"No, I've never even met the real Elysia. Where would I get Elysia's aura from?" Flame Willow looked utterly bewildered. "Other than that crystal flower in my pocket, is there anything else on me related to Elysia?"
"That crystal flower probably isn't likely either. Although its durability probably does contain a trace of Elysia's power, Aponia couldn't possibly fail to notice that we just picked it up." Xia Ling shook her head. "Anyway, Flame Willow, just adapt as things come. At worst, we die. Look on the bright side—once the trial is over, we can settle accounts with the system."
"So this is completely different from our original plan of speedrunning the trial and happily going to see Elysia..."
Amid Flame Willow's lament, Xia Ling and Highmore were once again ejected from Elysian Realm, while three long-awaited portals appeared before Flame Willow once more.
Without hesitation, she entered a combat node. Looking at the three Sky Patrol Guards wandering around the thirteenth floor, Flame Willow immediately felt a sense of familiarity.
"Sky Patrol Guards are great. Even a whole bunch of Alien Purge Guards would be better than making me face the Herrschers."
With a relieved gaze, Flame Willow reduced all the mechs to parts.
Then she could no longer smile.
Because another portal carrying a Herrscher Trial sigil had appeared before her, and this time, the sigil's design...
Was Infinity.
Elysia: The Heart Hanging in the Air Finally Seemed to Die
"This is troublesome..."
The same thought flashed through all three of their minds at once.
Compared with Vill-V, Serpent was clearly much harder to communicate with. They would most likely fail to negotiate with either of them, but for Flame Willow, Serpent's abilities countered her even more severely.
Flame Willow's fighting style meant she was basically impossible to kill as long as she had Honkai Energy. But Serpent's energy drain directly countered that. Even during ordinary trials, Flame Willow rarely chose Serpent as the target of a Herrscher Trial.
Meanwhile, Serpent's relative disadvantages in speed and crowd control were completely covered up by the trial arena's restricted range.
"But Serpent obviously isn't someone we can get past just by showing our true selves, like Aponia said. Or does the so-called calamity not refer to her?"
Xia Ling frowned as she considered it.
"Definitely not. For the moment, Aponia's description only makes me think of Elysia. But honestly... Elysia herself doesn't really count as a calamity, does she? I'm sure Elysia can be negotiated with."
"Look, Flame Willow clearly thought of that too."
Sure enough, after pondering for a moment, Flame Willow chose to enter the node directly. As she walked forward, words finally appeared on the light screen again.
Unexpected Encounter In a dim laboratory, a cute, petite girl with long green hair was troubledly pondering something. Seeing you approach, the girl introduced herself as a frail researcher with little combat ability. She begged for your help, hoping you would visit her laboratory and assist her in completing a harmless little experiment. I'll go! (I love experiments!) Better not.
"Then, little white mouse who wandered into somewhere you shouldn't have, I'm sure you'll be more than happy to accompany me in a harmless little experiment, won't you?"
Looking at Mobius's dangerous smile, Flame Willow experienced what it meant to break out in a cold sweat for the first time.
"C-Can I choose not to go?"
"No. I don't know how you entered territory that belongs to me, but little white mice who run around everywhere need to be prepared to get caught."
As Mobius spoke, the screen in the preparation room changed as well.
You were dragged into the laboratory by the petite green-haired girl. You watched as her delicate features suddenly burst apart into a pool of dark green liquid. Then, a massive dark green serpent rose from the shadows and looked at you with ill intent. Enter battle
"Tch, looks like I have no choice but to fight..." Sensing Mobius's increasingly dangerous aura, Flame Willow tightened her grip on her weapon, and flames gradually began to rise from her body.
However, at that moment, an unexpected change occurred.
A blue butterfly-like mark suddenly appeared on Flame Willow's chest. Then the butterfly flapped its crystalline wings, flew directly out of Flame Willow's body, and scattered waves of golden dust.
"Th-This is..."
Then, under Flame Willow's gaze, Serpent's movements suddenly froze, and she automatically vanished from the node.
Seeing the three portals that appeared after Serpent disappeared, Flame Willow did not dare linger. She hurriedly picked a combat node and dove inside.
