"Su Yu, you heartless cheat!"
Elysia's voice carried through the microphone into the livestream, and that line — dripping with the tone of someone catching an affair — froze the danmaku, which had just been discussing the game's plot, for a solid two seconds.
Then came an eruption of comments, the whole screen filling with question marks and gleeful exclamation points from onlookers.
But this was nothing like an actual love-triangle showdown.
Elysia sat in front of her computer screen, her cheeks flushed bright red, the blush spreading even to the skin around her eyes.
In her hands she gripped a pink inflatable hammer, swinging it with such force that the head left thick afterimages in the air as it slammed down again and again on the wooden desk, producing a deafening thud.
What had broken her composure was the level currently playing on screen.
In the upper left corner of the interface, above Kiana's health bar, a conspicuous yellow energy bar had appeared.
As Kiana swung her baseball bat at Honkai Beasts among the ruins, or got grazed by a monster's claws, that yellow bar climbed at a visibly rapid pace.
It represented her Herrscher energy erosion level.
The instant the yellow bar filled completely, the screen froze.
The background music cut off abruptly amid a burst of piercing static.
At the center of the screen, Kiana clutched her head with both hands, her body convulsing violently.
Her anguished scream tore through the screen, and then those blue eyes were completely swallowed by a blinding gold.
That mad, freezing, lifeless gaze locked onto the camera, as if piercing straight through the screen into the heart of everyone watching.
This sudden turn, along with the CG that followed — showing Kiana's desperate struggle against the erosion before her body was ultimately taken from her — seemed to drop the temperature of the whole stream to freezing.
After a brief, dead silence, the danmaku exploded.
[You old scoundrel! You have no heart! You made this IF-route CG on purpose just to torture us, didn't you?!]
[Not even a bit of buildup before going straight for the jugular!]
[This yellow bar mechanic is unhinged. I was so busy dodging attacks I didn't even notice it filling up — watched Chongchong get swallowed whole, right in front of me. I'm numb.]
[Quick question, does anyone have the current address of Su Yu the old scoundrel's parents?]
Elysia flung down her inflatable hammer and slammed both hands on the edge of the desk.
"He's gone too far!" she said through gritted teeth, her voice trembling slightly with agitation.
Sitting beside her, Himeko watched the danmaku's collective outrage, her expression turning somewhat complicated.
She turned her head, a note of confusion in her eyes, and looked at Elysia, who was still catching her breath.
"Elysia, let me ask you something — how exactly do Kiana and Su Yu usually get along?"
Elysia turned her head, her gaze leaving the screen to settle on Himeko's face.
"They get along great. Honestly, aside from that little cat, Kiana's probably the one who spends the most time with Su Yu around here."
Himeko rubbed her chin.
"That's what seems strange to me. Think about it — maybe this kid Su Yu has actually been harboring some resentment toward Kiana all along, something he can't say out loud in real life, so he's venting it by writing her storyline this brutal in the game?"
Elysia froze.
"Sister Himeko, are you saying..."
Elysia sat up straight, her words coming faster.
"That in their day-to-day, Su Yu's actually built up a bunch of grievances against Kiana? And because he has to keep up his producer image, he can't vent normally, so he just bottles it all up and dumps it into these scripts as an outlet?"
The more she thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.
"This can't go on!"
Elysia shot to her feet, hands on her hips.
"If you're really all friends, some friction is bound to happen when you live together—so why not just put it on the table and talk it out? Did you have to go and make trouble for her in the game like that, writing her in as some pathetic victim? Even I can't stand to watch this!"
She grabbed the microphone and brought it to her lips.
"Am I right, everyone?! I'm definitely going to go have a serious talk with that awful Su Yu and get justice for poor Kiana!"
The danmaku instantly turned into a wave of cheers, gift effects lighting up across the screen one after another.
Fans rallied behind their brand ambassador, rooting for her to go "punish" the wicked producer.
Meanwhile, just one wall away, in the Director's Office —
Su Yu, having just watched the entire livestream segment, said nothing.
Kiana was still lying with her head pillowed on his lap, just as before.
The two of them stared at each other.
Kiana turned her face to look at Elysia's righteously indignant expression on the screen.
