Li Wu took a step back, quickly grabbed Anna's hand, then pulled her forward two steps, stopping when they were less than a fist's distance apart.
He raised one hand high, placed it on top of Anna's head, and slid it horizontally, just managing to hook under his own chin.
"You don't seem to be as tall as me, right?" Li Wu asked playfully.
"Can't I jump to be taller than you? You can jump too, let's see who jumps higher?" Anna joked.
"Alright, you're still the more amazing one. I'll have to cling to your thighs for this mission... Are your legs thick enough?"
"...Li Wu, you really need a good beating right now," Anna replied in annoyance. She turned and walked into the fighter jet, extending her beautiful hand to Li Wu outside.
The early morning sky was gloomy, but Li Wu felt as if a beam of light had pierced through the layers of clouds and fog, blasting into his sorrowful and suppressed consciousness.
His entire inner world suddenly brightened up.
The whirring sound of the propellers was noisy, yet the young girl's voice remained clear and bright, like a wind chime struck by raindrops on a rainy day—ding-a-ling—incredibly pleasant to hear.
"Come on up. Just this once, I forgive your insolence," Anna said.
Li Wu looked back.
Behind him, Nagazora City was pitch black. There were no spectators. The entire city was enveloped by a thin membrane that isolated all sound. All that was left for him was a cold silence.
His efforts, his wounds, his blood—it was like singing loudly in a world of the deaf. No one would applaud, nor would there be flowers or adulation.
It didn't matter.
Even if no one noticed, when he returned, he would still prevent this city from meeting its destined destruction.
Before that, there was something more important...
Taking Anna and returning home alive together.
Li Wu nodded heavily, grabbed Anna's hand, and stepped into the cabin.
As the fighter jet ascended, the bustling sights of Nagazora City grew farther and farther away, until finally, separated by thick clouds and fog, they could no longer be seen.
Anna leaned against the cabin wall, her eyes closed, her breathing steady, making it unclear if she was asleep or not.
Li Wu wasn't asleep. He lay on his side, one hand pressed against the window, watching with his own eyes as the plane pierced through layer upon layer of sky, flying at extreme speed toward distant Siberia.
During the journey, from night to day, all sorts of buildings and crowds of people appeared abruptly like smoke, and disappeared just as abruptly.
Soon, modern buildings became increasingly sparse, and a vast expanse of white gradually swallowed the traces of human activity.
Silvery-white frost flowers condensed on the outside of the transparent window glass, mixed with a few traces of red—seemingly blood.
After a journey of several hours—
The fighter jet hovered steadily in the air above the snowfields of the Siberian Central Zone, without landing.
The cabin door opened, and the biting cold wind pounced in like a starving wolf, frantically gnawing at his only exposed neck and cheeks. His bones made a clattering sound as he shivered. The frigid wind seeped into the gaps of his collar, terribly cold and unbearable.
He thought he had worn enough clothes, but he never expected the weather in Siberia to be this cold, exceeding what Li Wu could endure.
Just as Li Wu was continuously tightening his clothes, Anna woke up. The first thing she did upon waking was open her suitcase and take out a thick, fleece-lined blue-and-white scarf and hat. She then quickly walked up to Li Wu and meticulously wrapped the scarf around his neck herself, not leaving the slightest gap. Finally, like pressing a magnet, she clamped the hat tightly onto his head.
"Phew... phew..."
With every exhale, white mist puffed from Anna's dry lips, floating in the cabin before being rapidly dispersed by the cold outside.
"The low temperature here is augmented by intense Herrscher Authority. It's not something an ordinary person can withstand. The scarf and hat have automatic temperature regulation functions; don't take them off. And then... hold me tight."
Anna spread her arms wide, like a mother bird returning to her nest, flapping her wings to signal her child to come closer.
"Eh?"
Li Wu didn't understand why.
The next second, Anna took the initiative to step forward, hugged Li Wu, and directly jumped out of the cabin door.
Thousands of meters in the air, the biting cold wind howled past his ears. The strong wind made it impossible for Li Wu to open his eyes. With great difficulty, he managed to squint open a slit, only to see they were in free fall.
Even knowing it was like playing a horror game—knowing it was all fake and that there couldn't possibly be "evil ghosts" or "vengeful spirits" in reality—his rationality still couldn't help but tremble, instinctively feeling fear.
Just at the moment they were about to crash into the heavy frost and snow on the ground, Anna curled her fingers and forcefully pressed the energy core on her chest.
Normally looking like a tattoo, the small, round core embedded in her chest instantly activated after absorbing Anna's blood.
