Honkai's Thousand Laws: Abducting Kiana at the Start
Author: About to Break Down
Synopsis:
Su Jue, cursed by the world's malice, finally decided to turn evil—only to be targeted by Honkai and chosen as the first host of the Herrscher of a Thousand.
At the thought of sharing one brain with 999 rabble and being brutally killed alongside them by Flamescion, Su Jue was overcome with grief and fled overnight with the Theater of Domination on his back.
Fortunately, he discovered a loophole in the Honkai Will in time. Seizing the chance, Su Jue became the Herrscher of Domination and stole the hive mind. Not only did he gain sole possession of the Authority of Domination, but he could also control 999 puppets.
Faced with such an opportunity, Su Jue decided to become a true villain and bring the entire world into his Theater of Domination.
But when he deceived the masses and plunged the world into eternal darkness, the girl whose flame was about to go out reached out to him and entrusted him with the last spark.
Su Jue: Do you think I'd go soft? Impossible.
Kiana: Go to bed early. We still have to chop down Finality tomorrow.
Su Jue: I'm rational. I'm a Herrscher. I will never be swayed by emotions.
Kiana: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. But could you stop stealing my blanket?
Su Jue: ...
Something had definitely gone wrong somewhere.
(Single female lead: Kiana)
Side Story
: The World After the Herrscher of a Thousand, Part 1
A biting cold wind swept across the gray sky, carrying drifting snowflakes from afar. Two snowflakes that had never met collided by chance in the belated snowstorm, embracing as they came to rest on the boy's nose.
"Winter had arrived before I knew it."
A faint sigh wound around the snow-clad buildings before the cold wind carried it into the distance. Su Jue walked along the bluestone-paved sidewalk and reached out to catch a snowflake falling from the sky.
Wrapped in accumulated snow, the world seemed to have draped itself in a thick down quilt, peacefully waiting for the arrival of spring next year.
Hurrying office workers stepped through the snow, their shoes crunching beneath them.
Young men and women walked hand in hand, laughing as they passed Su Jue.
Children freshly released for winter break gathered in twos and threes, building a round, chubby snowman on the snow-covered lawn.
"We're almost done making super-duper unbelievably adorable Kiana!" the children said excitedly as they carefully packed snow onto the snowman.
Su Jue stopped and studied the crude snowman carefully before saying with a smile, "If Kiana found out that children saw her as this fat, she'd probably be depressed for quite a while."
Seeing their snowman criticized, the little boy immediately flushed red and loudly retorted, "Y-you're talking nonsense! The snowman we made isn't fat at all."
Unfortunately, his words were hardly convincing. A proper snowman should have a head, torso, and base, but this one stood in the snow like a giant ball. Random branches had been carelessly stuck into the snowball, and if the children had not said anything, even Sherlock Holmes would not have found a single trace connecting it to Kiana.
Noticing Su Jue's amused expression, the little boy's face reddened. Even he could not bear to look at it anymore. Fortunately, one of his companions stepped forward and shouted at Su Jue, "Kiana is a hero who saved the world! You don't understand her at all! Even if we didn't make her pretty, she's still the cutest in the world!"
"Exactly, exactly! Saying Kiana is fat means you must be a terrible bad guy just like the Herrscher of a Thousand!"
Seeing the children unite against him, Su Jue did not mind. Instead, he said with interest, "How about I help you make one?"
"Hmph, then make one! Even if you're a little older than us, there's no way you can make one better-looking than ours!"
"That's hard to say."
A few minutes later, a couple happened to pass by. The young man had been talking to his girlfriend, but when he turned to look at the lawn, an exquisitely perfect young girl immediately caught his attention.
What a beautiful girl. The young man's eyes lit up, feeling as though the goddess of fortune had favored him today and allowed him to see such a beautiful sight.
He stared for a full half minute before remembering his girlfriend was still beside him, and he hurriedly prepared to explain himself apologetically. But when he turned around, he discovered that his girlfriend was staring in that direction with even greater astonishment.
"What an incredible statue."
"A statue?" the young man asked in confusion. When he looked at the girl again, he realized that she had actually been sculpted from snow.
This time, he could no longer suppress his shock. If the snow sculpture had not been completely white, its delicate expression and flowing hair would have made it nearly indistinguishable from a real person.