"So you've secretly resented me this whole time."
Kiana kept her voice low, tinged with exaggerated mock surprise.
"How did I never notice?"
"Maybe you're just that kind of pervert."
She adjusted the position of her head, settling into a more comfortable spot.
"The more you like someone, the crueler you have to be to them — just like some elementary school boy pulling a girl's pigtails to get her attention."
Su Yu rolled his eyes, gaze landing on the smooth crown of her head.
"Listen to you — if someone didn't know any better, they'd think I don't even feed you a hot meal, that I whip you every day like some kind of tyrant. Didn't you hear what Sister Himeko just said? Take a look at your face."
He raised a hand, holding his fingertips just above her cheek, which looked even fuller from lying on her side.
"Round enough to rival Chongchong over there."
Kiana shot up off his lap so fast she nearly knocked over the coffee table beside her.
Her mismatched eyes went wide.
"That's nonsense!"
She jabbed a finger at Su Yu's nose.
"A Kaslana doesn't gain weight that easily! Besides, I'm human, not a cat — how am I anything like that little thing!"
Not far away, on a cushion, the white cat with mismatched eyes named Chongchong was lazily basking in the warm air.
Hearing the commotion, it turned its round little head, eyes fixed on the white-haired human currently making a fuss on the sofa, flicked its tail twice in disdain, and buried its face in its paws.
Too lazy to argue. Time for a nap!
On the office desk, the livestream kept playing.
The CG triggered by the filled energy bar had finished, and the screen reset back to the escape stage from before.
In the game, the mother and daughter had finally made it out of the danger zone surrounded by Honkai Beasts, their figures vanishing at the end of the street.
Kiana was finally able to retreat too.
But on her way out, she ran into another Honkai Beast attack.
On screen, Kiana staggered backward, but behind her, another Chariot-class Honkai Beast had already raised its sharp lance, thrusting it straight at her back.
A sharp whistle of air cut through the headphones.
Just as the lance was about to run her through —
Kiana's eyes on screen changed abruptly.
Golden lines of Honkai erosion instantly crept across the whites of her eyes.
An utterly frigid voice rang out both in her ear and in the ears of every viewer in the livestream at once.
["This body — leave it to me..."]
It was the voice of Sirin, the Herrscher of the Void.
With that whisper, the game screen went instantly black.
It wasn't the darkness of impaired vision, but the abyss of consciousness torn completely away.
The view kept falling, the broken walls and rubble vanishing, leaving nothing but endless void.
The keystroke sound effects stopped. All that remained was Kiana's own inner monologue.
That voice sounded heavy, as if spoken from underwater, all her usual spirit gone, leaving only a heartbreaking desolation.
[The girl had once heard that when someone was near death, their whole life would flash before their eyes like a spinning lantern.]
[Yet now, all she saw was pitch darkness.]
["Shouldn't I already have been run through by the Honkai Beast's lance?" The girl's thoughts were a chaotic blur.]
[She should have been like all those victims who could do nothing but flee and scream, watching helplessly as a Honkai Beast descended from above, being impaled, trampled, slaughtered...]
[...So why am I still alive?"]
[— Was it because she'd committed too many sins, and had to live on to accept fate's punishment?]
[— Or did she believe she could resist the Herrscher persona, that she still had a chance to save everything?]
[— Or perhaps, deep down, there remained one last fragment of hope that all of this was just a nightmare, and once the class bell rang, everything would go back to normal?]
[She had no way of knowing.]
[Before her eyes lay only darkness, an endless darkness...]
[Kiana clenched her teeth, struggling to hold her fraying mind together, recalling everything worth remembering from her past.]
[In the end, the memories, fragmented, came surging toward her all at once.]
This half-minute-long monologue left Elysia sitting before her computer screen in a long daze.
She stared at the pitch-black screen.
In that moment, it no longer felt like she was playing a game.
What she saw was a living, breathing person — a girl she knew, who fought her over snacks, who blushed and got embarrassed — and she saw how, through those four silent months, that girl had crawled through the mire, tormented ceaselessly by an agony that went beyond the physical.
Even in her dreams, there was no moment's respite.
