I'm Not a Flame-Chaser - Chapter 619

"Cough cough..."

The girl, who had crashed through the railing and rolled several times on the rooftop, was caught in another gust of wind before she could regain her balance. She used the strength she had drawn to bite her hand to raise it and block, but in less than half a second, her hands were subjected to a terrifying force.

"Cala!"

During the brief stalemate, her mind raced as she considered countermeasures. She knew that Lin was not an opponent who could be easily defeated. If she did not devise a strategy, she would only be toyed with like an ant in his palm.

Lin was very familiar with Kiana's leg techniques, so he was always on guard during her attacks, and that high kick just now only exposed an opening for him.

After a brief moment of thought, Kiana changed her offensive strategy. Recalling Fu Hua's fist techniques and the Valkyrie fighting skills taught by St. Freya, she began to engage Lin in close combat.

"Bang!"

After blocking the fist, an elbow strike followed immediately. Lin had to raise his other hand to block, but this left his side vulnerable to a solid kick that sent him tumbling to the side.

Lin's gaze remained unchanged, while Kiana followed his relentless attacks, giving him no chance to breathe. After two weeks of Lin's corrections, her fighting skills had improved significantly from her previous awkward fusion of gunfighting techniques. She herself was indeed a genius in combat, making it impossible for Lin to handle her with the same ease as before.

But this is just an appetizer.

Lin swatted Kiana away with a palm strike, then flipped and jumped off the rooftop. Kiana's pupils contracted. She knew that Lin would use the terrain to launch an attack. The feeling of being watched from the shadows was still unforgettable, so she couldn't give Lin a chance to blend into the environment.

So she immediately chased after him, taking three steps at a time to reach the edge of the rooftop, and stuck her head out to look down—

What greets you is the dusty soles of your feet.

"Bang!"

Caught off guard, Kiana was kicked into the air, blood gushing from her nose. Her eyes were bulging and bloodshot as she watched Lin Cong the edge of the rooftop. His cold, Prismatic Eyes were like those of a cunning beast, staring at her in mid-air.

Will she chase after me once I've figured it out...?

From this moment on, their battle officially entered the stage of real fighting.

Lin flicked his wrists, and the pistol landed in his palm. He aimed it at Kiana, who had no way to dodge, and pulled the trigger.

"Bang! Bang!"

"Bite!"

Kiana held her gun in front of her, blocking one bullet, but the other bullet still struck her in the shoulder.

"Hmm..."

She felt no pain, but could feel her blood draining away. She adjusted her position and landed on the ground, then ran non-stop to avoid Lin's next shots.

Amidst the city's fleeting lights and shadows, two men traverse the skies above the city. Gunshots are drowned out by the city's clamor. They no longer speak to each other; one is solely focused on killing the other, while the other strives to survive.

Gradually, Kiana fell into a disadvantageous position. She often saw Lin retreat into the shadows where he could no longer be seen, only to reappear beside her the next second and attack her like a ghost, making it impossible to defend against. Even if she tried her best to keep up with his pace, his unpredictable and insidious killing moves would force her to stop. Thus, she could neither catch up nor escape, falling into a vicious cycle.

Kiana hid behind the wall, trying to activate the stagnant Honkai Energy within her. However, the fear of using that power and the fear of potentially harming others firmly occupied her mind, making it impossible for her to budge the Honkai Energy sealed by the chains.

"Bang!"

The wall she was leaning against was not an indestructible shield. She only paused for two seconds before the wall was smashed to pieces, and a long knife pierced her shoulder, causing blood to splatter.

"Bass!"

After piercing through her shoulder, the long sword didn't stop, pinning Kiana directly to the ground. Then Lin released his grip on the gun.

The only advantage of not feeling pain was that Kiana was able to remain conscious after such a brutal attack. She raised her long leg and side-kicked Lin's wrist, knocking his pistol away. Then, she drew the long sword from her shoulder and slashed at Lin.

"Bass!"

A glint flashed in Lin's dark eyes, and a short blade popped out from his sleeve.

"Sizzle!"

Sparks from the friction between the two sword blades flashed across the darkness.

The two simultaneously sheathed their swords and retreated, stopping at a distance that was neither too close nor too far, each glancing warily at the other.

"Tick-tock".

Blood flowed from the wound, but it didn't seem to have hit any vital areas. Kiana was still able to exert force, and to her surprise, there was also a lot of blood flowing from Lin's arm.

Yesterday's injury...

Kiana hesitated slightly, thinking of the gruesome wound she had inflicted by the knife and the hand holding it.

However, this is not a reason for the fighting to stop.

"Bass!"

Collision, separation, and dance of blades.

Kiana wasn't good at wielding a sword, but the way Mei and Himeko used swords was deeply imprinted in her mind. Her movements unconsciously overlapped with theirs, and Lin's attacks gradually gained a touch of swordsmanship.

"This is..."

Fu Hua was shocked when she saw Lin's sword attack method, because she remembered it.

Is this... Sakura's swordsmanship?

At the end of that era, among Fu Hua's companions, only one person had a different fighting style from the others. She was originally an assassin, so her swordsmanship was a sharp and deadly sword, almost every move was fatal, and it was extremely unique. Fu Hua could not possibly mistake her.

Who exactly is this person?

