"My lady, times have changed."
As Bronya's words fell, the twin Cluster Beams fired with a thunderous roar!
A torrent of light came roaring in, swallowing Fu Li and the Shadow Phantom attacking from different directions!
Yet Bronya did not lower her guard. The Phantom's strange smile in the instant before it was struck made her realize that her opponent had other plans.
"Heavy-duty Rabbit!" she shouted under her breath.
A flash of cold light slashed down at the girl's head, only to be blocked by Heavy-duty Rabbit as it arrived before her in time.
The Escape Dagger: teleportation radius of ten meters, cooldown of one minute.
The Phantom had used this move to evade the bombardment, then flashed directly in front of Bronya!
Heavy-duty Rabbit needed time to switch modes, depending on the complexity of the module being changed.
That slash had come far too quickly. In her haste, Bronya had no time at all to switch to the appropriate defensive mode and could only order Heavy-duty Rabbit's main body to move forward and block it.
Fortunately, it made it in time.
"So this is the real body?"
Her gaze locked tightly onto the crystal-blue Fu Li holding the dagger. Relieved, the girl muttered to herself.
"Wrong guess, babe!"
The voice that should have been blasted to pieces rang out beside Bronya's ear. Another Fu Li, covered in smoke and soot, appeared behind her while she was completely unguarded!
He had perfectly seized the opening created when Heavy-duty Rabbit blocked the Phantom's attack!
In many wuxia novels, people would shout "Watch the hidden weapon!" before throwing one. That was not entirely out of some sense of martial honor. Some hidden weapons simply lacked killing power; if they were thrown too stealthily, then even if they hit, the target might not feel the pain due to adrenaline and the attack would have little effect.
Shouting it out in the open, on the other hand, made it easier to provoke a flaw in the opponent and create favorable conditions for the next attack.
Fu Li was doing exactly that.
Whether it was him or the Shadow Phantom, both were bait by nature.
No matter how many targets there were, even if he used his trump card, Seven Swords Split, Nine Paths—Fu Li was ambidextrous, after all—Bronya could not possibly miss at this distance.
Because a multi-directional siege was already a scenario the girl had accounted for through precise calculations.
To defeat her, one had to use special methods that exceeded her usual way of thinking.
So Fu Li handed the Escape Dagger to the Phantom, allowing it to teleport out of the barrage and charge straight at Bronya.
Meanwhile, he relied on the Silver Bloom Seed's defensive shield to tank the attack head-on, then swiftly circled behind her while the girl's attention was diverted by the Phantom.
That was right. A mere Phantom could not possibly pose even the slightest threat to Heavy-duty Rabbit.
But after the rapid chain of moves that had just unfolded, Bronya would instinctively assume that the Phantom attacking before her was Fu Li himself and, without a second thought, command Heavy-duty Rabbit to prepare for battle.
And with that, the girl's back was left completely exposed!
"!!!"
Fu Li's flashy entrance undoubtedly rattled Bronya.
Her pupils shrank slightly, but there was not much panic on her face.
The girl's confidence came from the eight Star-stone Shields she had activated in secret. With them, she could let Fu Li hack at her with all his strength for ten seconds or so, then readjust Heavy-duty Rabbit amid his astonished, frustrated gaze and blast him until not even a basic particle remained.
That was what it meant to be invincible from the start. If you had the skills, go find yourself a still-charming Anti-Entropy Executor for a mother too.
Unfortunately, Fu Li understood Bronya very well—perhaps even better than she understood herself right now.
"Just now, you said times had changed, right?"
He raised his long blade and brought it down.
Under the equally confident gazes of the two, Crescent Moon, its edge faintly chipped, struck the tangible force-field shield—and, amid one person's suddenly horrified eyes, seamlessly "passed through" that invincible defense which even Silver Bullet found difficult to breach.
Fu Li turned his wrist, casually tapping the back of the blade against Bronya's neck.
The girl's vision went dark. She staggered and held on for a while, but in the end, she still fell into a moderately comfortable embrace.
The owner of the embrace brushed aside the silver-gray bangs covering her smooth forehead, looked over the angelic little face sleeping peacefully, and snickered. "You're the one who can't keep up with the meta, little sis!"
When they returned to Changkong City that morning, Kiana had asked Fu Li how he had knocked out Susanna without alerting the Silver Bloom Seed.
The Silver Bloom Seed was a highly advanced automatic sensing type. Otherwise, Susanna's jeweler father would not have bought it as a means of protecting his precious daughter.
Fu Li had told her at the time that it was called the "Avada Kedavra Fist," which was obviously just him brushing her off.
The move's true name was "Divine Punishment," the only self-created A-rank skill Fu Li had developed in his previous life.
During his battle with Ling, Fu Li had used many incomplete techniques similar to anti-giant combat methods.
