Where's the promised Third Honkai?!!

"Really?"

"Of course."

Fu Li lied without changing his expression.

"Fine, I have no more questions." Kiana crossed her arms and half-leaned against the door, turning her head to look at him: "You have my number too. Send me a photo when you get home."

"Are you my mom?"

"I'm still the one who caused you to go abroad, so it's fine for me to care a little, right?"

Saying this, Kiana suddenly stepped forward, her stubbornly upturned cowlick almost poking Fu Li's chin.

Chapter 20: "Talking About Ability Without Talking About Level Is Just Being Rude"

"I'm still the one who caused you to go abroad, so it's fine for me to care a little, right?"

Saying this, Kiana suddenly stepped forward, her stubbornly upturned cowlick almost poking Fu Li's chin.

But Fu Li was faster, retreating the moment she took a step.

Seeing Fu Li pull back like a mouse dodging a cat, Kiana put one hand on her hip, looking quite speechless: "I was going to give you a hug before you left. Why run so fast?"

"Isn't it because I'm afraid Miss Kiana's charm is too strong, and it'll burn away the resolve I've finally mustered?" Fu Li's expression was innocent: "Nothing else, right? If not, I'm off."

"Mm, go ahead."

Fu Li brushed past Kiana and headed for the stairs on either side of the corridor leading down to the first floor.

Watching his back from afar, the girl hesitated for a moment, but ultimately couldn't help saying: "Hey, A Li!"

As mentioned before, only when Valkyries meet the corresponding standards in multiple attributes like strength, agility, and physique can they pass Schicksal's assessment and become N-rank Valkyries of that level.

For example, the speed standard for D-rank is surpassing the average person's dynamic visual limit, while A-rank output alone is enough to form an army.

But if a B-rank Valkyrie reaches A-rank standards in strength, stamina, and physical defense, yet remains at B-rank in other aspects—

Normally, she would still be B-rank.

However, in reality, with some attributes stepping into A-rank, her actual strength far exceeds that of a typical B-rank.

Such a person can be called a Breaker within their rank.

For instance, Kiana, a B-rank Breaker from the Kaslana Family, excels in strength, stamina, and Honkai Energy resistance.

Being a Breaker can somewhat ignore the gap between higher and lower ranks. For example, a B-rank Breaker whose strength, agility, and physique all enter A-rank territory can hold their own against a normal A-rank Valkyrie for a short time.

In the long run, they would still lose, but they'd have a chance to cut their losses and run.

If they're exceptionally talented and the environment or intel favors them, even turning defeat into victory isn't impossible.

In short, it's the difference between a well-rounded fighter and a specialist.

Regarding the issues with Fu Li, Kiana originally planned to get to the bottom of it, and she believed she had the qualifications to use brute force to overcome cleverness.

But the reaction speed he showed when dodging her hug—no less than her own—and the fleeting, inexplicable wariness in his brow made the girl puzzled and resolved to try a different approach.

Her four years of wandering paid off in steady acting. Kiana looked a bit embarrassed as she turned her head away: "If you're short on money, I can lend you some. Don't go doing anything bad!"

Hearing this, Fu Li, who had been wondering why the girl was dragging things out, finally laughed.

So she'd picked up some gossip from that chatty landlady and mistakenly thought he was leaving to do something illegal. That's why she'd come specifically to pry for information.

She was still that kind-hearted kid, even caring about a nobody like him.

"To be honest, that fake act of yours really doesn't suit you at all." He waved his hand without looking back: "I'll send you photos when I get back to the country."

Fu Li didn't plan to lie about this. Once he returned, he would definitely send Kiana a few photos.

But when exactly he'd return—that was another matter.

Thanks to Raiden Ryoma's Yae Village ruins development project, remote areas like the southern suburbs had bus stops set up.

Also thanks to Raiden Ryoma's embezzlement and imprisonment, even with stops in place, no long-distance buses ran to and from here anymore.

Fu Li didn't take a taxi. Instead, he chose to jog slowly all the way.

He needed to be fully prepared for the battle with Kikyo, and this run was about warming up his body in advance.

