Joining MiHoYo, the Savior Me Was Targeted by Elysia

And... Himeko's warning during their first real battle:

"If a comrade loses her mind and is controlled by Honkai, you must not hesitate. You must end her life."

Kiana cried out inwardly:

"You said that yourself, so why... why did you..."

The scene from The Last Lesson appeared before Kiana's eyes once more.

This time, her heart was finally shattered completely. Facing the Herrscher of the Void, who was about to take control of her body...

Kiana raised her gun and pointed it at her own head.

·

·

You Like Twisting the Knife? Have Your Coffins Ready!

Kiana, who had tried to shoot herself, was stopped by Fu Hua's consciousness. But even as she knelt on the ground, she remained utterly broken inside.

Drawn by the Herrscher of the Void, the Honkai Beasts quickly found the girl whose body and soul had both fallen apart.

And just as their claws and fangs were about to reach Kiana, a figure appeared before her.

Accompanied by the sound of the consciousness space shattering and the tap, tap of footsteps, the woman clad in Valkyrie Triumph armor gradually came into focus...

Kiana's eyes brimmed with tears as she saw the figure reflected before her. Elysia and countless players watching the scene were teary-eyed as well.

--Ama~~zing grace~~How sweet the sound~~

The music of Amazing Grace began to play. Himeko slowly walked past Kiana, and countless comments exploded instantly, like the audience's emotions bursting forth.

I knew it! I knew she'd come back!

Kiana didn't smash through the Imaginary Space—Himeko brought Kiana home!

Sob! Himeko finally came back! MiHoYo didn't lie to me!

The BGM, Amazing Grace, represents repentance, gratitude, atonement, and rebirth.

It's practically telling Kiana and Himeko's story! It fits so perfectly!

Though Elysia and countless players had been swept up in their emotions, the story did not unfold as they had imagined.

Himeko did not return home with Kiana. She merely walked to Kiana's side and encouraged her softly, "Kiana, what are you waiting for?"

Then Himeko's figure cracked apart alongside the fragments of the consciousness space, shattered, and finally vanished completely.

Though the dead had departed, they still gave strength to the living.

Feeling Himeko's resolve, Kiana suppressed the Herrscher personality with her own consciousness and awakened a new power.

"Himeko, I won't run away anymore."

Having transformed into the Sky Dome Ranger, she swore to fulfill the promise she had made to Himeko.

"Moving forward through the pain... that's what they call growing up, isn't it?"

By the end, Elysia neither laughed nor cried. She merely let out a long sigh.

It was no easy thing to make this girl, who embraced all the beauty in the world, sigh.

You damn devs, don't think showing us Kiana's growth means we can just let go of how brutally you tortured her!

The players, however, were nowhere near as calm as Elysia.

When Tuna made up her mind just now, I didn't dare post comments and ruin the mood, but I can't hold it in anymore. Isn't this still a knife twist?!

Himeko never came back at all! Is this any way to toy with people's feelings?!

If she couldn't come back, why use those memories to make us understand Himeko even more deeply?

Knowing that Himeko wanted to be an adventurer, wanted to be a photographer, wanted a beautiful life... my heart is shattered.

If your comrade is controlled by Honkai, you're supposed to end her life without hesitation. If you couldn't do it, then don't say it! Sob sob!

The furious players did not merely feel sorry for Kiana. More than that, they were filled with grief and indignation at having Himeko taken from them all over again.

Just as Ye Ming had said, the more the players learned about Himeko's past, the more painful losing her became.

I knew it. MiHoYo could never turn over a new leaf. One tiny bit of sweetness in exchange for a massive knife!

MiHoYo devs, killing you a thousand times wouldn't be enough!

Brothers, we can send coffins to the devs through the spending event!

There are so many new characters anyway. I'm gonna whale like crazy!

I'm going to fill the devs' homes with coffins!

····················

Meanwhile, back in the studio, the girls were also experiencing the new version's content as players.

After reaching this part of the story, everyone's noses had gone sour. They could only look at Himeko and Ye Ming through tear-filled eyes.

"Amazing Grace is way too unfair. I can't believe you came up with that."

"Projecting Himeko's image onto the fragments and shattering it for everyone to see... that's too much."

Bronya and Mei both broke down, while Himeko said with a headache:

"I never thought that one day, my privacy would become a tool for aiding and abetting evil."

When her preferences had been exposed in the game, Himeko had felt a little embarrassed. Who knew it would end up like this?

"So when you said before... that everyone would go through my legacy, you meant these?"

