Dozens of tornadoes stretched from earth to sky. Incalculable volumes of seawater were flung skyward, only to come crashing back down as apocalyptic rainfall — rivers and oceans pouring from the heavens.
The newborn Judgment-class Honkai Beast named Vayu bore the appearance of a Jurassic pterosaur.
Eyes of fierce and ancient jade should have inspired primal terror by instinct — and yet those slit pupils were trembling, and the beast's nictitating membranes kept blinking open and shut, conveying an almost humanlike bafflement.
Vayu was the Herrscher of Wind's companion Honkai Beast.
To protect and guard its master — that was a companion beast's most basic instinct.
Except right now, that instinct was running into a serious conflict. Its master had become two people. One was ordering it to attack the other. The other was ordering it to destroy everything.
Vayu's left and right brain hemispheres began duking it out with each other — as if someone had just asked it why its head was so pointy.
Well, pterosaur heads are just pointy, okay～
Vayu drifted dazedly through the heavens, staring blankly down at the battle unfolding between its two masters.
Maybe it should just help whichever one was winning?
---
Meanwhile, at the Mediterranean Floating Island — Schicksal Archbishop's Office.
The instant the Fourth Eruption detonated, Schicksal's detection arrays fired off alert after alert, and surveillance satellites locked onto the Tasman Sea.
"Honkai energy disruption peak value: 3459 HW… Deliberately triggering a Great Eruption to minimize casualties, is that it? Heh."
Otto leaned back with his legs crossed, watching the fluctuating Honkai energy readout curves with an expression of leisurely interest.
3459 HW was still well short of the Second Eruption's peak — but Sirin had possessed multiple Gems and Cores back then, so the Second Eruption couldn't be taken as a standard benchmark.
Using the First Eruption's roughly 2500 HW as a reference point, the Herrscher born from this Eruption was quite impressive. The ideal fluid ability was looking very solid.
An ideal fluid — frictionless, by definition — represented the ultimate spear and shield of the physical world, paired with absolute velocity… Of course, the other party certainly wouldn't be exploiting that properly.
"Amber, redirect all satellites to capture footage."
Due to the meteorological chaos caused by the Great Eruption and the Herrscher of Wind's influence on the surrounding environment, ordinary satellites could barely capture anything useful from the scene — and that was precisely why Schicksal's satellite surveillance system was generations ahead of its time.
"Understood."
Amber's hands swept continuously across virtual screens.
"What's the situation on Durandal's end?"
"Contact has been established with the Immortal Blades squad. The aerial warship is estimated to reach the coordinates in twelve minutes. Lady Durandal departed early and used the Godslayer Armor's flight module to reach the Eruption source. Communications are being affected — currently adjusting and repairing. Estimated time to successful uplink: three minutes."
"Can we reach Rita — hm?!"
Mid-exchange, Otto pulled up the composite imagery reconstructed from multiple satellites covering different angles. He zoomed in, pixel by pixel, on the satellite feed — and froze.
His body went rigid. A rare flicker of confusion crossed his face.
"This is…"
"She's so… tiny… Lady Durandal…"
Amber, catching sight of Little Bianca, stared with eyes gone wide.
"Amber — verify whether the satellite imaging data is functioning normally."
Otto was second-guessing the image's authenticity. After all, Rita had previously reported that 'Bronya' was in possession of the Jizo Mitama.
"Archbishop, confirmed. No anomalies detected."
Otto studied the adorably childish golden-haired little girl on the screen, his eyes narrowing as his tone sharpened into something far more serious.
"Cross-reference her with Lady Durandal's data from age twelve."
"Cross-referencing…"
Amber worked the keyboard with swift precision, capturing several freeze-frames from the satellite footage and pulling up a top-secret Durandal file from the database. She laid them out in a nine-panel grid.
The progress bar filled almost instantly.
"Match rate: 99.89%."
"..."
Events had deviated far beyond expectations. Otto's veneer of unruffled composure collapsed on the spot. "A clone?"
Had Anti-Entropy or the World Serpent learned to clone people from him?
"No. Not a clone."
Since when did a clone get to beat the original into the ground? And that was Durandal she was wailing on!
As Otto sank into thought, an even more baffling scene played out on screen.
The satellite footage was watchable, but various interfering factors meant some details were lost. Otto hadn't been able to clearly see what 'Bronya' had done.
She had actually split the Herrscher of Wind into two.
Otto could confirm: that was the silver-haired girl's doing. The Authority of Ideal Fluid was incapable of creating a split body — let alone a split body whose power and Authority were nearly equal to the original's. Even the Herrscher of Domination could only divide her Authority, not herself.
What happened to following basic principles?
Then, watching the satellite footage continue, the expression on Otto's face slowly went blank.
A sky-blanketing curtain of pink crystals smothered the heavens. Chains of pink crystal shot out like a nest of snakes, snaring the Herrscher of Wind.
Ice blades chilled to the bone. Cherry-blossom-and-ice radiance blazed across the sky. Sword shadows cleaved through raging storms — and with them came a donkey-eared, cherry-blossom-haired creature with dangerously unstable emotional regulation, which made Otto's eye twitch uncontrollably.
And there were two of them.
Especially the one in the armpit-baring shrine maiden outfit. Otto's fist clenched on its own.
What on earth was going on?
Two unknown S-rank combatants.
A shrine maiden who was almost certainly Yae Sakura.
K423 and Raiden Mei, both grown far beyond any projected parameters.
And 'Bronya's' Quantum mecha — the machine Anti-Entropy couldn't fully reverse-engineer had sounded mysterious enough on paper, and similar things did exist somewhere in the Imaginary Tree's vaults of knowledge.
