If Stockings Appear, They'll Get Torn (Continued)

But it was useless. Completely useless.

"Waaah, waaah, waaah! What did you eat growing up, you little runt...?"

Kiana only found it bizarre.

Theresa remained expressionless.

? ? ?

Raiden Mei was busy feeling down while enduring Kiana's harassment, so she was actually relieved when Kiana's attention shifted. Seeing this scene, she did not think much of it.

As for Bronya...

She was trembling.

Seele, Seele! I'll definitely survive. I'll definitely save you! I absolutely won't die because of that idiot Kiana's absurd collateral damage...

The silver-gray-haired little killer curled up on the hospital bed, shivering.

The morning after the Great Eruption in Chang Kong City, 10 a.m. No fighting.

"And so, the savior Fang Jie saved a world that might not have been injured without him... Of course, that isn't important. What matters is saving the world. Do you understand?"

On the rooftop of Chiyu Academy's deserted cafeteria, Fang Jie gazed toward the sky. The lingering dark clouds blocked out the daylight, but it was still brighter than Belobog.

He had found a warehouse and spent the night hurriedly moving some supplies to the shelter, carrying out interworld logistics with no guarantee of safety—the Company did it too.

He used this brief moment of leisure, which might determine whether the world's tension level increased, to tell a Death Trooper serving as his experiment subject about his great achievements.

The Death Trooper said nothing. It only wanted to kill him.

Kill you under the self-defense mechanism.

After all, Fang Jie was currently maintaining the state he called "Winter," reducing his biological functions to the point of near-death and paralyzing parts of his body.

Not just his right hand.

Both arms had had their blood circulation cut off. There was also a huge hollow in his chest—most of his lungs and much of the respiratory system connected to them. Since he barely breathed anymore, he simply let Honkai energy erode them.

His legs were even worse. So much had been paralyzed that all his remaining blood flowed through the rest of his body, its activity further reduced by the "Winter" state...

Being able to do this was not his own skill. The environmental tolerance granted by the Trailblaze divine power was simply absurd.

Who knew how magnificent, impassioned, and tragic the clash between Honkai energy and it was at this moment... Anyway, every cell serving as the battlefield was a miracle of life, forged across endless years into trash like him.

Fang Jie, trash who was almost unable to endure even this little pain, stopped waiting. His face twisted into a grimace, but his tone remained gentle. "Ah, the time has come, my friend. Thank you for listening to me ramble for so long. Thank you. I won't even ask you for a reward, but I need your help with one thing. A small thing."

The Death Trooper had not listened and did not want to listen. It simply could not leave, but that did not matter either.

Fang Jie was paralyzed, but that did not mean his paralyzed right hand stopped gripping it. He dragged it all the way into one of the fruits of his night's work: the Chiyu Academy shelter.

It was located beneath what had once been Chiyu Academy's logistics warehouse.

As an elite academy, Chiyu Academy had naturally considered security. Having such a facility was nothing strange. Taking Himeko's advice, Fang Jie had moved plenty of daily necessities from the logistics supplies into storage, intending to hide out here from now on.

As for why he had brought the Death Trooper...

"Experiment number n. Here we go."

A flash of lightning appeared. Fang Jie brutally covered the part of the Death Trooper he was gripping, and both vanished from where they stood.

The sigils of "fire, water, wind, lightning, grass, ice, rock" did not appear before his eyes. He had returned to Belobog's snowy plains.

This place was already piled high with all sorts of daily necessities. The naturally freezing environment meant there was no need to worry about preservation, so he had simply left them out in the open. After one night, many had already been buried under snow.

After looking around, he found it was still the same as ever, with no changes. Then, as usual:

—"Akivili, lend me your energy."

The strange shout across the snowfield drew no gaze from the Elation, but trying did not cost anything. Even if it did cost something, that would be fine. At his most desperate, he had even sworn that he would rob the Company to support them...

Unfortunately, even cursing Aeons and calling them hookers did nothing.

