"Sirin..."
"..."
"..."
All strength drained from her movements. Even her breathing, speech, and ability to think were abruptly ripped from Kiana's body. Her mind had gone completely blank, leaving only the blood-covered girl in her field of vision.
The red eyes corroded by Honkai gradually returned to purple, still as pure as flawless gems. But now they had completely dimmed, with no light left in them.
"Cough..." Her pierced chest could no longer supply oxygen. Griseo, standing on the ground, coughed up a mouthful of blood. Her pale purple eyes could no longer see anything; only pure darkness enveloped her.
"Griseo! Griseo!" Kiana shouted with all her strength, but her collapsing body could only produce a faint sound, just like Griseo when she had tried to call out to that zombie.
She finally understood. Griseo had not wanted to kill the zombie that had once been Su Jue's mother. She had merely recognized that woman. She had wanted to call out to her, to embrace her, and she...
What did I do?
Her body felt so heavy. Her consciousness felt so heavy.
Her whole body fell to the ground, and Kiana crawled forward with every ounce of strength she had. The Spears of the Void lost their power supply and vanished completely. Griseo, who had been supported by the spears, lost all strength as well. Her spurting blood gradually formed a pool, and under the cold evening wind, she fell toward the ground.
At last, Kiana caught her.
The Honkai Energy that had supported Griseo had completely turned into poison that would kill her, rapidly eroding her life.
"Don't die... Don't die!"
The body in her arms gradually lost its warmth. Kiana prayed in despair, but no god answered her.
Dense stitches and cuts covered her body, yet because she was being held by someone she knew, Griseo still smiled.
"Sirin, it hurts so much..."
"Sirin, have you come to take me away?"
In an instant, all her memories surged forth. This was no longer Sky City, but that Tower of Babylon filled with bloodshed and sin.
A girl named Bella had died in her arms in exactly the same way.
Kiana... Sirin...
This was a fate neither of you could escape...
"What color are the stars?" Griseo looked at the sky, her purple eyes devoid of even the slightest light.
Kiana, kneeling on the ground, raised her head. Thick clouds covered the night sky today, leaving no starlight at all.
"They're colorful. The stars are colorful, like a painting, like brilliant paint scattered across the whole sky."
"So beautiful..." The girl's voice gradually faded away.
The child in her arms completely stopped breathing and simply fell into a deep sleep.
"Good night, Griseo. Good night."
The Herrscher of Void Descends Once More
At Schicksal headquarters, Otto, who had been handling official business, froze mid-motion and abruptly looked up. Surprise flashed in his emerald-green eyes. The next second, alarms from the monitoring department sounded at the same time.
"An excessive Honkai Energy reaction has been detected within Shenzhou. The initial Honkai response has already exceeded 1,000 HW!"
"Global positioning in progress. The Honkai outbreak zone has been locked on. The location of this outbreak is—Sky City."
"Sky City? At last, has the Herrscher of Void appeared again?"
He immediately pushed aside all miscellaneous matters and shifted all work toward the monitoring division. Yet before he could rejoice for long, the news from the monitoring team made him frown again.
"The energy eruption is weakening. The energy level is dropping. Current intensity has fallen below 500 HW."
"Impossible. A Herrscher-level eruption could never be this weak, especially not the Herrscher of Void. Unless... someone suppressed her."
Otto felt somewhat irritated. To obtain the Herrscher of Void's power, he had spent more than a decade reviving her at all costs. Yet when he had finally succeeded a few months ago, several people from St. Freya had ruined everything, and the Herrscher of Void's whereabouts had become unknown. He had finally received news half a month ago that Kiana was in Sky City and specifically dispatched Rita to search for her. Yet a dignified Schicksal S-Rank Valkyrie had been defeated by a mysterious person and returned in disgrace.
Not only had she failed to find the Herrscher of Void, she had not even brought back those traitors from St. Freya. Even the electronic prosthetic eye he had finally obtained from World Serpent had been taken away.
The consecutive setbacks in Sky City forced Otto to shift his focus temporarily and place the main force of the operation on the Gem of Desire. Yet not long after this operation began, another Herrscher-level Honkai outbreak had erupted in Sky City.
It was practically as though someone were deliberately pulling at his attention.
Of course, he still had his strongest trump card: Durandal. As Schicksal's strongest Valkyrie, there was basically no mission she could not handle. But she was currently occupied with another mission and could not spare the time to deal with Sky City.
With a helpless sigh, Otto could only contact Rita again.
"It has been confirmed that the Herrscher of Void is in Sky City. You... take your Immortal Blade Squad there to investigate. No matter the cost, bring her back to me."
"..." After a moment of silence, the maid nodded. "Understood, Bishop."
The communication ended. Rita looked at the scar left on her hand after the previous battle, her gaze flickering as she wondered about something.
A few minutes earlier, Sky City.
