Going Back / Pressing Time ...

Now it is Kiana Time!

Narrowly dodging the grenades, she also used spatial portals to swallow up the machine-gun fire that followed closely behind.

Then the Spears of the Void flew out, piercing the mecha directly and triggering a chain explosion.

"Phew." Dodging the sneak attack, Kiana let out a sigh of relief and slowly dropped from the air.

However, what she failed to notice was that on a high tower three kilometers away, a cold smile tugged at Raven's lips.

Chapter 103: Going Back

White fingers gently squeezed the trigger, and surging Honkai Energy rapidly erupted, accelerating the bullet inside the sniper rifle to three kilometers per second in a split second.

The Seven Thunders of Retribution—a Divine Key crafted using the Third Herrscher's core—had transformed into an electromagnetic sniper rifle that made no sound, and in a sneak attack, almost no one could dodge it.

With the mecha acting as bait, the Herrscher of Void could definitely not dodge this sniper shot.

A fraction of a second later, the Herrscher of Void's head would burst into a spray of blood; at the thought of this, Raven's smile could no longer be contained.

"Kiana!" Just as the sniper shot was about to arrive, a familiar call suddenly rang in Kiana's ears.

Then came a flash of intense electricity, the amplified Valkyrie Armor allowing Mei to fully unleash the energy of an electromagnetic pulse.

Bang--

The sniper shot was deflected off-course by the erupted electromagnetic pulse, flying past almost grazing Kiana's face and blasting a deep pit into the concrete wall.

Only then did Kiana react; realizing someone was trying to snipe her, she acutely sensed that she had been targeted once again.

Lifting her hand slightly toward the direction the bullet came from, a circular spatial portal took shape. The next second, Raven's second bullet arrived, but it merely sank into the portal without stirring up the slightest ripple.

Seeing this scene through the scope, Raven let out an annoyed click of her tongue. A sneak attack when the target was completely unprepared was one thing; once the Herrscher of Void was on guard, any hope of assassination was completely gone. With no other choice, she had to abandon this opportunity, put away the Seven Thunders of Retribution, and leave quickly.

World Serpent's arrangements in Sky City were already fully complete, and their hidden forces had been completely exposed after this incident; next, they were bound to face a purge from Schicksal and Shenzhou.

Jackal had already left in advance, and Rita's Immortal Blade Squad was still searching everywhere for her whereabouts—staying here any longer held no meaning for Raven.

Hopefully, the Honkai Bomb could still be successfully detonated.

Having been ambushed, Kiana still maintained a state of vigilance. She could sense that the sense of crisis was gradually fading, and the enemy had given up the sniper attack.

The spatial portal dissipated. The moment she let out a sigh of relief, her body instantly froze in place.

The call she had just heard echoed in her mind. Kiana slowly turned around, and the next instant, she was tightly embraced by a soft body.

Mei... She had imagined countless scenarios of reuniting with her companions again, but none of them were as sudden as this. It clearly should have been a joyful reunion, yet Kiana felt somewhat dazed and at a loss right now.

Feeling the girl's embrace, Kiana's voice inexplicably carried a hint of panic. "Mei, why are you here... Th-This place is dangerous..."

Yet Mei only remained silent, holding Kiana tightly as if letting go would cause her to vanish into thin air.

"I caught up to you, Kiana. I made it. If I had been even a step later..." If she had been even half a second slower, Mei could only have watched helplessly as Kiana died under Raven's sniper fire; she couldn't bear to imagine such a scenario, nor did she want to think about it.

Right now, she could only hold this girl tightly, watching Kiana stay safely by her side and feeling her real existence.

"I almost lost you." Tears soaked the collar of Kiana's clothes. Mei pressed her chin against Kiana's shoulder, tears continuously streaming down her cheeks. "I can't let you be alone anymore. Come back with me, okay? Kiana, let's go back to the Hyperion together. Everyone is waiting for you."

"..."

Go back... During this period of wandering, such a thought had popped up in her mind countless times. But some things, once experienced, were like scars on a cheek; even if she forced a smile, it would only make the wounds more obvious.

After the incident with the Herrscher of Void, she had lost the courage to return to everyday life. What was more, she had committed even more wrongs by now, and she had fought with all her might to atone for these sins. If she left just like that, her soul would never have a place to belong.

"I'm sorry, Mei. I can't go back yet."

"Why? You should have come back to the Hyperion with me last time. What on earth are you afraid of?"