An exoskeleton armor seemingly appeared out of thin air. With the energy core as the starting point, blazing white light shuttled across Anna's body like shooting stars flowing in reverse.
"Biometric verification successful. A-rank Valkyrie Battlesuit—Empty Snow, armed and ready!"
Streamlined, silvery-white armor components emerged from the void, extended, and locked together, instantly covering her entire body.
Ice-blue energy patterns lit up on the armor, and a semi-transparent, silvery-white visor slid down from her forehead, covering most of Anna's face.
At a distance of less than half a meter from the ground, they halted in mid-air in a way that defied the laws of physics; their velocity instantly dropped to zero.
No, not instantly, the deceleration was just so fast that they stopped in the blink of an eye.
The massive recoil pressure cleared away all the frost and snow in the surrounding area, revealing the barren, parched yellow earth beneath.
Li Wu opened his eyes wide. Amidst the cold light reflected by the snowfield, the "Empty Snow" battlesuit, interwoven with silver-white and ice-blue, looked incredibly valiant, brimming with majesty like Kamen Rider or Armor Hero.
Especially the moment the Valkyrie Battlesuit formed, that phrase "armed and ready" struck right at Li Wu's heart.
When he got the chance, he had to get a set of armor to play with too.
There was nothing more thrilling than this kind of "adaptive armor."
"Li Wu, stay here. I'll go ahead and actively draw the Honkai Beasts closer. This is the Holy Blood I prepared in the cabin earlier. If you feel any abnormality in your body, drink it immediately; don't save it. If you're in danger, call me right away."
"The Valkyrie Battlesuit is connected to my communication device; if you call, I can answer immediately and be by your side in five seconds tops. There are weapons in the backpack; you can take them out in advance for self-defense. As long as you stay here, there shouldn't be much danger. The weapons are just in case of an emergency."
Anna's voice became ethereal and melodious from beneath the Empty Snow battlesuit, like sound echoing in an empty valley, the trailing notes light and lingering.
Compared to her daily life, Anna during a mission was more solemn and serious than at any other time, explaining everything clearly without any omissions.
Li Wu, on the other hand, looked like an idiot, standing blankly in place.
He took the backpack containing the Holy Blood crystals. Upon opening it, he saw bright red blood boiling and flowing within the container, as if it possessed life of its own.
"Prepared in the cabin? Why didn't I notice..." Li Wu stopped mid-sentence because he saw obvious needle marks on Anna's exposed arm outside the armor. Clearly, she had drawn blood not long ago. "It's nothing. You go ahead, I'll take good care of myself."
"Mmh. Stay safe."
Dropping those words, Anna dashed out at supersonic speed, flying to a distant place where Li Wu could barely see her.
At the moment of her sprint, Li Wu couldn't see clearly at all. After hearing a massive roar by his ears, he saw Anna standing on a distant snowy mountain slope, planting some sort of device.
Spatial rifts appeared nearby, with Honkai Beasts continuously crawling out from within, while native Honkai Beasts of the snowfield rushed toward her from all directions.
"..."
"I need to get a little closer."
Li Wu took out his phone and unhesitatingly pinned all communication devices, social apps, and contact methods related to Anna to the top, setting her to special priority.
Finally, Li Wu took out the prepared handgun, decisively loaded it, and tucked it into his waistband.
This gun wasn't for killing Honkai Beasts; it was for killing himself.
With Anna fighting on the front lines, he couldn't help at all. The only thing he could do was use Return by Death at the moment she died or was about to die, to warn Anna of the danger in advance.
The system had reminded him: Anna was not a heroine in the story; there was no place for her in the script.
Therefore, Li Wu had to watch her with his own eyes. Only then could he react in time after a tragedy occurred.
He absolutely could not harbor a fluke mentality and sit idle in the rear reaping the rewards.
Li Wu quickly ran in the direction where Anna was. Soon, he encountered an obstacle—
Seven Chariot-class Honkai Beasts wandering aimlessly on the snowfield happened to bump into him.
Li Wu stopped in his tracks and took out weapons from his backpack. There was plenty of ammunition and firearms. The only melee weapon was... Plasma Kagehide?
I can't believe Anna actually got this weapon!?
Wait, how did Anna know I could use this weapon?
Li Wu suddenly noticed a blind spot. That is to say... during the time he was fleeing across the city with Raiden Mei, had Anna been watching from the sidelines the whole time?
"Save the firearms. I can't die anyway. Save the bullets for when I encounter a crisis I can't resolve."
A reasonable arrangement.
Facing inhuman monsters, Li Wu quickly suppressed the fear in his heart, turning himself into a precisely calculating machine, ensuring there were no oversights in his planning.
He didn't want to owe her. Therefore, Anna had to live.
