My Sister is Bronya

"So that's..."

"BOOM—!!!"

Before Ishiu could finish his sentence, another earth-shaking roar erupted from within the Honkai Beast horde. In the next instant, another massive Honkai Beast appeared on the battlefield ahead.

"Damn it! There's a second Honkai Emperor!" Bronya's face instantly turned deathly pale.

Chapter 32: Battle

"Everyone, keep retreating!" Cocolia's voice was heavy with tension over the comm channel.

"Crap... how is there a second one..."

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

Watching the Honkai Emperor wreak havoc among the mech units, Ishiu asked through a private comm channel.

"Sigh... the Positron Cannon's already been used. There's no way to fire it again in such a short time. To deal with this Honkai Beast, we'll have to throw mechs at it and suppress it with firepower. But that'll mean the mech losses will exceed the limit..."

"...I understand. Leave that Honkai Beast to me." After a moment of silence, Ishiu spoke with firm resolve.

"Huh? What did you say?"

"I said, I can take care of that Honkai Beast."

"...Ishiu, I know you've gotten stronger now, but some things can't be done on sheer passion alone."

"Mom, trust me."

"Trust you my ass! You get your ass back here right now! You—"

Cocolia's increasingly agitated voice cut off abruptly. Ishiu turned off the communicator, tossed the little pistol aside, and pulled a dagger from his waist.

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

"Nothing much. Just going to take down a boss." Ishiu grinned at her, then lightly pushed off the ground. His entire body shot forward like a nimble swallow.

Ishiu advanced from the edge of the battlefield, avoiding a direct frontal approach so he wouldn't get shelled by friendly fire—that would be too embarrassing.

Under the rapid sprint of Flash Step, Ishiu quickly plunged into the Honkai Beast horde. But he didn't waste time on these small fry. Instead, he used his agile footwork to weave and dash through the swarm. For those he couldn't dodge, he casually cut them down with a single stroke.

With those strange eyes active, these Honkai Beasts were covered in dense, crisscrossing lines. A single slash was enough to finish them off easily.

But if he didn't hit the lines, the terrifying killing effect wouldn't trigger.

Ishiu moved through the Honkai Beast horde unimpeded, as if strolling through an empty plain. He soon reached the vicinity of the Honkai Emperor.

"BOOM—!"

The massive white Honkai Beast seemed to have noticed him. Its ruby-like eyes locked onto him.

"The lines are fewer..."

In his ice-blue eyes, Ishiu saw that while this Honkai Emperor still had those interwoven fine lines across its body, their number was noticeably less than on other Honkai Beasts.

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

Ishiu had no time to ponder. The Honkai Emperor raised a hand toward him, and his sixth sense screamed danger. He instinctively dodged, barely evading the energy blast fired his way.

"Tch... this guy's no pushover." Ishiu clicked his tongue, tightened his grip on the dagger, and with a flicker of movement, silently drifted to the Honkai Emperor's feet.

[Flash Step - One Rabbit]

Ishiu's figure shot upward in an instant. The sheer explosive force even cratered the ground beneath him. In the blink of an eye, he leaped high into the air, his ice-blue eyes meeting the cold, red gaze.

Ishiu, draw blade!

[Flash Blade - Seven Nights!]

'Shing!'

A crescent-moon blade light flashed coldly. The sharp dagger pierced through a piece of silicon-based tissue on the Honkai Emperor, but failed to sever its head.

"Blocked?"

Ishiu frowned as his body began to fall back down under Newtonian inertia.

That slash had been aimed true, but a crystal suddenly formed along the Death Line and blocked it. It seemed that even mindless Honkai Beasts had an instinctive death-avoidance reflex.

No... it was that he wasn't fast enough. If he could be just a little quicker, this Honkai Beast wouldn't have been able to block it.

'BOOM—!'

A thick beam of energy blasted toward him, aimed at his falling trajectory. But Ishiu lightly stepped on the air, instantly changing his landing point.

A ring of sharp Blade Leaves materialized around the Honkai Emperor. They began to spin faster, whipping up violent air currents that swirled around it.

Ishiu had to temporarily retreat. He was still flesh and blood, and couldn't break through that barrier.

The Honkai Emperor roared, then slammed the floating crystal beside it into the ground. Ishiu felt a scorching heat beneath his feet and quickly activated Flash Step, barely dodging the energy beam that erupted from underground.

The Honkai Emperor had clearly marked Ishiu as its greatest enemy. It directed several beams to chase him. Wherever the beams struck, explosions rang out, the ground shattered layer by layer, and mud and rock flew everywhere.

Ishiu was a bit mischievous. He deliberately ran into the Honkai Beast horde. He came out fine, but those Honkai Beasts took the brunt of it.

After all, this wasn't a game—there was no friendly-fire immunity buff. So the Honkai Beasts were torn apart by the Honkai Emperor's energy pulses, suffering heavy casualties.

The Honkai Emperor wasn't stupid either. Seeing that its attacks couldn't touch Ishiu and were instead slaughtering its own allies, it immediately withdrew the energy pulses and charged straight at him.

To be honest, the sight of that fifty-meter-tall giant charging at full speed toward a person was still quite shocking.

"Damn!"

Ishiu gasped sharply. How the hell was he supposed to dodge this?

With no other choice, Ishiu quickly leaped onto the head of a Chariot-class Honkai Beast, using it as a springboard to barely evade the Honkai Emperor's Destruction Charge.

