Keep smashing!
"—BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!"
Such a plain yet overwhelming assault—if even the Hyperion had been here, its shields would have been hammered apart and the ship flattened into a steel pancake.
This was the sight Murata Himeko saw when she arrived first, piloting the Hyperion through layer after layer of Honkai Beasts.
It was not that she had been too slow. There were simply too many Honkai Beasts around Chiyu Academy, blocking the Hyperion's advance.
"Was I too late?"
Staring at the figure who was obviously a Herrscher, whose Honkai energy readings were extraordinarily violent, and at the familiar blade in her hand, Himeko's voice was low.
Of course, she had sensed the battle here long ago. She had told that brat to hide somewhere after witnessing the disturbance caused by a Herrscher battle, yet...
What were you trying to prove?
Was one Raiden Mei and one Kiana not enough? Another Herrscher—was that why you had to return to Chiyu Academy?
Honestly...
"Your battle is over. Now, it's my turn."
Silently tightening her grip on her greatsword, Himeko descended from the sky.
Sato Yuno had naturally noticed her as well. But having just won a battle, powerful, confident, and hollow as she was, why would she care?
She could just kill this woman she did not know!
And then Houkai was unleashed in a blazing slash!
Expanding, expanding, expanding—the fiery greatsword extended in an instant, growing to the size of a ship-cleaving blade. It was not merely forty meters long, but a three-hundred-and-ninety-nine-meter rending slash!
Whether through the spectacle or the threat rushing toward her, Sato Yuno's lethargy was swept away as she cried out in shock:
"What?"
Himeko's breakthrough capability far surpassed Fang Jie's. His range had truly been awkward, while Himeko's breakthrough...
Flames burned, incinerating everything, reducing all to scorched earth.
That slash, comparable to a small nuclear explosion, was not opening a path. It was destroying everything in front of it!
That sight, that force, that menace!
Before Sato Yuno could react, more than a tenth of the forest vanished from her senses, along with the pollen drifting through the air, all burned away...
"Not good!"
She hurriedly retreated, then retreated again. No longer daring to maneuver in the air, she descended toward the ground and formed more, more defenses.
And so, something entirely predictable happened.
"Ah~~~!!"
The instant Sato Yuno landed, she suddenly screamed. A hand clamped around hers, seized her blade, and disarmed her!
Then an icy edge pressed against her neck, accompanied by a whisper like a demon's:
"Don't move. Move, and your head comes off. I don't believe even you can regenerate your head at high speed."
With one motion, he forced her to her knees.
His other hand gripped the vines wrapped around her body. No, rather than gripping, it looked more like biting and devouring, touching her from behind at a point extremely close to her core.
That contact continuously drained her strength. She could not help screaming, her mind going blank.
"My power?!"
It was being taken from her. At such close range, she could barely break free, and it was simply being stolen away!
"Aren't you dead? A ghost... you're a ghost..."
Panicked and incoherent, she blurted out whatever came to mind.
Even Himeko, who had been attacking head-on and drawing Sato Yuno's attention, stared blankly at the scene.
"Who's spreading rumors?"
Fang Jie shook his head. Looking at Sato Yuno, who could not even handle fighting on two fronts, he concluded that she truly lacked combat experience. If she had not cut off his head or destroyed his core, how could she assume he was dead?
He was holding back now. After all, when she had gone straight for his heart earlier, he had hesitated as well and had not struck decisively.
Now that Himeko's reinforcements had arrived, there was even less need to kill her.
He was only drawing out the Honkai energy Sato Yuno had mobilized from her Pseudo-Herrscher core and poured into the surrounding vines, but to her, it felt like a savage beast was tearing into her.
Every second, every moment, whenever the power in her body spread outside, part of it vanished without a trace.
"Give it back!"
She immediately grew frantic. Outside, a woman wielding a greatsword was setting everything on fire. Nearby, an unarmed man was about to kill her.
"No, don't, don't leave... Don't kill me... Mom!"
Nearly reduced to her original state, Sato Yuno once again experienced weakness. Her body trembled as she begged. She did not even dare fight back, as though her restrained posture had triggered some psychological trauma, leaving her kneeling on the ground without daring to resist.
The vines winding around them began to wither and crack apart. The loss of Honkai energy turned their spikes, once harder than steel, into a joke. Fang Jie quietly restrained Sato Yuno, waiting for Himeko to come over as well.
And—
"Are you awake now?"
If not, he would really treat her to a fist. The kind guaranteed to kill.
"Answer me. What are you crying for? Crying still takes time."
Himeko, who had walked closer, hesitated as if she wanted to speak. You, her... Was this Herrscher perhaps... kind of pathetic?
.
.
Yae Sakura the Shut-In Would Not Encounter a Defeated Theresa
Himeko collapsed.
She looked suspiciously at the scene before her with the eyes one used for a complete amateur, remaining alert and doubtful, wondering whether she was being fooled as she prepared to step forward and subdue the Herrscher herself...
Then she suddenly staggered.
Her footing became unstable. She planted her greatsword into the ground, disbelief written across her face.
"Not good!"