"...Thank you. Also—"
"Could you please stop blocking my way?"
Li Wu tensed his nerves, activated Plasma Kagehide, and charged toward the seven Chariot-class Honkai Beasts...
Meanwhile.
On the other side, augmented by the Empty Snow battlesuit, Anna was continuously slaughtering hundreds, thousands of lower-level Honkai Beasts, with almost no room to breathe.
Lower-level Honkai Beasts could not be completely killed off. As long as the spatial rifts in Siberia still existed, even if an S-rank Valkyrie were deployed, they would eventually be worn down to death.
Moreover, she was only an A-rank Valkyrie. Her endurance and mastery of Honkai energy were nowhere near as powerful as an S-rank's; she had to arrange her battles more rationally.
Time was very tight. Most of her time was spent waiting to confront upper-level Honkai Beasts.
"Time Scar—"
Anna raised her hand. With the help of the Empty Snow battlesuit, purple Honkai energy coalesced into over a dozen silvery-white lances.
"Ice Lance!"
An ethereal roar echoed.
The dozen or so silvery-white lances were manipulated to weave through the swarm of lower-level Honkai Beasts. Wherever an Ice Lance arrived in front of a Honkai Beast, the beast's speed would slow down, as if the space-time it occupied was decelerated.
Hard silicon-based skeletons were pierced through. The Ice Lances easily shattered the small Honkai cores inside their bodies, which were akin to human hearts.
Having climbed all the way from C-rank to A-rank, Anna had done a lot of homework and clearly knew the weaknesses of most Honkai Beasts. This level was nothing to her.
However, constrained by her A-rank strength, the Time Scar: Ice Lance could only pierce through a maximum of three lower-level Honkai Beasts at a time, yet consumed a considerable amount of energy.
Ultimately, it was a "pseudo-authority" augmented by the Valkyrie Battlesuit. In terms of cost-effectiveness, it certainly wasn't as good as close combat.
The Honkai energy in her body was limited. She had to prepare for the worst and minimize the use of "pseudo-authority" as much as possible, unless absolutely necessary when facing multiple attacks simultaneously.
As the flashes of light grew dimmer, the previously pure white snowfield became like Anna's body—splattered everywhere with the ugly purple blood of Honkai Beasts.
The battle raged on.
Over a dozen massive figures stopped in front of Anna, towering like mountains, almost ready to crush her.
Templar-class Honkai Beasts...
"Hah... hah... phew... still need... the last thirty... upper-level..."
Anna exhaled murky white mist, within which faint traces of bright red blood could be seen.
Her Honkai energy was running dangerously low.
Her only "pseudo-authorities"—Time Scar: Ice Lance could be used three more times, and Time Scar: Void could be used once.
Anna glanced at the information panel on her Valkyrie Battlesuit. Li Wu hadn't sent any messages, and she smiled in relief.
No news meant his luck was good and he hadn't been attacked by Honkai Beasts.
That's great...
At least, I have no worries behind me...
"Mission completion rate 77%... I must reach 80% to meet the basic completion... I have to..."
Anna straightened her back again. Panting heavily, she looked at the tide of thousands of Honkai Beasts gradually closing in from not far away, planning for a final desperate struggle.
She wasn't stupid. Even if she went all out, it was impossible to kill the last thirty upper-level Honkai Beasts before her Honkai energy was exhausted.
Anna once again thought of herself hiding in the corner of the ruins back then.
If I die, everything is gone.
I am...
The one most afraid of dying, after all...
"Time Scar—"
Following her shout, the Valkyrie Battlesuit received its preliminary command.
Blood seeped from her throat, dying the inside of the semi-transparent visor red.
"Blood Void!!!"
The command was fully inputted, activating the second "pseudo-authority."
The ethereal voice exploded across the snowfield densely packed with black shadows—hoarse, dry, as if glass shards were stuck in her throat, on the verge of shattering.
The Empty Snow battlesuit was activated, shedding its original ice-blue color. Several needles extended from inside the armor, plunging vertically into Anna's veins, frantically siphoning her fresh blood.
"Pseudo-authorities" required Holy Blood to activate. Especially the final "pseudo-authority," which had a strict usage time limit.
Because every second, the armor was cannibalizing the blood in her body.
Thanks to this, Anna momentarily unleashed her limits, reaching the level of a quasi-S-rank Valkyrie.
The surrounding air seemed to freeze.
Even the Honkai Beasts' movements slowed down.
Anna, her hands stained with red and purple blood, tightly gripped the bone-chilling Ice Lance and fiercely charged in front of a Templar-class Honkai Beast, violently thrusting the Ice Lance into it.