Where's the Promised Third Honkai?!!

Mei volunteered to handle the cleanup after dinner. With nothing else to do, the two discussed it and decided to make full use of the entertainment area on the first basement level.

They dragged Bronya—who had been bundled back into a caterpillar at Kiana's vehement suggestion—down to the basement. After looking around, they decided to play some games first.

Then Bronya's blood pressure shot straight through the roof.

"Follow up with a Dimensional Slash after landing an E! They're stunned already, what are you waiting for? Phantom Sword!"

"F2A them! F2A them! We'll have this in the bag!"

"Where are our teammates? Help, help!"

"Pick Alchemist Scholar! In this patch, Sword Saints are only good for boosting their teammates' crit damage!"

"Cyka blyat!!!"

Whether it was Fu Li or Kiana, their rough pasts had made them remarkably skilled at video games.

The rookie-on-rookie brawl enraged Bronya to the point of swearing furiously. She said far more than she had during the earlier interrogation; those two idiots had clearly shattered her composure.

Still, despite what she said, watching the two of them scratch their heads, bicker, blame each other, then reconcile and restart the game again and again made the envy in Bronya's heart surface once more.

The ultimate gaming setup had never been some high-end RTX 8090 graphics card. It was friends.

And the friend willing to play games with her was still waiting in the lightless Quantum World for Bronya to rescue her.

So the question was, who had caused all this?

Fu Li's earlier "badmouthing" of Cocolia lingered in the girl's mind. She vigorously shook her Twin Turbos, as if that could fling all those thoughts away and stop them from bothering her.

Oath of Brotherhood originally referred to sworn siblings with different surnames, a metaphor for an extremely close relationship. Its modern meaning was Bronya, driven mad, furiously accusing Fu Li and Kiana of being utter idiots—they had somehow lost eight matches in a row to bots as a team.

A little while later, Mei came downstairs while wiping her hands, amid Bronya's stream of profanity.

After suffering the third wave of Strategic Nuclear Strikes in a PVP match, Fu Li happily tossed aside his controller when he saw her. "Since we're all here, let's arrange the watch schedule for tonight."

Physical fatigue could not be recovered with just a few Healing Bullets, and Fu Li's Mental Power had been completely drained during his control of the Shadow Blade.

Whether it was him or Kiana and the others, everyone had fought for most of the day. They needed proper rest to face tomorrow's battle, as well as the imminent Third Honkai, in Fu Li's eyes.

"Put the watch aside for now! I won this round, you know! Don't think you can just throw away the controller and pretend nothing happened!"

Kiana raised her delicate little face, upon which three and a half tally marks had been drawn, with a pen clenched between her teeth as she crawled over on all fours.

Her little butt swayed beneath her hot pants, and together with the oversized boyfriend shirt hanging loose on her body, it painted a posture of heart-pounding temptation.

"Hey, hey, serious business."

The scummy A Li snatched away the gel pen trying to doodle on his face, then took the damp towel from Mei with a righteous expression.

"Hmph!"

The girl huffed and leaned close to Mei, chirping away.

"Mei! Look at him!"

"Be good. Don't move."

"Okay, mm."

Once she had wiped Kiana's face clean despite her muffled protests, Fu Li spoke. "It's nine in the evening. If we're going until six tomorrow morning, that's nine hours."

"Proposal!"

"Go ahead, Kiana!"

"I propose that Mei sleep for the first six hours!"

"Proposal approved!"

Fu Li gave a thumbs-up, flashing a mouthful of white teeth just like Kiana, who made the same gesture.

From ten at night to four in the morning was humanity's ideal sleep window.

Theoretically, as long as one rested well during those six hours, one could stay energetic throughout the entire day.

Before this, Mei would undoubtedly have objected to such an obviously considerate proposal.

This time, though, she merely agreed absentmindedly, leaving Fu Li and Kiana—both prepared to draw on every argument they had to convince her—with nowhere to apply their efforts.

The two exchanged a glance.

"Then, A Li, you take the first watch. Mei and I will go sleep first."

With that, Kiana stood up while pulling Mei's hand.

The stubborn, tsundere girl still did not know how to express her goodwill. Sleeping three hours, getting up to stand watch, then sleeping another three hours was definitely far worse in terms of sleep quality than standing watch until midnight and then sleeping straight through until morning.

"I have to get up in the middle of the night to monitor the Anti-Entropy troops. Or can you use the Shadow Blade too?"

Unfortunately, Fu Li dismissed her good intentions with a single sentence.

As a lonely bachelor who had been on his own for two and a half years, falling asleep quickly and waking quickly were essential skills.

Coupled with the vigorous vitality granted by the Human Immortal Path and Nine Revolutions of Unrivaled, sleeping in one stretch or in segments made little difference to Fu Li.

"Oh."

Seeing that he knew what he was doing, Kiana said nothing more.

She tilted her head, then suddenly realized a problem. "Wait, where are we sleeping?"

"Here."

Fu Li pointed at the first basement level beneath their feet. "The first floor will act as a buffer if we're attacked, and we can use the garage on the second basement level to escape. It's perfect whichever way you look at it."

