Li Wu managed to grab Anna and leap into the sky just in time. He wasn't terrified like he had been in the past. His deep gaze was perfectly calm as he watched the Star-Devouring Worm rapidly approach.
"A Star-Devouring Worm? What is it doing here?!" Anna gasped in shock. This was the low-danger zone; a Star-Devouring Worm should never appear here.
A powerful gravitational vortex began to pull them in. Just as the Star-Devouring Worm's abyssal maw was about to swallow them whole—
Li Wu suddenly came to an eerie halt in mid-air. He neither ascended nor fell. He was completely suspended in the sky, as if clipping out of reality, without the use of any spatial Authority or scientific technology.
His golden eyes blazed with intense light. He threw a single punch, landing it squarely on the edge of the Star-Devouring Worm's mouth, sending the massive beast flying like a cannonball until it smashed a gigantic crater into the snow below.
What [Future Loan] had granted him was the physical specs necessary to defeat Angell while she was fully equipped with an S-Rank Valkyrie battlesuit. That meant even without wearing a battlesuit himself, his raw strength far exceeded Angell's in her enhanced state.
"It probably tracked our scent here without resting after failing to kill us last time," Li Wu said, staring coldly down at the Star-Devouring Worm as it began to recover. His gaze was icy and indifferent, a stark contrast to the gentleness he had just shown Anna.
The Star-Devouring Worm burrowed into the earth's crust, once again using its Abyssal Domain to mask its energy signature, preparing to launch its next ambush.
"For various reasons, I have to go to the high-danger zone and stay there for two days. Don't worry, I'm very strong right now."
Anna bit her lip and lowered her head, thinking for several minutes. Realizing that she would only be a burden, she gritted her teeth and said clearly, "Okay, I'll wait for your return. Li Wu, you are not allowed to die. As long as you make it back alive... For this bet, I swear upon the name Anna Schariac that I will grant you one promise. No matter what you ask of me..."
If it were anything else, they could have discussed it. But going into the high-danger zone? Anna knew her current strength was nowhere near enough. Acting on impulse would only drag Li Wu down.
However...
Anna looked up at Li Wu. Even though his eyes had changed, he still felt so familiar. She didn't find the change repulsive at all.
The boy who had once hidden behind her, begging for her help...
Before she even realized it, he had grown to a height she now had to look up to.
It didn't matter—
My heart is sincere, let the sun and moon be my witness.
Even if Li Wu turned into a monster and was branded a heretic, as long as he didn't hurt innocent people, she would stay by his side and fulfill her promise.
"I'm glad you understand. One promise, huh? I guess I'll have to think really hard about what I want over these next two days~" Li Wu replied playfully, his tone utterly devoid of the tension one would expect when being hunted by an Emperor-class Honkai Beast.
However.
The moment he safely sent Anna out of Siberia, his expression instantly plummeted. He looked as cold as frost and as hard as iron, his eyes dead-locked on the subtle movements across the snowfield.
Even while joking with Anna to ease her worries, Li Wu had never let his guard down. From the corner of his eye, he had constantly tracked the minuscule disturbances on the surface caused by the Star-Devouring Worm moving beneath the crust.
"Although [Future Loan] requires me to go to the high-danger zone, if I really went there right now, I doubt you'd dare to follow."
"A gentleman can wait ten years for revenge. But I am no gentleman. Since I have the power, I'm going to kill you right now!"
As his words fell, his golden pupils focused, instantly locking onto a seemingly empty patch of energy on the ground.
Yes.
The Star-Devouring Worm's Abyssal Domain passively shielded its energy output to prevent prey from detecting it. But all things in existence possess life energy.
Even barren earth contains energy—it might be sparse, but it's never completely empty.
"Found you."
For someone with Li Wu's S-Rank capabilities, crossing a hundred meters took less than an instant.
Like an orbital strike, he plummeted from the sky and smashed straight into the crust. Li Wu directly plunged his fingers into the Star-Devouring Worm's body, pulled back his other fist, and unleashed a savage, primal barrage of punches.
No matter how simple an attack was, when the force behind it was magnified tens of thousands of times, the quantitative change triggered a qualitative one.
To the Star-Devouring Worm, Li Wu's normal attacks were no different from an S-Rank Valkyrie wielding a weapon at point-blank range, relentlessly spamming her ultimate attack in an unrestricted Blood Rage state.
Massive amounts of dark purple blood erupted from its body, splattering everywhere.
"ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!"
Unable to withstand the brutal assault, the Star-Devouring Worm let out a heart-wrenching shriek.
But Li Wu was practically glued to it. No matter how the beast thrashed, it couldn't shake him off. It could only watch helplessly as he hammered its body, punch after devastating punch.
Driven mad by the pain, the Star-Devouring Worm violently burst from the ground, turning its abyssal maw toward its own body—right where Li Wu was stationed.