"Shit, with those spinning blades around it, I can't even get close..."

Though he had temporarily avoided the Honkai Emperor's attack, looking at the Blade Leaves spinning endlessly around its body, Ishiu felt a headache coming on.

That ring of rotating Blade Leaves formed a storm-like barrier around the Honkai Emperor. Anyone who entered its range would be torn to shreds by countless Wind Blades sharp as knives.

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

Ishiu focused his gaze. In the gaps where even space seemed to be torn apart, he vaguely thought he saw [lines].

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

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

Could it be that he hadn't truly mastered the real use of these eyes yet?

Chapter 33: Eyes That Can End All Things

"Boom--!"

With a deafening roar, the Honkai Emperor's massive frame charged at Ishiu once again.

"No time to think. I only have one chance."

Ishiu shook his head, setting aside those questions for now. He still only half-understood these eyes of his; he could study them slowly when he had time.

For now, his top priority was killing this Honkai Emperor.

Since those formless energy fluctuations had lines on them, they could definitely be cut!

For some reason, even though this idea seemed almost fantastical, Ishiu didn't feel the least bit surprised or shocked. It was as if this power of his eyes was meant to be this way.

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

Standing atop a Honkai Beast, ignoring its furious roars, Ishiu stared intently at the rapidly approaching white figure, gripping Wolf Fang tightly in his hand. (That was the name Ishiu gave the dagger, since Bronya gave it to him, he called it Wolf Fang (lol).)

"I can see it... that line."

At that moment, in those ice-blue pupils, everything in the world began to fade away. The Honkai Beasts around him disappeared, the sky disappeared, the earth disappeared.

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

Ishiu could already feel a dull ache in his eyes. He didn't know what it meant, but the lines he saw were becoming clearer and clearer.

Ishiu felt like he vaguely understood something, and then a word inexplicably appeared in his mind.

[Dead Apostle Ancestor]

So that's it. Those lines I see are actually their 'death'?

In other words, before these eyes, no matter what it was—person or Honkai Beast, wall or ground, energy or space—as long as he cut those lines, he could kill it all!

Dead Apostle Ancestor, eyes that can directly gaze upon the end of all things...

Though he didn't know why he had obtained such eyes, if he still couldn't deal with this Honkai Beast with such overwhelming power, then he had no right to talk about driving out the Honkai.

One chance only.

I have to be faster.

'Boom--!'

A huge roar sounded right in his ears. The faint ice-blue light in Ishiu's eyes flickered with an almost emotionless chill. The Honkai Emperor was right in front of him. Now!

'Clang--!'

A dazzling flash of blade light, like a fleeting glimpse of a white horse passing through a crack, sliced through the entire space. With a soft pfft, the storm of energy swirling around the Honkai Emperor was torn apart like a piece of paper ripped from the middle, forcibly cut open!

The Honkai Emperor had lost its defensive field.

Ishiu's figure reappeared, already charging right in front of the Honkai Emperor. Expressionless, he faced that towering, chasm-like giant and swung his dagger!

[Flash Blade - Seven Nights!]

A cold, sharp blade light, like the light of dawn, passed effortlessly through the Honkai Emperor's body. Just as light always pierces darkness, Ishiu's blade this time struck the Death Line on the Honkai Emperor without fail.

'Pfft--!'

The Honkai Emperor's massive body came to an abrupt halt. It didn't even have time to let out a final roar before death, because the moment Ishiu cut through that Death Line, it was already dead.

Its body swayed slightly, then, with a thunderous crash, it fell to the ground, dissolving into pure Honkai Energy and dispersing into the world.

"Mom, it's done."

Ishiu panted heavily, opening the communication channel to speak to Cocolia on the other end.

But there was a long silence on the channel. Ishiu almost thought he had dialed the wrong number before Cocolia's voice came through, as if she had just woken from a dream.

"Oh... oh... I, I saw it."

"Mm, then keep attacking. I've checked—there aren't any more Honkai Emperors left in the swarm. The remaining Honkai Beasts shouldn't be too hard to deal with."

"R-right, okay..."

"Good. Then I'll get back to it."

"Oh... huh? Wait, you first tell me—"

Ishiu cut off Cocolia's channel again, casually tucking the communicator into his chest. Leaning against the Honkai Emperor's fading body, he curled his lips into a smirk at the Honkai Beasts closing in on him.

"Well then, boss is down. Time to clean up the mobs."

As his words fell, his eyes once again shifted into ice-blue demonic pupils.

The ensuing battle lasted a full hour. With no more powerful Honkai Emperors in the field, the remaining Honkai Beasts—though numerous—could no longer threaten the Seven Nights clan's forces. They swiftly wiped out the rest.

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

After all, everyone had watched him take on the Honkai Emperor single-handedly.

However, as the price for that feat, Cocolia grabbed him by the ear and scolded him for over an hour. If not for the need to clean up the battlefield, Ishiu figured he'd have been chewed out for another three hours.

Oh~ my god, nothing is more terrifying than a mother's nagging. Ishiu would rather go another life-or-death duel with the Honkai Emperor than endure Cocolia's reprimand.

Having barely escaped Cocolia's clutches, Ishiu made his way back to the logistics unit. Along the way, he was stared at by the Seven Nights clan members like he was some kind of monster—a feeling he really couldn't get used to.

But that didn't last long, because he went straight to Bronya.

Bronya was inside a jeep, repairing the weapon she'd just used. The intensity of the battle had pushed it past its limits.