Where's the promised Third Honkai?!!

Chapter 16: "Fu Li and Kiana (Part 1)"

"After that incident, I realized Kiana was no ordinary person—and of course, the two beside her weren't ordinary either. They could probably wave a hand and wipe out a hundred and one Fu Lis?"

The big boy, using his past self as a unit of combat power, shook his head with a wry smile: "After that, we went our separate ways. They were invited to join St. Freya, the Valkyrie training academy Schicksal set up in the Far East. I was given some severance pay and hush money, then repatriated alone."

"But think about it—back then, I was still a hot-blooded, chuunibyou teenager. Having witnessed the 'grandeur' of the Honkai world firsthand, and being told I had the potential to become strong just by surviving the Great Honkai, how could I not try every possible way to truly step into that world?"

"And so, I did." Fu Li said flatly: "I spent over half a year searching for a path to power. After another two months, I climbed from a completely helpless rookie to B-rank, becoming a somewhat known freelance mercenary."

"That was when I met Kiana again."

Prometheus quietly listened to Fu Li's story. Though he glossed over the process, combined with his earlier talk of 'involution' that ground people down, jumping to B-rank in two months meant this guy was either exceptionally talented or had a screw loose.

But his attitude toward Kiana surprised her. Anyone with a bit of romantic knowledge knew true letting go was never about deliberate anger or treating someone like a stranger—it was meeting them on the street and greeting them with a smile.

That calm, carefree attitude showed Fu Li wasn't just talking; he'd completely moved on from that lovesick phase.

For Prometheus, this was undoubtedly excellent.

This was her host, after all.

Fu Li had no idea his little AI was silently calling him a lunatic. He adjusted his backpack and continued:

"It was an emergency mission in Xingzhou. I won't go into details, but at the final celebration banquet, I ran into that white-haired dumpling I hadn't seen in a year."

"She seemed to have just finished some important mission too, stuffing her face at the banquet with a plate piled high. Her face was so greasy I didn't recognize her at first—and nearly got into a fight with her."

Because she dared to steal my Thermidor Lobster...

With such a bizarre trigger, Fu Li scratched his cheek, too embarrassed to mention it.

"We could be considered old friends, I guess. We'd both made it out of Changkong City, gone through disaster together. Meeting again gave us that sense of shared suffering. Besides, after all that time struggling, some things just faded."

"Like how young Miss Kiana promised to be your bride?"

"Just a childish joke. We were only eight back then. After so long, forgetting is pretty normal." Steadying himself as the bus jolted forward, Fu Li said: "So after the banquet ended, I snuck out with her for a drink behind our teammates' backs."

It was milk tea, since neither was of age.

"She secretly told me about Kikyo's intel that time. Her tone was so smug, and I couldn't help being envious."

Little AI blinked: "Envious?"

"Yeah, envious." Fu Li sighed: "I don't know how St. Freya trains its warriors, but after over a year apart, Kiana's strength hadn't improved at all—in fact, it had regressed. To the point where I could even edge her out back then."

To this day, he still leaned toward St. Freya's training philosophy being about slow accumulation, trading early weakness for explosive late growth.

Otherwise, Fu Li couldn't figure out why Kiana had declined to the point of being worse than him. It couldn't be that good living conditions had spoiled her, right? Right?

"'If Kiana could get her hands on Kikyo, why couldn't I, Fu Li?!'... Not just back then, but even now, I still think the same way."

Prometheus understood: "So this time, the host plans to intercept it first."

"Kikyo's been shelved ever since it entered Schicksal's hands. Rather than let them waste it, I might as well put it to good use."

Fu Li argued confidently, then sighed in frustration:

"But Schicksal does have the right to waste it. Setting aside flawed pieces like the Key of Domination—slightly flawed, future-wife-capable growth-type armaments—at least half the remaining Divine Keys are in their hands. They're dripping with wealth."

Little AI withdrew her glare, surprised: "Half the Divine Keys are in Schicksal's hands?"

"That's right. Of the ten complete Divine Keys unearthed so far, numbers one, two, four, five, six, and eleven are all with Schicksal."

Fu Li listed them with absolute certainty.

"Besides those six, the third Divine Key appeared in the future Coral Island naval battle, held by Raven, one of the legends of the mercenary world. The seventh is with Schicksal's S-rank fugitive, Sigfried Kaslana. The eighth is said to be the personal protective artifact of Shenzhou's Immortal Crimson Vulture, not to be shown lightly. The ninth is the symbol and heirloom of the Anti-Entropy Sovereign."

