Honkai, Survive

His physiological functions, such as breathing, heartbeat, blood flow, metabolism, and body temperature, were all at an impossibly low level, even lower than that of crawling creatures—a state of suspended animation more extreme than hibernation.

As for visual detection… with the Honkai energy emanating from his body, what difference was there between him and a Death Trooper?

It was said that in the previous civilization, Fusion Warriors could use this to blend in with Honkai Beasts, being seen as kindred spirits by the less intelligent ones.

If he remained still, he would be regarded as nothing more than 'background scenery,' like those tall buildings, the ground, or trash cans.

As long as he didn't block their path, impede them, or expose himself to intelligent beings, he could coexist peacefully.

Coexist peacefully?

"Ha."

With a light chuckle, Fang Jie watched the group of Death Troopers stop their advance upon hearing his 'breath' and turn towards him.

"Life is like fallen leaves, all will eventually die."

So you dare to speak!

The Death Troopers, who had been uncertain, immediately stopped treating him as an inanimate object. Driven by their killing instinct, they lunged at him at speeds of 200 km/h, surpassing the fastest land beasts.

Truly terrifying. No wonder people kept developing Death Troopers as weapons, constantly… creating monsters, arming monsters, training monsters, organizing monsters, deploying monsters, using monsters, commanding monsters…

Death Troopers were indeed fast.

But not fast enough.

Dark purple lightning flickered around Fang Jie's legs, and he instantly plunged into the Death Trooper horde, leaving afterimages in his wake.

"First Strike!"

He didn't need to hold a baseball bat. It was too fragile; how could mere steel possibly harm Honkai-energy-enhanced Death Troopers? These were monsters that only Valkyries, like superhumans, could deal with, and he didn't possess the advanced technique of reinforcing weapons with Honkai energy.

What he could reinforce was himself.

Thus, his hand, formed into a blade with his five fingers, sliced through throats. It struck bones hardened by Honkai energy to be tougher than steel. Without any finesse like a skilled butcher dissecting an ox, he brutally severed heads.

Compared to the Death Troopers, who were like beasts and would tear open his chest with their claws, Fang Jie was more elegant.

"Second Strike!"

The encirclement had already been broken through, but he had no intention of simply charging out and regrouping to repeatedly charge and eliminate the Death Troopers like cavalry.

Because he was faster!

Not only was his straight-line speed faster, but he was also more agile. The ground shattered beneath his feet, and his newly worn shoes were innocently damaged. Barefoot, he flashed with electricity, supporting the explosive movements under this lightning-fast exchange.

—Spin!

Humans have two hands. When his five-fingered blades danced in a whirlwind, he didn't limit himself to the neck, the vital point of a humanoid creature. With the impact of his hand-blades, flesh and bone alike disintegrated upon contact.

In a flurry of intersecting attacks, his sharp hand-blades tore open the Death Troopers' bodies, exposing their writhing insides, before slicing, shattering, and severing them all.

In an instant, the Death Trooper horde was cut down.

But the battle wasn't over. Once exposed, it was difficult to return to a state of peaceful coexistence. Now, even if you looked like a Death Trooper, Honkai Beasts, with their instincts for dealing with intraspecies combat, had already activated their behavioral patterns.

This could be called—the impact of self-defense!

A colossal Chariot-class Honkai Beast, as large as a building, charged forward. The 'slow' and 'low-speed' in its data files were relative to Valkyries, to those superhumans piloting Valkyrie mechs and fighter jets at supersonic speeds.

In reality, it was faster than any cargo ship, rumbling forward like a train.

In response, "Third Strike, that's enough!"

Making his judgment, Fang Jie crouched slightly, then leaped up at the moment of impact with the Honkai Beast. He was hit head-on in mid-air, looking quite precarious.

Even though his hand-blades had shattered the Honkai Beast's outer shell, giving him a significant advantage.

But how long were his hands?

In comparison, the damage was akin to a human being pierced by a toothpick. And Honkai Beasts, aside from their core, had no vital points; they could regenerate as long as they had enough Honkai energy. The areas Fang Jie had damaged were constantly regenerating…

But he had already won.

Although he didn't possess the strength from the Stigmata awakening of the local inhabitants, nor Kevin's talent for knocking out Honkai Beasts with just a bat, facing such a massive Honkai Beast, Fang Jie, whose combat strength was limited to defeating ordinary people and Death Troopers, and excluding Honkai Beasts under ten meters and high-level Death Troopers, still had a way.

It wasn't relying on the 'discharge' he had just acquired; this wasn't some discharge, but a fundamental bodily reinforcement, like the energy of a Path. Those electric lights were merely special effects.

Just like the special effects that followed.

