I'm Not a Flame-Chaser - Chapter 607

"... Kiana?"

A cool breeze blew in from outside the window, making Kiana shiver. She rushed to the window and closed it, then let out a heavy breath and looked back at the unconscious man.

Kiana hesitated for a long time before returning to the bedside. She reached for the man's mask again, but this time, her movements were more hesitant.

The man has bullied her so many times, so it's not too much for her to just take a look at what he's really like underneath his mask, is it?

Even if he's not conscious right now, and he just looks at her face, he definitely won't know anything afterward as long as she doesn't say anything.

Gathering her courage from within, Kiana's fingers gripped that damned mask, and she slowly peeled it off.

The dim light in the unfurnished room shone from behind her, casting a shadow that obscured half of the man's body. She recalled the thrill of going out with her father to fight Honkai Beast when she was a child, while the unconscious man, no longer arrogant towards her, seemed unexpectedly helpless.

Actually, it wasn't a slow process; it only took her two seconds to completely remove the mask. After glancing at the unremarkable mask, she turned her gaze to the man's face...

Huh? Where is he?

"Whoosh!"

A strong wind blew from behind, and the hand holding the mask was grabbed by another hand and twisted behind her back. Then, the girl was forced down onto the bed by a tremendous force.

Kiana's brain was buzzing with noise. She buried her face in the blankets and barely managed to turn her head. She saw a hand covered in knife wounds pressing down on her hand and slender waist. Then, she saw a sinister and terrifying half-face peeking out from under the hood.

"What are you up to?"

Lin lowered his voice and asked the struggling girl in a hoarse tone.

The scene was quite delicate. The man, whose inner lining had been torn off, was only wearing a tattered trench coat, his muscles faintly visible beneath the fabric. The girl he was pressing down on had beautiful, disheveled silver hair, was breathing rapidly, and was only wearing bandages on her upper body, in addition to her coat.

It's hard not to think of some strange plot developments.

"I should be asking you what you're doing!"

"..."

Lin Mo glanced at his poorly treated wounds and then at the first-aid kit in the corner.

Finally, looking at the girl with the hurt in her eyes, he exhaled the stale air from his lungs, put on the mask, and then let go of her hand.

"Click!"

Kiana's first action after escaping was to grab her gun, but Lin was one step ahead, grabbing the pistol in one swift motion. He then grabbed Kiana by the neck and pinned her to the bed, this time face up. In the alluring spring light, he could see her bright eyes staring at him like a prickly kitten.

"... If you dare to lay a hand on me again, I'll strip you naked and throw you outside."

Kiana bit her lip. "I saved you."

"I know, that's why I'm just informing you." Lin tossed the Sky Ripper aside and then stared coldly at the girl. "I know you still remember me stabbing you. I'll give you a chance to get revenge later."

"After that... what if I want to take revenge now?"

A sly glint flashed in the girl's eyes. This time, Lin was caught off guard. She reached out and pulled the blanket under Lin's feet, causing him to lose his balance, and then kicked him in the stomach!

Even without Honkai Energy, Kiana's physical abilities are far beyond what ordinary people can match. With just one kick, she sent Lin slamming into the wall. The wounds on her body made her movements extremely slow. As soon as she raised her head, the dark muzzle of a gun was pressed against his eyes.

"Hehe, General."

Kiana, holding the gun, laughed nonchalantly.

The Journey Begins in the Sky: Chapter Fifteen - The Sky Hunt

"I've won, now it's time to take the chains off."

Kiana smiled smugly and waved her pistol, looking like a smug little girl pointing at the chain around her neck.

"Only you can remove that chain yourself." Lin's words shattered the girl's hopes. He said calmly, "You have indeed met my standards, so I can tell you my name and my true identity."

"Hmph, now that you're in my hands, do you still want to negotiate?"

The girl looked down at his calm eyes, smiled sweetly, and then waved her pistol up and down. "However, you should indeed tell me your name, and what you look like under your mask."

"...I see."

Lin sighed, seemingly giving up, then reached out and grabbed his mask, removing it from his face without much hesitation.

Kiana was stunned by Lin's decisive compromise. This man had been in control of the situation since they met, always talking to himself and never caring about Kiana's feelings. Or rather, even if Kiana had feelings, he would use his fists to show her that only the strongest can speak.

But in that moment of hesitation, their stances instantly reversed.

"Smack!"

The moment the mask was removed, a cold glint flashed in Lin's eyes in the blind spot hidden by his hand and the mask. With a flick of his finger, he sent the mask flying toward Kiana!

