Starting with the Herrschers, I Cut Down All

Kevin froze for a moment. The Herrscher's words made him instinctively uneasy.

"Actually, I really hate competing with people in reaction speed. I've never lost, but I'm tired of competitive games."

An Yu had always reacted quickly, but he was no longer an inexperienced eighteen-year-old. If he could crush others with awareness and stats, he would not compete with them in reaction speed. Besides... why did a mowing game need such high competitiveness?

The residual currents on the ground linked into a tangled net. The magnetic field spun, and in an instant, the ground shattered, heaven and earth inverted, and enormous chunks of earth floated in midair.

"Now then, can your positioning speed still keep up with your reactions, Muscle Hero?"

Of course, even An Yu found it difficult to react while moving at high speed, but Elemental Overflow gave him superhuman control over residual energy.

He just needed to set it up so he would automatically evade before touching energy of the same type.

Mei had already calculated the basic data for him. An Yu had tested it, and it was mostly usable. This little function also consumed very little, far better than the I Assistant, which loved making things up.

Mud and dust filled the sky, with steel bars and iron pipes faintly visible within. Purple currents constantly darted through the air. Kevin could only keep protecting the area within three meters around himself as ripples from the Void Realm continually obstructed the Herrscher's attacks.

An Yu had already begun imagining the scene after obtaining the Key of the Void, slaughtering everyone with space and lightning.

"Game ov—"

A dazzling cluster of flowers blocked his path. His words abruptly stopped. The flowers shattered without any windup, and the second explosion destroyed the entire area.

When the explosions ceased, the smoke and dust slowly dispersed. The floating clods of earth had completely turned into dust, blocking everyone's vision. Kevin adapted to the paralysis that had struck him head-on, and the electric current finally faded away.

"Did we win?"

Kevin flexed his wrist. Elysia, hidden in the darkness, did not reply. Her second full-power arrow shot toward the deepest part of the dust cloud. Explosions boomed continuously, yet she could not detect any Honkai energy response within.

Then came the third arrow, then the fourth. Only when continued attacks would completely destroy the area's foundation did she slowly stop.

The dust blanketing the entire street finally cleared. A gigantic serpent shadow coiled in layers. Shesha had not wasted even a trace of Honkai energy on anything else.

An Yu coughed up blood lightly as he looked at his bonded beast's corpse. He reached out and touched it, and dense Honkai energy seemed to want to restore the other's vitality.

"Do you also feel heartache over the death of your followers?"

Then had you ever considered that the people you killed also had families and loved ones of their own?

Kevin clenched the Key of the Void tightly. His figure flickered repeatedly as he charged, crossing nearly a hundred meters in an instant, but... he was still short. How could the Herrscher's reaction speed possibly be this fast?!

"He can sense spatial fluctuations!"

Elysia suddenly recalled one of Vill-V's old concepts: the Staff of the Yellow Springs.

Staff of the Yellow Springs: A special electromagnetic field that interfered with the connection between the Herrscher Core and Imaginary Space.

"You came too." An Yu's smile was as refreshing as ever. "I'm really happy to see you. I thought you were going to break your promise in this cycle."

He stretched out his hand, shaping it like a gun. Like a child, he had absolutely no awareness of being a demon king.

"But I don't want to see you at all."

Elysia tilted her head to dodge. A flash of lightning brushed past her ear, erasing several strands of her beautiful hair. She did not attempt a ranged attack.

When fighting the Thunder Herrscher, close combat usually meant blades drawing blood with every strike. Unless the opponent was charging at the same time, it was simply too difficult to seize an opportunity at range.

Seeing his attack miss, An Yu clicked his tongue softly. "Tsk, are all your reactions this fast?"

Was it because in the Honkai IP, any named character could block Mei's attacks, so fan works had raised the reaction speed of all these NPCs?

The weapon in Elysia's hand gradually transformed into a spear. She was no slouch in close combat either.

[All units retreat. Abandon the current area.]

The sudden voice in her earpiece made Elysia's movements stiffen.

[All units retreat. Repeat: execute Plan: Kalpas Version.]

An overly calm voice came through the earpiece. Elysia wanted to argue, but she could not be sure whether the Herrscher could hear her speaking.

[Colonel Elysia, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin, please carry out the order. This is the approach with the fewest losses. Please trust my professional judgment.]

[Continuing the battle will only maximize the losses.]

"How did you get out?"

Mobius watched Mei's figure through the communicator, feeling a faint pang of heartache.

A girl who should have been youthful and beautiful, enjoying the prime of her life, had instead had her entire life ruined.

Perhaps appearance truly was not important much of the time, but it really could not take a hit—especially not a severe one.

Still, Mobius could not say much. That was a Herrscher. Escaping alive from a Herrscher's hands was already impressive enough... though the two of them had somehow gotten along rather well.

"Senior, is there any point in me continuing to live like this?"

There was no self-mockery in her voice. It was too hoarse, like rusted gears grinding together.

Mei stood at the highest point of the temporary hospital, gazing at the gloomy sky in the distance.

And at the enormous serpent shadow barely visible far away. A bonded beast that could revive? Mei had paid attention to that snake while others discussed it. After all, she had been eaten by it not long ago.

"Maybe I can help you restore your former appearance."

Maybe. No one dared guarantee it. It was true that Mobius could clone human bodies, but how would the transplant work?