The moment she closed her eyes, the presence coveting her body would cling to her like a malignant tumor, using terrifying visions to erode her sanity bit by bit.
The livestream's danmaku descended into a frenzy.
[Old scoundrel, could you not write the script THIS realistically! Hearing Chongchong's voice like that, my heart's bleeding!]
[What kind of hell did she go through during those four months?!]
[The Herrscher of the Void is an absolute monster! How can it torment her like this nonstop?!]
[Wake up, a Herrscher was never human to begin with!]
[It's despairing just thinking about it — the Herrscher of Thunder inside Mei is practically devoted to her, so why is the Herrscher of the Void this cold-blooded toward Chongchong?]
[Knowing Kiana's personality, she's definitely blaming herself for every sin Sirin's committed. With that kind of guilt and self-reproach, I'm honestly amazed she hasn't ended it herself right there on the spot!]
[She can't die! If she dies, control of that body goes straight to the Herrscher of the Void, and then the whole of Arc City goes down with her!]
[Unable to live, unable to die — this plot is going to stab everyone into a frenzy!]
The viewers cursed Su Yu the old scoundrel in the chat while frantically pounding their keyboards over the heavy plot.
After the monologue ended, the screen slowly brightened out of the darkness.
Kiana found herself inside a warped, illusory space.
The surroundings around her shifted, bizarre and surreal.
A familiar figure appeared ahead.
The Herrscher of the Void was using everything in this place to try to break her will.
In the illusion, Theresa stepped out shouldering her massive Judah, followed by Raiden Mei gripping her tachi.
They didn't say a word of greeting — instead, they raised their weapons and launched a fierce assault on Kiana.
Those moves, along with the familiar combat voice lines that came with them, were amplified and looped over and over by the Herrscher of the Void within this illusory space.
[This psychological attack is brutal!]
[Using the people closest to Chongchong to kill her — this is trying to destroy her mind directly!]
[Hang in there, Chongchong! Don't believe any of that nonsense!]
[Where's the Squad Monitor?! Even just a feather would help right now, come save her!]
The game level kept advancing.
After the phantoms of Theresa and Mei faded, Fu Hua's figure appeared in that desolate space.
The Herrscher of the Void's voice rang out.
The voice was shrill and mocking, tugging back and forth at Kiana's ears.
It kept repeating the cruel truth: Fu Hua betrayed you.
She's the one who handed you over to Bishop Otto.
To that woman, you were nothing more than convenient prey, an item to be traded away.
Then, an image of Otto surfaced.
The truth sealed deep within Babylon Laboratory was laid bare in the open.
As the origin of K-423 — Kaslana's bloodline, Schariac's genes, and the Second Herrscher Core implanted within her.
That day wasn't just her birthday — it was also the resurrection day of the Herrscher of the Void's return to this world.
[The Second Herrscher's laughter echoed through the air, like a raucous flock of crows circling something about to die.]
On screen, the deafening peal of mad laughter rang out.
[Suddenly, her mad laughter was cut short by a calm voice.]
Fu Hua, in her Fenghuang form, tore through the warped illusions and appeared at the very center of the space.
["Fortunately, I'm not too late. It's time you settled down."]
At the sight of that upright figure, the smile faded from the Herrscher of the Void's lips.
["Tch... you're in the way."]
["Doesn't matter, though. How many more times can you help her?"]
["I can feel her emotions... anger, sorrow, suppression. All of it makes the finest nourishment."]
["She grows weaker by the day, and all I need to do is wait patiently. Someday, you'll watch with your own eyes as I take full control of this body..."]
As the last echo of that voice faded, the illusory space shattered like glass.
Kiana wrenched herself free of the darkness and returned to reality.
The dizziness ebbed away like a receding tide, and her vision returned to the same gloomy night sky and ruined wreckage.
From waking up on a freezing shore months ago, to setting out on this road of flight from her pursuers —
these entangled nightmares had long since become the most familiar part of her daily life.
A dialogue box popped up on screen.
["I... had a dream."]
["That wasn't a dream. Kiana, you very nearly lost control just now."]
Fu Hua's figure had appeared beside Kiana at some point.
But Kiana didn't look at her.
She clutched her head tightly with both hands, scrambling away from that figure with all her might.