The Honkai incident that had erupted from Shencheng Technology had begun spreading outward. Great numbers of zombies poured out like a tide, advancing toward the nearby residential districts.
The sea of dark corpses continued moving, yet all of them instinctively avoided the girl kneeling on the ground, forming a blank area around her.
The zombie that had once been Su Jue's mother soon followed the corpse tide away. Only Kiana remained slumped where she was, still holding Griseo, whose vital signs had disappeared, in her arms. She did not move or make a sound. She was like a corpse that had lost consciousness, like a statue with no sensation at all.
"Stupid experiment. Even now, you are still running away. The hope you sought for so long was right before your eyes, yet you destroyed it with your own hands. You do not even dare admit that you killed her yourself."
"Your hatred, your sorrow, and your pain all came from your own choices."
Rarely, Sirin did not speak with any arrogance. Instead, she spoke calmly, like a friend, patiently laying out the reality Kiana refused to accept.
"..." There was no response, but Sirin could clearly feel Kiana's consciousness space gradually collapsing. The walls sealing away the Herrscher of Void's consciousness were easily torn apart piece by piece like old yellowed newspapers.
Sirin felt no joy, because she had experienced the same grief once before. Kiana now was exactly like Sirin had been at the Tower of Babylon. Both had suffered cruel, inhuman experiments. Both had been helpless, able only to watch their most important friend die in their arms.
Griseo's final words had pierced not only Kiana, but also the Second Herrscher named Sirin.
"Do you still not understand? Human evil is far more terrifying than any Herrscher. Every tragedy is born from humanity's own rotten nature."
"Have you forgotten what Otto did to you? Do you not know why those zombies came into being? Do you not know why that girl died?"
"Stop lying to yourself, Kiana."
"Humans are the greatest mistake in this world."
"Give me your body. Let us take revenge on this filthy world together. No one will ever take our friends away again, and we will never have to watch helplessly as tragedy unfolds."
The girl sat there in silence, but the defenses in her heart had completely collapsed.
She had watched her mother become a zombie with her own eyes, and she had personally killed the girl who loved the stars. She no longer had the courage to face it all...
"Fine." Wrapping herself in darkness and drowning herself in despair, Kiana gradually relinquished control of her body, feeling the Herrscher of Void's power replace her.
Like someone on the verge of death, she forced her eyes open with all her strength, wanting to take one final look at this world.
"Goodbye."
Her vision gradually blurred... Yet in the instant before darkness descended, she saw a gray-haired boy climb over the rubble and struggle toward her.
"Su Jue!" Kiana's eyes widened. The sealing away of her self-consciousness meant that the Herrscher of Void was about to awaken and begin a massacre. But she had already abandoned her body. Even if her soul screamed itself hoarse, her body could not make a sound. She could only watch that boy draw nearer and nearer. "Run!"
Darkness filled her vision, and her consciousness began to sleep. She could no longer change anything.
What could be more despairing than giving up in the final second before grasping hope?
As Kiana's consciousness was completely replaced, Sirin's Herrscher personality took over her body. Thus, the Herrscher of Void descended upon this world once more.
The Herrscher's Honkai Energy surged past 1,000 HW in an instant. The surrounding Honkai Beasts, zombies, and buildings were reduced to dust in a single moment. Even the air could not escape; it was completely pierced by the violent energy, forming an unstoppable storm.
Su Jue stood atop the ruins, his short gray hair whipping in the hurricane, like a madman following the storm as he shouted amid destruction.
"Kiana, I told you that this time, I would not be swayed by emotions again."
HSN-B46
"I said that one day, I would make this world feel pain. And now, my return will bring judgment upon everyone."
Cross-shaped stars flickered in her golden eyes. Her silver-white hair fell to her waist, the tail feathers around her reappeared, and wings of light symbolizing Herrscher authority gradually gathered.
The heavy clouds that had obscured the stars were completely scattered by the erupting Honkai Energy, leaving behind a massive hole. A golden beam shot straight into the heavens, proclaiming to the entire world that the Queen had descended.
In an instant, every major organization responsible for monitoring Honkai Energy around the world received the signal. Schicksal naturally dispatched Rita again, while Anti-Entropy had its attention focused on Sea Abyss City and could not pull away due to the influence of the Sea of Quantum.
As for the local World Serpent members, Xiola, still badly injured, had her eyes light up. Though she herself was within the Herrscher of Void's range of influence, she kept speaking to Raven beside her. "I never expected the Herrscher of Void to really be here. Raven, go capture her for me."
Xiola naturally ignored the madwoman. Her crimson eyes stared at the center of the energy eruption. As the person who hated the Herrscher of Void most, she was less than two kilometers away from the Herrscher, yet she found it difficult to take even a single step.
It was not because she was afraid. Images of children flashed through Raven's mind, and their affectionate voices calling her teacher echoed in her ears.