He had learned all of them for free by observing others. Unfortunately, the two sides were not part of the same system, so he could only grasp twenty or thirty percent of their essence.
Engineering Cybernetics, written by Elder Qian, one of Shenzhou's Five Masters of Annihilation, published by Canghai University of Transportation Press in 2007.
Putting aside the question of how absurdly amazing those five masters had to be to rival Elder Qian himself, the book presented a very interesting theory:
With reasonable and excellent configurations, an entire set of B-rank industrial products could fully surpass an A-rank industrial product in performance.
If that was the case, then why not use this principle to unify these chaotic, complicated incomplete techniques and create an ultimate skill uniquely his own?
That was what Fu Li had thought in his previous life, and so that was what he did.
Divine Punishment was the result of that idea.
Divine Punishment: an A-rank active move. It launched a high-speed slash wrapped in indeterminate sword qi at the target. When attacking, the slash could penetrate shields of any type and any rank, striking the body directly.
A thousand moves and a hundred forms in a single instant—truly exhilarating!
That said, Divine Punishment was most effective only on the first strike. Once the enemy reacted, its effectiveness would drop sharply.
It also could not deal with types born with astonishing physical defenses, such as Ling in her Demon Fox state, whose hide was so thick that even blades could not cut through it.
Even so, this sword technique was still universally acknowledged on the Honkai side as an assassination art of the highest caliber. It was also the origin of the title "Divine Punishment: Fu Li."
If Divine Punishment did not make you dodge, then you were tougher than a god.
Bronya, with Cocolia as her mother, thought she was tougher than a god. So Fu Li revoked her license on the spot.
Hilarious. Who knew whether she would cry and throw a tantrum after waking up?
A Must-Read Note for Going Premium
First, let's put a God of Wealth here.
Next, Q&A time.
—Q: What was the original intention behind writing this book?
—A: The purpose of this book is to portray a more complete and more reasonable Honkai world. For example, it will connect stories and myths from all over the world, using the identity of Honkai—such as Project Ember—to fill in their gaps.
Because of the game's narrative perspective, the official Honkai story could only focus its plot on a protagonist group made up of very few people.
The author finds that rather regrettable. What is Honkai? It is Honkai—capable of anything. With a setting like that, it would be a shame not to expand it.
In short, the most important thing is not to rehash old material. The author will strive to write something fresh that people will enjoy.
Anyway, this book has already stepped halfway into flop territory, so the author will write according to his own ideas. Haha.
—Q: Will there be secondary settings?
—A: There will be secondary settings used to patch bugs. What fanfic can completely follow the original work word for word?
For example, there will be major buffs to combat power. The author cannot exactly have someone RPG their way through the defenses of an Emperor-class Honkai Beast like in the Second Honkai manga, or have the strongest S-rank Valkyrie in the Anti-Entropy visual novel, Leanna, run one kilometer in one minute. An S-rank Valkyrie running fifteen meters per second is just so powerful! There would be too many bugs. Forget fighting Honkai—with combat power this pathetic, even the five permanent members of the UN Security Council could slaughter them in organized units in the real world.
Of course, that only refers to combat. Schicksal's A-rank Valkyries include those skilled in other fields, such as that shapeshifting ghost. The author will write about those things later as well. Rankings are not limited to combat types; they are not being written yet simply because the time has not come, not because the author does not know about them.
At the same time, certain buffs and characterization support will be given according to a character's status. Take Cocolia, for instance: she needs the imposing presence of the Reformists' leader. She will not be like in the original plot, with only two or three Titans and a handful of strays.
—Q: What about settings that do not match?
—A: The author's settings may conflict with what some of you know. Feel free to comment or complain in the chapter comments, but once the author puts pen to paper, all settings in this book are determined by what has been written. Plot considerations will follow that as well. Please do not force other fanfics or secondary settings you saw somewhere else onto this book—for example, saying Raiden Ryoma embezzled funds to build Plasma Shadow Show and was caught by Cocolia.
There is also Sigfried. He did not appear during the Third Honkai in the original work, which means he was not nearby at all back then. Otherwise, he could not possibly have remained indifferent. The author knows Sigfried had always been following K423, but as K423 gradually matured, he would not keep following her forever. Besides, Sigfried had things of his own to do, such as suppressing rampaging Hyper-mutation Factors like in the manga.
Of course, please do not spam the author's personal settings in other people's spaces either. Let us just enjoy our own little corner.
—Q: What about rumors?
—A: The things in the previous question are still understandable, but who knows where some people got those absurd rumors that ninety-nine percent of Schicksal Valkyries are Otto's diehard fans, or that Otto is the first love of a bunch of Valkyries and Cecilia. Whatever garbage you saw somewhere, just read it for what it is. Going out of your way to post it in the chapter comments is impolite.