Fu Hua watched her, and let out a long sigh.
["These past three months, you've done nothing but resist me... staying silent, wandering everywhere. Refusing to speak to me, trying to treat me like some illusion that doesn't exist."]
Every line of game text was revealing to the players the perilous position Kiana was in right now.
If she touched that power again, even a single small slip would let the Herrscher persona charge straight through the breach.
And Fu Hua's own power was running dry.
How many more times could that fading consciousness pull her back from the brink at the critical moment? Nobody knew.
[I suggest the lead designer of this game go get his head checked at a psych ward first.]
[The person above is right. Whoever writes a script that drives people to this kind of despair is the one who needs treatment most!]
[You're all being too gentle with the old scoundrel. If it were me in Arc City, I'd already be marching over to his office with an inflatable hammer for some brain surgery!]
The mood in the danmaku grew increasingly heated.
If the Herrscher of the Void came out again, who would be left to save her?
There was no second Himeko.
And the whole city would meet the same fate as Nagazora.
The story kept moving forward.
[Fu Hua's words finally pushed Kiana past her breaking point. She glared at Fu Hua, the anger she'd suppressed for so long finally erupting.]
["Look after me? ...More like keeping me under surveillance!"]
The white-haired girl snarled.
["Isn't that what you've been doing all along? All this time, you've lurked around me, watching me, and in the end you handed me over to Otto. Have you forgotten how you betrayed me?!"]
["Why does someone who's done something like that suddenly start caring about an innocent person?"]
Fu Hua's expression froze.
Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
["Answer me!!"]
That scream, thick with sobs and trembling, sent a shiver through everyone watching the stream.
Who could still remember that she was supposed to be a simple, hot-blooded idiot?
And amid her hysterical outburst, Fu Hua finally spoke the cruelest truth of all.
In the instant Otto pulled the trigger, Yu Ducheng's Zeroth Rated Output had already activated.
Her consciousness and Kiana's had been bound together forever by that feather.
[Wait, what???]
[Hold on, does this mean the Squad Monitor right now... is actually already dead??]
[That scumbag Otto actually shot the Squad Monitor in the head?!]
[The Squad Monitor's had it so rough! She held on for tens of thousands of years, doesn't remember any of it, gets backstabbed by Otto, and now she doesn't even have a body — this is a real ghost story now...]
In the story, Fu Hua kept trying to bring Kiana back to the people she knew, hoping the strength of her companions could help her through this.
But even greater terror flared in Kiana's eyes.
How could she go back? Go back carrying a bomb inside her that could go off at any moment?
["Get out, get out of my head!"]
Kiana crouched on the rubble-strewn ground, arms locked around her knees.
Fu Hua's eyes were full of helplessness and sorrow.
In the last line of text, she left behind a murmur.
If it truly came to that, she'd already prepared for the worst.
Worst case, all three of them would go down together.
[It's not really going to end with all of them dying together, is it?]
[Old scoundrel, if you dare actually kill all three of them off, I'll cry my eyes out live right here!]
[Even at his most twisted, the old scoundrel wouldn't actually kill off the protagonist... if the protagonist's dead, can this game even still be called Honkai Impact 3rd?!]
[Wait, didn't Fu Hua say "as an absolute last resort"? It's not there yet, there's gotta be a way out, right? Right?!]
On the computer screen, the game's night remained dark and heavy, Kiana wandering aimlessly through the streets.
A cold night wind stirred her dust-caked silver hair, her head bowed, her steps heavy.
That familiar jacket was tattered and torn, making her slight frame look even more solitary.
Memories from deep in her mind surged up uncontrollably.
She'd known all along that a terrifying presence had been dormant inside her body.
It was a nightmare that began the year she turned twelve — its first awakening had brought devastating destruction, even leaving her old man Siegfried gravely wounded.
From then on, she'd drifted like rootless duckweed, wandering the world.
She didn't dare stay in any one place too long, afraid the monster would wake again and hurt the people around her.
Until... until she came to St. Freya Academy, met Mei, Theresa, and... Himeko.
That was the first time she'd truly wanted to stay, the first time she'd felt she finally had a place to belong.
At the dim edge of the ruins, neon light drifted over from the far side of the city.
