In the darkness, a pair of blood-red eyes could vaguely be seen, filled with desire and greed.
"You are mine, boy."
The phantom murmured, giggling infatuatedly.
"So you'd better not disappoint me..."
Durandal Is Kiana, Right?
"Cecilia, playing online games on an aircraft is dangerous."
"Keeping your head lowered to stare at the screen like that is bad for your eyes."
"Fine, gaming isn't forbidden—but don't play Kallen Fantasy!"
The blond man's mouth twitched as he watched Cecilia's nimble, slender hands dance over the terminal. On-screen, the white-haired Kallen moved in time with the screen's glow as Cecilia hummed softly, looking utterly at ease.
Red and white afterimages flickered. Before long, Cecilia set down the terminal, having effortlessly cleared the final Sakura-colored Devil stage without taking any damage in record time, beating the record he had held by minutes.
Otto: "..."
Still, no matter how OOC he got, as the Lord Bishop, holding first place in Kallen Fantasy should have been part of his basic character setup.
Besides, after playing so seriously for all these days, he had grown somewhat attached to the game—thanks to a Honkai Impact player's interest in score optimization.
But this woman in front of him...
I can't beat her even with Void Archives cheats, damn it!
Perhaps only the power of Corruption could defeat someone born to play games. After all, the Herrscher of Corruption was naturally suited to counter intelligent machinery...
But using an annoying little squeaker to fight another annoying little squeaker—what kind of ridiculous move was that?!
"The limits of humanity are finite, after all."
Otto sighed mournfully, making the white-haired woman stop and raise her head to look at him curiously.
"Over the course of this long life, I've come to understand one thing—the more you cheat, the more you realize that acquired cheats have their limits... unless you surpass the game itself!"
"Amber—" The man raised his right hand, brimming with momentum. "Ban her account!"
"Huh?..."
The girl wearing orange goggles froze for a moment, staring blankly at Otto. She wanted to say something, but then looked at Cecilia.
Seeing the woman give her a sly smile, seemingly in agreement, Amber turned around in a daze and opened her terminal.
"Yes, Lord Bishop."
Otto nodded in satisfaction and looked at Cecilia with childlike smugness. The white-haired woman merely smiled gently, her eyes soft yet lively.
"I'm banning you for twenty-four hours." The man smugly reached for his pocket. "And now, your punishment is to watch me play... Huh? Where's my terminal?"
He looked up in astonishment and saw the woman beckon lightly with her delicate hand, his black metal terminal swaying from her fingertips.
"So..."
Otto had a bad feeling.
"The account you were just playing on... was mine?"
The white-haired woman widened her beautiful eyes, her clear gaze looking utterly innocent.
"...Amber, can it be unbanned?"
"Of course... not," the goggle-wearing woman answered with an honest expression. "Lord Otto, banned accounts can only be unbanned once the designated period has passed. Those are the rules you established several generations ago."
"The rules you established when you banned my account," Cecilia added at just the right moment.
Otto: "..."
The opening hatch relieved the awkwardly comical atmosphere. With a blank expression, the man stood up as though nothing had happened and walked off the aircraft.
After stepping out of the hatch, he paused for a while. In the end, he turned back and extended his right arm to Cecilia.
"Pfft."
Seeing the Lord Bishop's stiff expression, the white-haired woman could not help laughing. Under his sidelong glare, she raised her left hand and placed it on his arm, then slowly descended the stairs.
The snow at the end of December had come suddenly. Though the floating island had climate control systems, a few silver-white flakes still drifted in.
Cecilia linked arms with Otto as they left the second port and walked through Schicksal Headquarters. A breeze stirred their hair, quietly intertwining pale gold and snowy white.
Schicksal Headquarters was even more deserted than before. Even those staying behind to train had no time to wander outside—Otto had temporarily added an S-rank Valkyrie examination period, and all the Valkyries at headquarters had gone to watch the thrilling matches.
