Honkai Energy Can Do Anything

Finality Process: 12.4% (↓)

Honkai Energy Concentration (Izumo): 20.8996% (↓)

Summary: Herrscher transformation is no longer the only factor affecting Honkai energy concentration (world). Please be aware that Honkai disasters may occur.

An unexpected reminder appeared.

Kiana only glanced at the notification before her attention fell on the status panel, which had changed quite a bit.

The most eye-catching thing was the Honkai energy concentration.

The summary's warning came second.

She was no longer the only factor affecting Honkai energy concentration. Did that mean that even if she kept the Herrscher transformation process stuck at 10%, this world's Honkai energy concentration would continue rising because of all sorts of reasons?!

What reasons?

Disasters.

All kinds of energy could be eroded and assimilated by Honkai. A concentration of twenty percent was already no longer low. If the concentration rose any further, all kinds of Honkai beasts could appear in areas with higher Honkai energy concentrations.

Thinking of the Kishin in this world—

Kiana discovered that the Kishin in Izumo were particularly vulnerable to Honkai erosion. When the Honkai energy concentration was only around ten percent, even a powerful Kishin like Takemikazuchi had been affected by Honkai energy.

Actually, Kiana was more inclined to believe that these Kishin had most likely embraced Honkai energy of their own accord.

A concentration of ten percent was not particularly high. As far as this planet was concerned, it was not very conspicuous.

Yet Takemikazuchi had still been caught.

Moreover, when she had just seen it, the signs of its erosion had already been quite severe. It had begun transforming in the direction of becoming a Honkai beast.

It had been like this at a concentration of ten percent. Now, the Honkai energy concentration had practically doubled...

Kiana frowned slightly, but soon returned to normal. She had already prepared herself to stop playing around.

She planned to sell equipment and snowball her advantage.

In her view, even if ordinary Kishin turned into Honkai beasts, she had ways to ensure that killing the Kishin would not become any more difficult.

The reason Takemikazuchi had felt troublesome was that she had only activated the system two or three days ago. That was too short a time, and she had not yet begun accumulating capital.

Once this period passed, the remaining Kishin in Izumo would no longer be problems that required her to fight desperately. Even if all nine remaining Kishin were transformed into Honkai beasts, and became more troublesome than Herrschers, she still would not be afraid.

Izumo's true enemy was Black General.

The problem that truly required her to rack her brains over was how to preserve Izumo from Black General.

While Kiana was thinking about what effect the increased Honkai energy concentration would have on Izumo, the Resonating Blade had already been forged.

The sword no longer bore any resemblance to the Yamamoto Night Shadow Samurai Sword. The entire blade was colored purple and red, while strange, pronounced lightning patterns covered both the hilt and the blade.

Seeing that it was finished, Mei walked toward the Resonating Blade and examined the blade that had transformed from the Yamamoto Night Shadow Samurai Sword.

It was different from Narukami.

Its colors were not purple and black, either, but purple and red. Recalling the red currents of electricity wielded by Takemikazuchi, she felt that this was likely related to the influence of Honkai energy.

She boldly reached toward the Resonating Blade, whose blade still had faint currents of electricity flowing across it.

After Mei grasped the Resonating Blade, it lost its supernatural qualities. Its purple-red color dimmed somewhat, its glowing lightning patterns faded, and the hilt became ordinary as well.

Holding the Edict Blade, Mei sensed the power hidden within the Resonating Blade, and a hint of surprise appeared in her eyes.

Sirin, who had put away the Imperial Blades of Heaven, looked at her. "Why aren't you saying anything?"

"...It's a pretty good weapon."

Kiana also looked at the blade and asked curiously, "Mei, can I take a look?"

"Here."

Resonating Blade (Edict Blade): A blade forged after slaying Takemikazuchi. It allows its wielder to obtain powerful strength, but this strength is also a curse. Every use will inflict Honkai erosion on the user.

Special Effects: Word of Power (liberates the Resonating Blade's true form through Word of Power, reproducing Takemikazuchi's power), Severe Wound (when attacking an enemy, there is a chance to inflict the Severe Wound effect), Narukami (all lightning damage is increased threefold)

One blade, three affixes.

Its only drawback was not the Kishin's curse, but its transformation into Honkai erosion.

Kiana thought of Takemikazuchi's impending transformation into a Honkai beast and felt that it made sense.

She wanted to test how severe the so-called "Honkai erosion effect" was.

But she soon remembered her identity.

She was the Herrscher of Finality. Although she was not yet a complete Herrscher of Finality, she was still a Herrscher of Finality.

There was no way this thing could erode her.

"It's a good blade!"

Kiana returned the blade to Mei.

The "Severe Wound" affix had most likely evolved from the "Bleeding" affix that came with the Yamamoto Night Shadow Samurai Sword.

There was no way Takemikazuchi had been slain while severely wounded, and its resentment had caused the blade to gain an affix like "Severe Wound," right?

That was ridiculous!

"The power of the Edict Blades is all the same." Sirin put away the Imperial Blade, which had returned to its ordinary state, and continued, "As I mentioned earlier, the vessel affects the erosion effect."

She looked at the Resonating Blade in Mei's hand and slightly raised her chin. "You should be able to sense the price of using the Resonating Blade, right? It's too late for regrets now. That broken blade you used isn't Narukami."

"...Kiana didn't give me a broken blade."

She suddenly looked to the right. Under Sirin's completely unprepared gaze, she swung the blade toward the rooftop over there.