The flickering signs and the faint smell of food carried on the wind touched the softest part of her heart — then, an instant later, woke a deep-seated fear.
She stopped short, her body flinching on reflex, and quickly retreated into a dark, empty alley cluttered with junk beside her.
The warmth and brightness she once took for granted had now become her greatest torment.
She was afraid to show herself among people, afraid even to approach the light.
That bustling night market, those familiar food smells — so similar to the streets she and her friends used to wander together night after night.
Yet her feet defied every command of reason.
Like a moth unable to resist the pull of flame, her body crept along the wall in the dark alley, drawn helplessly toward that light.
The floodgates of memory pried open once more.
The scene on screen shifted, the colors turning warm and bright.
It was a moment from her time at St. Freya Academy.
The entrance placement test, May 2014.
Kiana, newly arrived at the academy, reappeared on screen with that fearless, even arrogant attitude of hers.
Learning that the sloppy, busty woman she'd seen around was actually her teacher, her face was written all over with disbelief.
And so, a duel began — self-proclaimed "combat prodigy" versus "ordinary person."
The outcome was never in doubt.
In the scene, Murata Himeko made no flashy moves at all.
Gripping her heavy training greatsword with both hands, every swing and every cut cut off Kiana's every retreat with perfect precision.
Not a single ounce of effort wasted, she predicted every foothold Kiana took and pressed the pursuit without mercy.
It was the strength of an "ordinary person" — forged through a thousand, ten thousand tedious sword swings, through sweat and pain, unremarkable yet flawless.
By the time Kiana realized what was happening, that heavy greatsword was already resting steadily against her neck.
This was the first lesson Himeko taught her.
Sitting at her computer, Himeko watched the woman on screen who looked so much like herself, holding a greatsword, and her fingers tightened faintly around her teacup.
The danmaku thickened at that moment too.
The very players who'd just been clamoring to "mail Su Yu a razor blade" all felt their hearts clench in unison.
[So Teacher Himeko was this strong from the very beginning...]
[Compared to Chongchong and Mei, Teacher Himeko was just an ordinary person. No special bloodline, no genius physique. Didn't become a Valkyrie until nineteen, and even paid with her own lifespan for artificial Stigmata.]
[And it was exactly a person like that — a mortal — who defeated that arrogant god and saved her student!]
[But the price was... the woman in the Crimson Knight Armor burned herself out for her student.]
The memories didn't stop just because the duel had ended.
That evening after class, the setting sun dyed the whole corridor a burnt orange.
Kiana was called over by Himeko.
Under her instructor's gentle prompting, the usually carefree girl lowered her head and admitted she'd been searching for her "stinky old man" all this time.
["If you ask me, you're a lot luckier than I was. After all, your father showed you the true face of life early on."]
On screen, Himeko leaned against the railing, gazing at the distant sunset.
["As for me... up until I was nineteen, I still naively believed my future would be rose-colored."]
["Back then, I believed my life was a wide-open road, branching in every direction, full of endless possibility."]
She told Kiana about her past.
Life was never a script you could rewrite on a whim.
Her father had died, turned into a mindless monster by Honkai energy's corruption.
Searching for answers, she'd abandoned everything and joined Schicksal's Valkyrie corps.
For her, back then, it had already been too late.
But she met someone. That person told her that it was never too late to do the things you wanted — what mattered was starting.
That person said she someday wanted to be a gardening teacher, teaching children to grow flowers.
But in the end, that person died in the line of duty.
After her unit disbanded, Himeko remembered those words and came to St. Freya Academy to become an instructor.
To lift Kiana's dampened spirits, Himeko boldly declared she'd give her a special after-class training session.
But that night, she got dead drunk and couldn't even lift her sword.
Kiana had to struggle with all her might to haul the dead weight of her all the way back to her room and dump her on the bed.
As she closed the bedroom door, the scene gave a close-up shot.
On Himeko's sleeping profile, Kiana seemed to truly glimpse that nineteen-year-old girl who still believed the future would be rose-colored.
Next came a third memory.
This was when Himeko led Kiana and the others on their first live combat mission.
In the elevator before deployment, the mood had turned heavy.