Kiana instinctively slapped the mask away, but the moment she lowered her hand, Lin had already moved under the muzzle of her gun, blocking Kiana's arm holding the gun with one hand and grabbing her neck with the other.

Kiana was startled and raised her leg to deliver a knee strike to Lin's abdomen. However, Lin also raised his leg to block her knee and then casually hooked her down. He took the opportunity to get behind her, extending his arm from behind her and through her neck. He used his other hand to stabilize her and pressed his legs down on her knees to form a naked choke.

"Gurgle..."

Kiana grabbed the arms that were strangling her neck with both hands, but she couldn't break free from the restraint formed by the two strong hands. The elbows pressed against her carotid artery, causing her face to turn red and a muffled groan to escape her lips.

I can't muster any strength...

After subduing Kiana, Lin did not increase the pressure on her carotid artery. He loosened his grip slightly to allow her to catch her breath, and then whispered in Kiana's ear, "The result of being careless is that I can do whatever I want to you now, and you can't resist at all."

"Despicable..." The silver-haired girl uttered two words unwillingly from the corner of her mouth.

"What did you say?"

"You... Waaah!"

Kiana wanted to continue criticizing his shameless behavior, but before she could say anything, she felt a tingling sensation on her earlobe.

Her ears instantly turned as red as the sunset.

She gritted her teeth, tears welling in her eyes, thinking about how she had actually been kind enough to stitch up his wound; it was truly a case of kindness being wasted on a wolf. "Pervert... shameless..."

"As I said before, I was going to strip you naked and throw you out, but I'll let it slide this time."

Lin released her grip, and the girl, whose upper body was only bandaged, lay helplessly on the ground. Her face was flushed and she was panting as she glared at the man who had his back to her as he picked up the mask and put it on his face. She touched the teeth marks on her earlobe and was so angry that she almost ground her teeth to powder.

Lin straightened his mask and turned to Kiana, saying, "My name is Lin."

"...What did you say?"

"My name." Lin pushed open the window, touched the wound on his chest, then jumped onto the windowsill and said calmly, "Training continues tonight. Don't be late."

After saying that, Lin jumped into the half-awake city where the morning light was about to rise.

"Forest..."

Kiana got up from the ground, muttering the strangely unusual name, and then she remembered something.

How did Lin know the location of her hideout? Did he know from the beginning and just secretly monitor her?

She didn't notice Fu Hua standing there blankly, his mind filled with an inexplicable feeling about the name "Lin".

In the early morning in Sky City, the lingering smell of smoke and alcohol still lingered. The sleepy sun cast its hazy rays, elongating the shadows of men who stumbled along the city's outskirts.

"Clatter".

The black-haired man slowly sat down, leaning against the wall. He took a couple of heavy breaths, lifted his drafty overcoat, and saw that bright red blood was seeping out from under the bandages. He could only stop and rest for a while.

While Lin was fighting the two "shadows," a large amount of gas was spewed out of the nearby ventilation ducts... No, that shouldn't be gas. After that, Lin found that he couldn't use Honkai Energy, which meant that he was unable to use the Great Void Sword Qi and could only face the two troublesome "shadows" and the patrol robots that rushed in alone. Even if he annihilated them all, he paid a considerable price.

Moreover, after the Honkai Energy was deactivated, Lin's self-healing ability also dropped significantly, causing him to bleed heavily and fail to produce blood in time, leaving him extremely weak.

... But now is not the time to stop.

After adjusting himself slightly, Lin stood up again, leaning against the wall, and limped forward.

After causing a ruckus at Shencheng Pharmaceuticals last night, they should be even more vigilant about his attack. However, he deliberately left some clues about Shencheng Pharmaceuticals and World Serpent in the places where Kiana had appeared. Last night, he noticed that a transport plane with the Schicksal logo went to World Serpent's industrial area. So, Schicksal should have already obtained Shencheng Pharmaceuticals' medical records and started tracking Kiana. The clues he left behind will inevitably make Schicksal realize that the seemingly ordinary medical company they are cooperating with is not simple.

This puts Shencheng Pharmaceuticals in a dilemma between him and Schicksal, having to be wary of both Lin and Schicksal, and even if they wanted to be, they had no way to prevent it.

World Serpent has deployed at least two cadres in the city to complete the Stigmata experiment: a woman wearing Jackal mask and a woman wearing a hood. He needs to think of some ways to deal with these two.

Lost in thought, Lin walked into the deserted alley, his figure receding further and further away from the rising sunlight.

