Honkai Double Traverse, Bringing Cyrene to Honkai Impact 3rd

If there was anything special about it, it was probably the sight that seemed to faintly appear before his eyes—

—a dream.

Everything within sight had been replaced by a dusky yellow.

The barren wasteland stretched endlessly beneath his feet, and the howling wind tore at the cracked earth again and again like invisible blades.

The land was utterly dead.

Reduced to steel—hard, cold, and rejecting all life.

Jiang Cheng tried to make his body move forward, but no matter how long he walked, all he saw was desolation. Only after half a day did the ruins of a village come faintly into view. Charred beams jutted from the ground at an angle, like broken ribs. The outlines of old fields were still faintly visible. The furrows remained, but every crop had long since withered away.

No—even weeds had no room to grow.

All things in the world had turned a withered yellow.

Farther away, he could make out churning, boiling blackness, spreading outward like a tide.

He raised his head.

High above, the boundless sky was utterly black. The darkness covered half the heavens, as if some colossal beast had opened its maw and was swallowing the sky bit by bit.

On the other half, the sun hung in the sky, but it looked even more aged than it did from the ground—dim, drained, like a candle flame on the verge of going out.

...Aedes Elysiae?

The thought came to him instinctively in his sleep.

In a haze, a person had neither clear thoughts nor the ability to respond. All they could do was make the roughest judgments by instinct.

But even so—Jiang Cheng unhesitatingly rejected his guess the very next moment.

It wasn't because any detail seemed different from Aedes Elysiae—not even the endless blackness spreading in the distance, which seemed much like the unmatched Black Tide in his memories.

"Black tides surged from the horizon, swallowing fields and drowning roads, even staining the sky an ominous color."

But—

The Black Tide was nowhere near this terrifying.

Jiang Cheng studied the distance more intently. The oncoming blackness spread and expanded with every passing moment.

But he could tell that there was absolutely no life here for it to consume. The black tide wasn't expanding because it had infected living things. It kept expanding even when there was nothing at all.

Perhaps everyone had imagined something like this as a child: when a snowball rolled down a mountain, it gathered the snow in its path and grew larger and larger. So if you put a snowball on a sufficiently large snowy mountain, as its size increased exponentially, the amount it grew every second would also increase exponentially.

And now—

Fantasy had stepped into reality.

The divide between truth and falsehood had never been so fragile.

And that terrifying, spreading blackness still possessed the same power of Erosion as the Black Tide—or something even more complete.

A vague perception from the Hunt told Jiang Cheng that if he fell into it, he would be corrupted into the same thing.

"Terrifying... What on earth is that?" Jiang Cheng could barely comprehend what he was feeling.

If it was a river, then surely it was a flood far swifter than the Yellow River. Anything that fell into it wouldn't even have a moment to struggle. No matter how low they bowed their heads, all they could see was an endless, uniform blackness.

Spreading.

Spreading.

The black flood drew closer, closer, closer—

It was only when it came so near that he could almost make out the structure of the water that Jiang Cheng finally saw the truth behind the darkness.

"—Bugs!"

A flood of biomass, with countless bugs in place of every drop of water and countless bugs in place of every wave!

The numbers were impossible to comprehend!

The distortion was impossible to comprehend!

Just like the noise of their beating wings—"Bzzzzzzzzzzzz—"

It filled every space his hearing could perceive!

This indescribable distortion was so vivid that no mere dream could explain it!

If anything, Jiang Cheng was now being roused to a degree of consciousness. He began to wonder—

"Why haven't I woken up yet?!"

P.S.

Suppose Jiang Cheng kept asking:

"Wouldn't it be noticed?"

[The system has an Origin-level air straw that can suck the Chaos Sea dry in one second. Although it can't extract Pangu's blood essence, extracting Imaginary Energy with the host's permissions is absolutely safe.]

The above is just a joke and has nothing to do with the worldbuilding.

Breakfast-Time Battle Royale (Please Vote)

Compared to the scene before them, every natural disaster in the world seemed insignificant.

Tornadoes, sandstorms, typhoons, thunderstorms, tsunamis, earthquakes—even gamma-ray bursts and supernova explosions...

The terrifying terms of the past seemed so feeble, so childish, in this moment.

This place was...

—real. True. Hell!

Move!

Move, damn it!

He struggled with all his might, forcing his body to move—trying to turn around at once, to get away, to run!

No matter how pathetic he looked!

—He couldn't.

No matter how desperately he ran forward, he couldn't outrun the oncoming Swarm, just as no human could ever outrun a raging flood on foot.