Even though his entire body was impacted, he wasn't crushed into "Fang Jie-chan." Instead, his right hand, which had pierced the Honkai Beast, spread its five fingers, treating the regenerating flesh of the Honkai Beast as if it were nothing.

As if it were just tofu.

What happened?

He actively released his defenses. From the direction of his right hand, the Honkai energy erosion in this direction instantly broke through the resistance Fang Jie had been maintaining. Or rather, he actively dispersed the Path energy here, with the resolve to abandon his right hand, and unleashed his 'superpower.'

It wasn't a leap into a new world or banishing it to the snowy plains for advanced training, but the preparatory stage, the step of drawing energy to charge.

Therefore, the Honkai Beast, which should have been destroyed in a two-dimensional manner, was defeated.

The Honkai Beast, which had been unleashing its destructive power with all its might, suddenly froze. Even the limb it had raised, ready to stomp down, stopped in mid-air. Some terrifying devouring swept through it in an instant; the Honkai energy, no, all the energy within its body was converging towards one point…

"Karakara—!"

The faint, strange sound of freezing was barely audible. More noteworthy was the energy within the Honkai Beast. Fang Jie, who had always resisted Honkai energy, a contaminating force, casually plunged his right hand into the creature's body—hard enough to withstand an orbital cannon—and began to draw it out.

The Honkai energy-transformed body, the silicon-based body capable of supporting such immense mass, the body through which Honkai energy flowed, contorted.

"Karakara—!"

A body that could easily tear the earth apart, withstand any military equipment not of sufficient yield, and required a Valkyrie burning her life force to defeat, was merely 'touched' by a human hand. It emitted a sound like a dying creature, a pained wail, and began to deform irreversibly, bulging and caving in strangely.

"Aow—!!"

The Honkai Beast, imposing enough to evoke a sense of dread regarding large creatures, let out a piercing scream!

Yes, a scream.

It was in pain, and therefore afraid. Even monsters weren't devoid of pain.

The Honkai energy that had filled its body, its entire being, was being rapidly plundered! Not even other forms of energy were spared! Its very body was collapsing!

This immense energy was all absorbed into Fang Jie's body. He was like a bottomless pit, no, his right hand was like a bottomless pit. Although he had removed his protective measures, the moment he came into contact with Honkai energy, crystalline patterns of intense erosion spread, yet they stopped at his right hand. It contained the vast Honkai energy, not just from the nearby Honkai Beast, but also the energy diffused in the air.

Compared to the pure, free Path energy, which wouldn't even draw the attention of Aeons since the Trailblaze had died, he could absorb it freely, easily maxing out his SP and opening up a new world. He could also passively enjoy physical enhancements, like rain nourishing the earth. In contrast, the Honkai energy brought a burning pain upon contact, akin to extreme frostbite.

Fang Jie, who refused to let more of his body parts be consumed by its spread and erosion, and only wanted to discard his right hand, drained the Honkai Beast in less than a second.

This was only because his current perception of time was usually in seconds at minimum.

In return, the progress bar on Kiana's icon in his mind advanced by an imperceptible amount, which would be calculated along with the impact of the Great Eruption.

As the Honkai Beast, now devoid of energy and unable to even support its own weight, crashed to the ground, Fang Jie, despite his preparations, felt a moment of bewilderment.

It had gone smoothly, true, but this efficiency… how much had he actually siphoned from the World Anchor? Never mind, the Trailblaze had a vast enterprise, there would surely be enough for him.

Snapping back to reality, his right hand felt as if it were burning after close contact with the immense Honkai energy, like suffering extreme frostbite. In the midst of the pain, Fang Jie actively cut off blood flow and paralyzed the limb. The burning sensation persisted, and even covering it with Path energy did little to soothe it.

This was why he limited himself to his right hand. If it were his entire body… he would likely perish.

Fortunately, everything had gone smoothly. Fang Jie had been prepared for the possibility that if his right hand wasn't enough as a medium, and Honkai were to infiltrate his brain… he would definitely flee, unable to absorb any of it.

After all, he wasn't sure where the absorbed energy ultimately flowed. The passive energy enhancement, however, benefited his entire body.

Now, everything was smooth, very smooth.

"What the heck, I have Honkai resistance too."

He looked at his right hand, which, even with its energy defenses voluntarily dispersed, was still being eroded but hadn't turned to ash.

The erosion was a minor issue. Even if it was irreversible, replacing it with a mechanical limb or regenerating it would be as if he hadn't been injured. A surge of pride welled up within him; this was his true power.

"Hoo—"

He exhaled a luxurious breath. What should have been a breath of hot waste gas from within his body came out as a cold mist. This heat was absorbed the moment it left his body, turning into frost that fell to the ground.

Just an effect.

The key was the energy absorption. After testing, the scope of this energy included, but was not limited to, kinetic energy, potential energy, chemical energy, internal energy, rest energy, Path energy, and Honkai energy.

