Custom Stigma Template.

Raiden Mei had already plunged into the water, trying to pull Kiana back up.

Whale Monster was blasted to death with one punch, and its corpse dissolved into thick black energy that condensed into a black crystal in front of Kiana.

Kiana stood dazed in the sea, as if possessed, holding that pitch-black crystal.

Mei didn't care whether she was dazed or not. After finding her, she grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her out of the sea.

"Kiana?"

She called Kiana's name again, but Kiana merely frowned without responding. It wasn't until Mei took the crystal from her hand that she reacted.

It was even more uncomfortable than the ominous cores she had touched before. A feeling that everything was empty and meaningless welled up in her heart.

Yet at the end of that emptiness, she could faintly sense a poignant, unextinguished obsession filled with sorrow.

What... is this?

Unextinguished Wails (Stigma Material)

Kiana took the item and casually tossed this thing, which could affect a person's will, into the space where she stored her belongings.

"..."

Only after the item was taken away did Mei recover from that feeling, though the sense of emptiness seemed to have been branded into her heart.

"Mei, are you all right?"

Thunder Prison wiped out all the Kishin. Those Kishin slain by Mei also turned into black energy and drifted over, trying to merge into the Resonating Blade in her hand.

After being rejected, they turned into several crystal cores, which Kiana collected.

"...What exactly are Kishin?"

Mei found herself wondering this. She had never considered the question before, because the Kishin were invaders from Takama-ga-hara.

Those ships were not physical entities either. Like the Kishin's power, they were creations transformed from and derived from that power.

Since the shipwrecks weren't real...

Then those tattered flags on the ships...

Where had they come from?

Was Whale Monster a Demon Slayer who had fallen long ago?

"Maybe we can ask Sirin and the others?"

Kiana didn't know the real answer either. Izumo had been slaying demons for a thousand years, so they should have conducted at least some research on the Kishin.

Once they returned to the ship...

"That Whale Monster really was killed by one punch from you?"

Sirin walked around Kiana once, staring incredulously at her unremarkable hand.

She had thought Kiana had merely punched Whale Monster into the sea. She hadn't expected Kiana to punch it to death.

Just how much strength did that take?

"Could that be fake?"

Kiana raised her fist and said, "That punch of mine had at least a thousand times the force!"

Sirin looked at her fist, then recalled the impervious Whale Monster and silently took a step back.

It was terrifying!

"But I'm still not strong enough. When I can blow up a planet with one punch, then I'll really be impressive."

"...You don't have to work that hard, do you?"

She was already terrifying enough. Sirin didn't dare imagine how frightening it would be to blow up a planet with one punch.

The reason they could slay Whale Monster was that they had borrowed the power of the Edict Blade, but Kiana had relied entirely on her own strength. She was a humanoid tyrannosaur—a humanoid Kishin!

And what normal person wanted to blow up a planet with one punch?!

71

Chapter 71: Custom Stigma Template

"But people outside fight on the scale of star systems."

Kiana said frightening things to Sirin. "They casually wipe out entire star systems. My current small goal is to blow up a planet. Compared to those people, that isn't much, right?"

Is the outside world really that terrifying?

That was the thought that arose in everyone else's minds in unison, along with deep disbelief.

"Can humans who fall become creatures just like the Kishin, or even more terrifying than them?"

Mei noted Kiana's remark about blowing up planets and made it her own goal to strive toward from then on.

But what concerned her more at the moment was the crystal left behind after Whale Monster's death—that indescribable feeling that seemed to drag people into an bottomless abyss.

"Of course not."

Sirin shook her head and said, "I don't know what you know, so I'll explain everything from the beginning. Oniification lets us possess part of a Kishin's power. Take Yae Sakura, for example. Because she has been tainted by too many curses, her body has already developed irreversible symptoms of Oniification. But at the same time, she gained the ability to control frost ahead of time. That wasn't something the Frost Blade gave her. After all, the Frost Blade in her hand is still only a prototype. The power to control frost came from her Oniification. It isn't particularly strong, but it's enough to deal with ordinary Kishin."

"The deeper the Oniification, the more nonhuman traits most people develop. Of course, the deeper the Oniification, the stronger they become. According to the records... the strongest half-Kishin could reach Whale Monster's level, but that was after losing control and falling."

"But Kishin who fall from humanity are eliminated immediately."

Sirin continued, "They never get the chance to grow stronger."

"What about the places you can't see?"

"Do you know what kind of people turn into extremely dangerous monsters after falling?"

Mei had calmed down somewhat. Without a doubt, it was people like them who could wield the Edict Blade.

