Fu Hua, the Human World's Ban Hand

"Anti-Entropy, huh... that's a bit troublesome." The North American Branch Director's face darkened as she thought. Suddenly, she stood up, pointing at a marker on the floating screen before her, and said, "Since the survivor is someone the Far East Branch wants, let's send out that A-Rank Valkyrie from the Far East Branch! She's not far away anyway!"

"An excellent idea, Director!" The On-Duty Valkyrie nodded in deep agreement and contacted Fu Hua, who was just finishing a mission and heading back, through the internal channel: "Valkyrie Fu Hua, this is New North American Branch Command. Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you. What's the matter?" Fu Hua tapped her earpiece with a finger and asked, somewhat puzzled.

"It's like this. That little girl your Far East Branch asked us to rescue—I think her name is Xina—she's been attacked by Anti-Entropy. Right now, the nearest friendly unit to her is you..."

"Got it." Fu Hua cut off the On-Duty Valkyrie's rambling and said directly, "Send me the coordinates. I'll head there now."

"On it!"

Seeing that Fu Hua had actually taken the job, the On-Duty Valkyrie was overjoyed and quickly sent the approximate coordinates calculated by the computer to Fu Hua.

"Fifteen kilometers from me? I should make it in time!" Fu Hua estimated the distance between herself and Xina, then swung a leg over the Black Off-Road Motorcycle she'd just conveniently driven out of some Anti-Entropy research facility, and hit 180 on a highway with a 60 mph speed limit...

Meanwhile, Xina was idly pacing around several Anti-Entropy Mecha she had frozen solid like amber.

Whether Anti-Entropy reinforcements or Schicksal reinforcements arrived first, she had already prepared for everything. All she had to do was wait...

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Anti-Entropy people are the local snakes here. They sure got here fast, huh?"

Xina sensed the direction of the newcomers from where the ice layer she had spread over the ground was breaking, and at a suitable distance, she melted the ice off the surrounding mecha.

"Who are you? Why are you here!?"

A dozen seconds later, the restored Anti-Entropy Mecha turned around and interrogated Xina, who stood in their midst, with cold, mechanical voices.

From Anti-Entropy's perspective, it was already strange enough that their perfectly functional mecha had suddenly shut down and then just as inexplicably returned to normal.

And on top of that, at this time, on such a remote path, a smiling young girl had suddenly appeared beside the mecha.

There was no way this was normal!

"Wait, you guys bombed me with missiles and you don't even know who I am? Are you Anti-Entropy people brain-damaged or something?"

Hearing that Anti-Entropy was asking who she was, Xina, who had been inexplicably blown sky-high by missiles, felt like her entire Herrscher self was having a bad day.

So they didn't even know who she was and just went straight to missiles?

What the DAMN!

"What do you mean 'who are you, who am I'? We're asking why you're here!" The mecha squad leader who had come to reinforce was also baffled by the fuming girl below. His orders were just to check on this mecha squad that had suddenly gone offline, and of course he had to question any suspicious person he encountered.

"Why am I here? Shouldn't you bastards know better than me? You guys were the ones who blew up my car with missiles first!"

"Nonsense. I really have no idea what you're talking about. Since you won't cooperate, don't blame me. All units! Prepare for combat!"

For some reason, this mecha squad leader felt an icy aura emanating from this girl. Whatever her identity, it definitely wasn't simple!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Four Titan Mecha decloaked and marched toward the girl in perfect unison, but she wasn't flustered at all, because that familiar feeling was back...

Time to put on a real show!

Listening to the engine roar growing closer, Xina fell to the ground before the Titan Mecha's fist could land on her. She lay on her side, watching the motorcycle's dazzling headlights grow larger and larger, then fly over her head and crash into a Titan Mecha's cockpit.

"Xina, are you alright?"

Fu Hua descended from the sky with a perfect backflip and landed in front of Xina. Perhaps due to the lighting and angle, Fu Hua's not particularly imposing or heroic figure seemed incredibly tall in Xina's eyes.

"Fu Hua... Class Monitor, I'm fine. But these annoying things not only bombed me with missiles, they also bullied me with their mecha. If you hadn't come, I might have..."

With that, Xina squeezed a few drops of Honkai energy solution from her eyes and lowered her head with a sob.

Perfect. Let these trash mecha show me what Fu Hua is really made of! She wanted to see just how powerful this Valkyrie who made her skin crawl really was.

The wrongly blamed mecha squad leader was also unhappy. Annoyed, he switched his voice to speaker and roared at Xina, the fraudster: "Hey hey hey, what are you babbling about, you little brat? My fist hadn't even hit you yet and you were already on the ground! Do all you Valkyries pull this kind of blatant insurance fraud?"

"It doesn't matter. My mission is to deal with you. If you run now, I'll let you off."

As she spoke, a black mask appeared on Fu Hua's face, and her usual gray standard combat uniform switched to the prototype fourth-generation Valkyrie God-Slaying Armor—Shadow Knight: Moonbeam.

After assuming the starting stance of some kind of Fist Technique, the Luna Armor emitted a faint orange glow.

"Ooh, it's finally starting!" Xina excitedly shifted her lying position and looked forward to watching Fu Hua, alone, face eight mecha, hoping to see a spectacular battle.

But... things didn't go as planned. This seemingly uneven battle ended very quickly, to the point where Xina began to doubt her own worldview: Could someone really dismantle mecha with their bare hands in this world?

"Inch Punch: Mountain Shatter!"

As the last mecha's cockpit was destroyed by Fu Hua's punch, Xina, for the first time since becoming a Herrscher, felt the back of her clothes sticking to her skin.

"Is it raining? No... it's Honkai energy solution..."

The orange light gradually faded, and the faceplate covering Fu Hua's face also dissipated. She bent down, crouching beside Xina, and asked with concern, "Xina, why are you sweating so much? Are you injured?"

"I-I-I... yeah, I think my legs are a bit weak..." Xina's eyes were fixed on Fu Hua's hand resting on her shoulder.

That was the hand that had just punched through a mecha's cockpit in one blow.

Thinking about the horrifying image of that fist slamming into her own head, Xina felt that the only use the Serenity Gem inside her would have was to let her get punched by Fu Hua a few more times...

"Legs weak, huh..." Fu Hua thought for a moment, then reached out with both hands. She hooked her right arm under Xina's knees while gently lifting Xina's back with her left arm.

"Hey hey hey!" Xina, easily picked up by Fu Hua, looked up in surprise.

At this distance, Fu Hua's sharply defined, heroic profile was perfectly clear for her to see.