"Really?"
"Of course."
Fu Li lied without changing expression.
"Fine, then I have no more questions." Kiana folded her arms and leaned halfway against the door, turning her head to look at him. "You have my number too. Send me a picture once you get home."
"Are you my mom?"
"You're the culprit behind me going abroad, after all. Is it really so wrong for me to care?"
As she spoke, Kiana suddenly took a step forward. Her stubbornly raised ahoge looked as though it could poke Fu Li in the chin at any moment.
"You're the culprit behind me going abroad, after all. Is it really so wrong for me to care?"
As she spoke, Kiana suddenly took a step forward. Her stubbornly raised ahoge looked as though it could poke Fu Li in the chin at any moment.
But Fu Li moved faster. The instant she stepped forward, he retreated.
Watching Fu Li back away like a mouse avoiding a cat, Kiana put one hand on her hip, looking utterly speechless on the surface. "I was going to give you a hug before we parted. Why did you run so fast?"
"Wasn't I afraid that Miss Kiana's charm was too much and would shatter the resolve I worked so hard to make?" Fu Li wore an innocent expression. "Nothing else, right? If not, I'm leaving."
"Mm, go on."
Fu Li brushed past Kiana and headed toward the stairway at either end of the corridor leading downstairs.
Watching his retreating figure, the girl hesitated, but ultimately could not help calling out, "Hey, A Li!"
As mentioned before, Valkyries could only pass Schicksal's assessments and become N-rank Valkyries of the corresponding level once multiple attributes, such as strength, physique, and agility, reached the required standards.
For example, the D-rank speed standard was surpassing the limits of an ordinary person's dynamic vision, while an A-rank's offensive power was enough for one person to form an army.
But what if a B-rank Valkyrie had strength, stamina, physical defense, and other attributes at A-rank standards, while her remaining attributes were still within the B-rank range?
Normally, she would still be B-rank.
In practice, however, having some attributes reach A-rank meant her raw strength far exceeded that of ordinary B-ranks.
Such people could be called Breakers within their rank.
For example, Kiana was a B-rank Breaker. Born into the Kaslana Family, she stood head and shoulders above others in strength, stamina, Honkai Energy resistance, and other areas.
Being a Breaker could, to a certain extent, ignore the gulf between higher and lower ranks. For example, a B-rank Breaker whose strength, physique, and agility had all entered the A-rank range could contend with an ordinary A-rank Valkyrie for a short time.
She would naturally lose if it dragged on, but she would still have a chance to grab a bucket and run.
If she herself was exceptional enough and objective factors such as the environment and intelligence were all in her favor, even turning defeat into victory was not impossible.
Simply put, it was the difference between a well-rounded fighter and a specialist.
Regarding the questions surrounding Fu Li, Kiana had originally planned to get to the bottom of things. She believed she had the qualifications to break tricks with brute force.
But the reaction speed he had displayed when dodging her hug, no slower than her own, along with the inexplicable flash of vigilance that had crossed his brow, left the girl puzzled and determined to try another method.
Her acting skills, honed over four years of wandering, performed steadily. Kiana awkwardly turned her head away. "If you don't have money, I can lend you some. Just don't go doing anything bad!"
Hearing that, Fu Li, who had been wondering why this girl had dawdled for so long, finally laughed.
She had probably heard some gossip from that loose-lipped landlady and assumed he was leaving to do something illegal, which was why she had specifically come to probe for information.
She was still that kind-hearted kid. Even someone as unnoticed as him was worth her concern.
"To be honest, that act you just put on really didn't suit you at all." Without looking back, he waved his hand. "I'll send you pictures after I return home."
Fu Li had no intention of lying about this. Once he returned home, he would definitely send Kiana a few pictures.
But exactly when he would return home was another matter entirely.
Thanks to Raiden Ryoma's Yae Village ruins development project, even remote areas like the southern outskirts had bus stops.
And thanks to Raiden Ryoma being imprisoned for corruption, even though the stop had been built, no long-distance buses traveled here anymore.
Fu Li did not take a taxi. Instead, he jogged all the way here at an unhurried pace.