Alarmed, she immediately kicked off with her weakening legs, retreating again and again. In midair, she assumed a defensive landing posture, ready to deal with an attack.
So they had been putting on an act for her, right?
They...
Then, as she rapidly retreated, she saw Fang Jie, who had not moved at all, give her a look of shock, confusion, and sudden realization: Why were you as pathetic as Theresa?
The two sides stared wide-eyed at each other.
Only then did Fang Jie realize that Sato Yuno's poison was not weak. Rather... there was something wrong with him?
Sato Yuno, who did not dare move at all, began to cry. The Poison Herrscher had encountered Fang Jie of Chiyu Academy, whose poison resistance was monstrously high, and even after going all out, she could not defeat him.
"Um, Miss Himeko, are you okay?"
Oh, what a vicious thing to say. How could you be so cruel!
Himeko felt her face heat up, so she decisively changed the subject. "Call me big sister! And also, what... is going on?"
She felt increasingly unable to muster any strength.
"It's poison."
Fang Jie looked at the flowers Himeko had not completely burned away. The pollen they spread contained Herrscher poison. Even the Honkai energy Sato Yuno emitted carried a certain toxicity; ordinary people would collapse without realizing it when they approached her.
It was that old familiar poison-body setup.
Incidentally, the upper limit of "ordinary people" included Theresa. Even as a fusion warrior, she could not endure it, much less Himeko.
Himeko's combat power when burning her life away might have been formidable, but her physical condition...
"What potent poison!"
Realizing the problem, Himeko gripped her greatsword tightly. Blazing Houkai surged forth, purifying every inch of the surrounding air without exception.
Fang Jie continued weakening Sato Yuno. The dragon-and-python-like vines around her had lost all their strength and could no longer advance, while the energy within them was ruthlessly devoured, leaving them dry and fractured.
As for the poison contained within them...
It was not as if Fang Jie had truly devoured it. The small amount that unavoidably entered his body through contact could be endured by the enhanced vitality and poison resistance granted by the Trailblazing divine power. He felt no discomfort.
There was one thing that had been bothering him.
"Tell me, how did you get stronger so quickly?"
Facing Sato Yuno, whose head was lowered and neck exposed as though awaiting execution, Fang Jie finally asked the question he had wanted to ask for some time.
"What?"
She did not quite understand what he wanted to know and asked timidly.
"Don't answer a question with a question. I'm asking you: how did you become stronger so quickly?"
By all rights, you should have needed to absorb Honkai energy for a while longer. Setting aside your poor combat experience and the fact that you were countered, that scene of you lifting skyscrapers and swinging them like hammers had given Fang Jie the creeps.
"I... I don't know!"
Sato Yuno told the truth. She truly did not understand what Fang Jie was asking. Feeling the pressure behind her, she grew nervous. Unable to stop crying, she said whatever came to mind:
"I only obeyed the will of God and tried to kill you... I'm sorry..."
Sato Yuno appeared very weak.
As a Pseudo-Herrscher of the Current Era, Honkai did not strip away or replace her will. She retained her humanity.
Her originally less-than-strong will had been swelling with power, only for her to suddenly be struck by the realization of damn, he has cheats. Naturally, the setback crushed her.
It fit the deep impression Fang Jie had gained from their brief contact. Before becoming a Pseudo-Herrscher, she had been terrified into immobility. After becoming one, she had gained inhuman abilities bestowed by God—yet she still could not beat him.
Though unwilling, she accepted it easily.
That was what happened when one had never seen a higher mountain.
Fang Jie did not need her apology, either. If apologies worked, why would anyone need compensation? Just wait for it!
However—
"God, huh."
Fang Jie felt something was wrong.
The Honkai Will existed differently in different versions of Honkai. Setting aside the Previous Era, only Aponia herself probably knew what she had done.
In the Current Era, the Honkai Will existed because Seele and Number 17 sacrificed themselves to become a "Trojan program" cast toward the Imaginary beyond, giving Honkai the shackles called "thought," thus creating countless parallel "consciousnesses"—the "Imaginary Renormalization Group."
In other words, the Honkai Will existed, regulating Honkai's embrace of reality.
And what had Fang Jie done...
Even rebellious Herrschers were still meat in the pot, holders of Honkai energy that remained under its watch. But him? Who knew where he had sent Honkai energy, somewhere the Honkai Will could not sense.
That chain reaction had triggered a "self-defense response," bringing punishment... or at least an hostility buff.
Sato Yuno was not weak. Forget Theresa's original record of getting beaten by her—just now, she had nearly one-shot Himeko with their first encounter.
Compared with the small amount of Honkai energy Fang Jie had taken away, this was already the Honkai Will estimating him as highly as it could.
But...
His heart skipped a beat. Fang Jie took a deep breath and asked with concern, "Sister Himeko, are you okay?"
Come on, powerhouse, pull yourself together!
Himeko did not pull herself together. Instead, she deliberately groaned, "Oh dear, I'm a little dizzy."
So if you have a solution, hurry up and bring it out. Aren't you perfectly lively? Give me an antidote, serum, anything!
Behind her, the Hyperion was already making an emergency landing, and reinforcements were on their way.
Before you continue