Himeko gravely issued orders to the new recruits, warning them that although Valkyries wielded great power, they always risked losing control and mutating.
["If the day comes when a comrade loses control to Honkai energy, you must end her life without hesitation."]
[Kiana hesitated, then spoke up: "If it's Teacher Himeko who loses control... do we have to do it too?"]
["Even if it's me, you must not hesitate," Himeko said, her voice firm and unwavering. "Trying to spare a Valkyrie who's lost control only leads to more Valkyries dying. If you don't understand that, I won't let you set foot on the battlefield."]
["Then if someday, I also... I mean, if I lose control, you have to, Auntie Himeko —"]
["I won't let that happen."]
Himeko cut her off.
The metallic sheen of the elevator doors reflected on her face as she pressed the control panel, turned, and looked at the young girls with a smile.
["As your instructor and captain, I'll do everything I can to protect every one of you, and keep you out of harm's way."]
["Huh?? What kind of sly answer is that..." Kiana muttered under her breath.]
["That's my principle."]
These memories surged forward like a breached dam, sweeping in against the mournful background music.
In the end, within Kiana's vacant eyes, it all froze into that image of the Vermilion Knight, gripping the Godslayer Sword, covered in wounds, armor shattered.
["You said if a comrade loses her mind, taken over by Honkai, we have to end her without hesitation... so why... why did you..."]
Kiana's voice, thick with sobs, rang out on screen.
She would never forget that day.
Murata Himeko could easily have ended the one possessed by the Herrscher of the Void with a single strike — but she didn't.
Instead, she chose to plunge the only vial of serum into her own body.
It had been Himeko's last hope of extending her own life, and she'd given it up for Kiana without a moment's hesitation.
Himeko's phantom seemed to appear before her once more.
Kiana sank to her knees on the cold, hard rubble, hands covering her face, tears slipping uncontrollably through her fingers to fall among the ruins.
At some point, the snarls of Honkai Beasts had begun echoing around her.
Several Scythe Zombies and Chariot-class Honkai Beasts closed in, surrounding her.
Just as she was forced to rise and dodge their attacks, the Herrscher of the Void's voice, like a malignant growth, echoed through her mind once more.
["Humans always make the same mistake. To save someone else, they'll sacrifice everything they have."]
["But she never realized that her sacrifice left a wound in your heart that would never heal."]
["That's why you can never escape me."]
["Any brief moment of distraction, any painful memory, gives me more freedom, turns every place you linger into ruin."]
["Run? Where could you possibly run to?"]
["Because I am you, Kiana!"]
Each word of this soul-crushing taunt, paired with Kiana's agonized expression as the memories tore through her, plunged the whole livestream into a heavy silence.
The warmer and happier the memory had been, the sharper and more brutal the pain of returning to reality.
She'd said she'd end a lost comrade's life without hesitation, but when it actually came down to it, she'd handed over her own life without a second thought.
Just like Kiana had said, Himeko really was too sly for her own good.
And the Herrscher of the Void's cruelty and mercilessness stirred a screen full of fury — along with a deep, aching sense of helplessness.
Yeah, where could she possibly run to?
That nightmare lived inside her body, inside her own mind.
Himeko's all-out act of salvation had let her reclaim her body, but it had also left behind a hole nothing could fill — the perfect opening for the Herrscher of the Void to exploit.
[The old scoundrel's knife-work here... genuinely, I'm dying.]
[All that school-life buildup in the main story, all that goofing around — it was all just to smash something beautiful to pieces right in front of us at this exact moment!]
[Why do you have to make me think of Final Lesson again?! Are my tears just worthless to you?!]
[Please, no more knives, if you keep stabbing us the kids here are really gonna die...]
[The old scoundrel's entrapment game is brutal — he baited us so well earlier that all of us fish took the hook, and now we're getting stabbed senseless.]
Elysia sniffled, grabbed a tissue from the desk to wipe her eyes, and went back to the mouse, guiding the injured Kiana on screen through a desperate dodge against the surrounding Honkai Beasts.
Though Fu Hua kept warning her again and again that she absolutely could not use her power anymore, at the edge of life and death, under the Herrscher of the Void's relentless mental pressure, when that massive Honkai Beast sent her flying with a brutal blow, she'd finally reached her limit.
