Where's the promised Third Honkai?!!

Chapter 29: "Emotions Stable Before the Grave of the Deceased"

Examining the fruits of his hard labor, Fu Li was truly—oil gushing from the backyard, beautiful beyond words.

With a wave of his hand, the whistling Shadow Blade carried the gem and core over to him.

After all, he'd toyed with that girl Ling's emotions for quite a while now.

So Fu Li naturally had to see it through to the end.

By continuing to toy with her body.

"My apologies for not being able to let you enjoy yourself to the fullest."

He taunted with a grin, not caring whether Ling inside could hear him or not.

Then he casually tossed the Four-tailed Fox Demon's Honkai Beast Core into the system, activating his weekly single draw.

"End-of-World Assistance System exchange/draw conditions met. Does the host wish to reward themselves now?"

Reward themselves? Fine, fine—here he was, sound asleep, and the voice she left behind was still this cheeky!

Fu Li grumbled to himself as he selected confirm.

"Hyper-mutation Factor 'Fu Li' activated. Multi-dimensional resonance 0%—100%. System searching..."

No sooner had Prometheus's recorded voice faded than familiar white radiance flooded Fu Li's vision.

A moment later, a cold, imposing iron single-eyed mask materialized in his hand out of thin air.

[Name: God-King Mask]

[Grade: A-rank]

[Type: Item/Consumable]

[Effect: One-time use item. A peculiar single-eyed mask.

Upon equipping, enters God-Transformation: King of the Hunt state. This state greatly enhances the wearer's basic attributes and grants the ability to manipulate causality to a certain degree. The transformation lasts for the duration of a single battle.]

[Note ①: A single battle means a single battle. Any bug-exploiting behavior shall bear consequences borne solely by the user.]

[Note ②: All king's blood shall end by the sword!]

First, a point of clarification: among items of the same grade, consumables often outperform regular equipment.

The reason is simple—more restrictions mean greater power.

A regular item that can be used indefinitely until broken, versus a consumable with a clear number of uses—the latter has no reason to be weaker than the former.

Take the God-King Mask, this rare A-rank consumable. Based on Fu Li's own experience, once equipped, his strength would directly skyrocket to the level of a peak powerhouse at the threshold—perfectly normal.

And that ability to manipulate causality to a degree? That was a skill he'd only truly grasp when he donned the mask at a life-or-death moment.

Given how "causality" was always portrayed as high-end, majestic, and impressive across various works, it surely wouldn't disappoint its user.

"Soth! Waaah! Soth!"

The wailing from behind snapped Fu Li out of his delight.

Tossing the Corrosion Gem and God-King Mask in his hands, he turned around to look at the white-haired girl sitting duck-legged on the ground, hugging the remains of her dog and crying.

And I mean really crying—snot flying everywhere, not a trace of that delicate "tears like pear blossoms" look.

Her little face was already filthy beyond belief, and with this mess, she'd turned into a complete charcoal ball.

Only those bright blue eyes remained clear, large teardrops washing away all the dust inside them, clean as two sapphires.

Fu Li put away his treasures, walked over, and waved a hand in front of her face.

"Hey hey? Moshi moshi?"

"Ugh! Leave me alone! Waaah... Soth..."

He got a fierce glare from Kiana!

"Then what do you think this is?"

"!!!"

The thing in Fu Li's hand instantly perked Kiana up. She roughly wiped the tears from her face and grabbed his hand with both hands: "This! This is—what is it?!"

"A disc recording your dog's AI and memory data." Fu Li indicated that she didn't even know what it was yet was this excited—was she crazy or what? "I'll find you a mechanical dog of the same model sometime, and you can swap it in."

Kiana's grand entrance had indeed disrupted his plans, but it had also saved him the absurdly overpowered lifesaving item, the Flying Thunder God Kunai. All things considered, he'd definitely come out ahead.

Besides, the girl had come to help with good intentions. For someone who risked her own safety to lend a hand out of kindness—even if she'd messed up—Fu Li wouldn't skimp on praise.

He added, "And your dog really was loyal."

Back then, Soth could have completely spat out the Miko's wrist to dodge the attack, but to give Kiana more reaction time, it let its body be kicked to pieces instead.

"That's right! Hmph, just look whose dog it is!"

Knowing her fur baby could be saved, Kiana lifted her chin proudly, hands on her hips.

Then her gaze shifted to the fingernail-sized Corrosion Gem in Fu Li's hand.

Her little face scrunched up, and she asked nervously, "This thing... is there any risk of her being healed?"

"The situation at the Grave of the Deceased is stable."

"That's good."

The girl let out a long sigh of relief.

Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she took a big step back.

She narrowed her cat-like eyes, turning into a radar as she scanned every detail of Fu Li's body, scrutinizing him as carefully as a young wife checking her husband after he's been out carousing.

Since the battle was over, it was time for her, Kiana Kaslana, to seek answers!

What's coming will come eventually.

Facing the fierce, aggressive white big cat, Fu Li's head ached, but he put on a righteous front: "I haven't even asked why you're here yet!"

Turning the tables, he was.

"This young lady suspects you've been possessed!"

Such words blurted out without a thought—only Kiana would say that.

"I told you not to read so much trashy fiction."