The stunned couple exchanged a glance, then took out their phones in unison to snap photos and post them to their social feeds, spreading this unusual sight.
Within mere minutes, the same scene kept repeating. Nearly everyone who passed by could not help stopping to admire the exquisite work.
"It's Kiana! Is this a miracle from the magical girl?"
"It was probably made by some rabid fan. To capture the details so meticulously, they must have imagined Kiana's appearance day and night."
More and more people gathered, completely blocking the sidewalk.
Su Jue adjusted his scarf and quietly disappeared into the crowd.
As the Herrscher of a Thousand, making a snowman was naturally no challenge. Showing off in front of children, however, was truly beneath a Herrscher's dignity.
"Official confirmation: the Herrscher of a Thousand has been successfully defeated, and social order is being restored."
The sound of a news broadcast came from the large screen by the street. Su Jue raised his head and watched the news program playing on the screen.
"The Herrscher of a Thousand..."
As the Honkai incident with the widest impact, the social unrest caused by the Herrscher of a Thousand had once plunged the entire world into a crisis of trust. Everyone feared that disaster would strike close to home.
Fortunately, at the critical moment, Kiana stepped forward and exhausted every ounce of strength to eliminate the enemy, saving the world from the brink of collapse.
The residents of Sky City in particular could talk for hours if outsiders asked them about it. Even children only a few years old would excitedly pull out their treasured comic books to show off whenever they spoke of the magical girl defeating the evil Herrscher of a Thousand.
Even though they did not even know what a Herrscher was.
A full week had passed since the Herrscher of a Thousand incident. Both Schicksal and Anti-Entropy had tacitly begun recuperating after the great catastrophe. After all, no one dared to say whether humanity would still have any hope of defeating Honkai if the next Herrscher to descend proved as troublesome as this one.
As the instigator of the event, Su Jue knew nothing of humanity's fear toward him. He had merely created a play called the Thousand for that girl.
Using the world as a stage, he had offered her one final farewell.
As for everyone else, they were nothing more than dispensable spectators to him.
"Come to think of it, hadn't I said something like a final farewell before too?"
Su Jue suddenly fell silent.
As he carefully recalled everything he had experienced, Su Jue felt like an old general on an opera stage, covered in death flags. Whenever he resolved to sever ties with his past, all kinds of circumstances always made him break that promise.
"No matter what, I'm the Herrscher of a Thousand. The Thousand's stage has already come to an end, so my story naturally ends here as well. You'll have to walk the rest of the road yourself, Kiana."
As he walked down the street, he silently transformed into a snowflake and drifted into the distant sky with the winter wind.
Yet neither the pedestrians walking beside him nor even the vending robot that had just greeted him noticed that a living person had vanished right before their eyes.
The hive mind's development had already reached nearly 80%. As long as Su Jue wished it, all things could become vessels for his consciousness.
The snowflake Su Jue had become swirled through the sky before, by pure coincidence, landing on a windowsill.
The glass window was not fully shut, and snowflakes occasionally drifted through the gap into the room. Inside, a white-haired girl lay curled up quietly on the sofa.
: High-End Hunters Often Appear in the Form of Their Prey, Part 2
It was dusk, and with the snowy weather, the room was especially dim.
The air conditioner was not running. Bursts of cold wind slipped in through the improperly closed window, making the whole house feel particularly bleak and chilly.
"Sleeping with the window open in weather this cold—she really was worrying." Su Jue had originally only come to take one last look before returning to the Theater of Domination, but now his blood pressure was truly rising.
After some thought, he drifted in through the window, transformed back into his usual form, and casually shut it. Kiana seemed to be sleeping deeply and did not notice Su Jue's arrival at all.
Sneaking a glance at the girl on the sofa, Su Jue sighed. "She's a great hero who saved the world, yet she still sleeps on the sofa like a child. That Himeko—I sent Kiana back so she could take care of her. Who knew where she'd run off to now?"
As he muttered to himself, Su Jue finally realized that these matters no longer had anything to do with him. She and he were merely strangers.
He fell silent. The room became completely quiet, with only the girl's faint breathing echoing within it.
"That's enough. I should leave." With a sigh, he prepared to turn into a snowflake and drift away again. Before leaving, he instinctively glanced toward the girl on the sofa.
Kiana was still a rather restless sleeper. The small blanket covering her had slipped onto the floor when she turned over, and she wore only a thin set of pajamas, making her look far from comfortable.
