"Aaah!!!"
Edelweiss's sudden decapitation — the sight of her — scared the remaining 「guests」 so badly their souls nearly left their bodies.
Ling Ke... had already moved far from her seat. Not a speck on him.
And with his stepping away——
"Thud~"
The headless body, drained of all vitality, collapsed sideways. No longer able to hold itself upright.
Perhaps by coincidence.
In the fall, Edelweiss's blood-soaked white evening gown lifted slightly.
Completely exposing the fact that both her legs were gone.
In an instant——
!!!
The branch director — seated on Edelweiss's other side — went deathly pale.
He covered his mouth.
He couldn't hold it. He vomited.
His retching immediately drew the attention of the three doctors across the table.
All three of them knew, in their hearts, that curiosity at a moment like this could absolutely kill the cat.
But they still couldn't help themselves. They leaned over and glanced.
Just one look.
!!!
They hadn't heard what Ling Ke whispered to Edelweiss.
That was clearly by design.
So the three doctors and the branch director only remembered the one sentence Ling Ke had said out loud: thanking Miss Edelweiss for providing the 「ingredients」.
Combined with what was hidden under her skirt... empty space.
"Blech!"
They all vomited.
Even though they'd each eaten only a single slice of meat, they vomited until nothing but stomach acid came up.
And at that moment——
"It seems this 「banquet」 will have to end early."
Ling Ke's expression went cold. "Several meticulously prepared programs have gone to waste, but I will not personally entertain guests who can't keep their manners."
"That would be lacking in taste."
He walked straight toward the grand hall's main entrance.
The four remaining 「guests」 were heaving so violently their bodies had gone limp — they couldn't even stand.
All they could do was watch Ling Ke leave.
Until——
"Clap clap!"
The moment he stepped through the grand hall doors, Ling Ke clapped his hands. A command.
Space Gates opened inside the grand hall, one after another.
Each one connected directly to the underground prison of the West Asia Branch.
Inside those cells were experimental subjects who had suffered unspeakable cruelty.
Some had purple patterns covering their entire bodies.
Some had sections of Honkai Beast tissue surgically grafted onto them.
Others bore ferocious, stitched-up scars across their abdomens — organs clearly missing.
Almost every one of them had been brought to this base through the branch director's own back channels.
And Dr. Antonio, Dr. Egas, and Dr. Moniz had inflicted far too much... far too much pain on them.
Their experiences were no different from Ling Ke's.
Once, those lofty so-called "humans" would wantonly toy with these lab rats, treating them as disposable resources.
But they seemed to have forgotten.
Mice can bite people too.
"Enjoy tonight's revelry to your heart's content!"
At the grand hall entrance, Ling Ke narrowed his eyes slightly, smiling with perfect etiquette.
He slowly closed the door.
Through the final sliver of the gap, the scene in his field of vision——
Might be called, with a play on words——
Demon Hunter!
Schicksal's West Asia Branch had over thirty thousand permanent personnel.
Overnight, not a single one survived... no — a handful got lucky.
They were the other Valkyrie squad besides the Silver Lotus Squad, codename: 「Red Wing」.
On the day Ling Ke became this era's Herrscher of Dominance, they happened to be out on a mission.
And when they returned to the base aboard the shuttle...
"This——"
Bloodstains everywhere.
Mutilated corpses in every direction.
The Valkyries of the Red Wing Squad were all battle-hardened veterans, but standing in front of a scene like this, even they couldn't help but grimace.
One young girl — freshly assigned, still green — was so scared she dropped to the ground.
Then... soaked her combat uniform.
The Red Wing captain had no bandwidth to care about that.
She rushed back to the shuttle that had just landed and reported the situation at the West Asia Branch directly to Schicksal Headquarters.
In truth, she'd already sensed something was very wrong when the base failed to send its scheduled navigation response.
And now——
Honestly, she didn't even want to lead the squad deeper inside.
The entrance alone looked like this.
What kind of hellscape was waiting further in?
She was certain that every member of the Red Wing Squad — herself included — was going to walk away with psychological scars.
More than half an hour later...
Schicksal Headquarters — the floating island cluster above the Mediterranean, Europe.
"What? The West Asia Branch was destroyed? All internal personnel killed?"
Durandal received the report from Rita, and shock ran through her.
Recently, Schicksal's Archbishop — that man called Otto Apocalypse — had vanished without a trace.
With no other option, Durandal — the currently active strongest S-rank Valkyrie, with equally high prestige within Schicksal — had been forced to take over management duties.
It was only after stepping into that role that she realized just how difficult it was to run a colossal, world-spanning organization.
She wasn't built for this.
Frankly, if Rita weren't still beside her, a binary-minded person like Durandal would've turned half the important decisions into a complete disaster.
And even with Rita's support, she still felt that one day in this chair was more exhausting than a solid month of nonstop combat against Honkai Beasts.
Mental fatigue. No remedy for it.
And yet, right at this critical moment...
"According to the Red Wing Squad's report, when they returned to the West Asia Branch base half an hour ago, there were no remaining signs of life."
"It was as though... every single person had been slaughtered."
On one of the floating islands, Rita and Durandal were alone in a room together.
Rita handed over an electronic tablet — the screen displayed surveillance footage from the West Asia Branch.
The footage showed, in real time, blood-covered floors and corpses in states of death too terrible to describe.
And when Durandal scrolled to the video portion——
Groups of short-haired girls, cutting through the entire West Asia Branch base like it wasn't even there.
Neither Durandal nor Rita could identify them.
Identical in appearance, figure, combat style... everything. Hundreds of the same girl.
"Clones?"
Rita had a suspicion. "Anti-Entropy's work?"
Durandal was equally baffled.
Fortunately, they didn't have to wonder long...
At a certain point in the footage, a black-haired young man appeared — wearing a black formal suit, carrying himself like an elegant butler.
He faced a surveillance camera. In the recording, he bowed slightly.
"To the self-proclaimed 'heroes' opposing Honkai — greetings."
"Today, the 'villain' you personally shaped is born."
"From here on, I will be playing the antagonist alongside you all."
The young man smiled and spread his hands naturally — as if he himself were a set of scales. "Question:"
"Can the so-called beauty you yearn for surpass the malice in my heart?"
"Why don't we — wait and see."