A moment later, Mobius reappeared in the empty node.
But her face was now filled with confusion.
"That power just now... Aponia's illusion? But why would a trial participant who had only just arrived in Elysian Realm receive Aponia's special attention?"
"Or could it be..."
"That little one's identity isn't as simple as I thought?"
At that thought, Mobius narrowed her eyes slightly, and danger glinted in her golden vertical pupils.
"It seems quite a few interesting things happened while I wasn't paying attention to Elysian Realm... Looking closely, the way that little one entered this place really does seem abnormal."
"Looks like I'll have to ask Klein for the recent list of Elysian Realm trial participants..."
At this moment, Flame Willow, who had already been teleported into the next node, still had lingering fear written all over her face.
"Good grief, that was definitely the real Serpent. She hadn't even activated her metamorphosis, but the pressure she gave me was far greater than even Serpent in metamorphosis at Danger difficulty..."
"System, you adorable little thing that deserves a beating, you little—when I get back, I'm definitely going to love you to death!"
Whether the system felt Flame Willow's rage or not was unknown, but the Honkai Beasts on this floor definitely felt it.
While the poor Thorn-class Honkai Beasts were beaten until they rolled all over the ground, Xia Ling and Highmore in the preparation room seized the time to discuss the situation.
"Looks like Serpent isn't the Herrscher who discovered the system." Highmore spoke with certainty. "Although she seemed dangerous, Serpent clearly treated Flame Willow as a World Serpent trial participant."
"I think so too, but doesn't that mean Vill-V was the one who discovered us?"
"According to Aponia, Vill-V was the one who prepared a big surprise for us at the end?"
The more Xia Ling thought about it, the more cold sweat trickled down her back.
"It's over. I'm breaking out in a cold sweat too. I'm fighting Teacher Big V? Seriously?"
"No, you need to think about it from another angle." Highmore slowly offered an even more terrifying possibility. "Vill-V isn't a combat-type Herrscher. Given enough preparation time, she wouldn't personally step into the fray."
"Perhaps something even more troublesome is waiting for Flame Willow."
Of course, those three were not the only ones breaking out in cold sweat. On the other side, Elysia was not doing much better either.
As Vill-V enthusiastically explained how she had noticed the problem on a whim, then painstakingly researched and located this thief, Elysia increasingly felt that something was wrong.
Wait, could the thief Vill-V is talking about... be the system...?
Listening to Vill-V describe a time period that highly overlapped with Xia Ling's training, Elysia gradually developed an unpleasant premonition.
"Wait, Vill-V..." Elysia suppressed the faint unease in her heart and asked, "After researching it, what do you plan to do with this thief?"
"Do with it?" Vill-V shook her head. "I only reverse-controlled some of the nodes it planted, but I still don't have a good way to deal with it."
There's no way yet... That's good...
Elysia breathed a sigh of relief. Although Vill-V would certainly stop her actions if Elysia asked, unless necessary, she still did not want to rashly disrupt Xia Ling's plans.
After all, Elysia had been listening beside Xia Ling every time she discussed her plans. Xia Ling's original method of entering Elysian Realm was quite interesting, and Elysia did not want to reveal herself before Xia Ling so soon.
"But..."
"But?"
"Although I have no way to catch that thief, that doesn't mean I'm helpless!" Vill-V wore an expression of complete control.
"For some reason, that thief actually brought an accomplice in this time."
"Hmph, hmph. I might not be able to do anything to it, but that doesn't mean I can't do anything to its accomplice."
"I don't know why the thief's accomplice is running wildly through that route as if clearing stages, but that makes it easier for me to tamper with things for her."
This time, Elysia's heart hanging in the air finally seemed to die.
Vill-V: What? This Is Your Kid?
On the other side, Flame Willow had already cleared the fifteenth floor, then skipped straight over the sixteenth floor and arrived before this trial's grand finale boss, the MHT-3B Angel of Paradise.
What, you ask where the sixteenth floor went? Did you expect Flame Willow to do something to an unmanned cat shop?
