How soft, how comfortable, how wonderfully plush.
The thing pressed hard against his chest was unbearably soft, its feel utterly bewitching.
The milky scent of coconut flesh seeped through her damaged uniform and straight into Jiang Cheng's chest.
If the girl before him had to be symbolically represented by an animal or insect, she should have been a haughty bird. Yet at that moment, she was more like a snake coiling tightly around him.
Her slender fingers, her hands as soft and pale as lotus roots, were wrapped around his waist. Even her thighs, full yet perfectly proportioned, were nearly clamping his legs between them.
Though the girl had instantly turned so shy that a tender cherry-pink flush covered her long, snowy-white neck, the redness still peeked through her deep-purple hair, lending her an indescribably alluring charm. The tingling sensation made her tremble ever so slightly, yet she showed no intention of stopping. With her full, supple curves, slender waist, and pert hips, she even rose lightly onto the delicate feet nestled in her black ankle boots, just to experience it more deeply...
——a hug.
Just what kind of outrageous figure could offer an embrace this perfect?
It was nothing like hugging Cyrene—in the same way that a little steamed bun was nothing like a pomelo. The two simply couldn't compare.
Jiang Cheng couldn't help taking a few more glances.
As if drawn by some kind of magic, his gaze drifted downward, settling on her slender waist.
It was as though it had been made for a man's hands to grasp. He could probably wrap both hands around Mei's delicate, soft waist with ease and feel its softness.
But that didn't matter.
The holes in her black stockings, her proud figure—Jiang Cheng didn't care about any of that now.
All he felt was the girl's body heat. All he cared about was the embrace itself.
A heartbeat thudded through two layers of clothing.
He couldn't tell whose it was. Probably both of theirs.
[Is there no part for me anymore? Do I not get to appear even once from beginning to end?]
[Wasn't Mei supposed to be the hot-blooded manga protagonist?]
[And fuck you, Cocolia!]
[Mei, you don't want to waste time on a piece of shit like that, but I do! I want to kill her whole family!]
[...]
[And fuck you, Cocolia!!]
It didn't last long.
It wasn't that Jiang Cheng didn't want to sink deeper into this tender embrace. There were still important things to do—
Cocolia.
He really wanted to kill her right then and there.
But first, he pulled away from the warmth in his arms and let go of the girl.
"...?"
The girl tilted her head in confusion.
"Raiden Mei, you don't need to worry anymore." Jiang Cheng's voice rang out clearly, each word spoken with care.
"—Begin Herrscherization!"
The moment his words fell, her deep-purple eyes flew wide.
At first, she didn't seem to understand what Jiang Cheng meant. Perhaps she had endured for so long that, when she finally relaxed, she couldn't process what was happening.
But in the next instant, her body began to move on its own. Like a magical girl driven to the brink of corruption, her body obeyed more readily than her mind. At the very first command, it began to unleash its power without needing anyone to guide it.
Her body began to open up. For the first time, no shocking threads of blood seeped between her fingers. Instead—
Thunder.
Thunder in the literal sense: lightning and rumbling thunder made visible in fully material form.
It was something that should have existed only high in the heavens—not ordinary electricity, but genuine thunderbolts, now driven across the ground by mortal hands.
No.
She was no longer mortal.
In those eyes, vast as the boundless heavens, the caged bird that had been repressed for so long finally spread its wings.
At last, she didn't have to endure anymore?
------Third Honkai------
------Descends Here------
[Raiden Mei has completed Herrscherization.]
[Evaluating.]
[Humanity anchor level: High]
[Evaluation passed.]
[Issuing reward——]
[Insufficient energy. Reward issuance failed.]
The voice in Jiang Cheng's ear was all but ignored at that moment. Whatever the exact number of rewards, none could compare to the sight before his eyes—
—the Great Honkai.
At first, all he could feel was endless light and heat. The extreme temperature seemed capable of setting the whole world ablaze, while the blinding brightness threatened to tear his retinas apart.
It wasn't the Herrscher of Flame.
The authority itself had neither light nor fire.
But the devastation unleashed by the Great Honkai, its terrifying power to scour the Earth clean, could already take the place of most light and heat, as if...
A second sun had risen.
37. Your first kiss belongs to me, Raiden Mei!
Cocolia witnessed the unmistakable sight of an apocalyptic disaster—
The shock wave that erupted in an instant was no weaker than any typhoon or tornado. It might even have surpassed them.
