Let's rewind time slightly.
Just as Fu Hua forcibly dragged Raiden Mei away from the Far East Mainland, and the two of them fought fiercely at sea...
"Fwoosh~"
"Fwoosh~"
"Fwoosh~"
Golden-orange flames flashed frequently in the sky.
The white-haired, golden-eyed girl was fleeing from Nagazora as if she were using the ancient Shenzhou legend's Fire Evasion Art.
There was something that Kiana, who was currently unaware of many of the current circumstances, might secretly be glad about.
Fortunately...
Fortunately, the direction Sirin subconsciously chose to escape was not continuously approaching the coastal border area.
Otherwise...
Not to mention that Raiden Mei, who had a specific curse engraved on her body, might have undergone Herrscherization on the spot... Sirin would not have let her mortal enemy, who was already on her kill list, go.
At that time, the scene would undoubtedly have become even more chaotic.
Unfortunately, Kiana's current strength was completely unable to intervene in such a major event.
She couldn't stop anyone, and she couldn't even control herself.
She could do nothing.
Now, even the power she used to desperately try to escape from Kevin's grasp didn't belong to her.
"Fwoosh~"
At this moment, Kiana did not try to fight Sirin for control of her body.
That would be far too dangerous.
Even if she could win against Sirin, showing any weakness in front of a powerhouse like Kevin would be suicide.
As for Sirin...
After Kiana stopped resisting, she became even more proficient at controlling this body and the newly awakened power of Destruction.
Flames enveloped her as she teleported farther and farther with each jump.
To be honest, if Kevin wasn't pursuing her so relentlessly, she would have liked to test out her other new abilities.
But...
"I need to focus on retreating and get as far away from this guy as possible."
With another flash of flames, Sirin changed direction and flew even farther, glancing back at the white-haired man who was determined to kill her.
"This guy... how can he be this terrifying?"
She had never faced this kind of formidable foe before.
What was the word for it?
Purely outclassed by stats?
"Just like that person playing with a feather back then..."
"!!!" ×2
In an instant, both Sirin and Kiana were shocked.
Reflected in the white-haired girl's pupils was a Blade of Calamity descending from the sky, forming over the distant sea.
At this moment, Fu Hua had just unleashed the Eminence.
Faintly, Sirin seemed to sense something.
What lay beneath the Blade of Calamity...
An extreme sense of aversion involuntarily surged within her heart.
Because of this, even though she had been repeatedly warning herself to stay focused just a moment ago, she now subconsciously got distracted.
Just as she was about to sense the direction of the sea...
"Swoosh~"
Heat surged as flames erupted.
Now no longer holding back, Kevin had switched to wielding Shamash and appeared instantly by her side.
This wasn't teleportation.
It was pure speed.
Too fast!
Sirin's eyes widened in shock.
Danger!
A giant word "DANGER" seemed to flash across her forehead.
It was too late to activate the Flame Flash teleportation ability now.
"Tch~"
Sirin felt an overwhelming sense of frustration.
And... a primal fear.
But...
"I can't die yet!"
"How can I die here!"
Two consciousnesses simultaneously erupted with the same thought.
Just then...
"Swoosh!"
The Flame Sword slashed through the white-haired girl's body.
"..."
Kevin frowned.
The feeling of the strike was wrong!
At that very instant...
"Whoosh~"
Two flashes of flame flickered.
No, strictly speaking, it should be one flash of flame, carrying another figure away with it.
At this moment, the white-haired girl's body, which should have been split in two, vanished completely.
And the strangest part was...
"Where did she go?"
Kevin focused his senses but couldn't detect her trace.
Meanwhile, on a leaf of a large tree directly below Kevin's position...
"Hah... hah... hah..."
The golden-eyed girl and the blue-eyed girl were both propping themselves up with their hands, panting heavily.
How could...
"You!" ×2
"Mmph~" x2
The two white-haired girls looked up and saw each other. Just as they were about to cry out, they instinctively covered each other's mouths.
After a moment, once they confirmed there was nothing amiss around them, they finally let out a sigh of relief.
Then...
"!!!"
Kiana, the blue-eyed girl, looked stunned.
Because she suddenly realized that she not only looked like her chubby-cheeked childhood self, but also...
Her de-aged body had been shrunk down proportionally.
The two of them, Kiana and Sirin, were now sitting on a single, swaying leaf.
They were even smaller than the fingernail of their original size.
At this size, if they tried to hold a sesame seed, they would have to wrap their whole arms around it.
"Shh~"
Sirin frowned, her left hand still covering Kiana's mouth while her right hand impatiently slapped Kiana's hand away from her own face.
Then, she made a gesture for silence.
At this moment, she clearly understood why she and Kiana had ended up in this bizarre state.
Teleportation, shrinking.
These were two of the special abilities Sirin had just awakened.
Of course, she hadn't awakened the "Avatar" ability.
Right now, her and Kiana's condition was more like... a split.
So, before they shrunk down proportionally, they had both turned into children.
"What an amazing power," Sirin thought, delighted. "Did that person (Ling Ke) give this to me?"
She had clearly guessed wrong.
But she had to admit, she really liked the new abilities she had awakened.
Actually, it wasn't surprising.
According to Ling Ke, the "Porter," the special abilities that Pathstriders awaken are generally related to their inner desires and past experiences.
Sirin, the original Herrscher of the Void, was known as the "Queen of the Void," but...
Her deepest wish was simply to live an ordinary life with her mother.
And...
"It hurts! It hurts! Stop hurting me!"
She wanted to escape from everything, and from all the people and things that caused her pain.
But at the same time...
"..."
Sirin looked at the other half of herself in front of her and had no desire to merge with her again.
Unfortunately, this "Split" ability could not be permanently solidified.
It would continuously consume the... another type of energy in Sirin's body that was different from Honkai Energy.
So...
"You'd better behave yourself," Sirin said in a low voice, leaning close to Kiana's ear. "If you get us both killed, I'm not done with you."
"..."
Kiana didn't respond.
With her mouth still covered, she really wanted to complain.
Like, seriously...
"If we both die, what's the point of you not being done with me?"