A Person in Honkai, But Integrated Strategies Activated

"No, I've never even met the real Elysia, so how could there be any trace of her?" Flame Willow looked bewildered. "Besides the crystal flower in my pocket, is there anything else on me related to Elysia?"

"That crystal flower is probably unlikely too. Although its sturdiness suggests it might contain a trace of Elysia's power, Aponia wouldn't mistake it for something we just picked up," Xia Ling shook her head. "Anyway, Flame Willow, just improvise. At worst, you die. Look on the bright side, once this trial is over, we can settle the score with the system."

"So this is completely different from how we originally planned to speedrun the trial and happily meet Elysia..."

As Flame Willow lamented, Xia Ling and Highmore once again departed from the Elysian Realm. Before Flame Willow, the familiar three portals reappeared.

Without hesitation, she entered a combat node. Seeing the three Sky-Guardians wandering on the thirteenth floor, Flame Willow immediately felt a sense of familiarity.

"Sky-Guardians are fine. I'd rather face a whole swarm of Alien Envoys than a Herrscher."

With a look of relief, Flame Willow reduced all the mechs to spare parts.

Then, she couldn't help but smile.

Because, before her, another portal appeared, carrying a Herrscher Insignia. And this time, the insignia's design...

was Infinite.

Chapter 48: Elysia: My Suspended Heart Finally Sank

"This is troublesome..."

The thought flashed through all three of their minds simultaneously.

Compared to Vill-V, Serpent was clearly harder to communicate with. Although communication would likely fail with both of them, Serpent's abilities were more of a counter to Flame Willow.

Flame Willow's combat style was such that as long as there was Honkai Energy, she was basically unkillable. However, Serpent's mana drain perfectly countered this. Even in normal trials, Flame Willow rarely chose Serpent as a target for a Herrscher Trial.

Furthermore, Serpent's relative disadvantages in speed and control were completely masked by the limited trial grounds.

"But Serpent clearly isn't someone Aponia mentioned as someone who could be passed by showing your true self. Or is the so-called calamity not referring to her?"

Xia Ling pondered with a frown.

"Definitely not. Aponia's description makes me think of Elysia for now, but honestly... Elysia herself wouldn't constitute a calamity, right? I believe Elysia can definitely be reasoned with."

"See, Flame Willow clearly thought of that too."

As expected, on the screen, Flame Willow pondered for a moment before choosing to enter the node directly. As her steps advanced, text that hadn't been seen in a while appeared on the screen.

[Unexpected Encounter]

[In a dark laboratory, a cute, petite girl with long, emerald-green hair was troubled, pondering something. Seeing your approach, the girl claimed to be a weak researcher with little combat power. She pleaded for your help, hoping you would visit her laboratory and assist her with a harmless little experiment.]

[I'll go! (I love experiments!)]

[Better not.]

"So, little mouse who wandered into a place you shouldn't have, I believe you'll be more than happy to help me with a harmless little experiment, won't you?"

Looking at Mobius, who stood before her with a dangerous smile, Flame Willow felt sweat on her brow for the first time.

"C-can I choose not to go?"

"No, you can't. I don't know how you entered my area, but stray mice must be prepared to be caught."

As Mobius spoke, the screen in the preparation room changed.

[You were pulled into the laboratory by the petite, green-haired girl. You watched as her delicate features suddenly contorted into a pool of dark green liquid. Then, a giant, dark green serpent rose from the shadows, gazing at you with ill intent.]

[Enter Combat]

"Tsk, looks like I have no choice but to fight..." Feeling the increasingly dangerous aura emanating from Mobius, Flame Willow gripped her weapon, and flames began to ignite around her.

However, at that moment, something unexpected happened.

A blue butterfly-like mark suddenly appeared on Flame Willow's chest. Then, the butterfly flapped its crystalline wings and flew directly out of Flame Willow, scattering golden powder.

"This, this is..."

Then, under Flame Willow's gaze, Serpent's movements froze. She then automatically disappeared from the node.

Looking at the three portals that appeared as Serpent vanished, Flame Willow didn't dare to delay and quickly chose a combat node to enter.

