Of course Kiana agreed.
Fang Jie had no intention of talking much with Raiden Mei or Bronya. Kiana had only just helped Raiden Mei suppress her Herrscher persona, so it was best not to provoke her.
Bronya was even an assassin. If she was not already wavering and hesitating, the Ural Silver Wolf might, at any moment... provoke the Herrscher of the Void into appearing?
That would be absolute hell. Better get them out of Chang Kong City first.
After all, this was not Honkai 2, where anything went.
Honkai 3 was a game where Kiana traveled the world searching for Siegfried. She traveled to Chang Kong City, enrolled at Chiyu Academy for a special scholarship aimed at foreigners to fund her journey, then suddenly encountered the Honkai at school and began slaughtering everything with a baseball bat and a pistol.
Then she found Mei at school. Having long since taken a liking to her looks, she tried every possible way to bring her along.
During their escape, she ran into Bronya—a white-haired, expressionless girl. Bring her along too~
And so began a lighthearted post-apocalyptic comedy in which a white-haired girl abducted beautiful girls, with escaping Chang Kong City as the goal... The rest of the story was simple and happy.
If an ordinary person transmigrated into Honkai 3, they only needed to run fast, flee to a city where nothing much happened, and wait for Finality Kiana to be born.
Fang Jie was not ordinary, was also in Chang Kong City, and had even joined the group. In any case, he would get them out first.
As he ran, he casually kicked an innocent trash can on the street to pieces. This city no longer had a place for you.
It was an unconscious action. He did not think too much about it, nor did he grow irritated from considering the possibility that some so-and-so might be watching him in the future. He was just bullying a trash can to relieve stress.
There was no displeasure. And besides, fighting felt great!
—Slash, slash, slash, slash!
His ordinary swinging palm whistled like a blade. Whenever it struck Death Troopers or small Honkai Beasts that dared block his path—no, that dared merely appear—it tore open crimson wounds.
Sometimes, electricity burst across their bodies. Sometimes, faint crackling ice formed over them.
Nothing could stand against him!
He left behind mutilated or intact Honkai Beast carcasses, as well as Death Trooper corpses that looked even more savage—viscous blood flowed through the city ruins, headless bodies still twitched under the impulses of their nerve endings, and the air was thick with a nauseating stench.
It made the three little girls fleeing Chang Kong City behind him seem especially well-behaved.
This was a battlefield. There was no time to waste. They efficiently reached an understanding: meet, join up, escape together... Holy shit, the new teammate was kind of fierce. His whole style was incredibly martial.
"Why did things turn out this way? I became a Palu!"
Unable to hold back the old complaint, Fang Jie took the initiative to shoulder the task of clearing the path. Even if they were superhuman Valkyries, they were still underage girls. It would have been one thing if he had no strength, but now he could not bring himself to let them protect him.
After repeatedly stealing their kills and proving his efficiency, he took charge of the team's frontal combat. Fighting felt great!
Lightning flashed. His right arm had been deliberately paralyzed, but that did not mean the arm itself was useless. It was even tougher than the rest of his body. He grabbed an Assault-class Honkai Beast that was slashing at him with its wings, used it as a weapon, and swung the several-hundred-pound monster into the swarming Assault-class pack!
The next second, he followed close behind, stomping across the Assault-class swarm in midair and slaughtering them as he shot through their ranks.
This was the strength brought by Honkai energy. The lightning was merely a visual effect; speed and strength were the true essentials. It was an expression of bodily control capable of directing the flow of some of the energy within him.
Especially his right arm. What sort of control mechanism was involved in deliberately paralyzing it? What part of the body was it connected to? How did the Death Troopers move? What was the smallest unit linked to Honkai energy enhancement...
Compared to that, discharging electricity really was just a visual effect. Using electricity was one of the most fundamental abilities of all living things. Even single-celled protozoa like paramecia depended on it to survive.
Not long ago, he had been a useless guy who could not even perform military boxing properly. Yet after surviving the brink of death, cutting down monsters now came naturally. Perhaps the Path energy had awakened his potential, enhancing his perception of danger and combat instincts.
Light levels, wind speed, collision timing, attack and defense trajectories... Information he had once been unable to perceive in detail now flowed passively into his mind. Even if his mind could not process it all, his body naturally responded according to the information. In his perception, the world had become incredibly slow, and the monsters' movements were unbearably slow.
I'm the faster one!
Behind Fang Jie, the three little girls followed in a triangular formation: Kiana in front, Bronya at the rear, and Raiden Mei in the middle. Following the path that had left a straight line of blood across the ground, Kiana tiptoed over the stream-like blood and stared ahead in disbelief.
