Black Tiger's throat bobbed up and down with difficulty.
That head of hair, glaringly white in the dim factory, and those bestial, heterochromatic pupils.
This image overlapped perfectly with the "crazy white-haired girl" who had recently become the talk of the underworld, the one who had turned every major betting den in the city's east and south upside down.
He had originally assumed she was nothing more than a vicious piece of work who'd trained a few years in Ancient Martial Arts, backed by some bigwig in the police department.
As long as the firepower was dense enough, a body of mere flesh and blood would eventually be riddled into a sieve.
But what the hell was that just now?
Falling unprotected from a height of more than ten meters, and not only failing to break her legs, but instead smashing a huge crater into the hard concrete floor? And even catching a nine-millimeter Parabellum round with her bare hand?
Is that a human? You're telling me that's a human?!
Fear swelled violently inside Black Tiger's chest, finally fermenting into a kind of cornered-beast hysteria.
His face, covered in slabs of muscle, twisted into an extremely ugly shape, his eyeballs bulging outward with terror.
"Open fire!!"
Black Tiger's voice was so hoarse it cracked, and he wildly brandished the Beretta in his hand—already one round short—spittle flying in the beams of the searchlights.
"Open fire! Gun down this monster for me! If she gets close to you, you're all fucking dead!!"
Fear is contagious.
The thugs all around, whose nerves had already been pulled taut by Su Yu's countdown earlier, seemed to find in Black Tiger's bellow the only outlet to vent their fear.
Dozens of pitch-black muzzles—submachine guns, shotguns, old-fashioned rifles—spat out dazzling tongues of flame at the very same instant.
The deafening gunfire roared and exploded within the empty, abandoned factory, the enormous echoes surging back and forth beneath the steel dome, nearly rupturing eardrums.
Dense brass casings poured down onto the concrete floor like a rainstorm, ringing out in an unbroken string of crisp impacts.
The interwoven lines of fire completely blanketed the open patch of ground at the center of the factory, weaving an airtight web of death.
And yet, within this hail of bullets—enough to tear a bulletproof sedan to shreds—the flow of time, in Kiana's perception, was stretched out infinitely.
This was the monstrous dynamic vision and neural reflex of the Kaslana family, tempered through hundreds upon thousands of cruel battles.
In her eyes, those rounds ripping through the air at supersonic speed seemed mired in extremely viscous glue.
The searing muzzle flashes bloomed slowly across her retinas, and the minute ripples of airflow formed by the bullets compressing the air were as clear as ripples on the surface of water.
She did not retreat so much as half a step.
She didn't even make any large evasive movement.
A mere slight tilt of her head, and a submachine-gun round grazed past the white hair beside her ear, carrying away a few severed strands.
A mere gentle twist of her waist, and a row of rifle rounds skimmed past the edge of her baggy T-shirt, leaving a few barely perceptible scorch marks on the fabric.
She was like a fallen leaf swaying in a violent storm—seemingly in the utmost danger, yet threading with extreme precision through the gaps between every single raindrop.
Those lethal hot weapons appeared so clumsy and laughable before this body of hers, one that couldn't even call upon Honkai energy.
After several long seconds.
The first frenzied volley finally fell silent.
The air was thick with the extremely pungent stench of gunsmoke and the smell of metal scorched by high heat.
From around the clearing came bursts of panicked, hurried metallic clatter.
It was the thugs, in their extreme terror, fumbling with trembling hands to swap out their emptied magazines.
Someone, hands shaking too badly, dropped his magazine straight onto the ground, letting out a despairing curse.
Black Tiger panted in great heaving gulps, the right hand gripping his gun trembling as though seized by ague.
He stared fixedly at the smoke-shrouded center of the factory, trying to spot, within that gray-white haze, the monster's corpse lying in a pool of blood.
The searchlight beams pierced through the gradually dissipating gunsmoke.
In that instant, Black Tiger's breathing came to a complete standstill.
