when she said something about SHADOW, even his own system said something about "Shadow".

But he turned a blind eye to these things, for whatever reason, perhaps out of fear...

He was afraid of the truth that he was the senior himself... 

He is Kouro.