"Cough, cough." Accompanied by faint coughs, Kiana's curled-up body unconsciously drew itself even tighter. Yet even so, she showed no signs of waking.
Su Jue frowned at the sight. Even if she was taking an afternoon nap, she should not have been sleeping this deeply.
He walked to the sofa and noticed that Kiana's brows were tightly furrowed. An unnatural flush covered her face, her body trembled uncontrollably, and she coughed from time to time.
"This idiot must have caught a cold from leaving the window open." Su Jue rubbed his forehead helplessly. He placed a hand against the girl's forehead and found that her temperature was indeed a little high. When he squeezed Kiana's hand, it felt icy cold.
Picking up the small blanket from the floor and covering the girl with it, Su Jue searched the room for the air conditioner remote. But no matter how many times he pressed it, nothing happened.
Was the air conditioner broken?
So that was why she had not turned it on. It had broken down?
Helpless, he could only return to Kiana's side. Rubbing his hands together, he drew upon the Honkai Energy within his body and raised his temperature.
He held Kiana's hand in his own and used the warmth of his palm to ease her chill, just as she had once done for him in Nagazora City.
Her body temperature was too low. If he heated her directly with Honkai Energy, she might only become more seriously ill.
He crouched quietly beside the girl, watching as her breathing finally calmed, and a smile appeared on his face.
Because he was so close, Su Jue's face was only a few inches from Kiana's. In the excessively quiet room, he suddenly realized that he had never observed her appearance so seriously before.
The girl's eyelashes were slender, trembling faintly with her breathing. Her jade-like nose wrinkled unconsciously from the cold. Her full, rounded pink lips glimmered softly even in the dim light, parting slightly as she breathed in small puffs.
Looking at the girl's flawless, delicate face, Su Jue had to admit that his heartbeat had quickened somewhat.
The only thing that displeased him was the tear stain at the corner of her eye.
She seemed to have cried.
He was upset that some bastard had dared to make the Queen of the Void suffer. This was the savior he had personally raised; no one was allowed to make her sad.
Murata Himeko must have been far too irresponsible. Was this how she had carried out the final task he had entrusted to her?
As he angrily fumed inwardly, he suddenly came back to his senses. The bastard who had made the girl cry was most likely himself.
Was he really that awful?
The guilt that suddenly rose within him made Su Jue blame himself, but he still shook those thoughts away. He had no path of retreat. Things had come this far; his departure was the best choice for everyone.
The two of them remained together in this strange way.
The spacious room was silent.
With Su Jue's warmth, the girl's hands and feet were no longer quite so cold. Judging by the light outside the window, a full hour seemed to have passed.
Now that Kiana's condition had improved, there was no reason for Su Jue to remain. He stood, rubbed his slightly numb legs, and prepared to release the hand intertwined with the girl's.
However, when he tried to pull his hand free, he suddenly discovered that he could not.
?
He tried again and found that not only had he failed, but his hand had been gripped even more tightly.
"Was she an unsettled sleeper?" Su Jue was somewhat puzzled. Kiana had not awakened, so she must have instinctively grabbed something beside her.
But that also meant she could wake at any moment. He could not stay here any longer.
Drawing on the Honkai Energy within his body, Su Jue prepared to forcefully break free. Yet the moment he stirred his power, it seemed to be absorbed, vanishing without a trace.
Before he could figure out what was happening, a powerful force suddenly yanked him down. Caught off guard, Su Jue crashed heavily onto the floor.
He had just tried to rise when his hand was forcibly pinned to the floor above his head.
"Wait." Su Jue had never experienced anything like this before. His eyes widened as they met a pair of softly glowing blue eyes.
"You lied to me again." Kiana's voice trembled with barely suppressed fury. Her gaze locked firmly onto Su Jue as if she wanted to see straight through him. "Weren't you dead? Why did you come back?!"
"Do you know how long I cried? Do you know how much pain I was in? You bastard."
She spoke angrily, her voice filled with countless grievances. Her entire body pressed directly against Su Jue, as though she feared he would escape again.
"No..."
"I don't want to hear your explanation. You were trying to sneak away again this time, weren't you? I'm not letting you go." Her cheeks, already flushed from her cold, grew even redder. It was impossible to tell whether it came from anger or some other emotion.
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