For Honkai creatures, Honkai energy was the source of their life activities. Fang Jie's efficient method of plundering energy was like the 'Gong Absorption Technique' in Wuxia novels, sucking away a person's life itself—more brutal than 'Bei Ming Divine Skill'.

Upon contact, even their seemingly indestructible bodies, composed of Honkai energy, turned into blocks of tofu and began to collapse towards his right hand, spreading a layer of pristine white frost. Eventually, their bodies could no longer support their own weight and collapsed spontaneously, freezing into a distorted shape, fixed in a pose of struggling to reach out with claws, either to attack or to escape, before rolling away.

From square to round, embodying the principle of "Fang Zhi Yuan Xing" (Square stops, Round moves)!

Fang Jie shattered and shook off the icy obstructions on his hand. He needed contact to activate his ability; the contact surface was the killing surface. This unavoidable freezing phenomenon hindered his performance. One could imagine that if he went all out with his entire body as the contact surface, he would freeze himself into a block of ice.

"So the primary objective should be to kill, not to absorb energy. This should be a means. Let's give it a name, Divine Grace… no, Honkai Killer."

It was truly a Honkai Killer. Once touched, escape was difficult, as Honkai energy attracted itself and flowed spontaneously, much like heat naturally flowing to colder places, converging with the phenomenon of 'entropy increase'.

The core of the law of entropy increase was that heat always flowed from hotter objects to colder objects, a process that was irreversible and increased the total disorder of the system.

Therefore, Fang Jie's right hand, the medium for absorbing energy, became the point of maximum entropy increase, a singularity from which Honkai energy could not escape, even if limited by the act and scope of contact.

For Honkai Beasts that couldn't control their internal energy, Fang Jie only needed to touch them, then absorb their energy, easily plundering all the Honkai energy within them, as well as their kinetic energy, potential energy, chemical energy, internal energy, rest energy, and so on, until they became mere wreckage.

Fang Jie retracted his gaze, having 'evaluated' the effect of his ability on 'living beings,' and looked around again.

There were still enemies.

It didn't matter. If he could beat them, he would kill them. If he couldn't, he would instantly defeat them. If neither was possible, he would run.

His legs once again erupted with electrical light. This was also an effect, under which his speed and strength were instantly boosted to their limit, or rather, the opposite, as he charged towards the monsters of Honkai, stronger Honkai Beasts.

"Stand down, or die!"

The latter reacted with unwavering resolve; not a single one was a coward who fled.

Until—

"An alien?!"

A disbelievingly joyous shout carried on the wind.

Chapter Seven: This Is No Longer an Ordinary Herrscher, Prepare the Honkai Fission Bomb

"Haha! It's really you, you're alive and well too!"

Kiana, with her arms flailing, or rather, dancing with excitement, ran over, her team in disarray behind her.

Raiden Mei, and Bronya.

and the Honkai Beasts that had been chasing them.

"How about I die for you to see?"

Not knowing what to say, but so cheerful, even more cheerful than before, Fang Jie truly understood Dan Heng's feelings. This was even more so than March 7th when she hadn't encountered the Stellaron.

He wasn't good at dealing with girls who were overly enthusiastic.

He simply headed in Kiana's direction, amidst her cries of "Ahhh, don't come here, run away!" towards the Honkai Beasts – Raiden Mei couldn't fight, Bronya was slacking off, and it was all up to Kiana, who couldn't fight them and could only run from the giant Honkai Beasts.

—A Honkai Killer!

Kiana's noisy protests finally stopped. She turned around and charged, staring blankly at the brutal scene, along with Raiden Mei, who had quietly retreated behind her, and Bronya.

"Stupid Kiana, who is he?"

Bronya initiated communication in a voice as inorganic as ever.

"You're the stupid one, stupid Bronya!" Seeing that her help wasn't needed, Kiana breathed a sigh of relief and calmed her breathing. "This is Fang Jie. I met him before, he's a chuunibyou who said he came from outside the world, an alien with superpowers... Well, it seems the superpowers are real."

If being able to fight counts as a superpower, then everyone here is a superpower user.

Bronya had no objection to this, but an alien, from outside the world...

Hmm, it's very suitable to tell this to the white-haired, stupid Kiana.

After killing all the pursuing Honkai Beasts, Fang Jie returned to them, not getting too close, and stopped at a distance from Kiana.

"When a story ends, we always remember its beginning, as if everything has returned to the past."

"Huh?"

Kiana didn't quite understand why he was saying this now.

"What I mean is, it looks like you need help." Fang Jie didn't say much more and took the lead. "Let's go, I'll escort you out of Chang Kong City."

"Okay, okay! Let's all escape together."