He needed to make thorough preparations for the battle against Kikyo, and this run was meant to warm up his body beforehand.
The ruins of Yae Village were covered in broken walls and shattered structures. Half-built concrete factory buildings stood upon cement ground overgrown with vegetation, possessing a kind of Wild West beauty beneath the setting sun.
He crossed the devastated landscape on foot and followed the dried-up Shiomi River upstream toward Mt. Yaegama.
Halfway up that mountain stood an unnamed shrine that had been abandoned for five hundred years. The unfinished Kikyo was sealed there.
Even five hundred years ago, when the people were unenlightened, that shrine had not counted as a major one.
Coupled with centuries of neglect, the mountain path was exceedingly rugged.
Naturally, that could not stump the current Fu Li.
Void Step, a C-rank active skill. It was a footwork technique that used the impact of energy explosions to accelerate movement. It required contact with a physical object to fully unleash its acceleration effect.
With special techniques, one could also condense solid-seeming azure lotuses beneath one's feet. The lotuses possessed excellent levitation and load-bearing capabilities. With every step, a lotus appeared beneath the user's foot, while the previous lotus withered and vanished shortly afterward. The more energy injected, the stronger the load-bearing capacity and the larger the lotus became—both controllable.
This footwork consumed relatively little energy but was difficult to learn, and it could be used even in conventional anti-air environments.
One step, one lotus. Flowers bloomed and withered—Lotus Steps.
Among footwork techniques, Void Step was the plainest, most unadorned kind.
Its sole advantage was that by stepping on azure lotuses, it could keep units unable to fly suspended in the air for a short time. It looked somewhat like a combination of Soru and Geppo from the Six Powers.
Of course, Fu Li refused to acknowledge that. In his words, it was called the noble Double Jump.
Using Void Step, he completed in ten minutes a mountain journey that would have taken ordinary people more than ten hours. Along the way, he also dealt with quite a few cute little animals that bared their teeth at him, using them to fill his stomach.
Human Immortal Path. Everyone who used it said it was great.
Reaching the top of the shrine approach, Fu Li took in the entire sight of the shrine.
The wooden buildings were more than half weathered away, and the cherry blossom trees in the courtyard had long since withered.
The grounds were quite spacious, roughly the size of a basketball court.
At the center of that space stood an enormous Sessho-seki wrapped in red-and-white Shimenawa.
"They actually used such a huge Sessho-seki for the seal..."
Sessho-seki. Legend claimed it was formed from the White-faced Golden Nine-tailed Fox that had crossed the sea from abroad. In reality, it was a special kind of Previous Civilization Soul Steel excavated from ancient sites in the Far East, capable of isolating and blocking Honkai Energy to a certain extent.
Though he had long been mentally prepared, truly seeing the seal before him still left Fu Li dazed.
Of the mere thirteen suspected God-Slaying Weapons on the entire surface of the planet, the Key of Corruption, No. 12, was here.
In this universe, the composition of natural laws included matter formed from the universe's fundamental particles and fields; fundamental forces formed from the strong force, weak force, electromagnetic force, and gravity; energy formed from kinetic energy, potential energy, thermal energy, radiation, and more; information formed from symmetry, entropy, and instability; as well as certain other unknown things.
The Key of Corruption's authority was the control of information. So long as something remained within the scope of information, it would be subject to its dominion.
This even included the mysterious soul. Human souls changed over time, so strictly speaking, human souls were also information.
Of course, boasting on paper was one thing, while actually carrying it out was another.
Talking only about abilities without discussing scale had always been shameless nonsense. Plenty of game and anime characters used the four fundamental forces—yet when had anyone seen them casually destroy the universe while chatting?
There were barely any at planet-busting level, okay?!
Since he had arrived at the battlefield, the next thing to do was make preparations before the fight.
By then, night had fallen.
Looking up, the sky was filled with glittering stars.
Like scattered grains of sand, they spread out into a splendid Milky Way that slanted across the heavens.
It was breathtakingly beautiful.
Fu Li felt obligated to make that starry sky even more beautiful.
He held his fingers together like a sword, and crystalline blue illusory field swords condensed in the frigid air one after another.
