Sensing the restless stirring of countless pockets of Honkai energy around the city of Nagazora, a scornful smile graced Sirin's face.
This agitation wasn't normal. It felt less like a natural phenomenon and more like something artificially induced.
Sirin could also feel the Herrscher of Thunder's core within Raiden Mei growing excited by this disturbance.
When the instantaneous power of a Honkai Eruption exceeds 1000 HW, there is a chance for a being known as a "Herrscher" to be born within the disaster zone.
And if there happens to be a person who possesses a natural Stigmata and a Herrscher core, then artificially triggering a spike in Honkai energy concentration can raise the probability of a Herrscher's birth to 100%.
"The Honkai... what a nostalgic word." Flying out of the gap, Sirin slowly ascended into the sky, ignoring the two astonished girls below.
"Hey, you ants. Who gave you permission to play with the power that belongs to me, right in front of the Queen of the Honkai?" Sirin's voice spread for thousands of miles. The hem of her purple dress fluttered as she unleashed the full power of a Herrscher, and the surging Honkai energy dyed the sky a deep violet.
"Praise my name, for I am the Herrscher of the Void—Sirin! Oh, Honkai, I have returned!"
Activating her authority as the Herrscher of the Void at full power, Sirin closed her eyes, as if listening to the hum of space itself.
She stretched out her palm, consuming a vast amount of Honkai energy in an instant. The power of space extended before her, forming a small, ornate purple mirror.
The mirror was small, yet it reflected the entirety of heaven and earth, as if the whole world had been captured within a cage.
Gazing at the small, rotating mirror in her hand, Sirin summoned [Myriad Phenomena Severance]. The pair of scissors capable of cutting through anything ruthlessly pierced the mirror.
In that moment, time itself seemed to freeze.
Space and time are forever intertwined.
Every resident of Nagazora City, whether they were working or studying, subconsciously looked up at the sky.
There, it was as if a god had appeared, holding the entire city in the palm of her hand.
Then, a blade that could pierce through all things slashed across the sky, seemingly severing something intangible.
The feeling of powerlessness, like facing a deity, left countless people speechless for a long, long time.
Because of this spectacle, the city's operations were disrupted. Countless errors occurred, and car accidents became frequent.
But it was still better than having the entire city turned into a dead zone by a major Honkai Eruption, triggered by the ambitions of some warmonger... right?
Regardless, the name Sirin was now deeply imprinted in the hearts of everyone in Nagazora City.
Even if they never knew that the owner of that name had just saved them.
But no one could ignore that feeling of powerlessness and despair, as if their fates and their very lives were held in the palm of another.
People often scoff at those who bring them hope, but they will always maintain a deep respect for those who bring them fear.
---o---
"The Herrscher of the Void, Sirin? How is that possible?!" Realizing that the Honkai Eruption she was about to trigger had been suppressed, that the energy from countless Honkai reactors was displaying an unprecedented level of inertia, making it impossible to detonate, Cocolia's pupils shrank.
Cocolia was someone who had truly experienced the terror of the Second Eruption!
Back then, she was just a soldier who considered herself righteous, a mere survivor... cannon fodder.
---o---
"Sirin?!" Siegfried, who had been secretly protecting his daughter Kiana from the shadows—worried about her safety, but also worried his presence would awaken the Herrscher of the Void consciousness within her—broke out in a cold sweat upon seeing the familiar figure.
---o---
"The Second Herrscher, Sirin? She's been revived?!" Even Otto, who believed he had everything under control, was momentarily shocked by the news. That shock was immediately followed by ecstatic joy.
"Are you certain it was the Herrscher of the Void, Sirin, and not the awakening of K-423?"
"Yes, Your Excellency the Overseer!"
"Send Durandal to investigate! No, I'll go myself! Amber, be prepared to resurrect me at a moment's notice."
---o---
"Sirin? She's appeared again!" Seeing the unfamiliar yet familiar girl on the screen, Theresa's eyes widened in shock.
---o---
"The Herrscher of the Void..." Welt, currently hiding out as a history teacher at St. Freya High, also felt the familiar Honkai energy reaction from a distant land.
In an instant, the world was thrown into turmoil.
---o---
"Ugh... My back is so sore! My legs hurt! I feel completely drained!"
Watching the girl who, just moments ago, had been incomparably cool, the star of the show, a veritable god and queen, now lying on a bench, weakly resting her head on the lap of a boy her age while complaining that she was about to die... Raiden Mei felt something inside her shatter.