Fu Li brushed it off verbally, but inwardly he grumbled.

A fool's intuition sure hits the mark; that answer was pretty close to the truth.

"Then how do you explain all this?"

Kiana crossed her arms, pressing step by step.

"A-and, your personality..."

She stopped pressing, a delicate blush spreading across her cheeks, her gaze unconsciously drifting to the right.

Luckily, her face was smudged like a tabby cat's, so no one could tell.

Fu Li knew what she meant.

Just two days ago, he'd been sweet-talking her with confessions and proposals, and today he'd suddenly awakened and cut off all worldly ties—that shift in mindset was definitely abnormal.

Chapter 30: "Sounds Good? A Good Head Sounds Good"

Facing Kiana Cat's rumbling interrogation, Fu Li thought for a moment and chose to steer into a joke: "A change in personality doesn't necessarily mean possession—just like a drone flying doesn't always mean it's spraying pesticide, and a nun kneeling doesn't always mean she's praying."

From his experience, cracking a dirty joke would make most women drop the previous topic.

Whether they'd yell 'Pervert!' and hit him was another question, so he didn't recommend trying it on strangers or women he wasn't familiar with.

Sure enough, as soon as she heard 'nun kneeling,' Kiana, who'd been all serious a moment ago, blushed and spat at him: "Ptooey, ptooey! You're so improper!"

"That's just how a boy in heat is." Fu Li said with a straight face: "After pining for a white-haired beauty for so long without getting anywhere, can't I at least go online and watch some interesting little movies to console myself?"

"It's puberty!" Kiana corrected: "You're not from the Far East, so why use their ambiguous way of naming things? Oh, thanks."

She took the towel and bottled water Fu Li handed her, pouring a little water to wipe her dusty face.

It was only then that Kiana noticed, compared to her own grimy state, Fu Li had been fighting longer but was actually cleaner.

She shot him a suspicious glance, but finally sighed: "Hey, A Li."

"What's up?"

Fu Li, still fiddling with the Corrosion Gem, didn't look up. Even though the thing was still incomplete and unusable, he couldn't get enough of playing with it.

Ling: Pfft! Shrimp head!

After a moment's deliberation, Kiana said: "Look, I don't know what you went through to go from an ordinary person to this, but once people get used to shortcuts, they never want to take the long road again... uh, you get what I mean?"

In the end, the kind-hearted girl chose not to dig into the root of Fu Li's change, instead giving him a piece of advice.

She hoped he'd keep his feet on the ground, not let swelling power break the chains that restrained his desires, and do something he'd regret for the rest of his life.

Unexpectedly, upon hearing this, Fu Li shot her a strange look, as if asking: You, who cheated your way up, have the nerve to tell others not to take shortcuts?

"You jerk!"

Kiana flared up immediately. She was giving him good advice out of kindness—how could he be so ungrateful? Didn't he know good from bad?

She rolled up her sleeves, determined to teach him a lesson!

She stepped forward three steps!

She stepped back two steps!

Hmph! She almost forgot—she might not even be able to beat him now!

The white-haired ball sulkily lowered her little hands, and in her anger, she only got angry.

Both were B-rank outliers, but some were more outlier than others.

Just then, remembering something, Fu Li put away the gem-like Key of Corruption and pulled a skirt out of his backpack, handing it over: "Oh, right, this."

The skirt's design was pretty straightforward—a simple brown-and-beige plaid pleated skirt, a bit like the JK uniform bottom from Senba Academy.

"Huh? Huh? Wait, wait!!!"

Just moments ago, she had stood valiantly blocking the path before Miko Ling, but now Kiana was like a startled rabbit.

She hopped backward, her freshly cleaned little white hand raised in front of her as she rattled off: "See, I knew it—a leopard can't change its spots! But sorry, even if you're a completely different person now, I still prefer older guys. And thinking one fight side by side qualifies you to be my boyfriend? That's way too presumptuous. Real life isn't a romance novel where a hero saves a damsel once or twice and she instantly gives her heart and body. At least do it a few more times, then maybe—ahhh, what am I even saying?! Anyway, this young lady is leaving now. No need to see me off. See you tomorrow!"

Without waiting for Fu Li's reply, she spun around and bolted down the mountain.

Thud!

She ran straight into a telephone pole.

Sounds good? Then it's a good head.

"Relax. That's not what I meant."

Having caught up to her with some effort, Fu Li was utterly speechless, but he knew it was his pre-rebirth persistence that had given Kiana a conditioned reflex of confession PTSD.

Unfortunately, a man's tastes and XP system change over time.

Back then, I did think a girl who could shatter boulders with her bare hands, shoot lasers from her eyes, and blow up battleships with one shot was super cool. But now? Women only slow down my sword-drawing speed!

To be safe, Fu Li solemnly set down a flag: "Don't worry. Even if the sky collapses, the tectonic plates shatter, the Earth explodes, the dimensional walls break, the universe perishes, and all realities vanish, I will never again pester our Miss Kiana day in and day out like before."

Hearing this, the white-haired bun rubbing her reddened forehead cautiously glanced over:

"...Really?"

"Really!"

"No confessions?"

"No confessions!"

"Good."

The girl breathed a sigh of relief, then belatedly realized that in their chase, they had left the smoke-filled battlefield far behind.