A moment later, Mobius's figure reappeared in the empty node.

However, her face was filled with confusion.

"That power just now... Aponia's illusion? But why would a trial participant new to the Elysian Realm receive special attention from Aponia?"

"Or perhaps..."

"That little guy just now, is their identity not as simple as I thought?"

With this thought, Mobius's eyes narrowed slightly, and a dangerous glint appeared in her golden, vertical pupils.

"It seems quite a few interesting things have happened while I wasn't paying attention to the Elysian Realm... Looking closely, the way that little guy entered here doesn't seem normal either."

"I'll have to ask Klein for the recent list of trial participants in the Elysian Realm..."

Meanwhile, Flame Willow, who had already been teleported to the next node, had a look of lingering fear on her face.

"Good heavens, that was definitely the real Serpent. She didn't even activate her collapse, but the pressure she gave me was far greater than a dangerous-difficulty collapsed Serpent..."

"System, you little darling who loves to be indebted, my precious, I'm definitely going to love you to death when I get back!"

Whether the system felt Flame Willow's anger or not, the Honkai Beasts on this floor certainly did.

As the pathetic Thorn-class Honkai Beast was sent rolling across the ground, Xia Ling and Highmore were in the preparation room, also urgently discussing the situation.

"It looks like Serpent isn't the Herrscher who discovered the system," Highmore stated with conviction. "Although she acted dangerous, Serpent clearly mistook Flame Willow for a trial participant of World Serpent."

"I think so too, but doesn't that mean the one who discovered us was actually Vill-V?"

"According to Aponia, Vill-V pulled a big one on us at the last minute?"

The more Xia Ling thought about it, the more cold sweat broke out on her forehead.

"Oh no, I'm sweating buckets too. Am I really fighting 'Big V Teacher'?"

"No, you need to think about it differently," Highmore said slowly, proposing a more terrifying possibility. "Vill-V isn't a combat-type Herrscher. With ample preparation, she wouldn't get involved personally."

"Perhaps what awaits Flame Willow is an even more troublesome existence."

Of course, the three of them weren't the only ones sweating buckets. On the other side, Elysia wasn't faring any better.

While Vill-V was enthusiastically explaining how she had a flash of inspiration to discover the problem and went through arduous research to find the thief, Elysia also felt increasingly uneasy.

(Wait, could the thief Vill-V is talking about... be the system...)

Listening to Vill-V describe the timing that perfectly overlapped with Xia Ling's training session, Elysia gradually developed a bad feeling.

"Wait, Vill-V..." Elysia suppressed her growing unease and asked, "After your research, how do you plan to deal with this thief?"

"Deal with it?" Vill-V shook her head. "I've only reverse-controlled some of the nodes it planted, but I don't have any good methods to deal with it yet."

(No... that's good...)

Elysia let out a sigh of relief. Although Vill-V would stop her actions if she were to speak up, she didn't want to disrupt Xia Ling's plan rashly if it wasn't necessary.

After all, she had been listening whenever Xia Ling discussed her plans. Xia Ling's original method of entering the Elysian Realm was quite interesting, and Elysia also didn't want to expose herself to Xia Ling so early.

"But..."

"But?"

"But even though I can't catch that thief, I'm not exactly helpless!" Vill-V showed a look of complete control.

"For some reason, this time the thief actually brought along an accomplice."

"Hmph, I can't do anything about it, but that doesn't mean I can't do anything about this accomplice."

"I don't know why, but this thief's accomplice is darting around in that route like they're playing a game, but that just makes it convenient for me to mess with her."

At this, Elysia's suspended heart finally settled.

Chapter 49: Vill-V: What? This is your kid?

Meanwhile, Flame Willow had already cleared the fifteenth floor and skipped the sixteenth floor entirely, arriving before the final boss of this trial, MHT-3B Angel of Paradise.

What, you ask where the sixteenth floor went? Are you expecting Flame Willow to do something to the empty cat shop?

In any case, after a short while, the three of them gathered together once more.

