"Is Sakura a Rabbit or a Donkey?"
"What if Miss Forget-Me-Not wasn't an assassin anymore?"
"What are you trying to say?"
Hearing Mei's words, Sakura felt a trace of confusion.
"What I mean is, you can join the Flame Chasers and become my subordinate."
"Me... becoming your subordinate?" Sakura was utterly shocked. "You don't mind that I tried to assassinate you?"
"You were merely a tool hired to assassinate me. The real source of the problem is the employer who hired you." Mei analyzed calmly. "The fact that you were able to injure Kevin already proves your strength. If you join the Flame Chasers, we'll gain another powerful combatant—provided you can become a Fusion Warrior—and I'll get the information I want. Why would I refuse something that kills two birds with one stone?"
"Fine. I'll join the Flame Chasers."
Sakura did not object to joining the Flame Chasers. She had already prepared herself to be killed, but if she could live, who would want to die? Whether for herself or for her younger sister, Sakura would not let this chance to survive slip away.
"Welcome aboard. Now, can you tell me your real name? Forget-Me-Not can't possibly be your real name, can it?"
"Sakura. My name is Sakura."
"Very well, Sakura. Next, let's discuss your employer."
No fourth person knew what happened in that laboratory afterward. A few days later, the corpse of a Flame Chasers executive was discovered in his home, stabbed eighteen times. The final ruling was suicide.
Yet this did not attract much attention, because people had been drawn to something else.
Namely,
the fourth Fusion Warrior of the Flame Chasers had appeared.
She was a female warrior with long cherry-colored hair. Her name was Sakura.
The Honkai Beast genes fused into her were... those of a Yaksha.
The third volume ended at the moment Sakura became a Fusion Warrior.
Luo Yu had originally planned to finish both the Seventh Herrscher and the Eighth Herrscher in the third volume. But once he actually started writing, he realized that some things were simply beyond his control.
For example, he found that writing only about the Seventh Herrscher was not enough for the third volume, while covering the Eighth Herrscher would require far too much space.
In the end, Luo Yu decided to compromise and end it with Sakura becoming a Fusion Warrior. That way, the next volume could begin here and continue until the Eighth Herrscher was defeated, which would be just about enough material for one volume.
Luo Yu was awakened by the ringing of his phone.
After answering, Luo Yu snapped irritably, "Who is it?! It's so early in the morning! Are you going to let me sleep or not?!"
"Teacher Meng Yu, it blew up! This time, it really blew up!"
Machida Sonoko's voice was full of excitement and delight.
Hearing his editor's voice, Luo Yu woke up completely, and his morning temper faded away.
"What is it? Sonoko? So it blew up. When has one of my books not blown up?"
"This time is different, Teacher Meng Yu. The sales of the first two volumes were mostly supported by your old fans. But with this third volume, it's obvious that new readers are coming in."
"Anything else? If not, I'm hanging up."
"Wait! Teacher Meng Yu, with such a great opportunity in front of you, are you really not planning to hold a signing event? Since your debut, you haven't held a single one."
"We'll talk about it when I have time. I'm hanging up."
A signing event... He had not held one even once during his three years of middle school. At first, he had not wanted to expose his identity. Now, it was simply too much trouble.
The best outcome would be not having to hold one at all. He would keep dragging it out until he could no longer do so.
The third volume's huge success had been expected. In Luo Yu's opinion, the Flame Chasers did not truly begin until the Seventh Herrscher.
Using the Seventh Herrscher as the dividing line, the Herrschers before it were still relatively normal. The ones afterward became more outrageous one after another.
One played with memes, while another pulled a sneaky move and sank a continent. Those two were still considered the better ones.
Just look at what the double-digit Herrschers were like. The Tenth incited humanity into fighting itself. If Dr. Mei had not risked herself to lure out every Thousand-Man Herrscher, then with those Flame Chasers executives still fighting among themselves even at the end of the world, humanity of the Previous Civilization would probably have been finished long ago.
As for the Eleventh, that one was even more of a heavyweight. Fusion Warriors were powerful, right? That Herrscher single-handedly beat the group of Fusion Warriors into the Thirteen Flame-Makers.
There was not much to say about the twelfth, Rin. Her achievements amounted to nothing more than leveling humanity's final three surviving cities.
The reason the Herrschers underwent such a drastic increase in strength was the emergence of Fusion Warriors.
Looking back over Honkai's entire history, the Previous Civilization could be said to have already lost by the time of the Twelfth Herrscher. Fighting Finality afterward was merely preparation for the next era.
Thinking about this, Luo Yu finished washing up and prepared to go online to see how the ridiculous netizens had evaluated this volume.
Entering the familiar forum, he saw exactly what he expected: countless comments praising the Flame Chasers.
The third volume was incredible! Kevin's battle against the Herrscher of Flame got my blood pumping.
Yeah! Teacher Meng Yu introduced new settings again this volume. Fusion Warriors are seriously powerful.
Who do you think is the strongest among the four Fusion Warriors right now?