On screen, Kiana snapped her head up, her once-blue eyes instantly flooding with gold.
The Domain Unit: White Comet materialized out of the void, and a giant cat's paw came down with terrifying kinetic force, pulverizing the Honkai Beast before her into mush!
The crisis was averted for the moment, but the cost was lethal.
The instant she overused her power, the Herrscher of the Void's consciousness found the opening immediately.
["At last. You've given in after all."]
The voice was thick with barely-contained ecstasy, as though it had already glimpsed its own glorious return to the world.
["I will never let you have your way!"]
Kiana clenched her teeth hard, veins bulging on her forehead.
Amid violent convulsions, she did something no one saw coming.
With a trembling hand, she picked up the pistol that had fallen beside her, then pressed its cold, hard muzzle straight against her own jaw.
To keep that monster from ever emerging again to destroy the city, she chose the most decisive option — mutual destruction.
Seeing this, Elysia's hand jerked on the mouse; her whole body froze rigid in her chair, not even daring to breathe.
No way. Was she actually going to pull the trigger? Fu Hua, come save her, now!
Right at that critical instant, familiar background music swelled.
Amid a few drifting crimson feathers, Fu Hua's figure appeared right on cue behind Kiana, and pressed down firmly on the hand holding the gun.
["It isn't time for despair yet, Kiana... because... I'm here."]
That single calm line let the hearts hanging in the balance of the whole livestream finally settle back down.
[Squad Monitor! You're my Superman!]
[The power of the pre-civilization forerunners! Fifty thousand years wasn't wasted after all!]
[Yu Ducheng! This is a true Miracle Walker!]
But the battle wasn't over.
In the story, to force the Herrscher of the Void back down, Fu Hua entered the mental illusion she herself had crafted.
Again and again, she challenged that arrogant Herrscher.
Though she failed time after time, she never gave up.
This near-stubborn persistence stirred even a flicker of surprise and respect in the Herrscher of the Void.
Fu Hua, who had once erred by trusting too easily, lost faith in humanity, and simply carried out her duty by rote — this time, for no special reason at all, simply because she believed in the one who'd sacrificed herself for Kiana, swore to protect her to the end.
Under Fu Hua's desperate, cornered assault, three phantom Himekos even appeared in the illusion.
By nearly exhausting herself in this way, she managed to slow the Herrscher of the Void's erosion, buying Kiana the most precious thing of all: time.
Then, a scene no one expected appeared.
It had barely been any time at all since Cyberangel's release, and yet this interlude popped up with an entirely new animated short!
The danmaku in the livestream instantly went quiet, everyone holding their breath.
[Noise. Chaos.]
[Under the night sky, disorienting flickers of neon light fell across Kiana's face, slick with cold sweat and exhaustion.]
[She gasped for breath, her legs leaden. Ahead of her, three massive Honkai Beasts leapt down, raising their deadly, razor-sharp lances, thrusting straight toward her.]
Kiana closed her eyes, and the screen sank into a suffocating dimness.
But the next instant —
When she opened her eyes again, it was as if the whole world had been paused.
Those Honkai Beasts, mere inches away from her, and the lances in their hands, all froze in midair, unable to move another fraction.
Kiana looked up, her pupils contracting sharply in the dim light.
["Crack—"]
Not far off, the frozen space cracked open like a mirror struck hard, a sharp splintering sound ringing out.
Countless fractures spread across it.
And beyond the falling shards, a fiery red figure burst through the air.
In this world so silent that only heartbeats remained, that figure's footsteps rang out unmistakably clear and strong.
Just as she had always lived by her own creed — straight ahead, without a moment's hesitation.
The instant that fiery red figure appeared, Elysia's eyes went wide.
"Teacher... Himeko?"
[That familiar figure reflected in Kiana's trembling eyes. At some point, her eyes had brimmed with tears.]
A solemn, celestial rendition of "Amazing Grace" rose at that moment, its notes cutting straight through the screen.
[Himeko still gripped that greatsword, passing Kiana shoulder to shoulder. Her profile carried a trace of solemnity, but far more of expectation and encouragement.]
["Kiana, what are you still waiting for?"]
