This Chat Group's Vibe is a Bit Off: Chapter 7

No! You really could die from eating!

Damn it, Herrscher of the Void, what are you doing? Wake up already! Give me your Authority over Space so I can transfer all the food I swallowed into the ocean!!

Kiana desperately pushed the power within her, wishing she could immediately unleash 2,000 HW of Honkai energy, become the Herrscher of the Void, and overcome this crisis. But what could not be done could not be done.

But as the saying went, when God closed a door, He opened a window.

Just as Kiana was on the verge of despair, even hallucinating that the food before her had come alive and was planning to seize her body, the door suddenly opened.

It was Seele and Bronya.

Nice! They came just in time!

She felt the two of them were practically her Qin Qiong and Yuchi Jingde—her most trustworthy friends.

But when Seele revealed Bronya's plan to persuade Cocolia to stop her scheme, Kiana's smile instantly froze, replaced by—

"Seele, Bronya, are you two awake?"

Tingyun.jpg

Source of All Evil: Cocolia

What was the difference between discussing things with Cocolia and asking a tiger for its skin? She wanted her to stop artificially triggering a Great Eruption and creating the Herrscher of Thunder?

I think Cocolia put a control chip in your brain.

Wait, you already had a chip in your brain. Never mind.

"Bronya, are you awake?"

Kiana wanted to turn into a Yamanaka squad member and punch Bronya right in the head.

This had nothing to do with personal grudges. She simply thought Bronya was an idiot.

If Kiana had wanted to hit Bronya before because she wanted to use her as a punching bag and, incidentally, assert her dominance as the leader of the Big Three, then her desire to beat up Cocolia was purely personal.

Changkong City was a major city with nearly ten million residents, yet Cocolia intended to unleash a Great Eruption in such a densely populated city for her stupid plan.

One had to know that a Great Eruption was the strongest AOE god-tier skill in this world. Its effect was like Tyrant Dragon Zarc descending in Yu-Gi-Oh!—blowing up the entire field in an instant. Once the Great Eruption arrived, everyone would die unless they had Honkai Energy Resistance.

For someone who treated human lives like dirt, it would be letting her off easy if her big sister descended and kicked her to death like a stray dog by the roadside.

Of course, Kiana could not make such a decision alone, so Qianyi asked the victim for her opinion. "Mei, what do you think about this?"

"Ah, me?" Raiden Mei looked utterly bewildered at being suddenly addressed. I get a seat at the table too?

"Do you support Bronya's plan to persuade Cocolia, or do you oppose it?" Qianyi asked.

"Who is Cocolia?" Raiden Mei was even more confused.

"The mastermind who put your father in prison and made your life so miserable."

"I'll follow everyone's opinion." Raiden Mei smiled.

This seemingly neutral answer, which amounted to saying nothing, actually represented Raiden Mei's stance.

It was like Guo Jingming stepping into an octagonal cage and seeing Tyson as his opponent. Just when he thought he was done for, Tyson told him that he was the commentator, that Guo Jingming's real opponent was Taro Ultraman, and then asked you, the referee, whether you had any objections to the matchup.

When Raiden said she would follow everyone's opinion, she was tacitly agreeing to let Taro Ultraman begin slaughtering the competition later.

Bronya, you're the challenger!

"Prisoners have no right to make demands." Talulah silently dumped out her own meal before speaking.

Bronya fell silent.

"Calm down, Bronya. We have no intention of letting a tiger return to the mountain, and you have no right to choose," Qianyi comforted Bronya.

When people faced a multiple-choice question, they often fell into painful struggle, unable to decide how to choose the lesser of two evils. To spare Bronya that pain, Qianyi kindly removed the unnecessary options and gave her only one choice—help, or die.

In an instant, Bronya let out a sigh of relief.

Great, so she had never had a choice from the beginning. In that case, there was no need to suffer. She just needed to follow their arrangements and use Heavy Cannon Rabbit on Mama Cocolia.

"How do I write the report?"

"Send this as it is." Qianyi handed Bronya a report he had prepared in advance.

