Battle / Eyes That Can End All Things

"So that's how it..."

"Boom—!!!"

Before Ishiu could finish speaking, another earth-shaking roar erupted from the Honkai Beast horde. Immediately afterward, another enormous Honkai Beast appeared on the battlefield ahead.

"This is bad! There's a second Honkai Emperor!" Bronya's expression instantly became extremely grim.

Battle

"Everyone, keep retreating!" Cocolia's voice in the communications channel was equally grave.

"Damn it... Why is there a second one...?"

"Mom, do you still have a way to deal with that Honkai Beast?"

Watching the Honkai Emperor begin slaughtering its way through the mech forces, Ishiu asked over their private communications channel.

"Sigh... The Positron Cannon has already been used. It can't be fired a second time anytime soon. If we want to deal with that Honkai Beast, we can only use the mechs to hold it back and suppress it with firepower. But if we do that, the mech losses will definitely exceed acceptable limits..."

"...I understand. Leave that Honkai Beast to me," Ishiu said after a moment of silence, his tone firm.

"Huh? What did you say?"

"I said I can deal with that Honkai Beast."

"...Ishiu, I know you're capable now, but some things can't be done with passion alone."

"Mom, trust me."

"Trust my ass! Get your butt back here right now! You—"

Cocolia's increasingly agitated voice abruptly cut off. Ishiu shut off the communicator, casually tossed the little pistol aside, and drew the dagger from his waist.

"What are you planning to do?" Bronya frowned at him.

"Nothing much. Just going to fight a boss." Ishiu grinned at her, then lightly pushed off with his foot. His entire body shot forward like a nimble swallow.

Ishiu advanced from the edge of the battlefield. If he went straight in from the front and got bombarded by friendly fire, that would be far too embarrassing.

With Flash Walk's high-speed movement, Ishiu quickly entered the Honkai Beast horde. He did not waste time on these fodder monsters, instead weaving and sprinting through them with his agile footwork. Whenever one could not be avoided, he casually cut it down.

After all, with those strange eyes open, every Honkai Beast was covered in densely packed lines. One casual slash was enough to deal with them.

Of course, if he failed to strike a line, the attack would not have that terrifying killing power.

Ishiu moved unhindered through the Honkai Beast horde as if no one was there, quickly reaching the Honkai Emperor's vicinity.

"Boom—!"

The huge white Honkai Beast seemed to have noticed him. Its ruby-like eyes turned toward him.

"There are fewer lines..."

Through his ice-blue eyes, Ishiu saw that while this Honkai Emperor was still covered in crisscrossing lines, there were fewer of them than on the other Honkai Beasts.

Could it be that the stronger the target, the fewer lines it had?

Ishiu had no time to think about it. The Honkai Emperor had already raised one hand toward him. The sense of danger brought by his sixth sense made him instinctively dodge, narrowly evading the energy blast fired by the Honkai Emperor.

"Tch... This guy really isn't easy to deal with." Ishiu clicked his tongue, tightening his grip on the dagger. With a flicker of movement, he silently drifted beneath the Honkai Emperor's feet.

Flash Walk - One Rabbit

Ishiu's figure shot upward in an instant. The extreme burst of force even left a crater in the ground beneath him. In the blink of an eye, his body leaped high into the air, his ice-blue eyes meeting that cold red gaze.

Ishiu drew his blade!

Flash Blade - Seven Nights!

"Slash!"

A cold, crescent-shaped flash of steel swept past. The sharp dagger pierced a piece of silicon-based tissue on the Honkai Emperor's body, but failed to sever its head.

"Blocked?"

Ishiu frowned as his body began falling under Newtonian inertia.

His previous slash had been blocked by a crystal that had suddenly appeared on that Death Line. It seemed that even mindless Honkai Beasts instinctively avoided death.

No... He just was not fast enough. If he could be even faster, that Honkai Beast would never have been able to block it.

"Boom—!"

A thick energy beam blasted toward him, aimed at the direction of Ishiu's descent. Yet Ishiu lightly stepped through the air, instantly changing his landing point.

A ring of sharp Blade Leaves suddenly floated around the Honkai Emperor. They began spinning faster, generating violent storms of airflow around it.

Ishiu had no choice but to retreat for the moment. He was still flesh and blood; he could not break through that barrier.

The Honkai Emperor let out a roar and once again drove the floating crystals around it into the ground. Ishiu immediately felt scorching heat beneath his feet, hurriedly using Flash Walk to barely evade the energy beam erupting from underground.

The Honkai Emperor had clearly regarded Ishiu as its greatest enemy. It controlled several beams of light and sent them chasing after him. Wherever the beams passed, explosions roared continuously, the ground bursting apart layer by layer as dirt and shattered rocks flew everywhere.

Ishiu was feeling a little mischievous too. He deliberately ran into the Honkai Beast horde. He was fine, but those Honkai Beasts were not so lucky.

After all, this was not a game. There was no friendly-fire immunity buff, so the Honkai Emperor's energy pulses utterly devastated the Honkai Beasts, leaving them with heavy casualties.

The Honkai Emperor was not stupid either. Seeing that its attacks could do nothing to Ishiu and had instead battered its own allies, it immediately withdrew the energy pulses and charged straight at him.

It had to be said that the sight of a fifty-meter-tall giant body charging at full speed was still extremely shocking.

"Fuck!"

Ishiu sharply sucked in a breath. How the hell was he supposed to dodge that?

With no other choice, Ishiu hurriedly jumped onto the head of a Chariot-class Honkai Beast and used it as a springboard, barely evading the Honkai Emperor's Destruction Charge.

"Damn it, with that ring of spinning blades around it, I can't get close at all..."

Although he had temporarily evaded the Honkai Emperor's attack, Ishiu could not help feeling a headache as he watched the endlessly spinning Blade Leaves around its body.