High-density energy began to gather.
It was an orbital-level energy cannon, easily powerful enough to obliterate an unshielded S-Rank Valkyrie.
It was going to take its prey down with it in a suicide attack!
Before the Star-Devouring Worm could fully charge the blast, Li Wu leaped right next to its mouth and delivered a vicious, open-handed slap that sent the massive beast flying several kilometers away, crashing heavily into the ground.
"You think you're in an anime? Why would I give you time to charge your ultimate attack?"
Before the Star-Devouring Worm could even get up, Li Wu closed the distance again. One punch, two punches...
His terrifying strength fractured the earth beneath them. The sound of his fists breaking the sound barrier echoed one after another, and behind every sonic boom came the agonizing wails of the Star-Devouring Worm.
The despairing cries of the Emperor-class Honkai Beast sent all the lower-tier Honkai Beasts in Siberia's low-danger zone fleeing in terror.
They lacked true intelligence, but their instincts warned them: whatever enemy could force the source of that scream into such agony was something they could never defeat. Unless they saw Li Wu's underlying combat code glitch out, they would never approach him.
An unknown amount of time passed. Long enough for snow-capped mountains to collapse and the earth to shatter. Only when the Star-Devouring Worm lay completely motionless in the sunken crater did Li Wu finally stop. His fists were drenched in dark purple blood, and the golden glow in his eyes slowly faded.
Li Wu couldn't understand why borrowing the physical specs to defeat Angell required him to survive in the high-danger zone for 48 hours.
The core mechanic of [Future Loan] was borrowing a future result, but he still had to supply the "process" that led to that result afterward.
Since he borrowed S-Rank physical specs, shouldn't the process be training and strengthening himself until his body naturally reached the S-Rank level? Why the requirement to survive for forty-eight hours?
"So dirty." Li Wu tried to shake the Honkai Beast blood off his hands, but it clung stubbornly. He walked over to the side, shoved his hands deep into the snow, and used it to scrub off the gore.
But after washing up, as Li Wu looked at his reflection in the melted water, he unexpectedly noticed strange markings on his neck. He pulled down his collar to check, only to discover that on his back—something not from the manga—had appeared... a Stigma?
It looked somewhat like Honkai corruption, but it was golden—the exact same color as his blood.
Honkai Beast blood contained Honkai energy, and Emperor-class beasts had terrifyingly high concentrations of it.
But with his S-Rank physical specs, he shouldn't have been corrupted this easily. That could only mean...
"When I used weapons imbued with Stigma energy, this didn't happen. That means the Honkai energy in the beast's blood is only one of the factors. There's another reason I don't understand yet. But just like the Holy Blood, it can enhance my physique."
After briefly organizing his thoughts, Li Wu didn't feel happy at all. Instead, he felt profoundly lost.
"What... exactly am I?"
"And what... is the price?"
Holy Blood, which should only slightly improve a normal person's physique, could maximize his body's potential.
Honkai corruption, which even S-Rank Valkyries avoided like the plague, actually awakened some hidden potential within him.
Back when he accidentally absorbed a drop of blood after touching the natural Stigma on Raiden Mei's back, it had completely silenced her Stigma.
And the mastermind he had seen through [Future Loan]... was surprisingly Otto Apocalypse, someone he had absolutely no connection with.
A seemingly unrelated yet perfectly seamless web of connections began to emerge between him and Schicksal.
Most of the major changes in the Current Era stemmed from events 500 years ago. And Otto had gone out of his way to manipulate him and Anna into meeting. He had sentenced Anna to the worst possible punishment instead of simply executing her, forcing Li Wu to awaken various abilities to save her...
"Could I actually be a Flame-Chaser from the Previous Era? But I clearly transmigrated here. I have all the memories of my original world. Even this body is definitely my own, not the manga protagonist's. I transmigrated with my physical body. No matter how I look at it, it's impossible for me to be connected to anyone native to this world."
Li Wu's mind became a storm of confusion. No matter what angle he approached it from, nothing made sense.
If he was an amnesiac Flame-Chaser from the Previous Era, how could he explain his memories from before transmigrating?
If he was a transmigrator, how could he explain the bizarre changes happening to his body?
"System, did you grant me these extra abilities?"
After turning it over and over in his mind, Li Wu concluded that the System was the only likely possibility.
However, compared to the Systems Li Wu had read about in novels and manga, his System felt remarkably human, yet bound by some higher-dimensional set of rules.
It was incredibly strange.
Based on his past experiences, the System shouldn't be handing out game-breaking traits to him for no reason.
[You have already seen the answer. Please figure it out yourself.]
"I've seen it? Who is it? Never mind, that's not important right now. I need to survive in the high-danger zone for forty-eight hours to complete the 'process' as quickly as possible. Then, I'll go right up to that psycho Otto in this world and ask him exactly what he's trying to pull!"
