Mount Inazuma is a treacherous mountain located on the western side of Nagano Prefecture, neighboring Mount Yatsugatake. Rising about a thousand meters, its peaks overlap, creating a magnificent and spectacular landscape.
BOOM—!
As Shesha swept its tail, the world suddenly lost its color.
A vast and majestic force swept from north to south. Like crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood, the waist of this towering, jagged mountain crumbled directly into dust, losing most of its body and several main peaks in an instant.
"Damn!"
Swinging her greatsword to form an impenetrable defensive net against the flying sand and rolling stones attacking from all directions, Himeko, the original target of this strike, couldn't help but click her tongue.
She knew S-ranks were defiant of the natural order, but she didn't expect them to be this defiant.
Theresa had been wrestling head-on with this thing earlier without losing ground? No wonder those monsters were forced to sign the "S-Class Restriction Treaty" to limit their combat power!
Shesha wasn't annoyed that its strike missed. The intelligence of an Emperor-class Honkai Beast was already no less than a human's, and it was a Judgment-class, a tier above that.
It only needed to complete its master's task: prevent this little flea in front of it from running to the battlefield between the Herrscher of Thunder and Theresa. Her flames were truly troublesome.
Generally speaking, rationally, even with the Nexus System activated, Himeko gained strength far surpassing the Emperor-class, but she was still within the Critical-class range.
To use numbers for an imperfect analogy: base Himeko, who had recently advanced to Critical-class, was a 1. Himeko in the Nexus System state was a 1.5, equivalent to Fuli wearing the God King's Mask.
A standard S-rank and a Herrscher born in a 1000HW Great Eruption would be an 8. Shesha was a 10. Theresa at her peak was a 12, but currently, she was a 6 because she had to divide her attention. And the Herrscher of Thunder, possessing intensity rivaling the Previous Era, was definitely no lower than peak Theresa.
Such a Murata Himeko shouldn't and didn't deserve to make the Herrscher of Thunder wary, let alone specifically order Shesha to entangle her and keep her away.
However, there are always exceptions. As the only Valkyrie in the Far East Branch with a dedicated aerial battleship, Himeko always had one or two trump cards worthy of praise.
Children who have traversed the Honkai World know that whether in the Previous Era or the Current Era, there has only ever been one weapon bearing the title of [Strongest Destructive Power]:
Forged from the core of the Previous Era's Seventh Herrscher—the Herrscher of Flame—the Divine Key, the Key of Destruction, Judgment of Shamash.
Its Zeroth Rated Power could replicate a strike of the Herrscher of Flame. The ashless light and heat brought by molecular motion accelerated to the extreme were unmatched even by the brilliance of a dying star.
In the history of the Current Era, it was also called the heavenly fire that burned Sodom and the flaming sword guarding the Garden of Eden.
That's right. According to the Bible, the God who rained heavenly fire on the sinful city of Sodom was the omniscient and omnipotent God YHWH. But in reality, the one who truly acted to destroy Sodom was the wielder of the Judgment of Shamash at that time.
As a powerful city-state famous thousands of years ago, thanks to the bizarre characteristic of Honkai accompanying civilization, Sodom naturally attracted the Honkai back then.
The entire city was filled with zombies; devastation was everywhere, and no one survived.
Thus, the wielder of the Judgment of Shamash activated the Zeroth Rated Power of the Divine Key. The unsheathed heavenly fire destroyed that city along with the monsters reveling within it.
With such a famous case, later generations naturally conducted research on it.
The results were remarkable. For example, the B-rank offensive spell Sodom's Heavenly Fire was created based on the characteristics of the Shamash Unleashed.
As a genius specializing in combustion reactions and nuclear fusion, Himeko also had achievements in this field.
Combining scientific knowledge and her own combat experience, consulting many highly respected seniors, and utilizing the Overseer authority Theresa wheedled out of Otto to immerse herself in the Schicksal database day and night, she finally created a sword technique unique to herself.
Vermilion Knight Sword. An A-rank sword technique possessing the power to incinerate cities. Using this technique, one can release and control flames that burn for three days and three nights before extinguishing—an Ever-Burning Flame where just a wisp can evaporate and cut off rivers.