They flew soundlessly upward, hanging inverted as they disappeared into the boundless night, blending into the dark sky.
Shadow Blade, a B-rank skill Fu Li had exchanged from the Schicksal official who issued his Mediterranean patrol mission in his previous life.
It consumed Honkai Energy to create and control any number of constructs. Their shapes and quantities were entirely chosen by the user.
As a special technique for projecting and controlling energy, Shadow Blade was generally used to fire flying projectiles or have them rotate around the user as a protective shield. If one's control was sufficient, one could create large numbers of Shadow Blades at once and attack opponents in different formations. It was even possible to directly create an enormous anti-ship sword the size of a small mountain and weighing tens of thousands of tons, crushing others through sheer force.
The larger the construct, and the more complex its structure and functionality, the more Honkai Energy it consumed.
Note: Break free of restraints. Let your imagination soar. Do not be bound by common sense. Remember that you are omnipotent.
The duration of status-type skills was determined by the total amount of energy input. The Honkai Energy Fu Li had poured into every Shadow Blade was enough to sustain them for one to two hours.
Once the tense and exciting battle began, these precious treasures would become swords of Damocles raining down from the heavens.
Since they had been arranged in advance, Fu Li would not even need to expend much effort controlling them.
With just one word—"Fall!"—the rapidly descending Shadow Blades could interrupt casting and force the enemy to hold back.
According to the information he knew, once the sealed Kikyo was released, it would appear in the form of a Four-tailed Fox Demon.
Though it was only several dozen meters in size, its overall strength was likely no weaker than an A-rank Breaker.
That was right, it was not at Critical.
The passage within the Herrscher Core connecting to Imaginary Space had long been severed;
It had been imprisoned within the Divine Key production program, the "Divine Box," while resisting for a full fifty thousand years;
Afterward, it had continuously consumed its remaining Honkai Energy to lure outsiders in an attempt to break the seal;
Five hundred years ago, it had finally managed to crawl out, only to be beaten senseless by a white-haired Saintess from Schicksal wielding Judas;
Then it was sealed again and spent more than five hundred years scheming against the simultaneously sealed Yaegama Miko, wearing each other down.
After all that, lonely old Ling could no longer bear the excessive expectations everyone outside the screen had placed on her, much less accomplish the great feat of nuking Changkong City.
Rather, the fact that she still possessed combat ability at this level after such treatment was more than enough to prove just how absurd Herrschers were, as well as the tenacity of Ling's own will—or perhaps her resentment toward her sister.
But even so, with Fu Li's current strength, trying to defeat an A-rank Breaker like Ling head-on was pure fantasy.
But who told that unlucky fox to currently be sealed?
Kikyo was currently sealed, so it could not blame Fu Li outside for playing dirty.
Prerequisites and first-move advantages were also part of battle. If you didn't like it, don't play.
Besides that, the Mikazuki Munechika Fu Li had specially acquired was prepared specifically for it.
The Honkai Beasts currently known could roughly be divided into two categories:
The first were silicon-based lifeforms directly condensed from Honkai Energy;
The second were mutated animals infected by Honkai Energy.
The latter were not necessarily weaker than the former, but this type of Honkai Beast generally had one weakness:
At the genetic level, they were still carbon-based.
Compared to silicon-based lifeforms with defenses like copper walls and iron barriers, the flesh-and-blood bodies of carbon-based lifeforms were destined to fall short in defense.
Under normal circumstances, that difference was insignificant.
Was there much difference between 100 and 95? It was only one-twentieth. Those who could win would still win, and those who could not would still lose.
But for the current Fu Li, whether something was a carbon-based organism made an enormous difference.
Famous Sword Mikazuki Munechika: Highly effective against living creatures, suppressive against spiritual entities, and ineffective against machines.
It also came with the Five Blades Under Heaven skill, which could greatly consume weapon durability to increase sharpness.
The Four-tailed Fox Demon possessed by Kikyo—just seeing the words "Demon Fox" was enough to tell what it was made of.
Fu Li never did anything without basis, even if it seemed meaningless to outsiders in the early stages.
That was the importance of intelligence. Battle began long before the two sides actually exchanged blows.
Before you continue