A full-body skin transplant? What about the uneven flesh beneath the skin? Nanobots?

Mei still being alive was already a miracle.

Mei did not respond. She was not an idiot.

"Why didn't you take the initiative and attack?"

Mei continued speaking. Fortunately, her vision was far clearer than before. Mechanical prosthetic eyes were now more powerful than ordinary human eyes.

"The person who gave the order has already been sent to military court. He misjudged the Herrscher's obsession."

A projector floated beside them. As Mobius answered Mei, she also looked with heartache at the city that had been completely destroyed in the distance, and felt a slight... longing for Shesha's abilities.

"What obsession does the Herrscher have?"

Mobius was silent for a long time. "I don't know. Maybe destroying the world."

"Why does he want to destroy the world?" Mei turned her head to look at her.

Mobius fell completely silent.

She probably knew the answer, but she would never agree with his actions.

Because of the darkness in his own life, he wanted to take away other people's happiness after finishing his revenge. That was utterly unreasonable.

Because after taking revenge, he had become the kind of person he had once hated most.

"Was it because of school bullying?" Mei spoke again.

Something was definitely wrong with Mei. Mobius could clearly feel that the girl had lost her composure. The illusory projection gently embraced her, but ripples spread through it without any real sensation.

"Please don't worry, Senior. I'm not the kind of person who shifts my suffering onto others."

Mei was exceptionally calm at that moment.

"I'm just wondering about one thing. What is the essence of Honkai's existence? What do they exist for?"

"Simply to give these bullied people a chance for revenge?"

"If no one in the world were bullied, then whom would the Herrschers choose?"

"And who is the source of Honkai? Imaginary Space? But based on what I personally experienced... it doesn't seem like it."

Rather than having a late-night emotional breakdown, Mei simply no longer wanted to live. With fewer emotional barriers, she was thinking for the first time about this question, which currently held no practical value.

Why did Honkai exist at all? Emotions? Geniuses? Or something beyond individuals, something on the level of nations, perhaps even civilizations?

Mobius could not answer. Humanity had worked tirelessly, and Elysia, that anomaly, had even gotten an early head start, but the essence of certain things could only be concluded through experience and practice.

"I want to talk to him."

"Impossible!"

"Are you afraid I'll defect? But I'm only a high school student, Senior. Aren't you overestimating me?"

A long silence followed.

Mobius looked at her junior and did not stubbornly deny it. "It's too dangerous, Mei."

"I want to talk to him."

Mei looked into the distance. Her mechanical prosthetic eyes allowed her to clearly see some of the scenes within the city from an extreme distance.

[As for why An Yu didn't fall for it... he was the Thunder Herrscher, not an idiot, and he didn't have dementia either.]

[It wasn't like he didn't know the pink-haired boss's underlying code. Otherwise, why was he so happy to see her? Good people were easy to bully, that was all.]

[The pink-haired boss suddenly retreated earlier, and she was wearing an earpiece. You could clearly tell information was being sent in. Even using your toes to think, you'd know it was a trap.]

[Later, when that masked weirdo was forced to appear, An Yu even laughed.]

[Playing communications in front of the Thunder Herrscher?]

[In the end, Nagazora City had a permanent population of more than three million. Excluding those fleeing during the disaster, the final experience gained was 2.41 million.]

[That meant level 13.]

[Next came the entire Far East. The Far East had far more people than Britain.]

"Sure enough, troubles don't disappear. They can just be transferred to someone else."

An Yu took off his helmet, satisfied.

Watching others become furious, unwilling, and filled with rage made him feel much better.

Sleep!!!

But someone apparently could not sleep. It was past three in the morning, in another city.

Kevin instinctively opened his eyes and met Mei's gaze.

"This is only a dream. Mei, you won't be angry, right...?"

His voice trembled as he cautiously touched Mei's cheek. Those uneven scars seemed as though they had only been a nightmare.

Mei's eyes were remarkably calm, like a stagnant pool, making people afraid to look directly at her.

"I won't. Go to sleep."

A few minutes later, Mei carried a fresh quilt into the living room herself. But the sofa was uncomfortable, so she quietly went to the guest room instead.

She needed time to calm herself down.

Golden Courtyard (13)

3:03 a.m.

Kevin: "I think I made Mei angry."

6:02 a.m.

Elysia: "Now you can't say my mental endurance is poor anymore, right!"

Aponia: "Judging from the fact that Kevin is still in the mood to chat in the group, it isn't serious."

Aponia: "But Elysia... things are really a little serious on your little brother's side."

Kevin: "Mei seems to have been so angry that she lost her head. She left breakfast behind and went to work by herself."

Kevin's scalp was tingling too. He was just a programmer. How could he possibly know anything about Imaginary Space?

And when he and Elysia used the Key of the Void, nothing had gone wrong either.

Mobius rarely spoke up: "I understand. If it were me, I'd hold a grudge too."

No girl liked seeing herself in that "corroded" state, even in a dream.

Elysia: "Even the two of you can throw tantrums? Cat-head sighing.jpg"

Elysia: "Looking at it this way, the conflict between Xiao Yu and me doesn't seem that serious... Yesterday, he even made an agreement with me that we should avoid arguing at home."

Aponia: "Praying.jpg"

Kalpas: "..."

Sakura: "Aren't little squabbles between sisters or siblings meant to strengthen feelings? Why make an agreement about something that sounds like a bottom line?"

Kevin: "..."