A crescent-shaped arc of lightning shot out. Threads of vivid red were mixed within the blue electric arcs. In the blink of an eye, before they could react, the sword energy appeared on that rooftop, and a tremendous crash rang out as it struck something.

"So that's the Resonating Blade's ability?"

Mei was still looking at the rooftop. Seeing wisps of ominous black aura billowing out, she understood.

The power of this simple opening strike was more than four or five times greater than her previous full-powered attack.

She nodded.

There was the amplification from her Stigma, as well as the amplification from the Resonating Blade. Calling it the Resonating Blade's ability was not wrong.

At that moment, the black aura drifting over from the distance tried to attach itself to the Resonating Blade, but Mei isolated it with Honkai energy.

When a Kishin was slain, its power would attach itself to the blade. That was also why they had been able to hold out against the invasion until now.

Even when Kishin were slain by an Edict Blade, the power of those weak Kishin would merge into the Edict Blade after death, becoming little more than dispensable nourishment.

Sirin had not cared.

It was perfectly normal for there to be Kishin nearby.

But then something that made her eyes widen happened. The power of the Kishin that had just been slain was actually unable to merge into the Edict Blade.

It neither found a vessel nor dispersed. Instead, it gathered together and condensed into a pitch-black crystal.

"What is this?!"

After slaying Kishin for more than a decade, this was the first time Sirin had ever seen such a change!

Chapter Fifty: Honkai Energy Can Do Anything

"It rejected the power trying to merge into the blade, so it condensed into this pitch-black crystal."

Mei kindly explained, but that was not what Sirin cared about. What she wanted to know was how Mei had done it.

"Because you can completely control the Resonating Blade?"

Sirin had never heard of anyone being able to reject the integration of Kishin power. If that were possible, then many people who had been corrupted by Kishin power and transformed into monsters would not have ultimately lost their minds.

"I think... it should be because of Honkai?"

Mei handed the crystal to Kiana.

The first time she had slain a Kishin, she had only been able to sense the power and could not stop it. The second time, when she used the blade Kiana had given her to slay a Kishin, she had been able to use the blade's power to stop that unpleasant force from merging into it.

The problem was undoubtedly with the power.

The first time she had slain a Kishin, she had been an ordinary person. The second time, she had already been able to use the power Kiana called Honkai.

"...Honkai?" Sirin remembered that word. She looked at Kiana and muttered, "What a strange name."

Hadn't Kiana just said that she would explain what Honkai was to her?

She had also said that Takemikazuchi's abnormal condition was related to Honkai?

Sirin was pretty sure she had not misremembered.

"Honkai energy... It's a type of energy different from the Kishin that invaded from Takama-ga-hara and from Paths."

Kiana actually felt that the so-called power of the Kishin that had invaded from Takama-ga-hara was also a type of Path power.

As for which Aeon it belonged to...

She felt that the greatest possibility was Nihility.

But that was only her guess, and whether the Kishin's power truly came from the Path of Nihility was not important.

The Honkai energy she had brought with her was genuinely unrelated to the Aeons. It was energy that had nothing to do with them because it did not belong to the universe's Tree Sea system in the first place.

"What are Paths, then?"

Why were there more and more new things the more she listened?

Her questions had not been answered, yet the number of things she did not know had only continued to increase.

"Uh... You don't know?"

Kiana froze for a moment. Izumo was located in the Honkai: Star Rail universe, and there was even an Aeon nearby.

Shouldn't they know nothing about Paths at all?

"Should I?"

Sirin was somewhat puzzled. She had truly never heard of Paths and did not know what Kiana meant by them.

"What about Aeons?"

"Don't know. At least, I've never heard of them." Sirin shook her head, then added with some resentment, "After all, they dragged me off to slay ghosts before I'd even finished school."

"For knowledge and things like that, ask Welt. If he knows, then it's recorded somewhere. If he doesn't, then Izumo has no records of it."

Speaking of which, was that fellow Welt dead or not?

Only then did Sirin remember the missing Welt. But she merely thought about it for a moment. Her relationship with Welt was not good, and could even be described as terrible.

"Before the Kishin descended, did you have any contact with other worlds?" Kiana hesitated before asking.

"Takama-ga-hara?"

"There are no records of that." Mei shook her head. She knew that Kiana was not from this world.

They had no contact with other worlds, did not use credits as currency, and knew nothing about Aeons...

This situation inevitably reminded her of Honkai Impact 3rd. However, the reason the outside world had no contact with Izumo should have been Black General.

If she remembered correctly, Takama-ga-hara and Izumo revolved around Black General, and both were shrouded in Black General's shadow.

Ordinary people truly would not want to come here.

Could it be that because Izumo was unconsciously shrouded by Black General, even the Aeons could not be bothered to spare it a glance?

She made a series of wild guesses.

"...Let's set this topic aside for now. Aeons and Paths have little to do with Izumo as it is now." Kiana thought for a long while but had no idea how to explain it, so she scratched her head and skipped over it.

She did not know much herself, so it would be better not to pass on incorrect information here.

If they could escape the shadow of Nihility, they could learn about these things in the future after establishing contact with other worlds.

If they could not...

Then there was nothing to say.

"Honkai energy... If you want me to explain its essence, I wouldn't know how to put it. It's an extremely dangerous energy... Perhaps after some time, you'll be able to experience what Honkai is firsthand."

How many people would die?