Do you even need to ask? Of course it's Kevin. He's the male lead!
Honkai Scholar: That's hard to say. Although Kevin has the feat of solo-killing a Herrscher, the novel also says that Elysia was evenly matched with him during sparring. Mobius's combat strength aside, just her resurrection ability alone makes her extremely troublesome. As for Sakura, although she could injure Kevin as an ordinary person, the story only mentioned at the end that she became a Fusion Warrior. Her exact combat strength is still unknown.
Holy crap, it's the Honkai Scholar himself.
Boss, notice me!
Elysia's Dog: Forget combat strength for now. Don't you think Teacher Prometheus's illustrations of the female characters are gorgeous? Especially Elysia after she grew fairy ears. I freaking love it!
The guy above is dreaming! When Elysia and I go out, we never hold a dog leash!
Good lord! So Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei became sworn brothers because of people like you?
Ignoring that round of shameless fantasy.
Teacher Prometheus's illustrations are truly vivid. Especially Mobius—did any of you notice that after becoming a Fusion Warrior, her eyes turned into snake pupils?
It looks like a side effect of Hypervariable Surgery. But I did notice Sakura's surgical side effect.
Isn't that obvious? Such a blatant change, do you think we're all blind?
That was right. Luo Yu had included an illustration of Sakura with ears at the end.
They're just beast-girl ears. Look at how excited you all are. But what exactly are Sakura's ears? I still can't tell.
They look like rabbit ears?
Poster above, do your rabbits' ears look like that? Open your eyes. Those are clearly donkey ears!
Pfft!
Seeing that, Luo Yu laughed.
It seemed that no matter what world she was in, people would misunderstand Sakura's ears.
"Going on Vacation?"
Skipping over the discussion about Sakura's ears, Luo Yu continued reading.
By the way, have you seen the newly released Flame Chasers manga?
I have, I have! The art style is absolutely amazing!
Exactly! At first glance, I thought Teacher Prometheus had personally drawn the manga. But after looking more closely, I realized its style was a little different from Teacher Prometheus's. Still, both are equally exquisite.
If the manga artist's name is their real name, then that's perfectly normal.
Huh? What's with the name Mashiro Shiina?
You don't know?
Do I have to?
Go look up the name Mashiro Shiina yourself.
!!!Holy crap, how did someone like that end up drawing manga?!
Who knows? But it's a good thing for us. Reading a manga this beautifully drawn is a pleasure in itself.
That's true.
Luo Yu no longer planned to keep reading. He had already seen pretty much everything he wanted to see.
Mashiro's Flame Chasers manga had also been published smoothly. With Mashiro's own ability and the solid quality of Flame Chasers, Luo Yu was not worried about the manga's performance at all.
Should he slow down his writing a little? That way, Mashiro's manga and the novel could update in sync.
The thought surfaced in Luo Yu's mind, but he immediately dismissed it. It was far too unrealistic.
No matter how quickly Mashiro drew manga, catching up with the novel's current progress would still be extremely difficult.
He should just let nature take its course.
As he thought, Luo Yu habitually sat down in front of his computer, ready to start writing. His bedroom setup was basically the same everywhere.
After turning on the computer, Luo Yu came to his senses.
...Wait, this isn't right. Didn't I come home for vacation to relax? Why am I getting ready to work again? This habit is bad! I have to quit it!
After making up his mind, Luo Yu decisively downloaded the game he often played, preparing to spend the rest of his vacation in-game with his two little brats.
Knock, knock, knock!
A sudden knock sounded at the door.
"Come in."
After receiving Luo Yu's response, Luo Xingchen opened the door and walked in.
Seeing that it was Luo Xingchen, Luo Yu asked, "Dad, what is it?"
The corner of Luo Xingchen's mouth twitched. "Do you really think I only come looking for you when I need something?"
Luo Yu answered with an expression that plainly said, Isn't that the case?
"Fine, I really do have something to tell you this time."
Luo Yu immediately put on an expression of I knew it and said, "Go ahead."
"You know about Totsuki's residential training, right?"
"Of course I do." Luo Yu calculated the timing and realized that the residential training was only a few days away. "But what does that have to do with me?"
"You seem to have nothing to do lately, and I happen to have an invitation from Old Man Nakiri. Why don't you take Mashiro along and have some fun? Oh, and you can bring those little girls from your club too."
"Didn't you tell me to come home for vacation and spend time with you? You're already trying to kick me out?"
"It's fine. The residential training is in two days. You can still stay home with your mother and me for two more days."
"Fine. I'll go take a look then. I really have nothing to do these next few days anyway."
"Alright, that's all I wanted to say. Go ahead and do your thing. I'll be leaving first."
With that, Luo Xingchen left Luo Yu's room.
Luo Yu felt that this was not so simple, but it did not matter. Whatever came, he would deal with it.
Still, he needed to ask the girls what they thought.
Luo Yu took out his phone, opened the group chat, and began tagging everyone.
Luo Yu: Are you all awake? Let me ask you something. Want to go on vacation?
Before you continue