Clues and Speculation

Inside the Flame-Chasers' lounge, the once somewhat cozy atmosphere now felt particularly chilly and deserted. Mei subconsciously glanced at the sofa but didn't see the familiar figure.

Although she hadn't even been in the Elysian Realm for a month, during her time undergoing the trials, whenever Mei returned exhausted to the lounge, the first sight to greet her was always the pink-haired girl, sitting on the sofa with a radiant smile.

Gradually, she seemed to have grown accustomed to her presence, accustomed to her optimistic smile, accustomed to her vibrant presence, like scattered blossoms.

Now, with Elysia's sudden disappearance, Mei felt surprisingly unsettled. Even the entire Elysian Realm seemed hollowed out, as if its soul had been drained.

Shaking her head slightly, Mei tried her best to dispel this sense of wistful loss. Her pale fingers gently massaged her temples as she forced herself to calm down.

"Elysia's disappearance definitely isn't this simple." Leaning back against the sofa, Mei mentally sorted through the clues she had gathered. Then, she grabbed paper and a pen from a nearby bookshelf and began listing them out.

"First, the Obsidian Concord mark on my arm." She rolled up her sleeve, revealing the clearly visible black and white mark on her forearm.

Someone from The Obsidian Concord had told her that once she entered the Elysian Realm, the organization would find its own way in as well. Thinking back, the mark might have been placed on her then.

The reason for the mark wasn't hard to guess. It likely acted as a beacon; once she entered the Elysian Realm, the organization could use special means to bypass its defenses and get inside.

The three emergency uses were probably the organization's form of compensation.

What puzzled her, though, was that if it was an emergency measure, it should only activate when she was in dire straits. Yet this time, she clearly hadn't faced any crisis, wasn't even injured. Why did it activate suddenly?

Could it be... The Obsidian Concord was using her?

It wasn't impossible. The Obsidian Concord had always been mysterious, their methods unpredictable. Activating the mark at a crucial time, using her exposure to draw the Flame-Chasers' attention and achieve their own ends—that seemed entirely plausible.

But Mei had a nagging feeling that the mark's activation wasn't that straightforward.

Thinking back carefully, when the mark activated, she was facing off against Aponia. Could Aponia have attacked covertly...? No, she hadn't sensed any attack, and besides, Ely had been there too.

"..." Wait. Did she really pass out the instant the mark activated?

A sudden flash of insight sparked in her mind. Mei pressed a hand to her forehead.

She closed her eyes, pushing aside distracting thoughts as best she could. Concentrating hard, a fuzzy memory slowly began to surface.

"Mei, rest easy now. Since he has arrived, it's time to fulfill my wager with him. When you wake again, simply follow your heart and make your own choice."

In the hazy memory, she was leaning against Ely's warm embrace, and Ely's eyes seemed to be fixed precisely on the mark on Mei's arm.

Wait—it was Elysia who activated the Obsidian Concord mark?!

Mei held her breath, trying desperately to recall more, but unfortunately, this fragment was all she could retrieve.

"If Elysia was the one who activated the mark, doesn't that mean she has some connection to The Obsidian Concord?"

Mei had been suspicious ever since Eden mentioned that the name "Obsidian Concord" wasn't known in the Previous Era. Despite this, Ely seemed strangely familiar with it, even guessing Mei's connection based solely on the crystal flower.

All these signs pointed to a connection between her and The Obsidian Concord.

Griseo had mentioned seeing a pink-haired intruder, Kevin had linked the intruder to The Obsidian Concord, and according to snippets from Aponia, Ely had apparently betrayed the Thirteen Flame-Chasers in the past...

Could it be... that Ely was the intruder?

The moment this suspicion surfaced in her mind, it refused to fade. Mei stared at the name she had written, falling into deep thought.

"Elysia... who are you really?"

She stood up and searched the nearby data archives for all information related to Ely. She had already read most of the official records; only scattered personal accounts and miscellaneous entries remained.

As her eyes scanned the files, Mei found a rather peculiar entry. It mentioned "Elysia," but didn't seem to be about the person herself.

"'Elysia: the legendary Flawless Realm, the Eternal Paradise...'"

"A legend?"

Mei read on. The text described a legendary eternal paradise, a place without Honkai or conflict, where everyone could find happiness. People set out on journeys to find this fabled haven, and though many fell along the way, others always continued the quest.

"'Flawless Realm... So her name carried that meaning too.' A slight stir in her heart, Mei turned the page, but the entry was short, concluding with only a nursery rhyme."

「One day, She fell from the heavens. People looked up, and thus they beheld the starry sky.」

「The stars and moon sent forth the Daughter of God; she wished to become humanity's companion.」

「The great winds became her chariot; the four seas settled as her gardens. Birds carried seeds of goodness in their beaks; myriad flowers wove hymns of love.」

「Thus she was born into the world, walked upon the earth, grew alongside humanity, and blossomed with the world."

Mei recited the lines softly, an inexplicable feeling stirring deep within her. She traced the words on the page, feeling as though she were forming some kind of connection across fifty thousand years.

Silently making a note of this passage, Mei refocused on her current clues. With her pen, she drew a line connecting "The Obsidian Concord" and "Elysia," then added the word "Wager" next to it.

"What exactly was the wager between Elysia and The Obsidian Concord?"

No one could answer her. It seemed all the answers would only surface once Elysia's true identity was revealed. Her task now was to find either Elysia or someone from The Obsidian Concord.

Having sorted out this thread, Mei took a fresh sheet of paper and noted down the second line of investigation.

The disappearance of a Flame-Chaser's memory construct was treated as death. So far, four had "died": Mobius, Sakura, Aponia, and now Elysia. Excluding Elysia, whose status was uncertain, the other three might genuinely be gone.

However, Mei had seen Sakura with someone from The Obsidian Concord with her own eyes, so she couldn't rule out the possibility that Sakura had used their abilities to fake her death.

Therefore, the immediate priority was to investigate the cause of the Flame-Chasers' "deaths."

Based on her earlier deduction, the supposed intruder might be Elysia herself. If she had betrayed them, where might she have taken the missing Flame-Chasers?

Quickly, a name surfaced in her mind.

Eternal Paradise.

Eternal Paradise... Elysian Realm... Flawless Realm... Was the similarity in names merely a coincidence?