"The biggest problem right now is… what on earth actually happened on Jarilo-VI?!" Inori-chan felt a headache coming on.
Stelle and the others were nowhere to be found, and Cocolia was already impatiently merging with the Stellaron, ready to wipe out the world.
On top of that, Cocolia was dressed like some kind of Prometheus knockoff. Cloak, mask, hood, hiding from the light, and there was even a faint, suspicious garbage-can smell clinging to her.
"Retrieve intrusive variables."
"Time preset: one week."
Inori-chan issued the command to the Emperor's Scepter CPU.
Interfering with reality through the Scepter consumed a lot of processing power, but once the target was inside the Scepter itself, the cost became negligible. It was basically the difference between cloud gaming and running the game locally.
[Cocolia]
[Supreme Guardian of Jarilo-VI. An external variable contained within the Scepter by the Administrator.]
[A Pathstrider of Preservation and Destruction, currently assimilating with the Stellaron. After assimilation, she will transform into a songstress? who manipulates Imaginary energy. There is a very high probability that Cocolia's mental functions will be severely damaged.]
[Reading data…]
The screen displayed Cocolia's recent activities. From micromanaging the Silvermane Guards twenty meters forward and back, to the Nameless descending from beyond the sky onto the land of Jarilo-VI.
Everything looked normal.
Until a certain entry appeared in the intel.
[The Can of Order]
[The Can of Order employed a stratagem: Trojan Horse. It disguised itself as having been subdued and was brought into Fort Qlipoth.]
[The Can of Order attacked Cocolia. Cocolia was suppressed. Cocolia's sense of humiliation increased!]
[The Can of Order ran out of energy and departed. The trash inside the Can attacked Cocolia. Cocolia's sense of humiliation increased!]
"..."
So the change in the timeline really was caused by a garbage can. What even was this? A dignified final boss losing to a trash bin?!
Inori-chan clutched her head, regretting her own reckless meddling.
Stuffing Elysia with Destruction Blessings, stuffing Stelle with the Memoirs of Jin Lajitzde, all of it had caused no end of trouble. It seemed she really could not keep shoving weird things into random cats anymore.
If this were a complete Emperor's Scepter, locking up a Stellaron and Cocolia together would be easy.
But this was only the CPU. The CPU was the core component and could perform most of the Scepter's functions, but letting a Stellaron run wild inside still carried a nonzero chance of a system crash.
Looks like she had to step in personally…?
Using a cat's body to fight a boss was far too inconvenient, so Inori-chan loaded the data of the Savior Can #360 onto herself. After all, garbage cans seemed oddly effective against Cocolia.
Data symbols rapidly recombined across Inori-chan's body. A blinding light engulfed the entire cat, and within it, the silhouette of a girl emerged.
Kiyono Inori: (⊙_⊙)
No. Way.
When the light faded, what appeared was not the stereotypical trash can, but a breathtakingly beautiful girl, the kind you could not look away from once you saw her.
Overexposed pale flaxen hair glowed almost white. Her face blurred the line between innocence and allure. She wore an elegant aqua-blue dress, a choker circling her neck.
Below, white thigh-high socks tied with butterfly bows, not quite opaque, her knees faintly flushed pink beneath the fabric.
"This is just me!"
"When it saved the world and dug through trash, did it really do all that with this face? Oh my god, why is this outfit so revealing? And no shoes?! Is this really okay?!"
Kiyono Inori froze on the spot.
If she had to say, it was still different from her real appearance. There were traces of Stelle and Elysia mixed in.
For example, she was a bit taller than herself, clearly the Stellaron baby's code at work. Her figure, especially her legs, was fuller, obviously the influence of the pink pig-cat's data.
[When Savior Can #360 began saving the world, it discovered that a garbage-can exterior could not integrate into organic society. It therefore decided to model itself after a human appearance.]
The Emperor's Scepter CPU thoughtfully pulled up the relevant data.
"Ah, because the first organic life it ever saw was me, it used my appearance as the base. Add in the cat data factors, and this is what came out."
The girl rubbed her forehead. "Whatever. Let's just go deal with the Stellaron and Cocolia first, okay?!"
…
"This is…"
Cocolia, mid-assimilation with the Stellaron, felt her vision blur. The icy wasteland vanished, replaced by a pure white world, mirrors stretching in all directions.
She was the only black presence in that white expanse.
Cloak, mask, hood. Afraid of running into another garbage-can person, she had wrapped herself up extra tight before setting out. Now, surrounded by countless reflections of herself, she clutched her head in agony.