Every swing of the blade releases an overwhelming storm of blazing flames sufficient to engulf a city-state, bringing endless light, heat, destruction, and death.
In principle, one needs Critical-level control to barely master this move. If forcibly used without the corresponding strength, there is a risk of losing control and suffering backlash.
[Note: Is your turn over? Then it's my turn next. No objections, right!]
In terms of raw explosive power, the Vermilion Knight Sword was far inferior to the true Might of An-Utu.
The fame of "Shamash, Shamash, life restarts" is understood by all who know. If the explosive power were too close to the original, the user would be consumed by the surging flames before killing the enemy.
However, although the power was far inferior, the Vermilion Knight Sword completely inherited another characteristic of the Might of An-Utu.
That is, the wounds caused are extremely difficult to heal.
The wounds caused by the Judgment of Shamash can only be healed by the Abyss Flower, another Divine Key—this widely circulated saying is overly absolute, but it indirectly shows the difficulty of recovering from its damage.
It was precisely fearing this point that the Herrscher of Thunder chose to let Shesha carry Himeko away, to avoid suddenly getting hit hard by a sneak attack.
Shesha accepted this gladly. A Companion Honkai Beast is absolutely loyal to its master, a loyalty that cannot be shaken even by the descent of Finality.
Besides that, Shesha had another way to deal with the Vermilion Knight Sword: It possessed a special ability called [Molting Reincarnation].
Since ancient times, snakes have been representatives of life and undeath.
In the eyes of the ancients, every molting of a snake was a cycle of reincarnation. Through such behavior, they shed their decaying husks and welcomed a brand new life.
Shesha's ability was similar but even more excessive.
After death, It would undergo an extremely rapid molting.
During this period, It needed to absorb a massive amount of Honkai energy. Once absorption was complete, It could welcome a second life in peak condition.
Molting Reincarnation was undoubtedly the nemesis of the Vermilion Knight Sword. Wounds caused by Ever-Burning Flames are hard to heal? Then I'll just be reborn, right?
With that, Shesha smiled slightly, grabbed a lightning bolt containing massive Honkai energy, and refined it instantly!
Okay, Shesha had neither hands nor could It smile slightly.
But the situation was roughly like that. Moreover, Himeko was far from forcing It to the point of Molting Reincarnation.
The human body was still too insignificant, and the Judgment-class Shesha was too thick-skinned. Himeko, using all her strength to slash, only managed to cut a few gaps in the scales. The Ever-Burning Flames were also surrounded by sticky dark green lightning similar to Water Dirty Thunder, unable to spread on a large scale.
As time passed, her breathing gradually became heavy.
Small matters like shortening lifespan could be put aside for now; anyway, no matter how much was consumed, it was enough to last these few minutes.
What suddenly increased the pressure on Himeko was that the Nexus System was reaching its limit.
Whether it's a Valkyrie battlesuit or Mikazuki Munechika, there must be compatibility between external objects and oneself.
Himeko's compatibility with the Nexus System was only passable, far inferior to a natural-born Nexus prodigy like Mushoku Kika who served as the linker for the Schicksal flagship Brilliant Covenant.
After clashing with Shesha multiple times with her life on the line, her vitality now could be described with the idiom "a candle in the wind."
'What a pity. Even if I temporarily put an invincible DEBUFF on this annoying giant python, I can't salvage the upcoming situation.'
She thought, finding joy in sorrow, using her last bit of strength to dodge the incoming bloody wind, falling towards the ground under the pull of gravity.
Time's up. Three minutes.
Not more, not less—just enough time for Ultraman to beat a monster.
'If only an Ultraman could come to save me. Tiga would be best, Mebius is also fine. At worst, let Ace come over and turn this thing into spicy snake soup.'
Rapidly falling, Himeko smiled self-deprecatingly, feeling a pair of hands catch her from below.
She looked up in pleasant surprise, seeing not Ace Ultraman's distinctive Bodhisattva face, but sky-flying sakura-colored hair.
