Method of Inch Punch

What is an Infected person?

Recyclable garbage, the lowest of the low, beasts that anyone could step on, the cheapest labor.

Who would ever look at a beast with respect?

These Infected Enforcement Squad members were used to throwing their weight around. After all, this semi-official organization was even more troublesome than the empire's tax collectors, and their methods were far dirtier than official ones. As the saying goes, a king is easy to see, but petty imps are hard to deal with—that was precisely the case.

One of the Enforcement Squad members wore a brutal smile and brandished the baton in his hand.

This baton was already a bit old; its original paint had long since peeled off, and its metallic surface was stained with a scattering of stubborn brownish spots.

That was blood. How many Infected lives and how much blood had passed through this man's hands?

The moment that black uniform appeared, it stirred up the terror buried deep in Yelena's heart!

Sheep feared wolves both physically and mentally, and rabbits were the same. The "black bugs" cursed by all ordinary citizens were themselves a representation of terror.

They represented disaster, malice, suppression, and violence.

Oppressed people always developed conditioned reflexes, just like feeling fear upon seeing members of the Enforcement Squad.

Yet the oppressors wanted nothing more than to see a girl's face bear such an expression.

"Well now, low-life scum, kneel! Hands behind your head, or I'll break your legs."

Several Enforcement Squad members in black had already closed in.

To them, the terrified, uneasy girl trembling all over was a lamb awaiting slaughter.

Infected people were usually incomparably weak, cowardly, and powerless because they lacked the strength to fight back against the iron fist of Ursus. Besides, even if they fought back, what of it?

God knows how many so-called "pushed to the limit and erupting" Infected had been beaten to death with clubs by these black bugs.

The resisters were empty-handed and completely incapable of fighting the Enforcement Squad.

They had never intended to take the girl away either—that was too much trouble. They were quite accustomed to pacifying their targets first, only to execute them on the spot once they knelt to be slaughtered.

This was doing a good deed for all of Terra; killing one Infected was equivalent to nipping a potential source of infection in the bud. Who knew how many people that would save?

Yet Originium Arts were always subjective things.

The next moment, a bitter wind howled!

"Wh-What is going on?!"

For no reason, the temperature plummeted drastically.

It was originally just winter weather, and the heavy coats they wore could withstand the severe cold, but this sudden cold current actually froze their feet right to the ground!

"It-It's magic! This beast can use magic!!"

"Ahhhhh! My legs, my legs!"

One of them failed to stand firm while being frozen in place; his frozen joints could not bear the weight of his falling body, and following a crisp snapping sound came the man's agonizing wails.

"Watch out for this bitch! She can use magic!"

The world wrapped in ring-shaped wind and snow became Yelena's sanctuary. Only by bathing in the bitter winter could she protect herself.

The girl, who had closed her eyes in extreme terror, finally remembered her own Originium Arts.

Those damned villains retreated in absolute panic after coming into contact with the cold current, wanting to escape this Death Zone that could instantly freeze a person into an ice block.

That was right, she was no longer that powerless version of herself.

Looking at her own hands, what she had been constantly practicing all these days was controlling and suppressing this kind of power.

It felt like a curse, an Originium Arts colder than the winter across this land.

Was this what it felt like to have power?

Yelena was just a little girl after all, and she had never gained a visceral sense of possessing power before. Aside from adding to her troubles of freezing up the house, it had been completely useless—until this very moment.

The panic and disbelief on the Enforcement Squad members' faces, the thick frost covering the corpses of the two men who had collapsed within the area engulfed by the cold wind, and the tangible sensation of this power being summoned all stimulated the girl's nerves.

Comparing her past helplessness to her present state, if she could have possessed this kind of power a little earlier, if she could have used this kind of power a little earlier...

Could all tragedies have been avoided?

The ugly, hateful faces of the mine overseers overlapped with the Enforcement Squad members before her. New hatred and old grievances surged straight to her head like a fire blooming in her blood.

It was anger, along with the long-suppressed bitterness from the mine. She hated her once-weak self, hated her own incompetence, hated the late arrival of this power, and hated herself for not being able to pounce forward back then and bite those damned overseers to death.

Because of her status as an Infected, all her relatives had died in the mines. For Yelena, this was simply an inescapable nightmare.

And now, she wanted to banish that nightmare.

Then, die!

Environments change people, and a girl would also unleash her resentment in the only way she knew.

The lethal cold current abruptly expanded!

"No way!"

"Fall back! This bitch is crazy!!"

The side effects brought by the unprecedented expansion of Originium Arts were known to many, but the girl before them probably didn't know, or rather, didn't care?

Enforcement Squad members frequently dealt with these lowly Infected and naturally had witnessed Infected who became human Originium bombs due to overloading from improper use of Originium Arts.

And the signs of those people always began with awakening Originium Arts out of intense rage. However, Arts always required adaptation, just as sword techniques required study to unleash their maximum potential rather than being swung around randomly in one's hands.

That could hurt oneself; Originium Arts were the same, except that because the effects of using them were so great, the price was also very heavy.

As for the way the person before them was using hers, she clearly intended to turn herself into an Originium bomb!

This was the cruelty of this world: all gifts of fate had long since been marked with a price tag in the dark.

The men cried out in alarm and fled in panic, while the unlucky ones who failed to escape in time were frozen into blocks of ice the moment the domain covered them!

Perhaps this girl really had some kind of talent; this simply wasn't power that a child should be able to wield!

This was no bitter winter; this was a downright avalanche!!!

Originium crystals grew wildly at a speed visible to the naked eye, even spreading from the original patterns on her skin to become a solid entity covering her flesh, directly bursting through blood vessels and emerging from muscle tissue!