"Switch to Hunting Mode".

A woman dressed in black and green armor stood on the overpass where Honkai disaster had occurred a few weeks ago. The terminal in her eyes scanned the traces around her. Even though several weeks had passed, she was certain that there were still clues related to K-423 here.

The wind ruffled her short, grey-gold hair, and her only visible right eye swept over the still-unreconstructed railing not far away.

"K-423, she often roams the areas affected by Honkai disaster. She is indeed righteous and likes to do good deeds, but..."

She bent down and picked up a syringe from the rubble that had not yet been repaired.

This is the syringe design for the Honkai vaccine that Schicksal provided to Shencheng Pharmaceuticals.

"Why did we specifically choose to stay in Sky City?"

The Journey Begins in the Sky: Chapter Sixteen - The Silence of the Dead

"Class President, don't you think he's strange?"

"Strangeness?"

"He said he planned to train me, but the training content was inexplicable, and he often engaged in lewd behavior." Kiana recalled the experiences of being undressed and having her ear bitten, and a blush flashed across her pretty face. "But, apart from that, when he made his move yesterday, he didn't..."

"Show no mercy?"

Fu Hua crossed her arms and asked Kiana with a hint of doubt, "So, do you want him to train you rigorously, or... do something else?"

In Fu Hua's view, Lin did nothing wrong. He showed no mercy when training Kiana, but he still kept his distance in the end. If he wanted to kill Kiana would have died long ago without Fu Hua's help.

However, the training content other than the battles really baffled Fu Hua. She could only guess that Lin was stimulating the awakening of the Herrscher consciousness, but she still had no idea why.

She herself didn't realize that she had a natural trust in Lin, and even when it came to the dangerous act of stimulating the Herrscher's consciousness, she only wondered why he did it.

Kiana grew angrier the more she thought about it, "I just want him to train normally."

"This is normal training content."

A cold, hoarse voice, like a venomous snake, appeared in Kiana's ear. She turned her head sharply, staring warily at the man who emerged from the dark corner. He had changed into a new trench coat, and his signature mask looked like a ghost in the night. He himself did indeed resemble a ghost without a physical form.

"The training content before is the content of the next two weeks. For the first three days, I will train your combat skills, and for the next three days, I will hone your endurance. The last day is a life-or-death battle. I will not remind you that the battle has started like a game in kindergarten, nor will I restrict your attack methods or terrain. On that day, all you have to do is kill me, or wait for me to kill you."

"You have two more chances. Even if I severely injure you again next time, I will still save you. But on the last day of the last week, if you fail to remove the chains and defeat me on your own, I will kill you, leaving you and the Herrscher within you with no chance of survival."

The cold verdict came from the man's mouth, and Kiana finally learned the full picture of the training that Lin had described.

"Hmph, even if I beat you, I won't kill you." Kiana snorted after a few seconds of stunned silence. "But you must apologize to me, tell me all the information, and help me stop Shencheng Pharmaceuticals."

"Can."

"You agreed so quickly, you're not lying to me again, are you?"

"I have no reason to lie to a little dog with a collar around its neck."

"You... you really did it on purpose!"

Lin didn't say anything more. The gun fell from his sleeve into his hand, which meant that tonight's training had officially begun.

Seeing this, Kiana also composed herself, drew her gun, and calmly considered how to defeat her opponent without Honkai Energy.

"Using skill to overcome force..."

Recalling Lin's performance in the battle, he did not use Honkai Energy, but why could he make her feel that he could not touch it, and once he made a move, he could strike her vital points like lightning?

The other party wasn't joking. Kiana could tell from Lin's eyes that if she couldn't pass the training, he would show no mercy.

The icy sensation of being pierced through the chest still lingered inside me.

But... Kiana finds it hard to really feel any aversion towards this person, just like she does towards a certain blond man, because Lin is always doing the "right" thing.

It was right to train her to control the Herrscher Authority, and it was also right to kill the Herrscher of the Void who caused the Great Honkai.

Kiana, you can't die.

It's not that she "doesn't want to," but that she "can't." She needs to use this power to help those she has hurt, even if they despise or fear her. Even if she loathes this power, Kiana is determined to fulfill her promise to Himeko.

She wanted to transform this imperfect world into the way she envisioned it.

"Bang!"

The first shot of the day came from Kiana's gun.

"Where did you come from? Why have I never heard of you before?"

The silver-haired girl lay on the ground, covered in dirt and bruises. She took a breath and asked the man who was silently checking the bullets in his pistol.