Her face changed drastically: "Silly girl! Didn't I tell you to evacuate back to the Hyperion?!!"
"I-I-I! I-I-I!"
The bread bag covering the head of Asakura Miyuki, who caught her master with force and took a big tumble herself, had long since shattered. A pair of teary blue eyes looked as if she would cry the next second.
She was so anxious she couldn't speak again.
Himeko was both moved and helpless. How could she not see that her disciple had secretly run back worrying about her master's safety? In fact, catching her during the fall truly saved her life.
But to change this destined death into dying a bit later while dragging someone else along on the road to the underworld—Murata Himeko really couldn't accept it in her heart!
"I, I wanted to try."
At this moment, Asakura Miyuki, having barely organized her words, whispered, "Just now, the Deva Path worked on, on him (Fuli). I wanted to try and see if I could help Master."
Unfortunately, it had no effect.
Hearing this, Himeko suddenly froze. carefully scanning the girl's pitiful appearance in ragged clothes, her boiling anger finally turned into a sigh.
She could imagine that just now, while the world outside was overturned by fire and thunder, her little apprentice was hiding extremely close to the battlefield, closing her eyes and trying hard to overcome the obstacles in her heart, activating the Deva Path again and again attempting to heal her.
Look at this dusty face where not a trace of its original prettiness could be seen, and look at the bloodstains on her wrists and forehead.
Himeko suddenly pulled Asakura Miyuki over, ruffled her messy sakura hair, and grinned: "What a pity, it didn't succeed in the end. It seems Master isn't as close as Brother Fuli in your heart!"
"I-I-I-I'm sorry!"
The girl instantly welled up with two big bags of tears again.
"It's okay."
Himeko said cheerfully, "Anyway, even if you succeeded, the situation wouldn't be much better now."
Hugging her precious apprentice tightly, facing Shesha who seemed wary of a backup plan and was opening its bloody mouth to brew insidious green lightning, she laughed loudly: "Come on! Dying at the hands of the third Judgment-class Honkai Beast born in this era, my life isn't considered lonely!"
The contracting thunder paused, as if the world lost its color.
A tenth of a second later, a dark green bombardment blasted a bottomless hole where the two were.
...
The fierce wind blew across the desolate battlefield. After a moment of waiting to confirm Himeko wouldn't spring back to life, Shesha swayed its massive snake body, crisscrossed with Ever-Burning Flame scorch marks, and slithered towards the battlefield of Theresa and the Herrscher of Thunder.
Passing by the remains of Mount Inazuma on the way, It casually rolled up hundreds of thousands of tons of rubble and flung them over the big hole to bury it, considered erecting a tombstone for this troublesome opponent.
After It left, at the edge of the hole's smooth-as-mirror wall, inside an obviously artificially carved recess.
"In a hurry, pardon me, pardon me."
The recess, which could only accommodate one person in total, was forcibly stuffed with three people. Fuli apologized to Asakura Miyuki, who was staring wide-eyed at him in his arms, and threw away the six Star Stone Shields that were completely scrapped.
Bronya was not by his side but went to Nagazora City alone to complete his request.
These things were borrowed by Fuli from the girl before he rushed ahead—the kind of borrowing where there's no return, but borrowing again isn't hard.
To be fair, even if six C-rank Star Stone Shields were stacked together, they couldn't completely block the insidious thunder magic cannon spewed by Shesha.
Thanks to Fuli being prepared, he timely carved a crevice at the edge of the rock wall and hugged the master and disciple to hide inside, allowing the remaining attack to graze the few remaining shields and continue blasting downward, blasting a deep pit invisible to the naked eye.
In the haste, his back was inevitably affected a bit. With the Thunder Stigmata that [ignores 80% of lightning attribute effects and enhances combat power when in a lightning environment], suffering some peripheral damage that penetrated six shields wasn't enough to make him complain.
He didn't scream, but Asakura Miyuki did.
The dusty, soft, and cute little girl glanced at the wound dripping blood on Fuli's back and immediately let out a marmot scream. Wiping her hands randomly on her body, she reached around his shoulder and activated the Deva Path to heal the wound.