"Actually, most people," Otto continued after explaining why there were so few people around, "are there to see Durandal's heroic bearing—just as they once watched you. The two of you are natural idols among Valkyries."
"Duran... dal?" Cecilia murmured.
She bit her lip, seeming to recall something.
"She's the girl who reported the situation to me a few days ago—the one with Schicksal's greatest talent and potential," Otto said. "She's probably fighting simulated Honkai Beasts in the training chamber right now."
The white-haired woman nodded, an unreadable emotion flickering in her eyes.
She was not foolish.
"If I'm not mistaken, in a few days, Durandal will become an S-rank Valkyrie just like you—ha, Schicksal's only S-rank Valkyrie in the public eye, so long as you do not announce your return."
"Schicksal's greatest talent... that shouldn't be her, Kiana—wait, only?" Cecilia's eyes narrowed. "Then—what about Theresa Apocalypse? What happened to her?"
"She retired—don't worry, Theresa is fine, well-fed and well-rested," Otto said. "She merely inherited your will and built St. Freya Academy."
The white-haired woman heard it clearly: Otto paused, then gave a disdainful snort.
"In a few days, I'll take you to see that St. Freya."
"No, she..." Cecilia suddenly remembered something, looking puzzled. "She chose to retire after the Second Honkai Outbreak? Wasn't Schicksal short on personnel then?"
"Of course we were—that was a difficult time." Otto let out a feigned sigh, making the past seem even more arduous. "You were publicly declared dead, Theresa insisted on retiring, Siegfried was listless all day after losing you, and sometimes I even had to send people to Little Kiana's home to do chores and prepare food."
"Fortunately, there were no Emperor-class Honkai Beasts during that period. Otherwise, I would have had no choice but to drag these old bones onto the front lines."
Otto did not mention how long after the Second Honkai Outbreak Theresa had retired. In truth, it had been after someone took his eight-year-old daughter to the world's largest organization to snatch back his little buglet in 2005.
The part about doing chores and preparing food was also something Otto had made up on the spot. Little Goose had no memories of the past, and Siegfried Kaslana had no way to disprove it.
More accurately, unless Otto deliberately arranged it, Siegfried would not be able to reach Cecilia alive.
Mixing a few lies into the truth to achieve one's own goal—this was humanity's simplest and most common rhetorical tactic.
"You have worked hard, Lord Bishop." The white-haired woman, harboring no suspicions, praised him sincerely. "You have exhausted yourself for humanity's future."
"Mm—well, it hasn't been too bad. I've made it through all these years." Otto waved a hand, then repeated the same line he used on Amber. "Now that you have returned, and Durandal can advance as well, Schicksal has gained two S-rank Valkyries. My burden has lightened considerably."
"Schicksal's greatest talent, and she'll become an S-rank Valkyrie..."
"The greatest... talent..."
"An S-rank Valkyrie..."
Cecilia's eyes darkened slightly. She hesitated, but finally raised her head, gathered all her courage, and asked:
"So... Lord Bishop..."
"Bianca Durandal Atagina is Kiana Kaslana, right?"
Thank Goodness You're Here
"On May 1, 2006, Siegfried Kaslana took Kiana Kaslana to the laboratory and seized Schicksal's experimental subject related to the Herrscher of the Void. Then, he fled with her and the experimental subject under pursuit by Schicksal forces."
"During their escape, Miss Kiana Kaslana fell from an altitude of ten thousand meters, plunging headfirst into a snowfield. She was retrieved by Valkyries dispatched by Otto Apocalypse and underwent several near-death treatments before regaining her life, though she lost all memories from before the age of eight."
Cecilia stared blankly at the screen in her hand, her beautiful eyes unfocused.
What was going on...
Even after Otto transferred his consciousness into the body beside her, the woman had yet to recover. She murmured mechanically:
"Why did this happen... why..."
"I told you long ago that Siegfried is the kind of child who stubbornly walks down the path he thinks is right, completely ignoring the actual circumstances."