Damn it, I really was tricked!
This was not some weakling she only needed to make a slight move against to politely extract information from. This was clearly a crafty person who would beat her to her knees if she dared attack.
He tricked and bullied a beautiful girl like this Lady Kiana!
Still, he should be trustworthy. They could escape Chang Kong City together.
"Idiot Kiana, why are you just watching?"
Bronya withdrew her gaze as well. Riding on Project Bunny and floating over the bloodstains, her silver-gray curls bounced as she could not help provoking Kiana.
This idiot had been so energetic when beating up monsters earlier.
"So annoying. I still have to protect Mei!"
Kiana waved a hand without looking back.
As for why Bronya always picked on her... First, it could not be because Bronya had come to monitor Kiana. She had always wanted to drive this white-haired girl away. She had no idea what kind of incident she had gotten herself involved in, yet she was still an idiot who could not understand human speech.
But Raiden Mei...
No, the Herrscher of Thunder.
Looking at Chang Kong City, already dead in the Great Eruption, Bronya did not take any action. She had already lost contact with Chang Kong City anyway. The entire area was now blanketed by unusual electromagnetic interference, cutting it off from the outside world.
As for what came after...
Even Raiden Mei had never considered that. She was currently the most dejected of the three little girls. Other than Kiana, who could make her obey, she looked like a "walking corpse" with no desire to live.
I'll get you into St. Freya Academy first.
Fang Jie's path-clearing efficiency was extremely high. Even if a Temple-class Honkai beast, an enemy Kiana could not easily defeat, appeared before him, he could deal with it after developing Honkai Killer.
This was insane. A traveling Kiana, a Herrscher Mei, and an A-Rank Valkyrie Bronya—none of them could use their full strength for one reason or another, leaving him to be their Palu.
Still, I should be able to make this story better... right?
Thinking that, Fang Jie's movements grew increasingly violent.
Chang Kong City was huge, and Chiyu Academy was not small either. Crossing the latter did not take long, but as for the former... There was no need to escape beyond Chang Kong City. The Hyperion, hanging high outside the city, could spot the commotion from dead Honkai Beasts in one corner of the city even through manual observation with binoculars.
And so—
The Hyperion, an aerial battleship full of violent aesthetics, surged forward. As night approached, it was unknown whether it was more efficient than in the original story. The winged emblem of Schicksal on its deck seemed ready to take flight as it closed in on the ground.
"Ha ha ha ha! Theresa, just stay here obediently. And besides, I'm the captain!"
The sound of the hatch closing was so pleasant, cutting off what Theresa, who had no choice but to return to the Hyperion, wanted to say.
Murata Himeko had felt bitterly unwilling when she could only watch Theresa return alone to danger. Now, she was equally delighted.
It was not simply taking pleasure amid hardship.
Who could have expected the Third Herrscher to be so insidious and cunning in Chang Kong City, which had been completely cut off from communication?
They had already lost all effective means of detection. They could only rely on Valkyries' perception of Honkai energy to trace it back to the source, and they had to fight amid dangerously dense Honkai energy. Yet it had actually managed to level up!
The instant the Herrscher's presence disappeared, Theresa knew things had gone wrong. She could not keep charging in recklessly.
Compared to the straightforward and openly confrontational Second Herrscher, the Third Herrscher was too despicable, too insidious, too cunning. She had actually hidden herself!
Should they continue searching through that vast sea? No, impossible. Even as an S-Rank Valkyrie, Theresa was not confident she could remain alert for a Herrscher ambush while being continuously drained by that environment.
She could only accept Himeko's order—or rather, request—delivered through the communication equipment Schicksal had secretly developed for emergencies, return to the Hyperion, hold the fort, or wait for the Herrscher of Thunder to appear again.
And she could only watch unwillingly as Himeko took over the ground-landing mission to search for and identify the Herrscher of Thunder's location.
It could only be her: Murata Himeko, one of the Far East Branch's only two A-Rank Valkyries.
B-Rank Valkyries could not even carry out cannon-fodder duties in this environment. If the Herrscher ambushed them, they might not even manage to send a signal, let alone delay her long enough for Theresa to intervene.
Sometimes, even sacrifice required qualifications.
Thus, a figure like blazing fire fully armed herself and threw herself into the fight against the Honkai with determination.
That armor was—Vermilion Knight: Eclipse!
A special armor built on Schicksal's older Valkyrie armor and equipped with the still-testing "Nexus System." It had two forms: a fully armed heavy form and a lighter form built for mobility.