He said that the Herrscher of Binding was born within him, that he was a person from the era of the Moth Chaser, and that he also knew Sakura's swordsmanship...

In her memory, there was a large blank space. Fu Hua didn't know what it was, but at this moment, she felt as if that blank space was writhing, swallowing her up, and filling her mind with endless emptiness.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

At the same time Kiana fired, Lin fired first, hitting Kiana's gun barrel and deflecting it.

This information-driven and computationally-savvy combat style made Kiana suffer greatly. She swung her sword at Lin's ankle, but he blocked it by stabbing the sword into the ground with his other hand. Finally, Kiana was kicked in the chin and almost passed out.

"Boom!"

Amidst the ringing in her ears, a dark shadow appeared before her, finally delivering a powerful punch to her face, knocking her to the ground.

The Journey Begins in the Sky: Chapter Forty - The Gunshot

"Huff... huff..."

Kiana's tired, pretty face was flushed, it was hard to tell if it was her own or Lin's, no, it was both.

Her right shoulder was pierced by a sword and plunged into the ground, while her left hand was pinned to the ground by Lin's foot on her wrist.

The man's cold, heterochromatic eyes, hidden beneath his mask, stared at her, blood dripping in a line from his sleeve.

"Tick-tock".

The dark muzzle of the gun could spew out deadly flames at any moment. Warm, moist blood fell onto the girl's cheeks. She tilted her head back, as if yearning for the light that would break through the dark clouds.

We lost.

It's like losing as if it were inevitable; you can't win no matter what.

That's right... just like the main villain in the story, he's bound to lose.

Even now, she is trying her best to control Honkai Energy, but it is all in vain. She is as weak as when she was a child facing Honkai Beast alone.

What awaits her is the final judgment.

"Kiana, I'll hold him off," Fu Hua said in her mind, trying to use Feather of Dust to buy Kiana time to escape.

"No, Class President." But Kiana stopped Fu Hua. She looked at the man's mask with extreme weariness. Just like when they first met, it was cold and icy, yet it felt even more familiar to her.

"Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

Just like before the war, Lin asked Kiana again, his tone no different from usual, so calm that no emotion could be detected.

Kiana tilted her head, then looked at him and gave him a cute smile, her tone much more relaxed. "Yes, I have a lot to say."

"Speak."

"I want to apologize to Mei, Bronya, the Class President, and Auntie, but in the end I still caused them trouble. I want to tell Himeko- sensei that I didn't keep my promise to her and nothing changed. I want to tell my stinky dad, who's somewhere, that I really miss him. And I want to apologize to everyone who lost their lives and loved ones because of the Honkai..."

The silver-haired girl's originally lighthearted words gradually turned into sobs, and human tears welled up in her inhuman eyes.

When she woke up from her dream, everything had changed. She had lost everything she should have, and she herself had become a monster that harmed the world.

She wandered aimlessly, searching for the value and reason to live.

But in the end, she found only one answer.

Kiana Kaslana, who uses a name that is not her own, has only one value: death.

"And you..."

The girl, her face streaked with tears, looked up at the cold-blooded man with tenderness and smiled.

"I hope you won't be saddened by killing me."

"..."

Lin stared at the desolate smile she forced into a smile, a flood of emotions washing over him. Countless past experiences replayed themselves, like an inescapable cycle, always... always...

The finger on the trigger slowly applies pressure.

Fu Hua watched all of this secretly. She closed her eyes and slowly relaxed her clenched fist.

Is all of this fate?

"Bang!"

Blood splattered.

Kiana felt herself flying, the weightlessness enveloping her was like an arm lifting her up and welcoming her to heaven.

Is this what "death" feels like...?

What is the world like after death? Will she see those who died because of her? Will she see... Himeko- sensei?

I doubt it. Bronya would definitely laugh at her, saying that there's nothing after death and that Kiana is a naive idiot.

Yeah, what a naive idiot.

And so, that's the end of it...

"Smack."

The feeling of weightlessness disappeared.

Kiana discovered that she had not gone to an unknown world, nor had she been completely plunged into darkness.

She felt herself being thrown up, as if Lin had thrown her, and she landed heavily to the side.

Lin didn't kill her?

What was that gunshot?

Kiana stared blankly at the man who had thrown her out. He stood motionless, silent.

What happened to him?

Just then, the girl saw a dark hole on the ground where she had been lying, from which white smoke was rising.

The numb sense of smell returned to this sluggish body, and the girl's mind went blank. She smelled something burning, and... an overwhelmingly nauseating stench of blood.

The smell was coming from... the man's feet.

From beneath the man's oversized trench coat, an indescribable amount of blood gushed out like a burst dam. It seemed to escape from his body as if it didn't belong to him, mixing with fragments of internal organs and pooling into a thick pool of blood at his feet.

"Forest...?"

Kiana's voice trembled as she spoke.

"Kiana, this is... the Last Lesson..."

The last words left by Teacher Himeko echoed in her ears, and when she looked up just now, she found that Lin's eyes were exactly the same as Himeko's back then.

He pushed himself away.

Then a shot rang out.

He didn't fire the shot.

He didn't kill me.

He's saving me...

Kiana stared blankly as the standing man gradually lost his strength, the pistol slipping from his hand and falling to the ground with a thunderous thud.

"Clatter".