Ruins and broken walls littered the Yae Village site. Half-built cement factories sprawled over plant-covered concrete, giving it a Red Dead Redemption beauty under the setting sun.

He walked through the devastation, following the dry Shiomi River channel upstream toward Mt. Yaegama.

Halfway up the mountain stood an abandoned five-hundred-year-old nameless shrine, where the unfinished Kikyo was sealed.

Even five hundred years ago, when people's minds were still unenlightened, that shrine wasn't considered a major one.

Add to that years of neglect, and the path up the mountain was quite rugged.

That was hardly a problem for Fu Li now.

Void Step, C-rank active skill. A footwork technique that uses the force of energy explosions to accelerate speed, requiring contact with solid objects to fully achieve the impact acceleration effect.

Alternatively, with a special technique, he could condense tangible cyan lotuses beneath his feet. These lotuses had excellent floating and load-bearing capabilities. With each step, a lotus appeared underfoot, while the previous one withered and dissipated within a short time. The more energy infused, the stronger the load-bearing capacity and the larger the lotus (controllable).

This footwork had low energy consumption but was difficult to learn, and it could also be used in conventional no-fly environments.

One step, one lotus; flowers bloom and wither, step by step, lotuses arise.

Among footwork classifications, Void Step belongs to the most plain and unadorned type.

Its only advantage is that by stepping on cyan lotuses, it allows units incapable of flight to briefly hover in midair, somewhat resembling a fusion of the Six Powers' Shave and Geppo.

Of course, Fu Li refuses to admit this; in his words, it's called a noble Double Jump.

Relying on Void Step, he covered a mountain path that would take an ordinary person over ten hours in just ten minutes, snacking along the way on many cute little animals that bared their teeth at him.

Human Immortal Path—everyone who's used it sings its praises.

Ascending to the top of the Approach, the full view of the shrine lay before Fu Li's eyes.

The wooden structures were more than half weathered away, and the cherry blossom tree in the courtyard had long withered.

The grounds were quite vast—by eye, roughly the size of a basketball court.

At the center of this space sat a massive Sessho-seki, wrapped in red-and-white Shimenawa.

"Using such a huge Sessho-seki for a seal..."

The Sessho-seki, legend says, was formed from the White-faced Golden Nine-tailed Fox that crossed over from the east, but in truth, it's a special type of Soul Steel from the Previous Civilization, excavated through archaeological digs in the Far East, capable of isolating and blocking Honkai Energy to a certain degree.

Even though he had mentally prepared himself long ago, seeing the seal before him still left Fu Li dazed.

Scouring the entire surface of this world, there are only thirteen (suspected) God-Slaying Weapons—and here, the Key of Corruption, No. 12, lay.

In this universe, the composition of natural laws includes matter made of fundamental particles and fields; fundamental forces like strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravity; energy like kinetic, potential, thermal, and radiation; information like symmetry, entropy, and chaos; and some other unknowns.

The Key of Corruption's authority is to control information—anything within the scope of information falls under its dominion.

This even includes the mysterious soul; since a person's soul changes over time, strictly speaking, the human soul is also a form of information.

Of course, talking big on paper is one thing; actual execution is another.

Discussing abilities without mentioning scale is always a rogue's game—plenty of characters in games and anime wield the four fundamental forces, but have you seen them casually destroy the universe?

There aren't even many at the planet-destroying level!

Chapter 21: "Ling's Unfavorable Start"

Since he had already arrived at the battlefield, the next step was to prepare for battle.

By now, the sky had darkened.

Looking up, the heavens were filled with glittering stars.

These stars were like fine, flowing sand, spreading out into a brilliant Milky Way, slanting across the firmament.

Utterly beautiful.

To this, Fu Li felt it was his duty to make this starry sky even more beautiful.

He pressed his fingers together into a sword, and one by one, crystalline blue phantom swords condensed in the cold air.

They flew upward in silence, hanging inverted and vanishing into the boundless night, merging with the dark canopy.