"----!"

The Black Tide fully revealed its true form. A grotesque hive, so revolting it beggared belief, swept toward him.

It was like hundreds or thousands of flies burrowing into his collar at once. They squirmed across his skin, laid eggs, and hatched. A clammy, cold sensation, reeking of the sickly sweetness of rotting fruit, crept from his cervical spine all the way across his back.

Tens of thousands of furry legs writhed densely across his skin. They crawled up his spine, scattered into his hair, and crept into his ears—

—!!!

It felt like cockroaches.

He even suspected that an entire nest of them was rampaging inside his body. Those hideous, many-legged creatures were now nesting, gnawing, and mating in the deepest reaches of his stomach.

Disgusting!

Disgusting!

Jiang Cheng didn't know whether this feeling was real or if he was still dreaming, but he could vaguely feel their jointed legs scraping against his stomach lining! He could hear the tiny sounds of them chewing on undigested food! He could smell the stench of gastric acid and insect slime rising from his esophagus!

At that moment, every inch of his body was distorting.

This wasn't a figure of speech. His body was literally twisting, visibly so.

—Die!

—All of you, die!

—You lowly creatures! Disgusting creatures! Filthy creatures!!!

At the very moment the uncontrollable revulsion swallowed his mind, Jiang Cheng's heart began beating with a heat he'd never felt before, as if boundless flames were about to consume him completely.

His "self" was severed. In its place came—the unmatched, boundless power of his Path!

First, he slammed a fist into his chest and abdomen.

He threw everything he had into it, heedless of his own body.

His fist struck his skin, and the terrifying impact wiped out every one of the twisted, revolting bugs inside him.

"Crack, crack, crack—!"

The sounds of bones or shells breaking went completely ignored.

He kept punching his stomach, beating those things to death. Pain didn't exist!

Jiang Cheng immediately raised his head and looked toward the hive. Uncontrollable fury clenched his fists. It was as if flames had turned to liquid inside his body. An impossibly scorching substance replaced his blood, flowing through his veins and into every part of him. Terrifying power gathered in his fist, until—

He turned, planted his foot, twisted his waist, swung his arm, and punched!

One blow tore through the Swarm directly in front of him. Every bug in the attack's path was smashed to pieces, and he blasted a nearly thousand-meter-wide gap through the black tide!

But the next instant, it was filled in.

It really was as endless as the tide. Even if he split the entire ocean apart, the flood on both sides would fill the gap again in an instant.

The Swarm's numbers multiplied even more frantically.

"Bzzzzzzzzzzzz—"

Jiang Cheng threw another punch. Black slime, as foul as rotting fruit, enveloped his entire arm, seeming alive as it tried to burrow into his flesh.

Without hesitation, he ignited flames inside his own body, letting a raging fire consume every tissue! He vaporized every trace of blackness!

A bug was biting him with its sharp mouthparts?

"—Die!"

Jiang Cheng swung backhanded, smashing its head to pulp before the flames burning inside him could incinerate it.

Its indescribable innards were swallowed by the flames.

Not a trace remained.

As the Swarm spread, he plunged into it like a madman, swinging his fists wildly and without technique, turning every part of his body into a weapon. Every attack had only one purpose—

Kill bugs!

He stomped on shells, wrenched off heads, and snapped horns.

He did anything that could kill bugs, driving his power without regard for the cost as he slaughtered them madly.

Kill! Kill! Kill!

He killed to stay alive!

He killed to fill the fury in his heart!

But soon, even larger, more deformed, more monstrous bugs surged in, replacing the weaker ones and completely engulfing him.

"Bang—!"

Jiang Cheng punched again, but it was like hitting a thick sandbag. He couldn't cause any damage at all, and his own knuckles nearly shattered.

Meanwhile, every attack from the enemy could easily inflict severe injuries on him. His flesh was torn apart, his skin pierced, and the black fluid seeped into his body through his wounds once more. Even the flames were useless against it. It simply kept spreading and swelling, as if taking root in his cells, dividing and twisting until it transformed him into something even more revolting.

—Then explode!

Jiang Cheng extracted every bit of energy from his body without regard for the cost, using flames to burn every cell in his body.

Even if it burned him to ashes.

He could never accept the fate of being swallowed and devoured by the Swarm!

He destroyed himself like a bomb. Even an old lady could lift a truck if she tried hard enough.

Burn!

Jiang Cheng gave himself the order.

In the next instant, indescribable energy erupted with a near-suicidal force, surging forth. After a brief windup, his clenched fist shot forward like a cannon.