"No."

Kiana shook her head so hard that her unflattering braided pigtails flew everywhere. "I mean, you're sleeping together with us?"

"Yeah. We need to be ready to coordinate at any time."

The Attack Helicopter waved a hand. "Don't worry. We won't share a blanket, and I won't try anything with you girls in the middle of the night."

"You aren't interested in women?"

"I'm not interested in humans."

Bronya, who had shut her mouth after Mei arrived and had been secretly listening to their conversation, suddenly became alert.

Not interested in humans = doesn't like humans = likes nonhumans = likes steel robots. Could his type be Heavy-duty Rabbit?

If that was the case, it explained why he treated her so well...

Bonk!

"???"

The girl whose forehead had been flicked blankly blinked her innocent gray eyes at him.

"Good imagination. Don't use it next time."

So said the culprit as he withdrew his hand.

He went upstairs to fetch bedding, then casually kicked Kiana, who stubbornly refused to leave. "Go stand watch already."

"I know, I know!"

Just thinking about her Mei sleeping with a man—even if they would be in separate beds—made the girl's heart bleed.

"Mei."

She reluctantly gripped her friend's hand and solemnly reminded her for the forty-third time, "If you run into danger, make sure you call out!"

Fu Li added casually, "Go ahead and scream. Scream your throat raw and no one will come save you."

"You really are plotting something against Mei!"

"Get going!"

He kicked Kiana in the butt, then curled into the blankets and fell asleep within three seconds.

"What was that for? Why did you kick so hard..."

The white-haired girl rubbed her little butt and turned to complain, but immediately lowered her voice upon seeing his peacefully sleeping face.

—Keep an eye on Bronya.

She silently mouthed the words to Mei, then turned around and tiptoed toward the lookout post on the second floor.

Mei nodded, her deep violet eyes glancing faintly toward the prisoner beside her.

Noticing this, Bronya shook her head and responded as well.

I won't wake him up.

Mei neither confirmed nor denied it. She walked to Fu Li's side and knelt down, lowering her head to gaze at his sleeping face before suddenly gripping her dagger!

The blade flashed with silver light as it viciously stabbed toward her own lower abdomen!

"!!!"

Bronya, who had been staring in that direction, opened her mouth to shout. But Mei had already activated the dagger's ability and teleported behind her, pressing the blade against her neck.

"You lied to me. You intended to wake him."

She lowered her voice and spoke in a cold, hard tone.

"But I was satisfied with what you did just now, so there won't be a next time."

The girl put away her dagger, turned around, and lay down facing Bronya.

Bronya's gaze was cold as she glanced at her. "Are you planning to watch me all night?"

"Yes."

Mei nodded politely. "And please keep quiet. What you just did gave me the slightest bit of goodwill toward you. I hope you won't anger me before it's completely worn away."

What a dangerous woman.

Bronya could not help thinking.

The dark basement fell into dead silence, with only Fu Li's chest glowing.

He had the bad habit of curling up under the blankets like a caterpillar when he slept, so the girls facing off against each other did not notice the anomaly.

The source of the light was a gemstone the size of a fingernail.

It was the Corrosion Gem that Miko Ling had transformed into after being defeated—the incomplete version of Kikyo.

More than a day had passed since Fu Li acquired Kikyo. During that time, he had naturally tried to activate the thing and use it for himself.

Unfortunately, no matter what he did, the Honkai Energy he poured into it vanished like a stone sinking into the sea, without the slightest response.

For a man, putting in effort for a long time without receiving any feedback was a terrifying thing.

After half a day of fruitless experimentation, Fu Li could only reluctantly abandon the idea of activating it ahead of time.

Based on his experience from the previous playthrough, Kikyo indeed still needed some time before it could fully mature.

So he made it into a pendant and wore it on him, waiting for the day it would break from its cocoon and become a butterfly.

But Fu Li, who had come up through unconventional means, did not know that the incomplete Kikyo could actually be used as well.

Not just Kikyo—any incomplete Divine Key could have part of its power brought out through the following two methods:

The first was for the consciousness inside the Divine Key to cooperate willingly.

Unfortunately, Miko Ling, who had been precisely blasted apart by Solar Apollo, had yet to recover. Even if she did, she would likely never cooperate with the culprit who had smashed her to pieces twice. Thus, this route was directly passed over.

The second was to use the Honkai Energy inside a Herrscher Core—energy sharing the same origin as the Divine Key—to drive it through resonance.

Divine Keys were godlike weapons crafted using Herrscher Cores as raw materials. The two could be considered brothers from different fathers and mothers.

Under normal circumstances, Fu Li currently could not meet this condition either.

Honkai Energy came in different grades as well.

The Honkai Energy within a Herrscher and the Honkai Energy within a Dead Walker girl differed as vastly as clouds and mud in quality.

Then Mei gave him a helping hand.

Anyone who had crossed into the world of Honkai Impact 3rd knew that the "faucet" continuously supplying Honkai Energy to her body was actually the Conquest Gem that Cocolia had long coveted.