In a room within the skyscraper, Hua Yi was busy tending to the wounds of Raiden Mei and Kiana.
To be honest, Hua Yi didn't believe that Mei, who had lived alone for a long time, or Kiana, who had experience fighting the Honkai, would be ignorant of how to treat these relatively minor scratches. However, neither Mei nor Kiana showed any intention of handling it themselves.
Had they grown weary and sorrowful watching the city they had lived in for so long turn into a doomsday scene, and thus sought a moment of comfort?
Friendship, family, and even love were indeed the things most capable of soothing a person's heart.
Hua Yi didn't say much, focusing seriously on treating the two girls' injuries. Though he was injured himself internal bleeding caused by the continuous combat and the forced absorption of violent Honkai Energy internal damage of that sort couldn't be fixed by simple means.
After coughing up a bit of blood earlier, he had a rough understanding of his condition and didn't intend to waste time on his own wounds.
Hua Yi moved efficiently, finishing Mei's treatment first. While this level of contact between a man and a woman might usually trigger a girl's bashfulness, Mei seemed lost in thought,
her mind wandering elsewhere. No blush appeared on her face, and Hua Yi didn't find it a pity; after all, the current situation was hardly suitable for romance.
However, when it came to treating Kiana's wounds, the white-haired girl proved to be far from cooperative.
"Hiss... it hurts! Why does it hurt more the more you touch it? Are you teasing me on purpose?"
Facing Kiana's complaint, Hua Yi rolled his eyes.
"I'm disinfecting the wound to prevent inflammation. I did the exact same thing for Mei just now, and she was strong enough not to make a sound."
"I don't care, you must be giving me special treatment! Can't you be a little more gentle? I'm still a girl, you know."
Kiana acted with a touch of spoiled stubbornness, which brought a slight curve to the corner of Hua Yi's mouth.
"Yes, yes, I'll be gentle. Here, there's a good girl," he said, reaching out to give her a head pat.
For a brief moment, Kiana was mesmerized by Hua Yi's unusually warm tone and gesture. Like a small animal, the girl narrowed her eyes contentedly and tilted her head to lean into his hand. Then, quickly snapping back to reality, her face flushed bright red as she jerked her head away, avoiding Hua Yi's playful gaze.
"Hmph, how cheesy."
Hua Yi hadn't expected the usually brash Kiana to actually be a little tsundere.
She was quite cute.
"What should we do next?"
Once Hua Yi finished treating their wounds, Mei asked somewhat helplessly from the side.
Kiana couldn't help but look toward Hua Yi as well.
Given the current state of Nagazora, they certainly couldn't stay for long. But they had no idea how to escape the city, which direction to run, or where to go. They had unconsciously made Hua Yi their pillar of support.
"For now, you just need to rest well and recover your strength. Leave the rest to me. I just checked the restroom; luckily, the water hasn't been cut off yet. Take this chance to clean yourselves up a bit."
Nagazora had almost completely become a dead city. The staff at the water and power plants had surely evacuated already. Even if the machinery hadn't failed yet and the utilities were still running, there was no telling when a breakdown would occur. They had to seize the time while there was still electricity and water to handle personal hygiene.
Girls naturally valued cleanliness. Neither Mei nor Kiana objected. In their current state, they certainly weren't in the mood for a proper bath, but they at least needed to change out of their dust-covered clothes and perform a basic cleaning. Otherwise, the thick smell of dust would make it difficult to sleep at night.
In any case, being able to maintain personal hygiene in the midst of an apocalypse was something that provided a modicum of relaxation.
Mei, who had been heavy with worry, temporarily reined in her thoughts and began to chat and laugh with Kiana. She helped the impatient girl wash some clothes and wiped away unnoticed smudges from her face. However, this relaxed atmosphere did not last long.
Boom!!!
A deafening roar erupted from somewhere extremely close. After a brief moment of mental static caused by the staggering noise, Mei turned her head. What she saw was the building they were in a skyscraper over ten stories high and one of the taller structures in Nagazora being cleaved clean in half by some terrifying weapon.
Outside the building, there appeared a super-giant Honkai Beast. It was far larger than the building itself, its size reaching dozens of meters, perhaps even approaching or exceeding a hundred. It held a shield in one hand and a knight lance in the other a colossal Templar-class beast.
The weapon that had sliced through the skyscraper like tofu was the unimaginably massive knight lance in the Honkai Beast's hand. Though a lance was meant for thrusting, it had just delivered a vertical cleave like a sword. Its sheer volume and the terrifying force it carried granted the weapon power beyond imagination.
At that moment, barely five or six meters away from Mei, was a literal abyss. It was a chasm carved out by the Honkai Beast's lance. Everything that had been there was gone; reinforced concrete had offered no resistance against that single strike.
The sturdy skyscraper had a V-shaped indentation hacked through its center. Through this gap, Mei could see the sky above and the even more prominent, gargantuan Honkai Beast.
That area was also the room where they had just been staying. Hua Yi was still there.
Mei's pupils trembled violently. Her mind, which had gone blank from the shock of the sound and the scene before her, was now undergoing a drastic transformation.
Then—
"Hua Yi!!!"
The girl's mournful wail sounded like a cuckoo crying blood. Simultaneously, a massive bolt of lightning fell from the heavens, illuminating the entire night sky and completely enveloping the super-giant Honkai Beast in a shroud of thunder.
In the face of that radiant lightning, it felt as though the true apocalypse had finally arrived.
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