However, as the boss of the seventeenth floor, it was not as simple as the Schicksal Divine Machine on the twelfth floor.

From the effects of the buffs Xia Ling glimpsed before being summoned here, this Angel of Paradise was not a type that received overall reinforcement. Instead, its enhancement direction was extremely focused on barrages.

[Tracking Missile: Anti-Cluster III], [Mobile Floating Mine: Infiltration Countermeasure], [Tactical Movement: Anti-Mobility III]...

In short, facing such a massive barrage, Highmore would have the hardest time. Since she had already transformed into Paranoid Bubble, she had almost no room to dodge in the face of the dense barrages.

"Flame Willow, go easy on her."

Seeing Flame Willow hiding behind Highmore and unleashing a torrent of flames at the Angel of Paradise, Xia Ling patted her shoulder during a lull in the fight.

"You might need to fight intensely later. Don't forget, the system said it would teleport us directly to the eighteenth floor, so you might not have a chance to recover your Honkai Energy."

"Besides, I'm more familiar with fighting this guy."

As she spoke, Xia Ling blinked and appeared on Highmore. Grabbing onto the shell of Paranoid Bubble for stability, Xia Ling held her breath. In the sky, which was previously filled with barrages, teleportation gates suddenly opened, swallowing various proximity mines and lasers into the Imaginary Space.

"Um, Vill-V... what... what did you do?" Elysia asked, trying her best to mask the abnormality in her voice.

"I moved the locations of several nodes from the Herrscher's discarded data to near their actual bodies."

Vill-V opened her screen and proudly showed Elysia her results.

"Look, there's Hua's, Mobius's, Kosma's, oh, and little Pardo's, but she doesn't seem to be here right now, so it's connected to her shop."

At this point, Vill-V sighed. "I don't know if it's because she's too strong or too lucky, but that guy seems to have safely passed through these nodes. Especially the node I connected to Kosma, which inexplicably became invalid."

"I see..."

"But..." Looking at the light representing the seventeenth node that had been extinguished for a long time, Vill-V showed a sly expression. "She definitely can't escape. Hmph, I even prepared a big killer for her, she'll definitely regret it."

Saying that, she looked at Elysia and said confidently, "That big killer is..."

"Uh..."

"Elysia... Elysia, why do you look like that?"

Vill-V's pupils contracted. Elysia's unusual expression made her think of a possibility. After all, before Elysia, she had never heard of any new visitors to the Elysian Realm recently.

She had originally thought it was her own oversight, but now it seemed it wasn't what she had imagined...

"Wait, could it be that person is...?"

Turning her gaze to the half-finished storybook still on the table, Vill-V instantly felt cold sweat about to drip down her face.

However, today's luck didn't seem to be on Vill-V's side.

Accompanied by a loud bang, a familiar energy fluctuation that couldn't be more familiar to the two of them instantly spread throughout the Elysian Realm.

That was the aura of Chijie activating his collapse.

"So, that ultimate weapon was Chijie?"

Elysia shot up from her seat. The rapidly deteriorating situation made her unable to hide the anxiety and worry on her face as she looked sharply at Vill-V.

Vill-V was even more anxious because she clearly knew how difficult it was to break through her heavily fortified eighteenth node from the outside. She had already opened a teleportation gate and said urgently, "Sorry, Elysia, I really didn't expect this... Never mind, that's not important, hurry and come with me!"

"Reverse intrusion requires very troublesome steps, even for the nodes I've already modified. We need to hurry, otherwise..."

Vill-V didn't continue, but Elysia knew exactly what she meant.

Even when facing their own people, the trial-takers from World Serpent, the mortality rate of Chijie's final trial had always been high, never low.

And now, there was someone who had clearly "intruded" into Chijie's territory... that would likely mean an even more perilous fate.

"Please... please don't let anything happen..."

Elysia bit her lip tightly, following Vill-V as they quickly broke through the defenses Vill-V herself had set up.

Meanwhile, three minutes earlier...

"Hoo... Finally took down this big guy."

Xia Ling panted, wiping the fine beads of sweat from her forehead.