Kiana didn't speak. Past memories burned at her heart, making her instinctively want to escape. But whenever she wanted to give up, she would always think of that ray of light—the faint light illuminating a sheltered path for her amidst tens of thousands of darknesses.

She suddenly realized that what she was afraid of was probably not just lacking the courage to face her former friends anymore, but also being afraid of losing the boy who had lit that fire for her.

Her lips parted slightly, and Kiana wanted to say something, but Mei interrupted her.

"I understand. That man was right—you definitely won't be willing to go back right now." Mei released the arms holding Kiana and wiped her tears with her sleeve. Although the sorrow on her face had not yet dissipated, she didn't ask anything further.

* That man? *

A blank expression appeared on Kiana's face. Aside from Su Jue, she didn't think any other male would be that familiar with her. But when she wanted to press for answers, this time it was Mei who kept silent, which inexplicably made Kiana feel somewhat uneasy.

"Anyway, Sky City is experiencing a crisis right now. At least let's talk about other things after resolving this crisis." There was only a little over an hour left until the bomb's detonation time, yet she didn't even know where the bomb was right now; time was running out for Kiana.

"Let me be with you, Kiana." Mei hung her katana at her waist, faint arcs of electricity radiating from it driven by the Valkyrie Armor. "I've grown a lot. I will definitely catch up to your pace."

"Yeah."

After the two reunited, their operational efficiency improved drastically. Having eliminated the mecha forces World Serpent had deployed in the outer areas, Kiana finally obtained some rough information.

In order to cover the entire city, the Honkai Bomb would be placed at the highest point of the city. Kiana hadn't figured out what kind of place this highest point was for a moment, but instead, Mei blurted out the signal tower as the location.

"How do you know?" She hadn't figured out the city's layout even after wandering around this city for over a month, yet Mei, who had only been here twice, knew it so clearly.

"Uh, I guessed it." Actually, that wasn't the case; this information had been intentionally leaked to her by Su Jue. Of course, he hadn't directly told her that World Serpent was going to place a bomb at the signal tower, but rather casually mentioned that the highest point of this city was the signal tower, allowing her to deduce the location instantly by combining it with current information.

"I always feel like you're hiding something from me, Mei." Kiana looked somewhat suspiciously at her friend. The awkwardness from their initial meeting had already dissipated, and upon returning to their previous mode of interaction, Kiana easily spotted the unnaturalness in poor-at-lying Mei's speech.

"Just some trivial matters." Looking down at the katana in her hand, Mei didn't dare meet Kiana's eyes, because she had also promised someone else a condition, which meant some things couldn't be told to Kiana.

Chapter 104: Pressing Time

As time passed, darkness gradually encroached upon the entire city, and the night grew heavier still. Even the moon hid behind thick, heavy dark clouds, not daring to show its face.

Colorful neon lights began to flicker, scattering through the hazy mist into dreamlike blurs—dreamy and ethereal.

"What on earth are you trying to do?" Himeko's voice came from behind along with footsteps, the evening wind howling atop the high platform.

This was the central area of the city, and also its tallest building—the signal tower.

The terrifying Honkai Bomb emitted a faint blue light, hanging above Su Jue's head accompanied by a crisp countdown sound. Yet he didn't even lift an eyelid, merely overlooking the entire city.

No entity noticed how the two of them had appeared here; the World Serpent mecha forces lying in ambush hadn't even sensed a heat signature. Su Jue was like a ghost, silently hiding in the darkness to spy on this world.

Receiving no answer, Murata Himeko felt a stirring of unease in her heart. She hurried to Su Jue's side, wanting to continue questioning him. But what she met was a pair of already-illuminated golden eyes; the Herrscher wielding divine authority held neither sorrow nor joy.

The words at the tip of her tongue refused to come out. Himeko sighed and said in a low voice, "You know what will happen if this bomb explodes. So many people will die in this blast."

"Yet what does that have to do with me? I am a Herrscher; destroying humanity is what I should be doing in the first place." Su Jue's tone was flat. Millions of lives were merely a number to him. "Besides, aren't you well aware of whose creation this bomb is?"

"Humanity has always been a race obsessed with self-destruction."

Himeko's speech stalled. Of course she knew Su Jue had no obligation or stance requiring him to help people, but perhaps due to spending all these days with Su Jue, she had instinctively regarded Su Jue as a partner belonging to the human camp.