[The instant those words faded, her figure dissolved into scattered sparks, vanishing on the night wind, as if it had all been nothing but a brief, beautiful dream.]
[But those words remained, real and undeniable.]
[Tears spilled over, sliding down Kiana's pale cheeks.]
[She squeezed her eyes shut, fists clenched tight. A surge of overwhelming power burst from within her, and a massive shockwave sent the three frozen Honkai Beasts flying in an instant!]
[In a blaze of light, the Subspace Lances — symbols of the Herrscher of the Void's Authority — materialized one by one behind Kiana!]
["Teacher Himeko... I won't run anymore."]
[When she opened her eyes again, not a trace of weakness or confusion remained. In their place was a resolve that had burned all its bridges behind it.]
She had finally buried her weakness and fear in yesterday's ruins.
From this moment on, she was no longer just a girl who could only cry — she had truly completed her own transformation, mastering that portion of the Herrscher of the Void's power.
The short film ended, and the closing lines of the interlude slowly appeared.
["Kiana, through your own will, you have brought the Herrscher of the Void's power under control."]
Fu Hua's phantom stood off to the side, seeming to finally exhale a breath of relief.
In the end, the worst-case plan never had to be used.
But Kiana showed no sign of joy at the victory. Her brow stayed furrowed, her voice heavy with regret.
["But if it had been sooner... if I could have done this sooner, maybe..."]
She held her head in her hands — if only she'd been stronger, if only this power had come sooner, would Teacher Himeko not have had to...
["Kiana, what Teacher Himeko wanted to see was never your guilt or your self-reproach."]
Fu Hua's gentle voice cut through her self-blame.
["The reason she was willing to bet her own life to give you one last lesson is that she believed in you with her whole heart. Believed that you would, in the end, become the one who changed everything."]
["I understand..." Kiana took a deep breath and lifted her gaze toward the distance. "I won't let myself sink into the pain of the past anymore. I'll keep my promise to Teacher Himeko."]
[On screen, the first light of dawn tore through Arc City's heavy, oppressive night. A red sun rose slowly from behind the ruined walls — the long night was over, and dawn had finally come.]
[Fu Hua's phantom held out her hand.]
["Let's go. The Second Herrscher's persona may be sealed for now, but no one can guarantee it won't wake again."]
["From here on, we still have a long road ahead of us."]
["...And there's still so much left to do."]
The interlude came to a complete end.
The game interface jumped back to the level select screen.
Elysia leaned back in her gaming chair, saying nothing for a full minute.
Compared to Cyberangel before it, this short film was strangely brief.
In under a minute, plus a fairly short interlude story, it had laid bare Kiana's confusion, struggle, and suffering, all the way to her final growth and transformation, with total clarity.
It landed like a heavy punch square in everyone's chest, yet in the last moment, planted a spark of dawn-breaking hope.
Without question, this update had once again delivered an enormous shock to every player.
After a brief dead silence, the livestream erupted.
[Old scoundrel! You weren't lying! She actually did it!]
[Teacher Himeko saved her again! The second I saw that figure from behind I just broke down sobbing, waaah...]
[Is this what the old scoundrel meant before, that Teacher Himeko would get another appearance? Is this really how it happens? I can't stop crying!]
[She's finally overcome her inner demon. She's truly a proper Valkyrie now.]
The very players who'd been furious at the start of the stream, swearing to flame Su Yu to death, were now completely absorbed in the shock and emotional weight of the story, the screen filling with outpourings of feeling instead of curses.
Once emotions settled a little, the tone of the danmaku began to shift subtly again.
[Old scoundrel, you're really something else! Give me back my tears!]
[He may be viciously cruel enough to make your blood boil, but damn, the man can write! With this short film's quality and the music timing like that, is miHoYo secretly an animation studio that got sidetracked into making games?!]
[Fine, since he did this good a job this time, I'll sheathe my forty-meter blade for today and spare his life.]
[Cursing him out as an old dog with one hand while shoving money into the game with the other — do I have some kind of masochistic streak...]
[Enough, if we actually flame the old scoundrel to death, who's gonna update the game? I'm still counting on watching her fight her way back to Schicksal Headquarters!]
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