Some people also insist on arguing with the author that the only superhuman groups in Honkai Impact 3rd are Valkyries and special individuals, that "Valkyrie" can be used as a blanket term and everyone else can simply be called by name, so there is no need for a collective term like "power users." All I can say is that the original Honkai setting clearly establishes that Shenzhou has a superhuman group called martial heroes. It was posted once before, and it will be uploaded again here. Anyone who wants to see it can click in.
—Q: What about immersion-breaking elements?
—A: The original work uses the S, A, B, C, and D ranking system. The author added Critical between A-rank and S-rank. If that breaks immersion for you, there is nothing the author can do.
Some people also think it breaks immersion for the Honkai world to have Eastern-style cultivation methods. Then the official Record of the Broken Sword must be pretty immersion-breaking too. Schicksal Valkyrie training methods were even adapted by Otto from Void Sword Qi. If that is not immersion-breaking, then what is?
As for the strange terms that suddenly appear, the author's personal habit is to have characters casually mention unimportant things first, so their later formal introduction does not feel abrupt.
Quite a few readers have said this easily causes misunderstandings, so this writing style will no longer be used when unnecessary. Hopefully, when the time comes, no one will accuse the author of pulling a deus ex machina.
—Q: Do things characters say in the book represent the author's views?
—A: Absolutely not. What characters say and do should be judged according to their own positions within the story. The simplest example: if a villain wants to murder an entire family, that absolutely does not mean the author wants to murder entire families in real life. If a villain says feudal society is good, that absolutely does not mean the author thinks feudal society is good. If a character praises some villain, that absolutely does not mean the author is using that character to whitewash the villain.
This should really be basic common sense for reading novels, but there are too many weirdos online randomly throwing accusations around, so it can only be emphasized here.
—Q: How many words are updated daily?
—A: Normally, 4,000 words per day. Anything else counts as a bonus update. If there is something going on and the author needs to take leave, notice will be given in advance.
—Q: Will it be completed?
—A: Although not many people are reading it, the author will probably still finish it. After all, the first thing decided for this book was the protagonist's name, and the second was the ending.
—Q: The items drawn from the End-of-World Assistance System feel familiar. Why not use their original names directly?
—A: Their names were deliberately changed because the author does not want people associating them with their original applications. Otherwise, there will definitely be endless arguments like, "This skill cannot be used that way!" and "This skill should be used this way!"
—Q: What is going on with Little Great-Aunt and Eden's concert?
—A: Of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers appearing in this book, aside from Kevin, Hua, Su, and the others who survived from the Previous Civilization, most of the rest are naturally born alternate-world counterparts in the Current Civilization. You could also call them similar flowers.
The Cocoon of the End restarting civilization is itself a cycle, so there is no reason similar people should not appear. The more special cases, such as Elysia and Chijie, have separate settings.
Even Dr. MEI can have Mei as a similar flower, so it is perfectly normal for the Flame-Chasers to have counterparts.
Besides that, the author is personally looking forward to seeing how the Flame-Chasers born and raised in the Current Civilization will stir up trouble in this world of Schicksal and Anti-Entropy. Will they join them, or raise the banner of rebellion? The author thinks that would be very interesting.
—Q: Are there other alternate-world counterparts?
—A: There will be. It is a Honkai specialty; one simply has to have a taste.
Naturally, equivalent Honkai-related identities will also be arranged to make each person's existence as reasonable as possible.
By the way, there are reasons why counterparts will appear. Why will Honkai Impact 3rd gradually diverge from the original story into this worldline? All those gaps will be filled in one by one later. Longtime readers can vouch for the author's ability to fill plot holes.
—Q: Is this a harem story?
—A: At first, the author was puzzled as to why anyone would ask that, then discovered that the harem tag had been forgotten.
It is a harem story.
—Q: Will the story reach Honkai Impact 3rd Part 2?
—A: It will not reach Part 2's story, but some highly popular characters from it may have a small chance of appearing early, since they are good-looking. Haha.
—Q: Will there be original characters?
—A: There will be. Their role will be similar to tools, and they absolutely, absolutely will not become female leads.
—Q: When will the content from the synopsis appear?
—A: It will appear. Do not rush; the plot needs to develop.
—Q: Besides Schicksal and Anti-Entropy, will there be other factions?
—A: There will be. After all, in a world developed with reason, it would be impossible for ancient great powers to have never researched Honkai.
Honkai Impact 3rd's Shenzhou has the martial hero group, while Guns Girl Z's Far East even has demon-exorcising families. The Tadara Family of the Black Maple White Cherry sisters in Thousand Umbrella Tale is one example. At their core, all of them are applications and studies of Honkai.
—Q: With so many monsters and freaks, can the Cocoon of the End really hold them back?
—A: That involves spoilers, so it will not be discussed. But it can.
Before you continue