The spinning Blade Leaves formed a storm-like shield around the Honkai Emperor. Anyone who entered its range would be torn to pieces by countless Wind Blades like small knives.

But unless he broke through that shield, Ishiu had no way to deal with this Honkai Emperor. If only he could cut down those Blade Leaves like he cut those lines... Huh? Wait!

Ishiu focused his gaze. Within the gaps where even space seemed to be torn apart, he could vaguely make out lines.

"No way... Even this has lines?"

Ishiu found it hard to believe. It was one thing for solid, tangible objects to have lines, but how could pure energy without physical form have lines too?

Could it be that he had not truly grasped the real use of these eyes yet?

I'm fine.jpg

Eyes That Can End All Things

"Boom—!"

Accompanied by a thunderous roar, the Honkai Emperor's hulking body charged toward Ishiu once more.

"No time to think. There's only one chance."

Ishiu shook his head and put those questions aside for now. He still only had a vague understanding of his eyes. He could slowly study them when he had time.

Right now, his first priority was killing this Honkai Emperor.

Since those intangible energy fluctuations had lines, they could definitely be cut!

For some reason, despite how absurd the thought sounded, Ishiu did not find it strange or surprising at all. It was as if the power of these eyes was meant to be like this.

"This time, I have to be fast... I have to be faster..."

Ishiu stood atop a Honkai Beast's head, ignoring its furious howls as he fixed his gaze on the approaching white figure. He tightly gripped Wolf Fang in his hand. (This was the name Ishiu gave the dagger. Since Bronya had given it to him, he called it Wolf Fang. laughs)

"I can see it... That line."

At this moment, within those ice-blue eyes, everything in the world gradually began to disappear. The Honkai Beasts around him disappeared. The sky disappeared. The earth disappeared as well.

The only thing remaining in those eyes was that faint, indistinct line.

Ishiu could already feel pain in his eyes. He did not know what it meant, but the lines he saw grew increasingly clear.

Ishiu felt as if he vaguely understood something. Then, a term inexplicably appeared in his mind.

Dead Apostle Ancestor

So that was it. The lines I saw were their "death"?

In other words, before these eyes, it did not matter what it was—humans, Honkai Beasts, walls, the ground, energy, space... As long as he struck those lines, he could destroy them!

Dead Apostle Ancestor, eyes that could see the end of all things...

He did not know why he had gained such a pair of eyes, but if he possessed such powerful strength and still could not deal with this Honkai Beast, then what right did he have to say he would drive out the Honkai?

There was only one chance.

I had to be faster.

"Boom—!"

The massive hum had already reached his ears. The emotionless ice-blue glow in Ishiu's eyes flickered faintly. The Honkai Emperor was already right before him. Now!

"Clang—!"

A brilliant flash of steel streaked through space like a fleeting white colt. With a soft tearing sound, the energy storm swirling around the Honkai Emperor was like a sheet of paper ripped apart down the middle, forcibly cleaved open!

The Honkai Emperor lost its defensive field.

Ishiu's figure appeared again, already having rushed in front of the Honkai Emperor. Expressionless, he faced that enormous body like an insurmountable chasm and swung the dagger in his hand!

Flash Blade - Seven Nights!

The cold blade light passed through the Honkai Emperor as easily as the light of dawn breaking through darkness. This time, Ishiu's blade struck the Honkai Emperor's Death Line without error.

"Rip—!"

The Honkai Emperor's massive body abruptly stopped. It did not even have time to let out a final roar before death, because the moment Ishiu severed that Death Line, it was already dead.

Its body swayed slightly, then collapsed onto the earth with a thunderous crash, turning into the purest Honkai Energy and dispersing into the world.

"Mom, it's dealt with."

Ishiu panted heavily as he opened the communications channel and spoke to Cocolia on the other end.

Yet the communications channel remained silent for a long time. Ishiu was nearly wondering whether he had called the wrong person when Cocolia's voice finally came through, sounding as though she had just awakened from a dream.

"Oh... Oh... I-I saw it."

"Mm. Then keep attacking. I checked—there isn't a third Honkai Emperor in the horde. The remaining Honkai Beasts shouldn't be difficult to deal with."

"O-Okay..."

"Mm. Then I'll continue too."

"Oh... Mm? Wait, you first—"

Ishiu once again cut off Cocolia's communications channel. He casually tucked the communicator into his clothes, leaned against the Honkai Emperor's body as it slowly dissipated, and raised the corners of his mouth at the Honkai Beasts approaching him.

"Well then, the boss is down. Now it's time to clear the mobs."

As Ishiu spoke, his eyes once again turned into ice-blue mystic eyes.

The battle continued for another hour. Without a powerful combat force like the Honkai Emperor, the remaining Honkai Beasts were numerous but no longer posed a threat to the Qiye Family's troops. Before long, they had eliminated all the remaining Honkai Beasts.

And naturally, Ishiu became the center of everyone's attention.

After all, everyone had watched him solo the Honkai Emperor.

However, as the price of that stunt, Ishiu was grabbed by the ear and lectured by Cocolia for more than an hour. If the battlefield had not still needed to be cleaned up, Ishiu figured he would have been lectured for another three hours.

Oh, my God, there was nothing more terrifying than Mom's nagging. Ishiu would rather fight the Honkai Emperor in another life-or-death battle than be lectured by Cocolia.

After finally escaping Cocolia's clutches, Ishiu returned to the logistics unit. Along the way, Seven Nights clan members stared at him as though he were some kind of monster, which made him rather uncomfortable.

But that did not last long, because he went straight to Bronya.

Bronya was inside a jeep at the moment, repairing the weapon she had used earlier. The intensity of the battle had pushed the weapon somewhat beyond its limits.