Where's the Third Honkai We Were Promised?!!

"Yeah, yeah, because everyone who really gets to know you ends up wanting to beat you to death."

Kiana said with a grin, "Then could the great Lord A Li give this little lady a chance to get to know you thoroughly?"

"No way. I care quite a bit about maintaining my glorious image in Miss Kiana's heart."

"But I really want to get to know A Li inside and out!"

"I'll pass on getting to know each other by smashing someone into a pulp. Also, that guitar belongs to someone else."

"Tch."

Kiana lowered the guitar she had already raised.

Mei could not help but smile at the boy and girl's clownish back-and-forth.

"How did it go?"

She asked softly, "Did Bronya say anything?"

Seeing this, Fu Li secretly winked at Kiana.

That worked pretty well, Buggy!

Of course! Who do you think I am?!

The girl blinked her bright, dazzling Kazilan eyes and smugly started fiddling with her crappy guitar again.

Look at you showing off!

Fu Li withdrew his gaze and said, "I got one crucial piece of information out of her: she's Cocolia's goddaughter."

Mei nodded. She knew who Cocolia was—the blonde beauty currently in charge of ME Inc.

Considering the magnetic card that had originally belonged to her was now in Bronya's hands, this did not come as much of a surprise to Mei.

Kiana asked eagerly, "And then? And then?"

"And then? Your turn!"

Fu Li smacked her on the back and said righteously, "I can't be the only one doing the interrogation!"

It was just that he had not managed to get anything else out of her.

"Oh? You can bear to let me?"

"I can't! That's why I came downstairs, isn't it?"

Fu Li was kindhearted. He could not stand the thought of anyone else interrogating Bronya.

"Then you're such a great guy!"

Kiana rolled her eyes at him and stood up to stretch her shoulders.

She clenched her fists until they cracked, then declared confidently, "Then watch this! I'll show you this young lady's outstanding interrogation skills!"

The girl strode toward the first floor, full of swagger and fighting spirit!

After only two steps, she backed up again. "A Li, don't you dare flirt with Mei while I'm gone!"

Working hard yourself only for some guy next door to steal your best friend? No way!

Fu Li said nothing, but Mei glared at her in mock anger. "Kiana!"

"Hehe~"

The white-haired little ball stuck out her tongue and vanished in a flash.

After withdrawing his gaze from her retreating figure, Fu Li turned to Mei with admirable initiative and suggested, "Since she's not here, how about we really do something behind her back?"

Knocking on one girl's door while the other was out working—that kind of thing sounded so thrilling!

"Stop it!"

The girl shot him an embarrassed, annoyed glare.

Perhaps her favorability had not risen high enough yet, or perhaps she simply found the boy's words too direct.

Meanwhile—

Kiana pattered upstairs, only to see Bronya leaning against the coffee table, silent and vacant-eyed, looking as though she had been thoroughly played with.

If one listened closely, one could even hear underworld heiress lines such as, "I'm no longer pure," and, "Bronya will definitely kill that idiot pervert lolicon Fu Li, then cut off his hands and feet."

Kiana walked over calmly.

She turned off the trainee program that was still playing on repeat, then sat cross-legged across from Bronya. "Put away that fake act. I won't misunderstand A Li because of this."

"..."

Her reaction had clearly exceeded Bronya's expectations. After a moment of silence, the girl pulled her sleeve back up over her exposed shoulder and wiped the drool from the corner of her lips with it.

"Use this."

Kiana handed her a packet of tissues.

"I've already wiped it off."

"You were pretty quick."

She picked up the remote. "Want to watch TV?"

Without waiting for Bronya's response, she pressed the power button herself.

"...The air-space fleet concluded its annual routine joint military exercise involving multiple forces at 8:00 p.m. local time. The air carrier Belobog is currently proceeding according to plan for an inspection tour over the northeastern Far East..."

The television was still reporting on the exercise. It seemed the authorities were paying close attention to it.

That made sense. This air carrier had not been named by Far Easterners who simply liked calling aircraft carriers air carriers. It was a genuine integrated strategic fleet centered around an air-space carrier—a war fortress soaring through the heavens—and equipped with numerous coordinated combat units.

There were only eleven of them in all of Anti-Entropy, and each one could contend with a legendary Judgment-class Honkai Beast.

For the past half-century, Anti-Entropy had dominated the world's seas with these air-space battle groups, reaping profits worldwide through the "S-rank Restriction Treaty."

With such a Sword of Damocles hanging overhead, anyone would have trouble eating and sleeping.

"It looks pretty impressive, doesn't it?"

Kiana rested her chin on her hand, staring boredly at the exercise footage on the screen.

"But it's fragile."

Bronya said.

"Yeah. Going to someone else's doorstep to take a dump—aren't they afraid the world's strongest rocket force will flip them over in one go?"

After saying that, Kiana turned to look at Bronya. "Just like you are right now."

There was none of the lively, sly, spoiled innocence she showed around Fu Li in those ice-blue eyes. They were as calm as a pool of cold water.

Raiden Mei undoubtedly wanted to kill Bronya with her own hands. She had merely been restraining her anger because of Fu Li.

Kiana could see that. If her best friend truly intended to do so, she would only silently offer her support.

The current Kiana Kaslana was not the naive idiot who had been spoiled useless after two warm years with the St. Freya family. She had spent four years traveling from Northern Europe across the Eurasian continent to the remote Far East.

Nor was Raiden Mei the gentle, considerate housewife she had once been. Without the day-to-day companionship at St. Freya, Bronya was merely the daughter of the enemy who had framed her father.