"They're all things you did and said. You can't blame me for that, can you?"

Question: What did you do that made everyone break down?

Answer: I repeated the things she said and did.

What kind of Soviet joke was that?

"What about the emotional baiting, then?"

Just from watching that scene, even Himeko herself had thought she was about to take Kiana home. Who would have expected it to be nothing more than a brief appearance?

"That was for artistic effect," Ye Ming defended himself.

"You're exploiting the dead."

"I'm sorry. I know I was wrong."

With things having reached this point, Ye Ming felt a little embarrassed too.

"But unfortunately, to make this story more moving, I'll still have to exploit you a little more later on."

"You..."

Himeko lightly poked Ye Ming on the forehead and stopped dwelling on the matter.

She turned her gaze to Kiana, her eyes full of heartache.

"I never imagined that after I left, she would have to endure so much pain."

Himeko recalled what Ye Ming had told her before:

"After the timeline was rewritten, space-time entered a discontinuous state. In other words, it will take a long time for the worldline where you were saved to merge into the main worldline, so Kiana has no idea that you're still alive."

At that moment, she couldn't help wondering: if there had been no such restriction, would she have immediately gone to find Kiana?

Would she have told her that she no longer needed to suffer so much, that it was fine to grow gradually like an ordinary person?

"Ye Ming! Quick! Go check the revenue!"

Just as everyone was feeling emotional, Keqing suddenly ran over.

"The banner we released with the new version has been whaled dry by the players!!"

"How many people whaled it dry?"

"Nearly 50%!"

"That many!?"

"Whaled dry" meant buying every available paid item in the current banner while still having crystals left over.

Normally, players capable of doing that made up less than 10% of the game's population. Yet now, half the players had whaled the banner dry...

It was something unprecedented in the entire history of gaming.

"Why is everyone so eager to spend... oh! They're buying the developers a coffin!"

Ye Ming checked the revenue figures across several servers. They had already vastly exceeded the number they had agreed on before.

It probably wouldn't just be a coffin—they would need to prepare a funeral too, and it would have to be a grand one.

"Why is everyone's hatred for you so strong? What emotional damage did you put in afterward?"

"Nothing. The later story mainly develops Rita's character. There's no emotional damage."

"Really?"

"Of course it's true! If you don't believe me, play through the main story yourselves!"

After temporarily sealing the Herrscher personality, Kiana became an anonymous wanderer in Sky Dome City. In her dreams, she received Fu Hua's guidance and trained in Tai Xu Sword Qi.

After more than a month of hard work, Kiana traced the cause of the Honkai outbreak to Shencheng Pharmaceuticals.

Meanwhile, Rita arrived in Sky Dome City under the guise of an inspection to search for K-423. Guided by Raven, a member of World Serpent, she concluded that Kiana was the cause of the Honkai outbreak in Sky Dome City.

When Kiana was found, she held her own in battle against Rita. In the end, she pointed out that Shencheng Pharmaceuticals was the true mastermind and handed Rita a piece of evidence.

It was the maid from before!

She had only appeared a few times before. Was she finally going to become the protagonist this time?

Rita is amazing, but for some reason I can't feel happy about it.

It must be hard on Rita, appearing right after that kind of plot.

Not long after Rita appeared, she received unanimous praise. That mysterious yet seductive aura of hers effortlessly captured every player's heart.

Regrettably, after winning the players' hearts, they found those hearts already riddled with knives.

"Oh my, it seems my charm will be rather difficult to put to use here."

Rita asked Ye Ming in some confusion:

"I don't really care about my own popularity, but won't doing this affect the revenue?"

"Your charm stands out too much, so we need to tone it down a little here. Otherwise, you'd steal too much of the spotlight."

"Oh my~~ Just as expected of Ye Ming, you make sweet talk sound so candid and adorable~~"

Rita first wore an expression as though she had eaten honey, then glanced around at the other girls and said with a suppressed laugh:

"I wonder whether anyone here has ever been flirted with by you like that?"

"Ugh..."

At Rita's question, everyone except the two new employees, Fu Hua and Durandal, had an adorable flush spread across their cheeks.

"Have I ever said anything like sweet talk?"

Ye Ming scratched the back of his head, looking utterly innocent.

"I just say whatever comes to mind."

--I've seen plenty of airheads, but this is the first time I've seen someone who flirts so naturally.

Even the system couldn't hold it together this time.

After that, Rita went to investigate Shencheng Pharmaceuticals' secrets, while Kiana also infiltrated it to look into its records.