The moment she took it and read it, the silver-haired girl with spiral twin-tails could no longer hold herself together. The report listed Cocolia's many crimes in great detail: attempting to trigger the Third Honkai Outbreak in Changkong City; colluding with an insider from Heavenly Mandate in an attempt to steal the Serenity Gem; causing tens of thousands of sows in Changkong City to become pregnant out of thin air; murdering Kallen Kaslana; ambushing Kevin and sinking him into the Sea of Quantum; sending the Herrscher of the End to destroy the era of the Previous Civilization; secretly swapping Fu Hua's milk for protein powder, ensuring Fu Hua could only ever be a flat board from Shenzhou...

It could not quite be called unforgivably evil; it could only be said that she was the Mian Shan and Sun Xiaochuan, Emperor of the Far East, of the Honkai world.

Bronya had no idea Cocolia had done so many terrible things. Hesitantly, she asked, "Not a single word changed?"

"Not a single word."

"Fine."

The report had been sent. Now, all they had to do was wait for Cocolia to be nailed to the wall by a lance from the Super Dudu descending from the heavens.

And just like that, the crisis in Changkong City was over. What a cause for celebration... my ass!

Watching everyone prepare to go to sleep, Kiana reminded them, "Children, did you forget that Mei and I both have split personalities? Dealing with Cocolia only treats the symptoms, not the root cause!"

"Huh? I have a split personality?" Raiden Mei looked completely baffled.

Talulah comforted Kiana. "Calm down, Kiana. We can only deal with enemies we can see. We can't enter your consciousness and help you deal with the Herrscher of the Void. I've got Koschei in my head too."

"Are you really going to leave me to deal with the Herrscher of the Void alone?" Kiana looked at Qianyi. "Invincible Qianyi, hurry up and use your invincible Susanoo-no-Mikoto to think of something. If that doesn't work, give me some kind of power-up or something. I'll take whatever I can get."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"This isn't my world. Do you think climbing into a television lets you enter a television world and confront your true self?" Qianyi said.

If Kiana had been in his world, perhaps he could have brought her into the television world and let her try confronting the Herrscher of the Void, then accept the other side of herself and gain the Herrscher of the Void's power.

But this was the Honkai world. Where was he supposed to find a television world?

"What kind of world do you even live in? How can there be a television world? This is the first time in my life I've heard that you can climb into a television and enter a television world." Kiana stood before the living room TV, staring at the fifty-inch LCD screen in front of her. No matter how she thought about it, it made no sense.

She reached out, and ripples suddenly spread across the television screen. Her outstretched right hand was swallowed up.

???

"AAAAAH!" Kiana screamed, trembling as she pointed at the screen.

"Calm down," Qianyi said seriously.

"Can't you see it?! Can't you see it?! This TV is swallowing my hand! The television world you talked about really exists!"

"I told you to calm down. I can see it." Qianyi was utterly baffled by the sight before him. "Why? Izanami isn't here, so why is there a television world? The boundary between reality and cognition shouldn't be this thin. And you don't even have a Persona—how did you open the entrance so easily?"

Kiana's face went deathly pale. She could feel countless hands tugging at her, and she desperately cried for help. "Why are there so many questions? I'm being pulled in! Something inside is dragging me in!!"

Qianyi: "?"

The thing inside could pull people in too?

Just as Qianyi was about to help, a massive pure-white hand suddenly reached out of the television like a ghost and mercilessly dragged Kiana inside.

"Ow, ow, ow... I really got in?"

Was entering the television world seriously done by falling straight down from the sky?!

Kiana looked around, doing her best to make out her surroundings. Yet the thick fog blocked her vision completely, leaving her unable to distinguish anything even a meter away. Everything around her seemed swallowed by the dense mist, and even the ground beneath her feet had become indistinct.

She wanted to open the group chat and contact Qianyi to ask what she should do next, but the mist around her suddenly changed. Humanoid phantoms appeared within the murky fog, while voices came from all directions.

"Kaslana? How laughable. You know nothing of the sins you bear. Kiana, you're merely a pitiful orphan abandoned by her father, one who has never even seen her mother's face and doesn't even know her mother's name."

"Who are you? Are you the other me Qianyi mentioned?" Kiana frowned. This other self of hers was really rude. It made her want to punch her.

The humanoid phantom ignored Kiana and continued speaking to itself. "That girl is called Raiden Mei, isn't she? Such a lovely girl. You must think you've fallen in love with her. But are your feelings for her truly love? Or are they some other, more despicable emotion?"