With Kiana at the center, within a radius of two meters there was no longer a single intact patch of concrete floor to be found.
Bullet holes covered the ground in dense profusion like a honeycomb; even the rusty, discarded gears on the surrounding equipment had been riddled into sieves.
But.
The white-haired girl standing dead center in that ruin still held that same posture from before, her head slightly tilted.
On her T-shirt printed with the Homu pattern, there wasn't a single trace of blood.
On her fair arms and legs, there wasn't even so much as a red graze from a fragment of shrapnel.
She simply stood there quietly, coldly watching Black Tiger.
In that gaze there was no anger, no killing intent—only an absolute indifference, as if she were looking at ants.
"This... this is fuck—"
Black Tiger's lips trembled violently, his throat making meaningless gurgling sounds.
The Beretta 92F in his hand could finally no longer be held, and with a "clatter" it dropped to the ground.
This simply was not something a human being could do.
This was a kind of absolute violence that transcended their comprehension, enough to crush every last shred of will to resist.
Dead silence.
Utter, dead silence.
If Kiana's entrance—smashing the ground like a meteor, crushing bullets to bits with her bare hands—had left the brains of these desperadoes of the Tiger Claw Gang in a state of crash-and-freeze, still clinging to one last sliver of false security based on their hot weapons,
then that volley just now—which had poured out hundreds of rounds yet failed to so much as scuff the hem of her clothes—became the final steel bar that broke the camel's back.
That brass bullet still lay quietly at the edge of the cracked, shallow crater.
"Clang."
No one knew whose fingers were the first to lose their strength.
An old double-barreled shotgun dropped to the ground, ringing out with an extremely grating, crisp clatter.
That sound was like pressing some kind of switch.
"Monster... she's a monster!!!"
A hoodlum standing at the very outer edge suddenly let out a shrill, miserable scream.
He couldn't even spare a moment to grab the gun on the ground; using both hands and feet, he spun around and went scrambling and tumbling toward that thick darkness of night outside the factory.
In his extreme terror, the sound coming out of his throat had completely changed pitch, like a rooster being throttled by the neck.
The collapse spread rapidly through the crowd like a plague.
"Run! Run, hurry!"
"Out of my way! Move it!"
"Mama! I want my mama!!"
The thugs who had just moments ago been so ferocious, pointing their guns at Su Yu, were now like an ant colony scalded by boiling water.
Some shoved each other in an attempt to seize an escape route; some, their legs gone soft, simply dropped to their knees and crawled frantically outward.
"Get back here! Get the fuck back here, every one of you!!" Black Tiger's eyes were bloodshot as he despairingly flailed his arms, trying to stop his scattering underlings. "She's just one person! We have guns! Open fire!"
But no one paid him any heed.
Before a power that exceeded the dimensions of human comprehension, any gang rules and code of brotherhood became laughable scraps of waste paper.
Kiana stood where she was, coldly sweeping her gaze over those backs fleeing like homeless curs.
She did not give chase.
For these ordinary people—who were worth less than a single toe of a Honkai Beast—she didn't even have the desire to lift a hand.
But that shot Black Tiger had just fired at Su Yu had touched the one line in this world she would absolutely never allow to be crossed.
"Will you lay down your weapons and surrender on your own, or shall I use my fists to help you surrender?"
Kiana's voice wasn't loud; the crisp tone reverberated through the empty factory, yet it carried a coldness that chilled one to the marrow.
The instant her words fell, she slowly raised her right foot, then fiercely stamped it down on the ground.
"BOOM——!!!"
With her landing point at the center, a visible shockwave swept outward hugging the ground.
The hard concrete floor let out a tooth-grinding cracking sound, spiderweb-like fractures instantly spreading more than ten meters.
The floor of the entire abandoned factory actually trembled violently upward because of this seemingly casual stamp of hers.
A few of the slower hoodlums were flipped straight to the ground by this jolting force, rolling over several times; when they got back up, they didn't even dare glance at Kiana, wailing as they crawled out the main gate on all fours.