You jerk, give me back the admiration I just had for you!
"Hm? What's with that look that says, 'I thought you were a queen who reigned supreme and would surely be invincible, who would face the world with peerless arrogance, but I never expected to see you lying on someone's lap acting like a spoiled little girl'?" Sirin keenly sensed the complex emotions in Raiden Mei's gaze.
"Er..." Raiden Mei was at a loss for words.
She hadn't expected the other girl to describe her exact feelings so vividly, but admitting it now felt... inappropriate.
"You have no idea how much trouble it is to sever the cause of a major Honkai Eruption!" Sirin complained.
As a one-star Curio, [Myriad Phenomena Severance] required almost no cost to cut things; only splicing them required payment.
But finding the specific thread corresponding to "Triggering a Major Honkai Eruption" within the tangled mess of causality in this city was a huge pain.
With the eruption imminent, using the Curio for a precision cut required too much finesse. Was there a simpler, more forceful method?
Yes, my friends, there was.
Just put the entire city of Nagazora into a mirror, and then cut the mirror!
Simple, fast, and convenient.
It both stopped the eruption and announced the Queen's return to the entire world.
This mirror magic was the result of Sirin's remedial studies with Big Herta for several days inside the mirror dimension in the Akame ga Kill! world.
It was a custom skill designed by Big Herta specifically for Sirin, tailored to her identity as the Herrscher of the Void and the function of [Myriad Phenomena Severance].
Don't want to search through countless threads to find the right one to cut?
Then just cut them all!
What was even more brilliant was that, because she was severing the world's reflection in the mirror, the connections in reality would gradually heal themselves. Sirin just needed to prevent the thread for "Major Honkai Eruption" from healing afterward, and the crisis would be solved.
Simple, mindless, and brutish. Perfectly suited for Sirin.
The side effect was that until those connections healed, any progress or development was forbidden.
For example, if today was Wednesday, and Sirin didn't let the thread heal, it meant that Crazy Thursday would never arrive, and no one would ever V you fifty!
Or, for another example, someone just starting to learn English would forever be stuck on the word "abandon."
"A major Honkai Eruption? Nagazora City was about to have a major Honkai Eruption?" Kiana, who had been staring at Chen Li for some reason, thinking he had a certain mature charm, perked up at the word "Honkai."
"That's right. Someone was trying to artificially create one in this city."
"Is that person insane? Nagazora has a population of millions. If a major eruption happened here, it would be a stroke of immense luck if even 100,000 people survived!" Kiana found it hard to believe.
"Because they want to create a Herrscher. If the Honkai is the unpredictable will of God, then a Herrscher is God's apostle. They wield authority granted by the Honkai and possess power that defies common sense. In this city, there's a natural Stigmata bearer who has the Herrscher of Thunder's core, left behind by the former Second Herrscher. With just a little stimulation, they might be able to create an artificial Herrscher," Chen Li explained on behalf of Sirin, who clearly didn't feel like talking.
Having over-exerted her Herrscher Core by drawing on Honkai energy to construct an imaginary space corresponding to the entire city, Sirin now felt like her body was about to fall apart.
If it weren't for the Herrscher of Death's core Chen Li had intentionally left inside her, she might have died from the strain. However, the Death core couldn't eliminate the side effects of over-clocking another Herrscher core.
Chen Li had offered Sirin a Senzu Bean, but she refused for the ridiculous reason that it tasted too bitter. She then shooed Kiana and Raiden Mei off the bench and laid her head on Chen Li's lap.
"Um... what's a major Honkai Eruption?" Raiden Mei, unfamiliar with these terms, asked quietly.
Mei, who had been out of the loop the entire time, had spoken!
"The Honkai is a... special phenomenon. When it appears, it creates a lot of Honkai Beasts and turns living people with low Honkai resistance into the Dead, mindless monsters like zombies in movies," Kiana, who had a half-baked understanding of the Honkai, began to explain to Raiden Mei.
Kiana was a practitioner, not a theorist.
Although from the Siberian tundra to the Far East, Kiana was either fighting the Honkai or on her way to fight the Honkai, as if it was her shadow, she still couldn't explain it clearly.
It wasn't that the Honkai was chasing her, but that she was chasing it. Her father, who had disappeared when she was twelve, always seemed to show up where the Honkai was, which was why Kiana was always investigating it.