The sheer volume of thunder, and the scorched stench from the air burning, surpassed any naturally occurring fire.
Even a Tsar Bomba would pale in comparison.
The most insane preparations that country had made in the last century, and the upheaval they had caused, were nothing beside what lay before her.
The fruits of reforestation—the trees that could have formed a sea of forest—were ripped out by their roots. Mountains were flattened in an instant. The high concentration of Honkai Energy killed everything in the land: not only visible, observable life, but also creatures buried deep underground and those high in the sky.
Only when the first wave of Honkai, powerful enough to tear apart several major cities and devastate the entire country, had finally ended—
when the enormous mushroom cloud, which had erupted with a thunderous boom, and the endless gale finally began to subside—
could she truly see—
a boundary that no human could ever reach.
Endless, oppressive clouds seemed poised to engulf the entire world. Layer upon layer of leaden black hung overhead like a rotting shroud.
It was a scene reborn from myth, something that should have existed only in human imagination, conjured by letting the bird called imagination fly freely without restraint.
But if anyone could truly witness this sight, their gaze would never be drawn by the terrifying natural disaster.
For as mythical as it was, as far beyond reality as it seemed, it was still nothing compared to the [myth] standing before them.
A girl.
A girl high above in the heavens.
Calling her a girl now would be blasphemous, even if she looked like one from every angle.
Her figure was graceful, her skin pale.
It was the natural ivory-white of her skin, the light and shadows seeming to favor her, reflecting a beauty as cold as a glacier.
As if she knew nothing of the human world.
Her figure was slender in just the right way, her full, rounded thighs covered in black stockings that shimmered with purple light.
Her thick, smooth purple hair, like strands of seaweed, now billowed freely. Her long neck gleamed softly like a pearl beneath the faint light, almost dazzling.
Her long, curled lashes framed deep-purple eyes as vast as the stars and filled with the thunder of the heavens.
A breathtaking face, a regal bearing beyond question, and—
—the girl's lips, soundlessly curved downward.
"Hahahaha—"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Even if a pig sat high in the heavens, people would worship it as a god. What more when endless lightning coiled around her, as if it were an extension of her limbs?
Her torn uniform transformed at once. It retained its original style, but no one could possibly call that dazzling short skirt a school uniform.
It would be more fitting to call it the imperial crown of a heavenly empress, too dazzling to look upon. The God of Thunderous Martial Might might be the real thing after all.
At least, they wielded the same thing—
—thunder.
Countless thunderbolts flashed around her.
She flaunted her own power without restraint, a dominion that could only be called the enemy of civilization.
The terrifying mass extinction that would normally take millions, even hundreds of millions of years to unfold, was now like a cheap toy in those slender, pale fingertips—a ball of yarn that could be kneaded at will. With each casual wave, an earth-shattering mass extinction played out with ease.
Though only a wisp of hair fell from her beautiful, graceful, arrogant brow, it seemed to represent the collapse of the entire sky.
There was no daylight, no brightness—only the occasional flash of thunder illuminating her cold, snowy skin, making her...
incomparably beautiful.
"This is the complete me, the complete Raiden Mei!"
"As Cheng-kun said, this really is an incredibly powerful force—the unrestrained power of a demon king, worthy of a protagonist."
"If I'd shown even a tenth of it, I probably wouldn't have been in such a sorry state earlier. Still... 'I' would never, ever regret it."
Her gaze shifted, coldly looking down at Cocolia, who had once looked down on her but was now in a wretched state.
Then,
the being known as [Raiden Mei], as mighty as a heavenly god, lightly lowered a fingertip.
The sky shattered.
Everything within sight was utterly destroyed. Nothing could maintain its form. Endless lightning wove together again and again into a passageway, becoming a machine that ground the heavens and earth to pieces.
It was as if every color in the world had been stripped away in an instant except for purple, black, and red. Even white lightning couldn't linger here for a moment before being swallowed by its kin.
With a casual gesture, she unleashed Honkai Energy exceeding several thousand units—power enough to make humanity tremble, yet as docile as an extension of her limbs.
Even through the screen, the sheer might of it could be clearly felt.
No.
The terrifying power that tore apart the heavens and earth could be felt with perfect clarity. The distance between them couldn't conceal it at all.
An excessive amount of Honkai Energy.
Before you continue