—Shadow Blade, a B-rank skill Fu Li had traded for from the Schicksal handler who issued the mission after completing the Mediterranean patrol in his previous cycle.

It consumes Honkai Energy to generate any number of constructs for manipulation, with the shape and quantity left to the user's choice.

As a special technique for releasing and controlling energy, Shadow Blade is typically used as a projectile or spun around the user as a protective barrier; with sufficient control, one can also mass-produce numerous Shadow Blades to attack in different formations, or even forge a super-massive ship-cleaving sword the size of a small mountain, weighing tens of thousands of tons, to overwhelm by sheer force.

The larger and more complex the construct's structure and functionality, the more Honkai Energy is consumed.

[Note: Break free of shackles, let your imagination run wild—don't be bound by common sense. Remember, you are omnipotent.]

The duration of a state-type skill is determined by the total energy input; the Honkai Energy Fu Li infused into each Shadow Blade was enough to sustain them for one to two hours.

Once the tense and thrilling battle phase began, these precious treasures would become descending swords of Damocles, delivering justice from above.

Since they were pre-deployed, Fu Li didn't even need to bother controlling them.

With just a single word—"Fall!"—the rapidly descending Shadow Blades could interrupt spellcasting and serve as a deterrent.

According to known intelligence, once the sealed Kikyo is released, it manifests as a Four-tailed Fox Demon.

Though its body is only a dozen meters tall, its overall combat strength is likely no less than an A-rank outlier.

That's right—below the critical threshold.

The channel connecting the Herrscher Core to the Imaginary Space was severed long ago;

It was confined within the Divine Box, the Divine Key's manufacturing process, and resisted for a full fifty thousand years;

After that, it constantly consumed its remaining Honkai Energy to tempt outsiders into breaking the seal;

Five hundred years ago, it finally squeezed out, only to be beaten down by a certain white-haired Saintess from Schicksal wielding Judas;

Sealed again, it spent another five hundred years locked in a battle of wits with the simultaneously sealed Yaegama Miko, wearing each other down.

After all these ordeals, this lonely old Ling can no longer bear the high expectations everyone outside the screen has placed on her, let alone achieve the great feat of nuking Changkong City.

Rather, the fact that she still retains combat power at this level after such treatment is more than enough, enough, enough to prove the absurdity of the Herrscher's existence, as well as the tenacity of Ling's own will—or rather, her grudge against her sister.

Yet even so, with Fu Li's current strength, trying to take down an A-rank outlier like Ling head-on is nothing short of a fool's dream.

But who could blame that unlucky fox, now that it was trapped within a seal?

Since Kikyo was currently in a sealed state, it couldn't complain about Fu Li playing dirty from the outside.

Prerequisites and first-move advantage were both part of battle—if you didn't like it, don't play.

Beyond that, the Famous Sword Mikazuki Munechika that Fu Li had specially acquired was also prepared for this very purpose.

The Honkai Beasts known so far could be roughly divided into two categories:

The first type were silicon-based lifeforms directly condensed from Honkai Energy;

The second type were animals mutated after being infected by Honkai Energy.

The latter weren't necessarily weaker than the former, but this type of Honkai Beast generally had one flaw:

At the genetic level, they were still carbon-based.

Compared to the ironclad silicon-based lifeforms, the flesh-and-blood bodies of carbon-based lifeforms were destined to fall short in defense.

Under normal circumstances, this difference didn't matter much.

Was the gap between 100 and 95 significant? Just one-twentieth—those who could win would still win, and those who couldn't still wouldn't.

But for Fu Li in the present moment, whether something was carbon-based or not made a huge difference.

--Famous Sword Mikazuki Munechika: bonus damage against biological targets, suppression against spiritual entities, ineffective against mechanical ones.

It also came with the innate skill Five Blades Under Heaven, which could greatly increase sharpness by consuming weapon durability.

The Four-tailed Fox Demon that Kikyo had possessed—just seeing the word "fox demon" was enough to judge what kind of being it was.

Fu Li wouldn't do anything without basis, even if it seemed meaningless to an outsider in the early stages.

This was the importance of information. Battle had already begun long before the two sides clashed.