Although this boy kept saying he was an enemy of humanity, he had never truly done anything to destroy humanity. On the contrary, during recent investigations, Himeko had uncovered a mountain of evidence regarding World Serpent's human experiments.

Harboring a kind heart, Himeko naturally wanted to save this city, but without Su Jue's permission, she could do nothing. Even with the bomb right above her head now, she didn't dare to dismantle it on her own authority, because she couldn't guarantee whether doing so would prompt Su Jue to detonate the bomb directly.

Up to now, she hadn't even figured out Su Jue's specific goal. If Su Jue were dead-bent on causing destruction, she would certainly fight him to the death to stop it, yet what made her miserable was that even though the Herrscher hadn't done anything, she felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

Perhaps, just as Su Jue said, even if the Herrscher did nothing, humanity would continue marching down the path of self-destruction.

Under such circumstances, any reasoning or persuasion would grow pale and powerless. The only bargaining chip Himeko could think of turned out to be her own student.

"Kiana can no longer withstand any more corrosion. Only you can help her..."

Silence, followed by a low chuckle. "Is this the resolve of a teacher?"

Golden eyes gazed into Himeko's orange ones, and Murata Himeko could sense the undisguised mockery within them. She bit her lip hard until blood seeped out, yet she had no choice.

A million was not simply a number, but countless living, breathing lives. If Kiana could truly be used to persuade the Herrscher and save this city, she was willing to trade all her life to pay off Kiana's debts.

Under the Herrscher's gaze, she lost her former toughness entirely; for the sake of humanity, personal dignity held no meaning.

Looking at Himeko, who stood submissively before him, a playful smile hung on Su Jue's face. He leaned close to Himeko's ear and said in an intimate tone, "If this is your resolve, then it's not entirely out of the question for me to help. I just hope you won't regret today's decision."

As his voice fell, countless transparent threads suddenly spread out from Su Jue's body, surging toward the Honkai Bomb.

Under Jackal's design, the bomb would detonate immediately if there were strong Honkai Energy fluctuations around it. Yet even when Su Jue used his ability at such close range, the bomb still remained as dormant as a sleeping baby, showing no reaction whatsoever.

This was the characteristic trait of the Authority of Domination; aside from the Herrscher of Domination, only Domination could control its own power with such precision. Because of this, even if Honkai Beasts appeared around him, it was very difficult for them to sense his identity as a Herrscher.

This counted as one of the backup plans he left for himself. Honkai Beasts not attacking a Herrscher was normally a phenomenon symbolizing identity and authority, but on certain occasions, it would inadvertently expose a Herrscher's hidden identity. Especially with people from Schicksal and Anti-Entropy having contacted Honkai for so many years, it was very easy for them to track down Su Jue's true body from this detail.

The threads of Domination twined around the Honkai Bomb, tightly binding the leakage of its Honkai Energy. Having this insurance was the only way to grant Kiana enough time.

Although Su Jue hadn't directly dismantled the bomb, Himeko still let out a massive sigh of relief. The bomb would continuously emit Honkai Energy during its countdown process, and these energies alone were enough to infect ordinary people nearby into Dead-Servants—something she had been worried about previously.

Now, with the safety insurance added by Su Jue, even if the Honkai Bomb took a direct rocket hit, it probably wouldn't detonate all that easily, which undoubtedly greatly reduced the difficulty of the rescue.

Just as she wanted to say something more, she found that Su Jue had vanished at some point, leaving her alone to guard the cold wind.

Just as she prepared to leave as well, a sudden, violent roar of a beast reached her ears. Following this first roar, more and more Honkai Beasts began to appear in the city.

"This is?!"

Without a doubt, this was the final arrangement left behind by World Serpent. Jackal held the potion capable of turning humans into Honkai Beasts, and similarly possessed dense Honkai Energy sufficient to trigger a Honkai outbreak. Combining the two formed a perfect defense line.

The explosion set off earlier was merely a light appetizer; the true catalyst for chaos had to be a Honkai outbreak. Only in this way could the city fall into complete disorder, and only then could the detonation of the Honkai Bomb proceed without any interference.

After Raven failed to ambush Kiana, World Serpent had realized that the Herrscher of Void would be the greatest obstacle to the Stigma Plan, and Raiden Mei's appearance signaled that Schicksal and Anti-Entropy had already taken action.

The originally estimated 10 hours probably had less than half left now, but it didn't matter anymore. The alignment of the Honkai Bomb had already entered its final stages—four hours?