If this continued, no one could withstand the series of side effects brought by high-level Oripathic assimilation.

Human voices gradually faded away, and tyranny and malice vanished along with them.

The dirt path of the village seemed to have grown completely quiet.

Corpses covered by frost and ice littered the ground, and one could even see the fierce expressions of terror frozen on those people at the moment of death.

Ha, wasn't this... quite simple?

Weren't these those damned black bugs? Weren't they all killed right here?

Her consciousness was already growing somewhat hazy, and her left eye could no longer see anything at all. Perhaps the soaring adrenaline triggered by her stress response kept the girl from being consumed by pain yet. Stumbling forward a few steps, she stood amidst the corpses covering the ground. Yelena seemed to feel an unprecedented sense of relief, followed closely by a wave of emptiness.

Was this what revenge felt like?

However, the ones who arrived didn't seem to be limited to just these people.

A fellow with somewhat peculiar attire was appearing right there, with quite a few Enforcement Squad members following around him.

Coming again? Then kill them all!

Once more ignoring the pain, the girl urged on her Originium Arts.

The higher the Originium fusion rate, the stronger the ability she could drive!

The power that previously required warm-up could now be unleashed at a whim, a massive cold current carrying the girl's ferocious smile.

Die! Die, die, die!!!

The next moment, the wall of city gates forged from cold wind was pierced through by a single hand!!!

What?!

That was a hand wearing a glove, and the glove bore delicate yet intricate patterns. It simply passed right through this Death Zone filled with cold wind!

It was that fellow whose clothing and appearance differed from those around him!

Yelena panicked, her expression suddenly turning terrified.

That was entirely normal, for she had never encountered such a situation before. Why—why had her previously incomparably powerful strength been so easily breached?!

The cold current failed to leave even the slightest trace on that person's hand. How could that be possible!!

Yet the girl had nowhere left to retreat. Her body had already grown extremely fragile from overusing her ability, and that hand had long since locked onto Yelena.

Just like grabbing a duck, an arm reached out and tightly pinched the girl's slender neck.

Following that came the force of shattering bones.

"Ughhhhh!!!"

She didn't even have time to emit a brief moan before the crisp crunch of fracturing bone occupied the entirety of her consciousness.

That was true fear.

Her Originium Arts dissipated because they were interrupted. Lifted up into mid-air, the girl finally managed to see the appearance of that person.

That was the embodiment of terror; a crimson viewfinder reflected the girl's painful visage.

A single hand had neutralized all of the girl's power. This was simply—

It was like the materialization of the nightmare the girl encountered every single time she had a bad dream.

In other words, the darkness of the past was descending once more, yet this time, Yelena no longer wanted to return to that kind of place.

No!

I don't want to go back...

I don't want to go back, ahhhhh!!!

Yet when she wanted to cry out for help, she could no longer make any sound at all.

Once they had seen hope, people would grow incomparably terrified of death, struggling desperately on the verge of dying and emitting tearing screams that no longer sounded human. And some people simply enjoyed admiring this ultimate despair and terror.

The freak wearing a black mask, whose entire body was wrapped in black, intended to snap the girl's neck.

Right at that moment, a roaring explosion rang out, startling flocks of birds into flight.

Discarding the Infected in his hand, the Emperor's Royal Guard leaped to the side, looking vigilantly around.

"Who goes there!?"

Why hadn't he detected this attack?!

The Emperor's Royal Guard dared not be careless, because ordinary attacks always appeared exceedingly slow in the eyes of an elite like him—except for this one.

Although the bullet failed to injure an existence of the Emperor's Royal Guard's caliber, such an assault had gone entirely unnoticed by him, and occurrences like that were extremely rare.

Who was it?!

Yet when the guard turned his head to look, searching for the origin of the bullet, what he saw instead was a silver-haired girl slowly walking forward while casually reloading a slug shell back into the chamber of her gun.

"Today really is... a good day to visit graves."

ps: Some people say the protagonist's name is a bit weird, emmmm. It's mainly a pun, and besides, I felt calling her Chlorine Sodium was a bit strange, so I just changed it to a homophone instead. Relax, relax, heart to heart.

Chapter 12: Method of Inch Punch

"Using the Herrscher state to travel is truly an extravagant choice."

Tens of minutes earlier, upon the snowfield, Chlorine Sodium, who had just ended her Herrscher state, touched down and immediately shed it, running on foot across the snowy expanse.

Even without applying the Herrscher's abilities, a Valkyrie's physical stamina alone far surpassed that of an ordinary mortal. The reason she hadn't utilized the Herrscher state to directly enter the town and survey the situation was that she could not guarantee she wouldn't be spotted by Yelena.

Once seen, wiping memories would become much more troublesome.

On top of that, her current state was not her complete form. The energy consumed in crossing worlds was far too massive, and replenishing Honkai Energy in this world was much too difficult. She could only rely on food for recovery, alongside stopping her Herrscher transformation and waiting for her body to spontaneously generate Honkai Energy on its own.

However, the consumption of the Herrscher transformation was truly astonishing. After all, a Herrscher was an entity capable of materializing bizarre, nearly impossible rules, possessing a power so great it could destroy an entire city with the flick of a finger.

The price brought by such immense power was the consumption of massive quantities of Honkai Energy. The Honkai world could use Honkai Energy for replenishment, but here, unless she triggered a Honkai eruption, she had no choice but to use it sparingly.

Still, this was enough for her to rush back. In the eyes of mortals, the power possessed by a Valkyrie was no different from that of a demigod. Schicksal's technology was, in reality, artificially manufactured Herrscher tech—reducing a Herrscher's power many times over and packing it into a Valkyrie's body.