"Alright, enough talk. Let's get going!" Kiana suddenly stood up.
Her abrupt declaration left everyone stunned.
"Well? What are you all standing around for? Shouldn't we immediately set out to find the person trying to cause the eruption, stop it from happening again, save Nagazora, and maybe help me find my old man along the way? Aren't you guys sent by Queenie the Sprite to help me save the world? So let's hurry up and go!" Kiana said to the group with an expression that screamed, "I've already figured everything out."
Hearing this, Raiden Mei looked at Kiana with envy.
This is what a true main character is like!
To turn the tide of collapse, to support a falling tower!
"I really don't know who you inherited this mysterious confidence from. What makes you so sure you're the protagonist?" Sirin said, struggling to press a hand to her forehead.
In Sirin's opinion, it was a good thing that Kiana was so sunny and cheerful, but wasn't she a little too cheerful?
"My confidence probably comes from my mother? My old man definitely isn't as confident as me!" Kiana said after a moment's thought.
"Don't you dare say that, I'm not nearly as confident as you!" Sirin immediately denied.
"No, no, you're much more confident than Kiana," Chen Li refuted Sirin's denial.
In the entire world of Honkai Impact 3rd, when it came to confidence, who could possibly compare to Sirin?
"..." Hearing Chen Li's rebuttal, Sirin's cheeks puffed out in anger, making her look exactly like an angry pufferfish.
"Hey, hey, hey, even if we're partners on a mission to save the world, you can't take advantage of me like that," Kiana said, displeased.
"Alright, alright. So, according to your plan, where are we heading first?"
"Let's go find that what's-her-name, the Herrscher core holder with the natural Stigmata," Kiana said.
"Excellent idea. There she is, right next to you," Chen Li said, pointing at Raiden Mei.
"Huh? Me?" Raiden Mei froze.
"That's right. You have the Herrscher of Thunder's core inside you, and you're a natural Stigmata bearer. You have untapped power slumbering within you. For good, you can save the world; for evil, you can destroy it! The Gem of Conquest, left behind by the Second Herrscher, is inside you. You are the fated queen who will conquer the thunder!"
"I... am I really that amazing?" Raiden Mei looked at her empty hands in disbelief.
Suddenly, Raiden Mei felt her body fill with POWER!
So I'm this incredible?
I have the power to destroy the entire world, but I can also use this power to save it.
Could it be that I'm the real protagonist?
"Huh, so Mei's the protagonist? Then what am I?" Kiana was taken aback.
"You're a Herrscher too. You have the Herrscher of the Void's core, left behind by the Second Herrscher. You have the power to control space."
"Emmm... I'm starting to feel like that Second Herrscher was a really rich person. She didn't do anything but keep dropping gold coins. Just how many cores did she have?" Kiana scratched her head, curious.
"..." Sirin stared daggers at Kiana.
"At her peak, she had six Herrscher cores. And a civilization can only have a maximum of twelve Herrscher cores at any given time."
"She had six cores and still lost? Does she even know how to play?" Kiana grumbled.
"..." Sirin ground her teeth.
"Could it be that her opponents were too strong?" Chen Li said diplomatically on Sirin's behalf.
"No matter how strong they were, they shouldn't have been able to beat six Herrscher cores, right? I think that Second Herrscher should've done some self-reflection," Kiana said.
"Why doesn't she do some self-reflection? Why did she lose with six cores? Do you have any idea what the Second Herrscher was facing back then? You had that clown Otto up there, acting all mysterious with the Void Archives. Down below, you had the First Herrscher, the Herrscher of Reason, projecting mechs and shooting silver bullets."
"And then there was that 50,000-year-old MANTIS warrior lurking on the side, ready to use Taixu Sword God at any moment. And that Siegfried guy was a real piece of work! He just pops his super mode when he can't win. You beat the kid, and the old man shows up. The moment he activates his Kaslana power, he starts gnawing on Honkai Beasts. He gnaws on them to restore his energy, then he starts chopping. When he runs out of energy, he goes back to gnawing on Honkai Beasts. He was like a mad Chimera... You tell me how you're supposed to play with a god-awful start like that?!" Sirin was so angry she had recovered enough strength to speak.
"Uh, why are you so worked up?" Kiana was startled by Sirin's outburst.
"Probably because... she is the Second Herrscher," Chen Li said after a moment's thought.
"HUH?!"
---o---