Who told you that the intercepted information was the true information?

The synchronization between the Honkai Bomb and the Stigma-triggering genes actually only took 3 hours. In other words, the time left for everyone was already down to a mere half an hour, and with a Honkai outbreak erupting at this moment, no one would be able to stop the Stigma Plan anymore.

"Mist deployment complete. The Stigma Plan has entered the countdown." In World Serpent's public channel, Gray Serpent's muffled voice sounded.

Chapter 105: Save One Person or Save a City

Woo--

The siren was stretched out loud and long amidst the high-speed travel, and the rushing monorail train kicked up howling gales as it sped past. No one noticed two figures dropping onto the monorail tracks.

Then, amidst flickering shadows, they vanished once more.

On the tracks, the white-haired girl landed, instantly leveraging the momentum to leap toward another foothold. Mei followed closely behind, her toes tapping lightly on the monorail as she jumped high into the air, chasing after Kiana.

"Kiana..." Amidst such high-speed chasing and traveling, Mei's physical fitness was, after all, incomparable to Kiana's Herrscher-transformed state, and she had unconsciously fallen behind quite a bit.

The massive consumption of physical stamina left Mei's vision somewhat blurred, making even the white-haired girl's back ahead of her look somewhat hazy and distorted. In a moment of momentary trance, the image of Kiana walking away from her flashed across her mind.

Yet she instantly shook this illusion out of her mind, gritting her teeth tightly without a word as she reached out to grab an iron frame for leverage, forcefully hurling her body toward Kiana.

Hoo~

However, physical exhaustion could not be compensated for by willpower. Mei's legs went soft under her, and she almost failed to stand steady. Forcing herself to stand up once more, she didn't dare to rest for even a second, terrified that if she stopped, she would never be able to catch up to Kiana's back again.

Jumping down from a height once more, luck was not on her side this time. Her feet only managed to steady on one side of the narrow steel frame while the other foot unfortunately stepped into empty air, causing her to instantly lose balance and plummet toward the ground.

Her body suspended in midair, Mei reached out to grab the steel frame, only to catch the side with nowhere to gain leverage at all. She could only stare blankly at the sky as her body plummeted rapidly toward the ground.

The sensation of weightlessness did not feel pleasant; losing a support point felt as though even the courage to live had vanished. Just as she braced herself to welcome death, her body landed securely inside an embrace.

She looked up at Kiana, who had caught her, her eyes shrouded in a hazy layer of moisture.

"Ki... Kiana, I thought you didn't want me anymore."

"What are you saying, silly girl?" Setting Mei down steadily and helping her stand upright, Kiana gently wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, a helpless smile hanging on her face.

She hadn't realized it before, but why did it feel like Mei had become even more dependent on her after being separated for so long? Clearly, she was just an ordinary girl who wanted to rely on others herself, and even her courage had been borrowed from someone else.

Yet her companion needed her support, so Kiana naturally wouldn't harbor the slightest hesitation.

The prolonged journey had drained a lot of stamina from both of them. Helping Mei sit down temporarily, she looked up toward the signal tower.

For some reason, clearly, according to the data, there was still over an hour left before the bomb exploded—more than enough time for them to rush there—yet a faint sense of unease lingered in her heart.

Just as this feeling grew increasingly intense, Fu Hua sensed that something was wrong.

"The concentration of Honkai Energy in the air is steadily rising. Although it hasn't reached the point of affecting ordinary people, this is very abnormal."

Just as Kiana was about to ask for details, a sharp surge of Honkai Energy finally erupted, and the high concentration of Honkai Energy deliberately set by World Serpent rapidly attracted the arrival of Honkai Beasts.

A Honkai outbreak?

This unexpected turn of events suddenly disrupted all their plans. Kiana's expression shifted, and her gaze turned toward the direction of the hospital. Sure enough, an attack by Honkai Beasts had broken out near the hospital as well.

"No!" Kiana's heart trembled, and a bad premonition finally surfaced. What was even worse was that the Honkai bomb over at the signal tower seemed to be stirring as well, its Honkai Energy concentration climbing continuously.

"Something's wrong. If it's a bomb pre-set for 4 hours, the Honkai Energy concentration couldn't possibly start rising this early." Fu Hua was still analyzing the situation, but Kiana could no longer listen properly.

She stood up and took two steps toward the hospital. "No, I have to go back and find him."