The biting cold wind, carrying blade-sharp ice crystals, raged across the vast snowfield.
Kal’tsit’s short silver hair whipped violently in the fierce wind, tiny icicles forming at the tips.
She instinctively raised a hand to press down on her cat ears, which were twitching uneasily from the cold.
Her pale green pupils contracted into thin lines against the snow’s glare, vigilantly scanning this unfamiliar white hell.
“What… kind of place is this?” The white vapor she exhaled instantly condensed into frost in the minus-forty-degree sub-zero temperature, drifting away in the air.
The fragments of Remembrance that did not belong to her were still churning continuously in her mind—the life experiences of an ordinary Earth girl named “Qinghui” spanning over twenty years were undergoing a bizarre fusion with her consciousness.
Those pieces of Remembrance were washing over the boundaries of her cognition like a tidal wave.
Kal’tsit rubbed her temples hard, her knuckles turning an unhealthy bluish-white from the severe cold.
“I am Kal’tsit… the Head of Rhodes Island’s Medical Department… not some homebody hooked on video games all day…” she muttered to herself, suddenly realizing with a start that her tone had unconsciously picked up a bit of Qinghui’s habitual verbal tics and phrasing.
This discovery stiffened her whole body.
As a medical expert who had been through countless life-or-death trials, she knew all too well the dangers of depersonalization.
Kal’tsit took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, and began applying years of clinical experience to self-diagnose:
“Remembrance fusion degree approximately 100%, mainly affecting language habits and partial behavioral patterns…”
“Self-cognition remains clear, professional ethics unaffected…”
“Emotional stability… slightly fluctuating…”
Soon, the rational thinking brought by professional training regained the upper hand.
When she opened her eyes again, those pale green eyes had recovered their past sharpness and clarity.
The present Kal’tsit was still that calm and rational Head of Rhodes Island’s Medical Department.
Suddenly, a world-spinning dizziness struck without warning.
Countless flashing specks of light abruptly appeared in Kal’tsit’s field of vision, and a strange humming sounded in her ears.
When the dizziness passed and she opened her eyes again, the sight before her made her muscles instantly tense up—
The boundless starry universe extended beneath her feet, countless stars twinkling like scattered diamonds.
Suspended before her was a humanoid creature composed of pure crystal, its entire body refracting the light of the cosmos, wearing a brilliant crown forged from an unknown metal on its head, exuding a suffocating aura of oppression.
“Where on earth have I ended up this time?” Her voice propagated eerily in the vacuum, a discovery that made Kal’tsit’s cat ears perk up vigilantly.
The crystal creature did not answer, only slowly raising its crystal-composed arm and giving a gentle wave.
A card-like object emitting a soft glow emerged from the void, slowly floating toward Kal’tsit.
She narrowed her eyes, making out the pattern on the card—it was precisely her own appearance from a moment ago with her eyes closed and brows furrowed, labeled underneath with text she had never seen before yet inexplicably understood: [Light Cone: A Tome of Confusion upon Arrival].
Before she could react, the Light Cone turned into a stream of light and plunged straight into her chest.
“Ah!” An indescribable, swelling pain exploded from the depths of her mind.
Kal’tsit collapsed onto the snow in agony, her tactical-gloved hands plunging deeply into the cold snow.
Mon3tr immediately manifested from the void, its crystal-composed body casting a strange cold light under the snow’s reflection as it vigilantly circled around her.
“This sense of exhaustion…” She panted and looked up, suddenly shocked to find that the energy flowing within her body when summoning Mon3tr was no longer the familiar Originium energy, but a brand-new form of energy carrying a starlike luster.
“Could this be… Path energy?” Kal’tsit hurriedly rolled up her sleeves to check her arms—those stubborn Originium crystals that had plagued her for many years had completely vanished, her skin as smooth as newborn skin.
Mon3tr emitted a low hum; different from its past mechanized reactions, this time its voice seemed to carry a certain emotional resonance.
Kal’tsit reached out to touch this old comrade-in-arms of many years, feeling no longer a cold mechanical link, but a warm spiritual bond.
“It seems you’ve become my ‘Meme-spirit’…” she said softly, her voice laden with complex emotions.
Just then, the outline of a building half-buried in snow in the distance caught her attention.
Supported by Mon3tr, Kal’tsit stood up and trudged forward with difficulty through the knee-deep snow.
With every step, her military boots sank into the soft snow layer, making a creaking sound.
As the distance closed, the charred metal exterior walls and twisted, deformed structures gradually became clearly visible, the building’s surface covered in high-temperature burn marks.
“An instantaneous high temperature of at least over 1,000 degrees…” Professional instinct made her immediately squat down, her gloved fingers gently brushing over the melted metal edges.
“No obvious shockwave traces, not an ordinary explosion… This was caused by a directed-energy weapon.” This deduction sent a chill down her spine.
Stepping inside the building, Kal’tsit’s cat ears twitched acutely, catching a faint hum of electronic equipment operating from deep within.
She signaled Mon3tr to maintain vigilance, while she herself carefully avoided the scattered metal fragments on the ground and moved toward the source of the sound.
Deep within the ruins, she unexpectedly discovered a relatively intact room.
The metal walls were covered with strange symbols and icons, most of which had been burned beyond recognition.
Kal’tsit cautiously checked every corner, and only after confirming there was no danger did she allow herself to slump against a relatively clean corner of the wall.
Mon3tr automatically coiled at the entrance, warning light flowing across its crystal surface.
“Rest first… continue exploring tomorrow…” She wrapped her frosted lab coat tighter around herself, suddenly discovering that several unfamiliar tools had been added to her medical kit—a uniquely shaped syringe patterned with starlight markings, a small device resembling a holographic projector, and a few ampoules filled with glowing liquid.
These were all futuristic medical devices from “Honkai: Star Rail” within Qinghui’s Remembrance.
Kal’tsit shook her head with a wry smile, suddenly noticing a line of heavily scratched fine print carved into the wall: [Stellaron Experimental Ground – District 7 – Unauthorized Entry Strictly Prohibited].
This discovery made her shudder all over, and the relevant knowledge in Qinghui’s Remembrance immediately surfaced—in the lore of “Honkai: Star Rail”, a Stellaron was a cosmic-level dangerous item capable of triggering galaxy-class disasters.
“It seems I need to reassess the danger level of this world…” she said softly, her voice dissolving into the howling blizzard.
The dim green fluorescence emitted by Mon3tr reflected her tired yet resolute face, casting swaying shadows on the shattered walls.
Outside the window, the blizzard was intensifying, but Kal’tsit knew that what awaited her tomorrow would be even greater mysteries and challenges.