The light form required no explanation. However, to unleash the "Nexus System's" true power, it had to connect to a large energy supply in its fully armed state, powered by energy on the scale of a warship. Its output would then surpass that of an Emperor-class Honkai Beast, granting it the qualifications to join a battle to subjugate a Herrscher.
As for the cost, only the living had the right to discuss costs. Besides, Schicksal's Valkyries had always fought by expending their lives.
Guided by that principle, the "Nexus System" had almost no safety-oriented design whatsoever.
Wearing the Far East Branch's final combat measure, Murata Himeko descended from the sky and crushed a Temple-class Honkai beast that had been drawn over beneath her feet the moment she landed.
She had landed directly on it.
Her spirited voice burned as though trying to dispel the gloom:
"Kids, you've worked hard! Leave the rest to the adults!"
Holding a greatsword in one hand, Murata Himeko looked down at the people who had escaped Chang Kong City... civilians?
They had already become Stigmata Awakened during the Great Eruption, surely. Considering the strength with which they had torn Honkai Beasts apart, it could not possibly have come from playing basketball.
Besides, in a Great Eruption like this, ordinary people had almost no right to survive unless their Stigmata awakened.
Then she charged!
The crimson figure employed no flashy tricks. Her blazing greatsword swung, and pure violence concealed her masterful technique through sheer style. She sent a skyscraper-sized beast flying, and it exploded before it even hit the ground.
That figure did not stop. One explosive crash after another merged together. Amid the thunderous din, Murata Himeko wielded her greatsword as lightly as a feather, sending streams of light flying from the fiery blade.
Boom, boom—boom!
And it was over.
She dominated the battlefield.
For her, even without risking her life, lower-class Honkai Beasts were nothing but trash.
"Whoa!"
Though she had never seen much of the world, Kiana, who was not particularly surprised, scratched her head. "That looks like a Schicksal Valkyrie. We're safe now."
But this was bad. Her old man seemed to be a fugitive wanted by Schicksal. What was she supposed to do now?
Run? But Mei...
Raiden Mei said nothing and shut her eyes tightly. She knew nothing about Schicksal, and her will to survive was faint. It did not matter to her either way.
As for Bronya, seeing Schicksal, Anti-Entropy's enemy, make contact with the Herrscher of Thunder first... she did not care either.
Fang Jie looked at the three little girls, among whom only Kiana was still making a fuss at this point, and nodded.
Whether active or passive did not matter. The three of them joining St. Freya Academy was settled.
He shook his hand, scattering the ice, but did not intend to follow them.
He could join them, but not now. A vast amount of unclaimed Honkai energy still drifted through Chang Kong City. He would not have cared before, but now that absorbing it could help increase his strength, he could not let it go.
After all, Honkai energy was neither scarce nor abundant. Other than Herrschers who could connect to the Imaginary Space, everyone else could only search painfully for Honkai Beasts across the world.
Of course, there was also the option of joining one of the three major factions and having access to whatever Honkai energy resources he wanted.
But before that, it was best to possess enough strength to protect himself. Otherwise, as he had said—
I want the goods, but I don't want to pay.
And you seem to have plenty of remaining value, too.
Turning around, Fang Jie headed back toward Chang Kong City.
Kiana was the first to call out. "Hey, where are you going?"
It was an idiot's intuition. She understood this guy who had carelessly tricked her before, yet became clumsy with words and obsessed with fighting after the Great Eruption.
Looking at him now, he was going to charge back into Chang Kong City again!
They had only just escaped with great difficulty... Well, actually, it had been pretty easy. He had carved a bloody path for them.
"This is where we part, Kiana. I still have things to do."
Fang Jie did not turn back. The three little girls were completely different from the trio he remembered. They still needed time to build their bonds, then suddenly experience explosive growth in power.
So the Far East's magic den was the right place for them.
But he lacked time, and he had abandoned his earlier idea of just grabbing some equipment. Human desire was like a boulder rolling down a mountain; he could try to obtain more.
And it was not that he was bad with words. He simply did not want to say too much and make mistakes. Even less did he want to suffer the harm of some mind-reading thing like Judah's Shadow. Theresa did not even like to eat it.
Who knew what the world would become if something like Otto learned the "story" in his mind?
Kiana was smart. She could tell he seemed to have some unspeakable difficulty, perhaps something even more awkward than having an old man who was a fugitive wanted by Schicksal. That was why he did not want contact with Schicksal.
But, but...
Before you continue