Sirin patted Yae Sakura. "Exactly. The person standing next to me is one."

"Hey... Isn't that a little harsh?"

Kiana was speechless. "This isn't a cur—"

"It's all right."

Yae Sakura shook her head and said, "Sirin is right. When it comes to falling, I'm indeed the person most likely to fall. But you don't need to worry. Before that happens, I'll take my own life just like the seniors before me."

Take her own life?

So that was how it was...

Indeed, if one day she felt she could no longer hold on, she would most likely choose to take her own life too, rather than bring trouble to the others.

But what about Whale Monster?

Perhaps Sirin was right, but there were always accidents in this world. Was Whale Monster the accident in Sirin's explanation?

She didn't know. She could only set the question aside for now. If it wasn't an isolated case, she might encounter similar examples in the future.

If she never did, that would mean it was an isolated case.

There was no need to keep paying attention to it.

"All right, all right. We've finished the mission, so why are we still talking about this?"

Sirin stretched lazily. It wasn't as though she had done nothing—playing support was tiring too, you know.

"Time to head back!"

The matter was over, but Kiana didn't go inside with Mei to chat with the others. Instead, she stayed alone on deck, letting the sea breeze wash over her.

Unextinguished Wails (Stigma Material)

She stared at the special crystal core in her hand, which had appeared for the first time. It had come from Whale Monster.

When she had touched the item beneath the sea, she seemed to have been dragged into a battlefield filled with devastation. It lasted only an instant, but then her body lost all support and fell into an endless abyss.

Amid the emptiness, only the unwilling wails remained, so glaring they seemed to pierce her eyes.

"Stigma material..."

Kiana opened the Stigma function that had been gathering dust and found the custom Stigma function.

With a thought, the material was indeed inserted. As it went in, all the gray slots lit up.

Only the solitary "ten million" remained dim, proclaiming Kiana's current poverty.

"How stingy! You didn't even lower the price!"

Kiana was deeply annoyed. She had secretly hoped that adding the item might lower the price, but all it did was fill the material slot.

Not even half a Honkai Crystal had been deducted.

"Ten million... How can you have the nerve to ask me for that?"

The more Kiana looked at the ten million Honkai Crystals required, the more useless she felt this function was.

With ten million, she could buy ten character-exclusive Stigmata. Even if she didn't buy Stigmata, she could buy seven-star equipment to wear.

Could this custom Stigma really be stronger than an exclusive Stigma?

She didn't believe it!

Where exactly did this ten million come from? Was it paying for a probability—the possibility that it might surpass an exclusive Stigma?

Kiana refused to give up and continued researching.

After looking around, she actually discovered something this time. Once she added the material, the custom Stigma had a name.

—Unextinguished Wails.

That was right. It was the material's name.

But after those five characters were two characters of a different size: "Template."

There was a twisting button behind "Template." After she mentally activated the conversion, the two characters disappeared, but nothing else changed.

"Template... Could this be an artificial Stigma that can be copied infinitely?"

Like printing?

Thinking along the optimistic lines, that was all Kiana could come up with. She was tempted to give it a try, but she didn't have that much money right now.

Besides, if she could save up ten million through her own efforts, she wouldn't throw away her hard-earned crystals on a mere possibility.

"But I can make someone else pay for it."

Kiana quickly came up with a plan for the template, but now wasn't the time.

She had to wait until the time was right.

The ship brought them back to shore.

The mission ended just like that. The process had been neither dangerous nor time-consuming.

After all, the Kishin had faced Edict Blade wielders who used cannons to kill mosquitoes, as well as a cheat who had activated a cheat with no regard for reason.

The mission was over, and they had no urgent matters to handle, so they returned to the hotel first.

Mei's room wasn't far from Kiana's, so they walked together to the twenty-first floor.

"It's all right now. Get some rest this afternoon."

Mei didn't stop at the door to her own room. Instead, she followed Kiana and said, "I'm free too. I can keep you company."

"...Keep me company while we sleep together?"

Was that too direct?

Mei froze for a moment, caught off guard by Kiana's excessively direct question.

"If you don't mind."

"Yay!"

Kiana hugged Mei. "Let's sleep together!"

Her excitement infected the still-somewhat-nervous Mei. Mei couldn't help smiling too, anticipation rising in her heart.

The hotel rooms were all laid out more or less the same. After returning to her room, Kiana immediately threw herself onto the bed, sinking into the soft blankets. After rolling once, she patted the bed and beckoned to Mei.

"Mei, come here!"