Prometheus looked puzzled: "With over half the Divine Keys in hand, Schicksal still hasn't unified the world into a single civilization?"

"How could that be?" Fu Li waved dismissively. "I admit Schicksal is among the strongest factions, but don't underestimate the others."

"Just to name a few, Gaul in the 19th century and Germany in the 20th nearly toppled Schicksal's rule over Europe twice. The latter even indirectly led to the independence of its North American branch, Anti-Entropy."

"And it's not like there aren't weapons that can rival Divine Keys. The many products of Shenzhou's Project Nantianmen, Anti-Entropy's divine machines, and the God of War built on the equator—all of these surpass individual Divine Keys. At the end of the day, Divine Keys are rated 'EX,' not a separate 'Divine Key tier.' That already shows they're the strongest, not invincible."

Compared to the unlucky Previous Civilization, which only encountered Honkai in the modern era and had the Herrscher of the End descend before a single generation could grow up, the current civilization—thanks to Project Ember—had a full five thousand years to study Honkai.

Even if, due to the form of civilization, this kind of chaotic, green-skinned research efficiency couldn't match modern collective effort.

But with countless geniuses over five millennia tirelessly exploring, saying they'd completely surpassed the Previous Civilization was a stretch—but something like 'a villager popping out of a corner shares Honkai fusion technology with you' wasn't impossible.

After all, we all know Honkai can do anything.

"Of course, for a rookie like me, none of that makes much difference." Fu Li teased: "Prometheus, you've got to step it up. If the End-of-World Assistance System ever evolves to the level of the God of War or divine machines, your host here can cling to your thigh and charge through a million divine troops seven times!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

His words seemed to deliver quite a shock to Prometheus's worldview as a remnant of the old era, leaving her unable to recover for a long while.

This actually made Fu Li feel a bit guilty. He looked at the silent little AI and tentatively said: "Babe, anything else you want to ask?"

"Yes." The girl replied dizzily: "The host said Kiana's strength was the same B-rank as yours. Why did she leave you in the dust later?"

"You told me to ask questions, not to poke at my wounds!"

Fu Li rolled his eyes at her in exasperation, but still obliged her wish:

"To be honest, I'm not entirely clear on why Kiana's strength far surpasses mine either. After we parted ways in Changkong City following the Third Honkai, I've only met her three times in total."

"Spill the details on those meetings."

Little AI, having recovered, took the chance to go with the flow.

"The first time was just as I said—a chance encounter at the Xingzhou celebration banquet. Let me think... it was around the summer of 2015."

Fu Li glanced up at the bus stop sign and saw there was still some time before the bus arrived.

So he continued: "The second time was in 2016, when the Herrscher of the Void was resurrected."

"Resurrected?!"

This shook Prometheus to its core. Did people in the current era have such a death wish?

"Don't ask me. I have no idea why the Herrscher of the Void, who should have been defeated in the year 2000, was revived at Schicksal headquarters. Who knows what those big shots were scheming!"

The lone wolf finished his rant: "The chain reaction from the Herrscher of the Void's resurrection made Honkai phenomena worldwide abnormally active, and the number of missions exploded. It was then that I received a task to 'assist the Immortal Blades in clearing out rampaging Honkai Beasts within Schicksal headquarters territory.'"

"Those big organizations really are generous. I got a B-rank skill as compensation after completing that mission... sorry, I'm getting off track."

He cleared his throat: "Since it was about clearing the territory, I had to search everywhere. By then, I'd already been promoted to A-rank, so the head of the Immortal Blades—the strongest Valkyrie of Schicksal, Durandal—allowed me to patrol alone."

"And that's when I found Kiana by the seaside."

"Huh?"

Prometheus felt the transition was a bit abrupt.

"What can I say? It really happened—I found her while wandering along the coast." Fu Li shrugged off the complaint: "While patrolling near the beach, I spotted a white lump being washed ashore by the waves. I thought it was a Dead Walker and ran over to finish it off, but instead, I found an unconscious Kiana."

"That girl seemed to have just been through a fight. She was black and blue all over, and on top of that, there wasn't a trace of Honkai Energy fluctuation in her body."

Fu Li recalled the scene: "I guessed it had something to do with the Godslayer Spear stuck in her neck—don't ask me what that is. The empty syringe casing was labeled with that name. Quite a grand and imposing title, if you ask me."

"Black and blue all over? How does the host know that?"

Little AI's eyes sparkled like Columbus discovering a new continent.

"I bandaged her up, so of course I'd know."

Fu Li held back the urge to scold the girl for having an unhealthy mind: "She was in such a state that she was like a package at Big Ben—swinging this way and that, barely hanging on. She and I were friends, so was I supposed to just leave her to be eaten by seabirds for dinner?"