In any case, the three of them gathered together once more after not too long.
But as the boss of the seventeenth floor, it was nowhere near as simple as the Schicksal Divine Machine on the twelfth floor.
Based on the effect descriptions Xia Ling had glimpsed before being summoned here, this Angel of Paradise was not the sort that received all-around enhancements. Instead, it had gone to the extreme of turning every enhancement into bullet hell.
Tracking Missile: Anti-Cluster III, Mobile Floating Mine: Infiltration Countermeasure, Tactical Movement: Anti-Mobility III...
In short, Highmore should have had the hardest time dealing with such dense bullet hell. Having become a Paranoid Bubble, she had almost no room to dodge against such a barrage.
"Flame Willow, save some strength."
Seeing Flame Willow hiding behind Highmore and madly pouring flames toward the Angel of Paradise, Xia Ling patted her shoulder during a gap in the battle.
"You might have to go through an intense battle later. Don't forget, the system said it would send us directly to the eighteenth floor. You might not get a chance to restore your Honkai Energy."
"And when fighting this thing, I'm more familiar with it."
As she spoke, Xia Ling flickered onto Highmore's body. Grabbing the outer shell of the Paranoid Bubble to steady herself, Xia Ling focused her mind. Portals suddenly opened across the bullet-filled sky, swallowing all manner of hidden mines and lasers into Imaginary Space.
"Um, Vill-V... what exactly... did you tamper with?" Elysia asked, trying her best to conceal the abnormality in her voice.
"I changed the locations of several nodes from the Herrschers' discarded data to places near their actual selves."
Vill-V opened a screen and proudly showed Elysia her handiwork.
"Look, there's Hua's, Mobius's, Cosmo's, oh, and little Pardo's too. But she doesn't seem to be around right now, so it connected to her little shop."
At that, Vill-V sighed. "I just don't know whether she's too strong or too lucky, but that person seems to have passed through those nodes safely. Especially the node I connected to Cosmo—it somehow failed outright."
"I see..."
"But..." Seeing that the light representing the seventeenth node had been extinguished for quite some time, Vill-V revealed a sly expression. "She definitely won't get away this time. Hmph, hmph, I prepared a superweapon for her too. She'll absolutely regret it."
As she spoke, she looked at Elysia and said confidently, "That superweapon is..."
"Uh..."
"E-Elysia, why do you look like that?"
Vill-V's pupils shrank slightly. Elysia's strange expression made her think of a possibility. After all, before Elysia, Vill-V had never heard of any recent visitors to Elysian Realm.
She had originally thought she had simply been careless, but now it seemed things were not as she had imagined...
"Wait, could that person be..."
Turning her gaze toward the half-finished storybook still resting on the table, Vill-V instantly felt cold sweat about to drip down her face.
However, luck did not seem to be on Vill-V's side today.
With a deafening boom, an energy fluctuation that both of them knew all too well instantly spread throughout Elysian Realm.
It was the aura of Chijie activating his metamorphosis.
"So that superweapon was Chijie?"
Elysia shot to her feet. As the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, she could no longer bother hiding the anxiety and worry on her face. She whipped her head toward Vill-V.
Vill-V was even more anxious than Elysia, because she clearly knew how difficult it was to break through the eighteenth node's layers of defenses from the outside. She had already opened a portal and hurriedly said, "Sorry, Elysia, I never expected... Forget it, that isn't important. Hurry and come with me!"
"Reverse infiltration requires a complicated process, even for nodes I already altered. We have to get there quickly, otherwise..."
Vill-V did not continue, but Elysia knew exactly what she meant.
Even against allies—World Serpent trial participants—Chijie's final trial had never had anything but a high fatality rate.
And now, someone had clearly "broken into" Chijie's territory... Things would only be even more perilous.
"Please... please don't let anything happen..."
Elysia bit her lip tightly and followed Vill-V as they rapidly broke through defensive lines set up by Vill-V herself.
Meanwhile, three minutes earlier...
"Whew... We finally dismantled that big guy."
Xia Ling panted heavily and wiped away the fine beads of sweat on her forehead.
Before you continue