Otto sat beside her and sighed as well.
"When you stop expecting anything from a Kaslana's brain, they always manage to give you a shock beyond your expectations."
"A shock... ha, yes, a shock..."
Cecilia shook her head, clenching her delicate fist.
She seemed to remember something else and asked, "The experimental subject of the Herrscher of the Void... may I learn about that, Lord Bishop?"
"Of course."
Otto answered calmly.
"It was the Herrscher Gem and genetic code of Sirin, the Second Herrscher. I created many Sirin clones in an attempt to seize the authority of the Herrscher of the Void. Among them were quite a few composite creations combining your genes with Kiana Kaslana's genes."
"...So the one they seized was one of the successful experimental subjects?" Cecilia pressed her lips together, trying to keep her thoughts clear.
"Yes. Experimental subject K423 successfully accepted the Herrscher Gem of the Void, after which Siegfried learned of her existence—and then, for reasons unknown, went to the Schicksal Laboratory to steal her."
Otto stood up, turning his back to Cecilia, and his voice grew cold.
"Cecilia Schariac, I regret what happened to Kiana Kaslana, but I do not deny my actions in creating Herrschers. Cloning itself did not affect Kiana or Siegfried, and seizing divine authority is also Schicksal's duty."
"Just as I told Theresa on the second day after your awakening, this is the end of the world—the end of civilization. Any action taken to allow civilization to survive the apocalypse can be carried out. You may not understand it, but it is logical, even if it exists in violation of human ethics."
He held his head high, his expression aloof and resolute.
"I am sorry, but if you hate me, I will not repent."
Cecilia's turbulent thoughts suddenly halted. For an instant, Otto felt both familiar and unfamiliar to her, and her heart ached involuntarily.
He was familiar because she understood his methods and reasons. He was unfamiliar because this was the first time since her awakening that he had treated her with such indifference.
Do you think I would blame you?
The woman smiled bitterly. "This is not your fault, Lord Bishop."
She had long ceased to be a girl intoxicated by candy and honey. As the Valkyrie closest to Schicksal's center of power, Cecilia knew how ugly this world could be.
Just as the Lord Bishop said, the blade of extinction had already cut across civilization's throat. There could be no peace between them and Honkai—only war.
Cecilia had her bottom line, but using unconscious clones to seize divine authority was still far better than that matter... was it not?
Thinking this, the woman asked softly, "Are you still using children for experiments?"
Otto had just returned to his seat. After considering for a moment, he resumed his normal tone. "The last time nearly made me lose you." In truth, it was because there was no longer any need.
That was enough. Cecilia said nothing, but the heart frozen by pain finally felt a trace of warmth.
Little Kiana's physical and mental health had not been affected, and he had abandoned experiments on children because he had nearly lost her. To Cecilia, such a leader was already enough.
She knew how severe the Honkai trials were. Back then, a large part of why she had tried every possible way to plead for mercy was that Siegfried's outburst had shown her hope for fighting Herrschers.
What the Lord Bishop did and what she did shared the same purpose.
Cecilia did not judge or condemn him by her own moral standards.
Besides, he had raised Little Kiana to adulthood. A few days ago, she had seen Kiana so youthful and beautiful, valiant and dashing, just as Cecilia herself had been in her glory days.
The Lord Bishop's affection for Little Kiana was equally obvious. Kiana could speak to him so frankly, which clearly meant there had never been any estrangement between them.
Cecilia should be grateful, and revere him even more.
As for the other character in this story...
The woman pressed her lips together and asked with a complicated expression:
"That child... does she have a name?"
Otto looked at her intently. For a moment, Cecilia saw pity in the man's eyes.
His gaze seemed to ask: Do you really want to know?
"...Very well. You will learn eventually," Otto finally sighed. "Her name is Kiana Kaslana. It was given by Mr. Siegfried Kaslana."
???
"Kiana... Kiana?!"
Before you continue