"Ugh… ahh…" A destructive impulse surged in her chest. The Stellaron's whispers never ceased, shredding her peace of mind.
"Heh. How unsightly."
Following the voice, Cocolia raised her head.
A girl stood beside her, seemingly having appeared out of nowhere. A beauty impossible to ignore. Her gemlike eyes were clear and brilliant, tinged with unmistakable pity.
"You are…?"
There was something faintly divine about the girl's bearing. Cocolia hesitated, instinctively thinking of the Stellaron.
Was this the Stellaron's soul?
"Jarilo-VI. Guardian of Belobog, Cocolia. Though you have committed many wrongs and evils, I will still place the right of choice before you."
The girl smiled, gentle and composed.
"What…?"
"You know very well that the new world promised by that Stellaron does not exist. It is deceiving you. Your choices, your confusion, are ultimately futile."
Amid the monotonous electronic hum, repeating like telegraph clicks, her words carried an irresistible conviction.
"If it is all futile, then let go of the Stellaron and hand it over to me. I can guarantee that Belobog will continue to stand. And you, if you wish, I can help remove the Stellaron's influence from you."
Kiyono Inori calmly spun her web of lies.
She had always claimed she was bad at fighting. Yet her very first real battle had to be against a final boss like Cocolia.
Naturally, she chose the most stable approach.
She could not undo the erosion of Cocolia's sanity by the Stellaron.
But as long as she planted self-suggestion in Cocolia before full assimilation, she could later weaken the power and destructive inclination of Cocolia, Mother of Delusion.
"Ha…?"
The Stellaron-addled Cocolia scoffed. "Wrongs and evils? Who do you think you are, judging me?"
"..."
The girl let out a token sigh.
"Arrogant. Ignorant. Do you know what agonizing decisions I made for the sake of the new world? Abandoning the people of the Underworld. Sending the Guards into the Fragmentum to die. Halting research on the Stellaron."
"Every choice plunged me into pain. But for the new world the Stellaron promised, a world without poverty, cold, or suffering, I gritted my teeth and endured every time!"
"Do you know? For seven hundred years…"
Cocolia's voice shook with emotion.
She was clearly in pain. But the people of Jarilo-VI under her rule had surely suffered even more. Still, Kiyono had no extra thoughts on that. She was not a party to it.
She only knew that her plan to neutralize Cocolia had failed. Now it was time for an encounter battle.
Even so, the talk was not useless.
During this time, she used the Emperor's Scepter to deeply analyze Cocolia's strength. Assuming full Stellaron assimilation, she would be about two to three tiers stronger than the barrier left behind at full power by the Herrscher of Ice.
That was all.
After all, the Herrscher of Ice was not especially powerful. And this was the world of Honkai Star Rail, which added the extra boost of Path power compared to Honkai Impact 3rd.
Converted back to the HI3 scale, she was probably around the same level as the Herrscher of Ice.
"Maybe I should even thank you, you nameless thing. If not for this chance you gave me, I might never have said these words…"
After pouring out her pain and her longing for Bronya, Cocolia suddenly leapt forward, charging the girl from dozens of meters away, flaming spear aimed straight at her chest.
The Stellaron had told her:
The girl before her was the final obstacle to the new world. Kill her, and nothing would stand in the way.
So Cocolia had deliberately put on a show of half-hearted repentance, hoping the girl would lower her guard and close the distance.
But this woman never relaxed at all.
They were already talking about Bronya. Keep going and it would turn into stories about getting beaten up by a garbage-can person. Cocolia could not keep up the act any longer and lunged forward recklessly.
Boom!
The collision sent shockwaves rippling through the pure white space, distorting it and revealing something like a motherboard beneath.
The girl regarded her lightly. Blood streamed down, yet she caught Cocolia's flaming spear with a single hand.
Cocolia's eyes changed.
Assimilation with the Stellaron was accelerating rapidly. Her power was nothing like before. Even if she faced that garbage-can person again, she could easily win now.
But… how was this possible? There was no such person on Jarilo-VI. Of that, Cocolia was certain. And yet…
"Heh. Let me teach you something. Anger is an excellent catalyst for destruction. Without that crucial anger, you cannot unleash destruction's true power."
[Emperor's Scepter: Administrator Authority]
When fighting on the Scepter's home ground, per the Administrator Safety Protocol, negative debuffs and interruption effects are highly likely to be ignored, while granting the highest level of immortality.