"What exactly are you trying to say?"

"Raiden Mei seems even more miserable than I am. Like me, she lost her parents. She's all alone, with no one to rely on. Even more ironic is that the moment she leaves me, she can do nothing at all. She can only barely hold on with my help. That helpless look on her face is simply even more 'pitiful' than mine. Without me, she'd probably have trouble even breathing. So I genuinely like her. I like how powerless she becomes the moment she leaves me. Isn't that right?"

"No! What do you know?!"

"No, I know. I am you, and you are me. I know every dark thought you've buried deep within your heart."

"What kind of joke is that?! Someone like you isn't—"

Kiana roared, trying to deny that the thing before her was herself, but the next moment, a scream came from above her.

"Ah!!"

Kiana instinctively looked up and saw Raiden Mei hurtling headfirst toward her. Her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

Not good! Run!

Her instincts told her to dodge quickly, but her reason told her—No, Kiana, don't run. If you dodge, Mei will slam straight into the ground. Her body can't take damage from a fall like that.

Kiana, who had originally intended to flee, seemed to awaken electrical current propulsion at that moment. She gained an eagle's eyesight, a flea's jumping power, and an ape's arm span. With a light leap, she caught the high school girl in her arms and landed safely.

"You're not hurt, are you?"

Kiana intended to put on the coolest expression she could for Raiden Mei, but she overlooked one very important thing: Raiden Mei was not the only one falling.

Thud!

A roughly hundred-jin figure dropped from the sky and smashed into her, knocking her flat onto the ground and leaving stars dancing before her eyes. And it wasn't over, because even more screams were already coming from above.

She had no time to worry about anything else. She tossed Raiden Mei away, then...

Thud, thud, thud, thud, crack!

Holy shit! Who is this?! They're so heavy—at least three hundred jin!!!

Kiana felt like her waist was about to snap. There were at least five people on top of her. If one more came down, she really was going to die.

Please, let the last one not fall freely!

As though he had heard her inner plea, after stuffing the group members and Raiden Mei into the television, Qianyi charged into the television world in a single stride. His body glided gracefully through the air, and after spinning seven hundred and twenty degrees, his feet landed firmly on the ground with a soft thud, without the slightest wobble.

After landing smoothly, Qianyi turned to look at the group members piled together. "What are you doing? Playing stacked candied hawthorns?"

"My waist... My waist is going to break." Kiana opened her mouth, and a wisp of her soul slowly floated out.

Qianyi grabbed it and stuffed it back into her, then pulled her out like a radish.

The Herrscher of the Void hid in the fog and spoke in an annoyed voice. "Tch, Kiana, do you think having companions means you'll be safe? Hmph. I'll be the one to snuff out that boring hope of yours."

She had been so close to succeeding. As long as Kiana's defenses completely crumbled, she could take over her body and return to reality. Then, if she seized the Conquest Gem within Raiden Mei, she could recover roughly one-tenth of her peak strength and show humanity the true terror of the Herrscher of the Void.

She had never expected her plan to be interrupted by this group.

But it didn't matter. Kiana's mental defenses were already on the verge of collapse. All she needed was one more shocking truth, and everything would be fine...

"The fog obstructing the truth, be swept away! Tens of Thousands of Proverbs!"

The Herrscher of the Void had planned to hide behind the fog and thoroughly mess with Kiana's head, but then she suddenly saw the silver-haired young man across from her summon a silver figure that wielded a "propeller" and directly cleared away all the fog.

Her true form was immediately exposed before everyone.

"..."

"..."

For some reason, the atmosphere instantly fell silent.

Then the chat group members immediately erupted like a pot boiling over.

"So this is the Herrscher of the Void?"

"Wow! A Magical Girl!"

"Enemy—damn it! Enemy, get her!"

"She's Kiana's other side, right? Is it really okay to just beat her up? Don't we need some special treatment?"

"What special treatment? If she doesn't listen, just keep beating her until she does!"

"All-out attack!"

Crack! Bang! Crack! Bang...

Qianyi, Talulah, Seele, Hiiragi Tina, Kiana, and Artoria swarmed forward all at once and ganged up on the Herrscher of the Void.

"Take my Kaslana Flying Kick!"