Welt: No Need to Ask, It's Definitely the Valkyrie!

"!"

Under Baki's stunned gaze, Xina suddenly opened her eyes again. She stuffed the gem back into her own pocket, crouched beside him with a mischievous grin, and whispered:

"Hahaha, I was just messing with you! Pulling some big stunt in a place crawling with enemies at every turn—I'd have to be out of my mind to do something that stupid."

"But seriously, I'm still grateful to you. Without you, I never would've found this place."

"As thanks, I'll grant you one wish within my power. So don't die just yet~ Think it over carefully, and when you're ready, you can tell me!"

"A wish..." Baki chewed on the word. After several minutes of thought, he struggled to pull a few test tubes from his pocket:

"I beg you to take the little girl in my room to a safe place, and also destroy the Honkai energy reactor in here."

"Hey hey hey, that's a bit greedy~ Saving someone and blowing up a reactor—that's two wishes!" Xina turned her head, eyeing the reactor that ceaselessly churned out Honkai energy, and licked her lips unconsciously.

"I know. This is the Honkai energy antibody serum I developed. Consider it payment." Baki nodded and handed the test tubes to Xina. "This is my proudest work. Keep it—it'll come in handy someday."

"Tch, sounds pretty troublesome... but... since you're about to die, I'll reluctantly agree!" Xina took the test tubes from Baki and held them up to the light.

Seeing nothing remarkable, she pursed her lips, stood up, and walked toward the secret chamber thick with high-concentration Honkai energy.

After one last absorption of the ambient Honkai energy leaking around her, Xina slammed her fist into the red self-destruct button and headed for the exit.

"Hey, I promised you, I—"

Suddenly, Xina swallowed the rest of her words.

Staring at Baki, who had already passed away peacefully on the ground, she fell silent for a long time. After a while, she let out a soft sigh, turned, and walked toward the elevator.

Now, she had only one last thing to do—take that clumsy girl named Kiana upstairs to a safe place.

After that, she could finally abandon her own unbearable past and enjoy her life.

Elsewhere, Welt, who had just been retrieved from the explosion zone, was lying on a sofa receiving treatment from Anti-Entropy medical staff.

"Damn Valkyrie! Cutting off this master's tongue like that. Next time we meet, I'll make her pay tenfold!" Once Welt put on his auxiliary collar voice synthesizer, he became a human telegraph machine, his mouth running nonstop, making the Anti-Entropy personnel standing nearby twitch their eyelids.

Beep beep beep! Beep beep beep!

"Hello? Cocolia, what now? Let me tell you, this old man is in a bad mood. If you're calling me out of the blue, it better be something urgent!" Welt shoved aside the nurse beside him and sat up lazily on the sofa.

"I've lost contact with the team installing the reactor on the [Gem], and Baki's unreachable too. I think our plan might—"

As she spoke, another violent explosion rumbled from below. The Anti-Entropy technicians looked out the window at the blast zone, their faces turning grim.

"What now? Why can't things be peaceful for one damn day?" Welt kept the line with Cocolia open, swaggered over to the window, and casually shoved aside the person blocking his view—just in time to witness the spectacular sight of the Honkai energy reactor's explosion triggering a secondary collapse!

"Damn it! Those Valkyries must be behind this! And where the hell is that old bastard Baki!"

Gritting his teeth as he stared at the underground floor belching black smoke, Welt spun around and charged out of the room.

Boom!

"Old man! Why aren't you answering this lord's messages? You looking down on me?"

Kicking open the door to Baki's room, Welt stormed in, ready to beat some sense into that senile old fool who only ever caused him trouble.

But as it turned out, all his noisy commotion yielded nothing—if not nothing, then close to it.

Not only was Baki himself nowhere to be found, even the computer on his desk had been deliberately smashed beyond repair.

The exploding basement, the missing strike team, the wrecked electronics, the unreachable Baki, plus the scraps of intel his subordinates reported—none of it left Welt any doubt about his earlier judgment: it had to be those annoying Valkyries from Schicksal!

Wait. Did I miss something?

Just as he reached the hallway outside the door, the usually straight-line-thinking Welt suddenly recalled something important and rushed back into Baki's room.

He picked up a few strands of long white hair from the messy bed and inexplicably connected them to the two girls he'd passed on the stairs earlier.

He'd been in a hurry then. One of them was wearing hotel staff clothes, so he hadn't thought much of it. But... the girl being supported by the staff member had unmistakably white hair.

"Quick! Find that white-haired girl! Turn this hotel upside down if you have to, but find her!" Welt tossed the white hair aside and stormed out of the room.

Perhaps Xina hadn't bothered to hide her trail. Still wearing her staff uniform, she quickly found Kiana's room number at the front desk.

Borrowing a master key from a cleaner on the floor, she swiped open the door to Kiana's room, tossed the unconscious Kiana onto the bed, and helped herself to a reasonably soft sofa, planning to rest a while before moving on.

"Walking that short distance wore me out. Guess I need to exercise more." Xina shot a resentful glance at Kiana, who was snoring away on the bed, and rubbed her sore lower back.

Hmm. Someone's coming? Here for me, or for Sleeping Beauty?

Lying sideways on the sofa with her eyes closed, Xina sensed it in advance and opened her eyes, her golden pupils curiously fixed on the door. Before long, a chaotic, heavy stomping sounded from outside.

"Quick! Quick! Quick! It's right here—"

With a bang, the closed hotel door was violently smashed open by brute force. Led by Welt, a group of people barged straight in.

"..." Welt turned his head and scanned the room. His lecherous, brutal gaze skipped over Xina in her staff uniform and landed squarely on Kiana:

"You lot, get out. This lord can handle it alone."