They were realistic because they had not yet forgotten suffering.

Thus, in Kiana's eyes, Bronya was merely relying on Fu Li's affection to repeatedly court death.

She did not understand what had happened between the two of them to make Fu Li treat Bronya, an enemy, with such near-indulgent affection.

So indulgent that Kiana could not help feeling...

Jealous.

In the past, that had been how Fu Li treated only her.

Many things were like that. You did not understand how precious they were when you had them, only realizing their true value after you lost them.

That was why Kiana was in such a bad mood, why she felt disgust toward Bronya for trampling on that affection.

When she looked at Bronya, it was like looking at her past self, who had squandered the boy's feelings.

The heater blew warm air while noisy sounds came from the television.

Bronya's pale gray eyes reflected the white-haired girl's deliberately cold expression, and she suddenly curled her lips.

"I don't know him, but I know my behavior is the equivalent of refusing a toast only to drink a penalty."

She spoke unhurriedly, every word brimming with malice. "But he spoils me. What does that have to do with a loser like you, with that prematurely gray mop on your head?"

For once, the girl did not refer to herself by name, instead using "I" directly.

Bronya was also the sort of person who treated people according to their worth.

She truly did not understand why Fu Li treated her so well, but she would respond with appropriate courtesy.

For instance, she referred to herself as "Bronya" in that cute way, or, if he truly handed Raiden Mei over as she had suggested, she would do her best to ensure he could leave the Far East safely.

A kind gesture deserved a kind response. Bronya believed that was only natural.

Kiana was another matter entirely.

Just as her death would only amount to a simple "oh" for Kiana, what did Kiana's death have to do with her?

"Twisted Trio"

Basement Level One, Entertainment Area—

Perhaps because night had fallen, the Anti-Entropy mecha units active in Changkong City had finally quieted down.

This let Fu Li, whose nerves had been tense all along, breathe a sigh of relief. He sat cross-legged and began cultivating the Nine Revolutions of Unrivaled he had obtained in his previous life.

According to Cousin A Hua, who had given him this cultivation method, although Nine Revolutions of Unrivaled had been modeled after Void Sword Qi, the technique cultivated by the legendary ascended Immortal Crimson Vulture, it actually had very little to do with it.

Its true purpose was to create all sorts of pseudo-organs within the human body.

Every human companion knew that people perceived the world through the various organs of their bodies. Eyes saw colors, noses smelled scents, and ears heard sounds.

In truth, the world did not consist only of smells, colors, sounds, and the like. There were many other things as well.

For example, some animals were colorblind, while some could only see infrared light. In their eyes, the world looked entirely different.

What the world looked like depended on the sensory organs a living being possessed.

If one could grow an organ capable of observing time, then the world, in human eyes, would become four-dimensional: length, width, height, plus a timeline.

And the purpose of Nine Revolutions of Unrivaled was to artificially create or alter Honkai-mutated organs within the body that possessed all kinds of supernatural abilities. For example, the core inside an Emperor-class Honkai Beast, the horns that released thunder and lightning, or the special soldiers of World Serpent who had undergone Honkai Beast transformation.

This characteristic was also called the Pseudo-Chimera Factor. If one cultivated the technique past the seventh revolution, one might even transform into a legendary Fusion Warrior, capable of fighting a thousand alone and facing ten thousand enemies.

Fu Li had heard of Fusion Warriors before. They were the primary individual forces created by Previous Era civilization to fight the Honkai, powerful beings fused with the genes of Emperor-class or higher Honkai Beasts.

But why could a technique modeled after Immortal Crimson Vulture's Void Sword Qi transform someone into a Fusion Warrior from the Previous Era? Combined with the bizarre name Pseudo-Chimera Factor, which sounded so awkward to ancient Easterners, could it be that the Immortal Crimson Vulture who had ascended five hundred years ago was actually a pioneer left behind from the Previous Era?

Fu Li had once asked Cousin A Hua about this in confusion during his previous life, only to receive her helpless bitter smile.

Fu Li deeply, deeply respected Cousin A Hua, who had brought him into the Honkai world and freely gifted him an A-rank cultivation method like Nine Revolutions of Unrivaled. Seeing that she did not wish to talk about it, he straightforwardly changed the subject.

Of course, that was all from before his rebirth. At least for now, Fu Li and Cousin A Hua, whose full name was Hua, were still in the state of "I know you, but you don't know me."

Their connection in his previous life had begun when he spent more than half a year seeking a way into the Honkai world. In the end, through a series of coincidences, he contacted Hua through the VX group Old Fu Family Happy Forever, and learned that she was a steady, reliable cousin supposedly descended from a branch of some ancestor's bloodline.

At least, that was how it appeared on the surface. After all, if their A Hua wanted to infiltrate St. Freya as Otto's spy, she needed a reasonable public identity to fool the Far East branch's background investigation, right? (Laughs.)

"Fu Li, do you think Kiana can get anything out of her?"

Mei, sitting beside him, was rather bored and did not think she was disturbing Fu Li's cultivation.

Goddesses probably had no awareness of such things.

Fu Li did not mind having his thoughts interrupted either. The girl's soft, fragrant little hand was held in his.

The Human Immortal Path could replenish Nine Revolutions of Unrivaled, which craved massive amounts of energy to construct organs, by devouring Honkai Energy. As for Mei, though he did not know why, whenever the Honkai Energy in her body was depleted, the faucet known as the Conquest Gem would open and rapidly refill that dry reservoir.

This was simply a match made in heaven with Fu Li's cycle, and Mei was happy to help him.

"Don't answer a question with a question."