Enough of that. Fang Jie destroyed every last cell of the Death Trooper's body that he had brought into this world, then erased the nearby air, snow, and anything else that might have been contaminated with Honkai energy with "Honkai Killer."

He planned to take the remaining bit of collapsed matter back with him as well, being as cautious as possible.

In reality, it was meaningless. He could not refuse these daily supplies carrying Honkai energy, and neither could Belobog. The information contained within them far exceeded that of mere Death Trooper cells.

Fang Jie did not think too deeply about it. The Company did it too, after all. Once again, he silently summarized the results of the experiment.

"Preliminary confirmation: I can carry matter across worlds, regardless of whether it is inanimate or alive."

The former was easy to determine. He had not crossed over naked, and the supplies scattered across the ground had successfully arrived as well.

As for the latter, the same logic applied. Wasn't he alive and kicking?

"Of course, there are still some restrictions. Weight, or rather, energy. Only things I carry myself and wrap in my own energy can be transported as a whole."

Otherwise, they would probably end up like the strangely severed supplies buried beneath the snow, the main body of the collapsed matter in his hand, or the Death Trooper that had suddenly had one arm torn off.

Partial teleportation ×

Dimensional Slash √

"And the price is energy consumption."

As he released the "Winter" state, feeling his body recover and his Path energy grow, the Honkai markings on his limbs faded. Even breathing brought burning pain, made twice as severe by the icy wind.

A minor issue. They were merely lingering effects from Honkai energy erosion. No matter how much the Trailblaze divine power had strengthened his tolerance of the environment, damage was still damage.

Ignoring the pain that would fade as soon as he entered "Winter" again, Fang Jie compared the cost of carrying external objects. If it was just himself, he could barely feel any consumption at all—at most, a slight sense of fatigue.

But when he brought external objects, the consumption of Honkai energy and Path energy immediately became obvious. It was nearly one-to-one. In other words, something of equal weight and equal energy level would exhaust Fang Jie.

And if it was still too much... then the passenger, whether living or inanimate, could probably only be taken away in the portion he was capable of carrying.

"So it really is Dimensional Slash."

He mocked himself, but Fang Jie was fairly satisfied with the rules in this regard.

It was enough already, though he still did not know whether there were requirements concerning intangible things such as souls, beyond the limits of matter and energy.

After all, Death Troopers could not feel pain, so he could not test that.

Using living creatures...

Where could he find living creatures in Chang Kong City after the Great Eruption? He could not see the souls of flowers and grass either.

Silently summarizing the various rules in his mind and completing another stage of Honkai energy development, Fang Jie swept his gaze across the still-empty snowfield shelter, which had yet to receive any visitors. His eyes turned toward the boundless white expanse.

"Belobog."

Rather than hastily coming and going as before, Fang Jie stood there after returning to Chang Kong City and stared at the pale wilderness that devoured everything. Then he shouldered his pack.

"Here I come."

Move forward.

He could have continued in Chang Kong City, expanding the upper limit of how much Honkai energy erosion he could endure and continuing his superpower experiments. Both had proven highly effective, and the latter had even developed a use that sounded incredibly advanced.

But he had long understood one principle: Honkai was a cup of poisoned wine.

All he could rely on right now was luck. Though his luck was not bad, luck was such a thing...

Aventurine had been willing to gamble with his life on the line, and he still held at least three chips.

And Fang Jie wanted to keep developing Honkai?

Did he have excellent Honkai energy adaptability? Was he a Herrscher vessel? Did he have Stigmata genes? Was he...

Know when to stop, friend.

Without a Stigmata, Fang Jie's current method of containing Honkai energy was closer to the Honkai energy adaptors of the Previous Era. After only preliminary fusion, he could release purple-black lightning-like energy, displaying strength comparable to a B-Rank Valkyrie—Kaslana excluded—and speed beyond that rank. Probably B+, since the equipment-based version of the Time Fracture system was far too overpowered. He would start out a tier lower if they competed directly.