"Let me tell you a little secret~
That garbage can you ran into actually has something to do with me. Well? Doesn't your destructive power feel a bit stronger now?"
She flung Cocolia away. As Cocolia struggled to regain balance midair, a copy of the Memoirs of Jin Lajitzde appeared in Kiyono Inori's other hand.
"You… garbage… can… person!"
Cocolia slammed to the ground, looking up, her eyes practically bloodshot.
Under intense external stimulation, Cocolia and the Stellaron completed their assimilation in mere seconds, transforming directly into a songstress who wielded Imaginary energy: Mother of Delusion.
And yet.
Even as Mother of Delusion, the fury blazing in Cocolia's chest did not fade. Under cover of multiple walls of ice, she rushed at terrifying speed toward the source of her ultimate humiliation.
Unless she tore out the girl's heart, the bitterness in her chest would never be soothed, not even in the new world.
But the moment she touched Kiyono Inori.
Kiyono Inori vanished.
In almost the same instant, she reappeared behind Mother of Delusion. Several dark purple magic arrows pierced straight through her chest, pinning her firmly to the ground.
"Wow, you really are a model student. I expected it, but to be angry to this extent… just how much do you hate garbage cans?"
Kiyono Inori said with a sigh.
"Let me teach you one more thing. Anger is indeed the best destruction catalyst. But unfortunately,
I have already observed your anger. This excess emotion only makes your behavior patterns fixed and predictable to me."
She watched Mother of Delusion struggle.
"If you truly wanted to kill me, you should have extinguished that excess rage and faced me with calm and clarity. Ah, sorry. You cannot hear me anymore, can you?"
Kiyono Inori smiled like a villain toying with her prey.
[4-Star Destructive Accretion: The lower your HP, the higher the value. Grants an additional 70 percent mechanic compensation.]
[4-Star Incremental Apocalypse: Deals extra damage based on the extremity of destructive inclination. Grants an additional 70 percent mechanic compensation.]
[Pioneer of the Stars: Weakness analysis. Enemy action success rate and skill accuracy reduced.]
[Ruppert III Is on the Way: Emperor's Scepter home-field buffs increased. Deals additional true damage to organic life.]
[Fairy Magic], [5-Star Weapon: Blossoms of Bygone Days], [4-Star Weapon: Wandering Eveningstar]…
Buff lights flashed endlessly. Kiyono Inori's pupils shifted from clear ice-blue to brilliant amber. She had stacked every buff she possibly could.
Cocolia: (O_o)
The Stellaron: (⊙_⊙)
Cocolia had become Mother of Delusion and lost consciousness, but the Stellaron still retained some instinctive reactions. How should it put this… the opponent was starting to look suspiciously like its own boss.
[Uh… can we talk this out?]
If the Stellaron's base intelligence were a bit higher, it might have defected on the spot. Unfortunately, it could not.
"Hah…"
Kiyono Inori took a deep breath.
In the world of Honkai Star Rail, the destructive urges brought by Destruction Blessings were harder to suppress, the stat boosts higher, and on top of that, some intense electronic BGM was playing inside the Scepter.
[Emperor's Scepter: Preset BGM]
This was the decisive battle music preset by Emperor Ruppert II. It played whenever an Administrator fought. The Emperor himself had been stabbed to death by the Lord of Silence #4 to this very music.
The composition quality was a notch above Kiyono Inori's own piano mastery, easily at a master level. It seemed Emperor Ruppert II really did have good taste in music.
[Kiyono Inori: STOP! I want to listen to Spring Sunlight!]
This music was a bit too intense. It was making her destructive urges hard to control, so she wanted something more along the lines of music that was burned into her DNA and always made her laugh.
[Emperor's Scepter: Logic change failed. You may not arbitrarily alter the Emperor's preset underlying logic!]
[Kiyono Inori: (╰_╯)]
[Kiyono Inori: What the heck? Does that mean every fight from now on I have to listen to the Emperor's execution music? Changing BGM counts as underlying logic now?]
Slightly dissatisfied, the girl raised her hand.
She flicked it toward Cocolia, who was still pinned by magic arrows and struggling to rise. Cocolia shot backward like a cannonball, crashing into the edge of the white world before stopping.
Hmm. Better hold back a bit so I do not kill her.
So thought the girl who claimed she was bad at fighting, just an ordinary desk clerk.
…
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Let me know if I got a name wrong. I know basically nothing about MyGO.