Black Tiger froze in place.
The last bit of will to resist he had left melted away clean before this stamp that shattered the concrete floor, like a snowflake beneath the blazing sun.
The gun in his hand had long since vanished who-knows-where, his legs as if filled with lead, unable to budge a single step.
Kiana slowly turned her head, her gaze locking onto Black Tiger.
She stepped forward, walking toward that man who was already scared the color of dirt.
Her footsteps were very light, but to Black Tiger's ears they were like a countdown to the arrival of the god of death.
At the same time.
Hiding behind the abandoned generator, Murata Ryusuke was clamping a hand desperately over his own mouth, doing his utmost to suppress the breathing that had grown hurried from sheer shock.
His brain, which never miscalculated in the business world, was at this moment undergoing a magnitude-ten earthquake.
This... this doesn't conform to science at all!
Ryusuke's line of sight stuck fast to that seemingly petite white-haired girl.
Catching bullets bare-handed? Shattering the foundation with one stamp?
How is this any kind of reclusive master who came running out of the Deep Mountains and Old Forests?
This is the goddamn set of a Terminator movie, isn't it?!
His gaze shifted, falling upon Su Yu, who stood not far off and had remained calm from start to finish.
Ryusuke's throat bobbed once.
An inference both hair-raising and yet perfectly logical took shape in his mind.
To be able to keep a monster like this at his side like a pet, even to have her obey his every word... just who on earth is this young man called Su Yu?
Recalling how, just earlier in the restaurant's private room, he had actually lectured the boy in that lofty, condescending tone, even attempting to use a barrier of class to force him away from his daughter—
Ryusuke suddenly felt his back was utterly soaked through with cold sweat.
I really was clubbing back and forth right at the gates of hell! Was I tired of living, or what?!
If a humanoid Terminator like this became an enemy, it would be the most terrifying nightmare in this world.
And he—
Wait.
Looking at that not-exactly-broad yet utterly reassuring back, and recalling the image of Su Yu coming alone to rescue him just now—
Ryusuke's eyes suddenly blazed with fanatical light.
That's it! That's it!
This is his precious daughter's goddamn boyfriend! His future son-in-law!
Hot damn!
The more he looked at Su Yu's back, the more he liked it.
That fanatical look in his eyes—it was just like gazing upon a glittering, immeasurable, peerless gold mine.
Never before had there been such a wonderful opening!
Married! This marriage absolutely must happen! The moment I get back, I'll swipe the Household Registration book and go straight to register the marriage!
What corporation, what connections, what whatever-else—I'll cram it all in one shot into Su Yu's—
Ryusuke roared frantically in his heart.
This kid isn't just brave and clever—he's got this kind of absolute force, goddamn enough to overturn the common sense of the world.
As long as Su Yu is around, from now on in all of Arc City—no, in the whole world—who would dare touch my, Murata Ryusuke's, precious daughter? Who would dare touch a single hair on her head?
Those down-to-earth, landlord-and-tenant street-stall web novels were right after all! This daughter of ours, whom the two of us old folks have worried over our whole lives—even I had given up hope, figuring that if worst came to worst it wouldn't matter if she stayed single forever—
Who could have imagined this child would quietly pull off such an enormous surprise for me!
Truly worthy of being my, Murata Ryusuke's, daughter!!
At this moment Su Yu was attentively observing Kiana's actions, not noticing in the slightest the ardent gaze of the "father-in-law" behind him—who looked like he could hardly wait to tie him up and haul him before his daughter the very next moment.
He was merely marveling at how Kiana's power truly defied all common sense.
"Squad Monitor, what do you make of it?"
Su Yu communicated inwardly with Fenghuang.
"Kiana has grown stronger."
Fenghuang's voice surfaced in the depths of Su Yu's mind, carrying a complicated nuance.