Seabirds don't know what it means to cherish beauty. If you leave her hanging, they'll make her a meal.

"So the host brought the defenseless Miss Kiana (unconscious) back home."

"To be precise, I brought her back to the hotel." Fu Li corrected, "Mercenaries live everywhere and nowhere. Even if I bought a house, I wouldn't have time to live in it."

"Then why didn't the host return Miss Kiana to Schicksal? Wasn't she under the Far East branch?"

The girl's question made Fu Li clutch his heart in agony.

"Funny you mention that. The entire Far East branch she belonged to had rebelled at the time, including the branch leader, Theresa Apocalypse. Everyone was on the wanted list!"

Fu Li certainly wouldn't hand Kiana over to Schicksal, but every time he recalled the zeros trailing behind the bounty amount, it felt like his heart was being torn apart.

Just then, the bus's audio system started playing the theme song of Ming Dynasty 1566. Though he had no idea why the driver's playlist was so trendy, it helped Fu Li resonate with an old Daoist priest from over five hundred years ago.

My money!!!

After waiting a while and seeing that he was still trapped in painful memories, Prometheus, whose curiosity (and gossip appetite) had been piqued, started urging him:

"And then? And then? And then?"

"And then? I went out to do missions every day, and when I came back, I changed her dressings and fed her."

Fu Li rested his chin on his hand: "Actually, Kiana opened her eyes on the third day. But I don't know what kind of blow she'd taken before. She just curled up in bed all day, kicked her little legs, wrapped herself in her little blanket, and stared blankly at the ceiling with those dull, lifeless eyes—like there was an alien president who claimed to have been abducted by UFOs fiddling with a ten-meter-long seashell on the ocean floor."

"I told her to eat properly, but she wouldn't listen. I had to mash the food and force-feed her."

"I taught her to change her own dressings, but she wouldn't. One time I came back late, and her wounds almost festered."

"I urged her to bathe herself, but she didn't care. I had to use a warm towel to wipe her down."

A baby would have been easier to take care of, because a baby is tiny, and when it's hungry or thirsty, it actually cries and fusses.

"The host got a taste of a father's hardships years in advance."

That was a high-EQ way to put it.

"Give me a break! Even a father gets to enjoy the pleasure of raising a child. I didn't even get that much satisfaction."

"How so?"

"Kiana recovered very slowly—slower than a normal person. It was as if something inside her was suppressing her recovery... but no matter how much it suppressed her, after eating over twenty pills I brought back, her body should have been mostly healed."

Made by Shenzhou Ding Si—everyone who used them sang their praises.

Just as he was getting worked up, Fu Li suddenly calmed down. He stared at the buildings flashing past the window and said in a hollow tone:

"So one day, after I finished work and returned to the hotel, I found that she had left without saying goodbye."

Prometheus frowned slightly, her mood souring.

Just listening to Fu Li ramble on like an old father, she could tell her host had genuinely put effort into taking care of someone.

Yet after all that—being picked up, nursed back to health—Kiana had vanished without a word, leaving nothing behind?

"Oh, I can't say she left nothing." Fu Li added, recalling something. "I searched the whole house and only found a tattered piece of paper stuffed in a corner under the bed. It was covered in 'I'm sorry' and 'I'm not.'"

The paper was wrinkled too, as if soaked by some liquid.

"Host."

"Hm?"

"Next time, mention this sooner."

Fu Li protested on his own behalf. "Come on, a piece of paper makes up for all my hard work?"

The 'I'm sorry' part he could still understand—that freeloader had leeched off his time and energy for so long, then slipped away.

But the 'I'm not' part baffled him. It couldn't be read as 'I'm not sorry' strung together, could it? That would be a bit too much.

"Maybe Miss Kiana had some unavoidable reason," Little AI speculated. "Like being wanted by Schicksal and not wanting to implicate the host. That's how it goes in TV dramas."

Fu Li shot her a look of mild disgust. "You're absorbing garbage information pretty fast. Seems like not just humans, but even AIs can degenerate at lightspeed."

"Then let me put it another way." Prometheus remained unfazed. "If Miss Kiana hadn't left, what would the host have asked for as repayment?"

"First, she'd have to pay back the medical costs or something." Fu Li thought seriously. "Pills are cheaper than weapons, but adding it all up, it'd be enough for two or three B-rank weapons. And I'd have to charge for labor too. I'm kind-hearted, so I'd just double the pill price and sell it to her."

"How kind-hearted indeed."