But that thing shouldn't have been strong enough to go toe-to-toe with a Herrscher.
Yet what did Otto just witness?
The mecha — wreathed in crackling lightning arcs — drove an iron-pot-sized fist squarely into the Herrscher of Wind's face. Then it proceeded to demonstrate Platinum Ape-tier double-A ratings in both speed and power, while the silver-haired girl who had turned herself into a cranky little kid (equipped with the Knight Does Not Die with Empty Hands badge) delivered Euler's full three-and-a-half pages of combo hits in one unbroken string.
Absolutely S-rank combat power.
'Bronya' herself had also spiked to suspicious levels of strength — those tiny little fists of hers were punching visible pressure waves out of thin air.
Strange. Deeply strange.
What truly baffled Otto most, though, was the other Herrscher of Wind.
He remembered that Valkyrie — his granddaughter's student, one of the subjects enrolled in the Gem of Desire's augmentation trials.
The researchers' little schemes and project details never escaped Otto's notice. He had fully anticipated Wendy becoming a Herrscher.
But on screen, the Herrscher who rode the wild winds and fired compressed air blasts had retained her self-awareness — and was working alongside the others to attack the second Herrscher.
Retained her self-awareness.
Otto wasn't even particularly fixated on the two unknown S-ranks. His gaze locked like iron onto the silver-haired girl and the two Herrschers of Wind, and his eyes took on a fathomless depth.
Then, something blazing and incandescent flooded into the Archbishop's expression.
That 'Bronya' of unknown true identity — she possessed the means to keep a Herrscher's self-awareness intact.
Otto's thoughts exploded into motion all at once. He had to make contact with her.
As for the Fourth Eruption — heh. Seven against one.
He'd wanted the Herrscher of Wind — and she'd basically just surrendered. What was there to fight?
The instruments were reading two Herrschers at near-identical energy levels, so that matchup was already fifty-fifty. But one side also had three S-ranks, two near-S-ranks, and two unusual A-ranks on top of that.
That half-born Honkai Beast was flying around in the sky with its two brain hemispheres at war, like something had broken loose upstairs.
The battle was an absolute one-sided rout.
As the satellite footage showed — exactly as Otto had anticipated — the Herrscher being focused down held on for only a few minutes on the initial fury of her awakening before beginning to fall back steadily.
But as time stretched on, the expression on Otto's face grew increasingly hard to read.
Half an hour…
One hour…
Durandal and Bianca had settled their score. Bolstered by the power of the Star Ring and utterly outclassed in combat experience, Little Bianca had taught her younger self a memorable lesson.
Defeated and gasping for breath, Durandal was unceremoniously deposited by Little Bianca onto the Anti-Entropy aerial warship.
On an unrelated note: to maintain appearances, Rita hadn't openly joined the fight on Silver Wing's side. She played the part of a captive, remaining aboard the Anti-Entropy aerial warship with the posture of a prisoner.
Silver Wing had tied her up. Turtle-bind style, no less.
After that, Little Bianca joined the team battle.
Seven-on-one became eight-on-one.
Three hours…
Six hours had passed.
They were still going.
Even Otto was staring at the screen like his brain had stopped working.
They clearly could have finished the Herrscher of Wind off at any point — and yet nobody landed a killing blow. They just kept hitting. Hard and unyielding.
Knock her unconscious? Heal her back up. Let her rest a bit. Let your own side rest too. Then, the moment the Herrscher of Wind came around — resume the beating.
They kept going until the pointy-eared, bow-wielding girl couldn't bear to watch anymore and withdrew from the team battle, retreating back to the warship.
Out of sight, out of heart.
Yae Sakura dissolved into a streak of light and returned to the silver-haired girl's neck. Based on Otto's observations and deductions, the cherry-blossom-haired, donkey-eared creature was in all likelihood a Stigmata consciousness.
As for why she was able to fully manifest a physical body — that, almost certainly, had something to do with 'Bronya.'
And so Otto and the stupefied Amber watched the live broadcast together.
A whole crowd of people, mercilessly beating the Herrscher of Wind into the ground.
The fight migrated from the outer seas of New Zealand to the center of the Tasman Sea, to a deserted island, where it finally stopped.
What followed was a reenactment of the cherry-blossom Rinnegan Stigmata Space scene.
Wendy, Kiana, and Mei took turns squaring off against the heavily wounded but carefully kept-alive Herrscher of Wind — training their Authorities, honing their combat techniques.
Three days.
Three whole days.
The Herrscher of Wind, serving as a living training dummy, even got to experience the loving little fists of Project Bunny and the badge-equipped Silver Wing.
Three days. Do you have any idea how those three days felt?!
——[Herrscher of Wind Buries Her Face and Sobs (Part 2)]
Practice had proven it: a Herrscher was no Super Beast. Fear and dread were emotions they were fully capable of experiencing.
After being beaten to a mentally scattered state for the Nth time, Silver Wing decided that was probably enough.
She deployed the Tiger Talisman to fuse the Herrscher of Wind and Wendy into one — yin and yang united.
"How are you feeling, Wendy? Can you sense the Herrscher personality trying to erode you? If so, we'll keep going."
Silver Wing took a bite of the grilled fish Mei had electrocuted to death and cooked, and smiled warmly at her little green-Seele sister.
"Mmh, Silver Wing sis, I feel sort of…"
Wendy's expression went strange first. Then her gaze fell on the silver-haired girl, and an unhealthy flush rose across her face. A sudden impulse welled up inside her — the urge to be bullied by Silver Wing sis.
Wendy shook her head rapidly. W-what was happening to her?
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