"If I die here, what will happen to them?"
Fortunately, the two World Serpent members were underground, shielded from most of the Honkai Energy. But the others within range found it difficult to resist the Herrscher of Void's power. As the Honkai Energy continued to rise, the Queen's Honkai Beasts appeared from the void one after another and began attacking the human city.
Far to the north, an equally intense Honkai Energy reaction appeared. The Judgment-class Honkai Beast slumbering there—Benares—finally awakened.
The first thing it did upon awakening was look toward Shenzhou. After more than three months, its heavily injured body finally sensed the Queen's power again. As Sirin's most loyal servant, Benares existed to protect her. It was this conviction that had sustained it as it waited for the Queen's arrival, offering the rest of its life in loyalty to her.
With difficulty, Benares flapped its wings and flew toward Sky City.
Yet at the very center of this Herrscher of Void eruption, the situation was completely different from what everyone had expected. Sirin, who had awakened once more, did not immediately begin slaughtering. Instead, she looked in slight confusion at the gray-haired boy standing before her, completely unaffected by her Honkai Energy corruption.
"Damned human, it's you again!"
"Good evening, Herrscher of Void. It has been half a month since we last met, hasn't it?" For some reason, Su Jue's calm expression looked especially punchable in Sirin's eyes. "Oh, I almost forgot. You have been locked in Kiana's consciousness space all this time, so you probably cannot even tell the time."
That immediately struck Sirin's sore spot. As the Herrscher of Void, she had actually been trapped by a little girl, and the culprit behind all of it was the guy in front of her.
"You deserve to die!"
The Herrscher of Void, who should have been overflowing with dignity, found it difficult to control her emotions. She raised her hand, and a great number of Spears of the Void shot toward Su Jue. In the blink of an eye, they pierced through and blanketed his position in dense firepower, leaving him no hope of survival.
Silence fell. Su Jue's voice did not sound again.
"No matter how arrogant you are, you are still only an insect. Instead of running, you tried to provoke me. Were you trying to awaken that girl?"
Seeing Su Jue die so easily, Sirin instead felt bored. The irritation in her heart did not diminish at all; it only felt worse, as if she had punched cotton.
"No matter what, no one can escape the Queen's judgment."
"Her Majesty is absolutely right."
The next second, however, a girl's voice suddenly rang out, less than half a meter away from her. At such close range, even a Herrscher could not react in time. Sirin's eyes widened, and shock appeared on her face.
At the spot where Kiana had handed over her body, the girl who should have long since died tightly embraced her. Then a sharp pain pierced her body as a syringe filled with medication stabbed into her.
The Herrscher of Void was extremely familiar with this medication—familiar enough to hate it. That woman wielding a flaming greatsword had used this very medication to strip away her power, reducing her to her current state.
"No!"
A Spear of the Void immediately appeared in her hand and pierced through Griseo's body. She then reached for the syringe. But her action had barely begun when transparent threads from nowhere wrapped around her arm. In that instant of interruption, Griseo, already pierced through, pushed the remaining medication into her body.
HSN-B46
This was the medication Su Jue had specifically traded from Jackal when he handed Griseo over to her. It was a special suppressant developed by Schicksal. Combined with Schariac Holy Blood, it could become the Godslayer's Spear. Three months ago, during Himeko's battle against the Herrscher of Void, this medication had weakened Sirin's power and awakened Kiana's consciousness.
Just a tiny amount could make a Valkyrie lose her combat ability. The genius Jackal had even modified it into a gas that could be used without injection. Of course, Su Jue's syringe contained completely undiluted medication.
The Herrscher of Void had only just awakened, and her energy level was merely 1,000 HW. Under the effects of this syringe, her power rapidly began to decline. Griseo, who had been killed by her desperate counterattack, had naturally sustained severe damage as well. She likely would not be usable for quite some time.
Su Jue had prepared for this long ago and did not give her any more room to struggle. From the moment Kiana lost consciousness, the Herrscher of Domination's authority had been quietly stealing the Herrscher of Void's energy. Deliberately angering Sirin until she killed him had been to seize the opening created by that momentary emotional fluctuation and allow Griseo to launch a successful sneak attack.
No matter what, Su Jue had personally brought about the awakening of the Herrscher of Void. Naturally, he had also prepared to put her back to sleep.
"..."
Under the dual effects of the medication and domination, the energy response around Sirin weakened, and her consciousness was inevitably dragged back into the consciousness space once more.
"Good night." The Spears of the Void collapsed, and the completely unharmed Su Jue slowly emerged from within them.
Seeing the boy who should have been dead appear before her once more, Sirin failed to catch her breath and completely fainted.
Su Jue hurried forward and caught Kiana's falling body. Holding her in his arms, he looked at the exhausted girl sleeping peacefully and sighed.
Then he placed his hand on her chest.
Magical Girl Kiana
Before you continue