This was great. She was originally protected in his arms, her clothes tattered from the collateral damage earlier. With this exertion, the two mounds hidden under the pink sportswear could no longer be concealed, ferociously sandwiching Fuli's face from both sides. The envelopment was extremely strong, suffocating him.
Considering that pointing this out now would disturb her work, he decided to sacrifice his small self! Learn from the pain! Endure this indescribable pain! Wait for her to finish healing him!
Turning his eyes, he met Himeko's cackling laughter, which was three parts seductive, three parts playful, and four parts meaningful. Realizing he was taking advantage of her precious apprentice, the boy awkwardly patted the girl's back in his arms, signaling: I know you have a benevolent healer's heart, but I'm biologically male and you're biologically female. Men and women shouldn't touch. We don't need to be this close. By the way, you are a biological female, not some messy LGBTQIAP+, right?
The girl obediently moved back. Hearing the latter part, she felt incredibly wronged in her heart.
However, compared to having her gender doubted, she was more aggrieved that Fuli still hadn't recognized her.
But the socially anxious girl, good at self-pity, quickly attributed this to her drastic change after awakening her stigmata, plus the harsh conditions causing her to be travel-worn. Who would expect the black-haired, black-eyed high school girl who hurriedly parted ways in an alley three or four months ago to turn into this congenital Bocchi the Rock constitution in the blink of an eye?
Incidentally, Asakura Miyuki did go to visit Fuli afterward, and several times at that.
Of course, with her personality, she ended up just watching him from a distance behind a utility pole, sneaking gifts to his door, and leaving secretly.
'Thinking about it this way, isn't it even more natural that he doesn't recognize me!'
Realizing this, the girl's gloomy aura deepened. If not for the environment being too harsh to allow it, she would have 100% curled up into a Miyuki-ball with a radius of 300mm again.
Therefore, she failed to react immediately to Fuli's subsequent sentence, "By the way, why didn't you heal your master?"
Fortunately, Himeko knew her apprentice's situation and naturally covered for her: "Her ability can only heal biological males."
W-Will anyone believe this reason?
Asakura Miyuki was dumbfounded.
Fuli nodded: "I see, I understand."
H-He actually believed it!!!
The novice girl obviously didn't understand the principle known even to Bronya: When people give you such a reason, asking further would be impolite.
The healed Fuli didn't hesitate. Flipping his hand, he took out the remaining two Healing Bullets and handed them over: "Consider this payment for healing me. Use this."
Himeko's condition was particularly bad. He didn't expect this D-rank consumable to be very effective on a Critical-class.
Replenishing some life force to last until they could return to the Hyperion stranded on the perimeter would be enough.
Facing Fuli's kindness, Himeko didn't take the Healing Bullets immediately but observed his face carefully.
A moment later, Big Sister smiled brightly:
"Your eyes aren't wavering like before. You've become a reliable little man."
Fuli was extremely serious: "'Little' is unnecessary."
Partial Multi-Size Technique, check it out!
Five times the size and hard as iron, ask if you're scared!
'Only children would be pedantic about this.'
Himeko, dumbfounded and laughing, reached out to take the Healing Bullets and injected them into her body. The terrible reaction like Kiana's before did not happen.
She raised her pale hand. On it, the Crimson Lotus constructed of Ever-Burning Flames blossomed with light.
Using the last healing power brought by the Healing Bullets, along with her last strength, Himeko converted them into this Ever-Burning Flame.
Fuli, instantly understanding her thought, looked solemn. He held Himeko's hand, allowing this ball of Ever-Burning Flame, sufficient to harm the Herrscher of Thunder, to enter his body, adding another trump card for fighting the enemy.
"Very good."
Himeko closed her eyes.
"Then, go surpass."
Surpass what?
Surpass the enemy's will, surpass the enemy's calculations, surpass the enemy's brute courage, surpass the enemy's perception, surpass the enemy's determination;
Until surpassing the limit! Trample the ceiling of body and spirit! Break the boundaries of self and soul! Pierce through the boundary between humans and gods!
With your own hands, with the sword in your hand, achieve the great cause we left unfinished!
...