That was already incredible. He was superhuman.

But it was not Fang Jie who was incredible. It was the Trailblaze divine power.

Continuing to absorb Honkai energy could further improve his physical strength... but that meant racing down the road toward becoming a Death Trooper.

Especially his limbs and internal organs, which were the main directions of erosion. At the point when the erosion had been most severe, his skin had already become as pale as a Death Trooper's, while his right hand had even begun to develop into a claw.

Fang Jie needed a doctor. Even working out required regular visits to the doctor, much less modifying his body like this.

"But that world doesn't have doctors skilled enough. There are scientists, though. Heh."

Therefore, he could not hang all his baskets from one world.

The road was a little difficult to walk.

Or rather, there was no road at all.

Everything was white. There were no weeds, no jagged rocks, no potholes, no uneven ground, no rugged terrain, yet every step was difficult.

If he used too much strength, he sank deep into the snow.

If he used too little, he slipped.

He felt like he had walked for a long time and thought he had gone very far. When he looked back at the actual distance... he could no longer see the shelter at all. He really had gone quite far.

But who knew which direction Belobog lay in? That shelter only had basic, overlooked supplies such as a Synesthesia Beacon and written records about Belobog. There was no map. If he got lost and could not even find the Domain Anchor again...

"Then I'll just have to return to Chang Kong City."

As he said it, Fang Jie laughed.

Compared to the despair at the beginning, this trek, with escape routes everywhere, was practically a picnic.

Standing amid this wild snowfield, he became wild himself. He continued forward in great strides, casting aside his cowardice—Trailblazing was a solemn resolve. If one survived in wretchedness, then life would become far too long.

And the reason such determined Fang Jie did not choose the faster method of skiing was that the snowfield looked white, but many dangers lay buried beneath it:

Rift monsters, and even more terrifying, the Anti-Matter Legion frozen beneath the snow.

If these disasters ever lost their balance, they could blow up the entire planet by self-destructing together. He could not provoke them.

And so he walked into the snowfield.

The afternoon after the Great Eruption in Chang Kong City, 4 p.m. at Chiyu Academy. No nuclear explosion.

As an isolated island cut off from the world, whatever happened here now would be difficult for outsiders to learn about.

Especially since the Far East Branch of Schicksal, the most likely group to discover anything, was led by Theresa and currently watching Raiden Mei and Kiana in secret with great caution.

What a cause for celebration. What a cause for celebration.

That was also why Fang Jie had seized the time to boldly conduct all sorts of experiments.

When he returned to Chang Kong City again, he was battered by wind and snow from head to toe. Even his enhanced physique was not enough, and he stomped his feet in place, shivering.

This attracted the Death Trooper he had previously dragged here by force. For some reason, its right hand was incomplete, but it had lost none of its ferocity as it pounced at him.

"Hello."

Fang Jie nodded in greeting as he shivered.

"And I forgot to say goodbye before."

He seized the neck delivered right before him with one hand. Energy colder than ice and snow swept through it, draining it as efficiently as laboratory disposal of a white mouse.

That was why Fang Jie did not trust scientists. White mice rarely met good ends.

He looked at the quartz clock, which was still running without electromagnetic interference. Only six hours had passed since he left, but the snowfield consumed too much stamina, and Fang Jie did not intend to continue.

Without the replenishment of a Domain Anchor, preserving his strength was extremely important.

Let's go out and get some sun.

Unable to resist the temptation, even though the sunlight had not been particularly bright when he left earlier, Fang Jie stepped out of the shelter without intending to go too far.

Very soon, his steps halted, and he looked up ahead.

The logistics warehouse was naturally not far from the cafeteria. And in Chiyu Academy after the Great Eruption, there probably would not be any Death Trooper students coming to the cafeteria.

Until he saw the scene before him, that was what Fang Jie had believed.

What entered his sight was a murky crimson.

Blood.