Li Wu let out a cold snort, turning around and sprinting toward the area with the highest concentration of Honkai energy.
When he finally arrived at the high-danger zone, a gale of Herrscher of Death Authority—so dense it was almost tangible—slashed at him. Just the wind alone sliced his cheek open, though the wound rapidly healed itself.
The sky, the ground, the valleys... spatial rifts tore open in every direction. The deafening, piercing roars of Honkai Beasts echoed endlessly over the Siberian snowfield.
Normal Valkyries were strictly forbidden from entering the high-danger zone. Stepping inside was like an ordinary person wandering into a deep, uncharted mountain—the terrifying roars alone would freeze them in place, their bodies utterly consumed by primal fear.
Even at the peak of A-Rank, Anna could only run from a Star-Devouring Worm. In fact, she couldn't even manage that. If Li Wu hadn't used [Return by Death] to find a safe zone, they both would have ended up in its belly.
And the one thing the high-danger zone didn't lack was Emperor-class Honkai Beasts.
Even if you killed one, a second and a third would pour out from the Imaginary Space. The fundamental nature of a Honkai Beast was the combination of Honkai energy and real-world elements. Real-world elements were everywhere, and the Imaginary Space had an infinite supply of Honkai energy.
Unless someone could absorb all the Honkai energy into their own body—like Kiana in the game—the Honkai phenomenon would continue endlessly until civilization was destroyed.
Ssssss...
Li Wu's golden eyes snapped wide open. He dodged to the side, pulled back, and raised his arms to block.
An invisible, wolf-like Honkai Beast lunged at him. Its claws dug deep into Li Wu's flesh, tearing violently downward and leaving six horrifying gashes on his arm.
"Not an Emperor-class, but it actually cut my arm... And..." Li Wu glanced at the wound, noticing his regeneration speed had slowed down. He instantly recognized the wolf-beast's Authority. "The Authority of the Herrscher of Death. Looks like Sirin's legacy is active. Otherwise, a lower-tier Honkai Beast could never possess her Authority."
A kid holding a gun can fire a bullet just as lethal as an adult's.
Empowered by the Authority of Death, even a lower-tier Honkai Beast had the potential to kill an S-Rank human.
Li Wu charged forward. He still held the advantage in speed and reflexes. With a single palm strike, he crushed the wolf-beast into a bloody paste. Massive amounts of dark purple blood splattered across his face, adding a terrifyingly demonic flair to his appearance.
However, in the snow behind him, dense clusters of wolf footprints began to materialize out of thin air. Thousands, tens of thousands—too many to count.
"Just as I thought. Wolves are pack animals. Even as Honkai Beasts, their habits haven't changed."
Li Wu turned around, looking at the countless footprints appearing on the empty snowfield. He instantly realized the danger.
He didn't retreat, nor was there anywhere to retreat to.
Lower-tier Honkai Beasts instinctively hunted the living. And in the high-danger zone, those instincts were amplified to their absolute limit. They threw themselves at Li Wu with reckless abandon.
Regardless of the cost, regardless of life or death.
Every wolf-beast that lunged at him was instantly blown into a mist of blood by a single punch. But at the same time, its packmates would manage to leave shallow or deep gashes on Li Wu's body.
The sound of flesh tearing and exploding echoed across the vast, empty snowfield, looping endlessly like background music. Only, this music wasn't pleasant. It was constantly punctuated by the savage roars of a human and the shrill death cries of Honkai Beasts.
Blood mixed with blood.
Human against Honkai Beast.
From a distance, it looked as though they had merged into one horrifying entity.
With Li Wu at the center, hideous, grotesque Honkai Beast tumors began to sprout all over his body. He frantically ripped them off, but the tumors grew terrifyingly fast—as soon as one was torn away, a new one replaced it.
Li Wu's movements never stopped for even a fraction of a second; in fact, he only grew faster.
The only response to his relentless strikes, aside from his fists burning with healing blood, was the endless tide of lower-tier Honkai Beasts blotting out the sky.
Over three hours later.
A sudden ringing echoed in his ears—
The corpses of the wolf-like Honkai Beasts had piled into a literal mountain, almost completely blanketing the edge of the high-danger zone's snowfield.
Li Wu stood atop the mountain of corpses. His face was deathly pale, and golden Holy Blood dripped steadily from his fingers.
The originally pristine, immaculate snowfield was now bisected by a flowing river of intertwined gold and purple, filling every crater and depression in its path.
He gasped for air violently, as if trying to suck all the freezing air in the world into his lungs.
Minute by minute, the agonizing pain began to dissipate like smoke, and his body felt both impossibly light and incredibly heavy.
Li Wu turned his head, a bitter smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Pouring out from the spatial rifts were an incalculable number of upper-tier Honkai Beasts, all surging directly toward him...