"I didn't expect that in this peaceful world without Honkai energy, her neural reactions and bodily coordination would actually improve even further."
"No—perhaps it is precisely because there is no Honkai energy to use that, in order to grow stronger, she gravitates all the more toward honing her own skill."
Su Yu felt a vague, awed bafflement.
"You should be aware of Kiana's background as well. Born as the K-423 experimental specimen, she is, you could say, the very creation of the current civilization's Honkai and the pinnacle of human technology—which is why she could become a vessel for a Herrscher."
Fenghuang explained.
"That combat instinct she was born with, from within her bloodline and DNA, is being continually triggered in this world without Honkai energy. Have you heard of the compensation mechanism? A blind person's senses are sharper than an ordinary person's; Kiana's situation is somewhat similar."
Su Yu understood.
In other words, after losing that Honkai energy that let Kiana run wild, she automatically switched from cultivating qi to tempering her body and martial techniques, right?
What's that—an immortal transmigrates to a world without spiritual energy and begins forging a saintly physical body? Is this scene about right?
While Su Yu was letting his mind wander.
At the center of the factory.
Kiana had already walked up in front of Black Tiger.
Black Tiger's lips trembled violently; he wanted to beg for mercy, but his throat felt as though stuffed with a fistful of sand—he couldn't get out half a syllable.
Kiana wasted no words.
She kept firmly in mind the rule Su Yu had told her before: "In a peaceful world, you can't just casually kill people."
She was a good girl who knew her limits well.
She turned slightly to the side and clenched her right hand into a fist.
"Pow!"
A muffled sound of impact.
Kiana's fist hadn't even made contact with Black Tiger's body; merely the terrifying wind pressure stirred up by the swing of her fist slammed solidly into Black Tiger's abdomen.
Black Tiger's eyeballs instantly bulged out, his whole body bowing into a bizarre arc like a boiled shrimp.
He didn't even let out a scream before his body went flying backward like a torn sack, crashing heavily into an iron pillar several meters away, slowly sliding down, having completely fainted dead away.
Paralyzed from the waist down.
This was the utmost "mercy" Kiana could grant in this peaceful world.
"Heroine! Heroine, spare me!!"
Behind the railing on the second floor, that Professor Huang who had been so insufferably arrogant was now tumbling down the stairs on all fours.
He came scrambling and crawling, throwing himself flat onto the ground a few meters away from Kiana, frantically kowtowing.
"I was forced into it! It was all them... it was all those bastards of the Tiger Claw Gang who'd rather have money than their lives! It's got nothing to do with me!"
Snot and tears streamed all over his face as he desperately shoved off the blame.
Kiana didn't spare him even half a glance from the corner of her eye.
A spineless coward like this, who could only scheme and plot from behind the scenes, didn't even qualify to make her throw a punch.
She turned around to face Su Yu, who stood not far off.
In the very instant she turned, that white-haired she-devil—who just moments ago had been like a demon-god descending upon the world, radiating a heaven-destroying, earth-shattering aura with her every movement—seemed to have some marvelous toggle switch pressed.
The suffocating, ice-cold aura around her instantly dissipated without a trace.
Kiana strode briskly toward Su Yu, her footsteps as light and bouncy as a kitten that had spotted its owner.
She stopped less than half a meter from Su Yu and tilted her head up slightly.
Kiana very naturally nestled up to Su Yu's side, rising slightly onto her tiptoes, those heterochromatic eyes gazing brightly into Su Yu's.
"How was it, Senior Brother?" Kiana's voice turned soft and bright, even carrying a touch of merit-seeking, coquettish naivety. "This young lady did pretty well just now, didn't she? Did I scare them all off?"
Looking at this girl before him who'd instantly transformed into an adorable Little Junior Sister, and then looking at that gang boss in the distance who'd been crippled with a single punch—
Ryusuke, hiding behind the generator, felt his brain was nearly unable to process this kind of extreme contrast.
He stared fixedly at Su Yu, and in front of his chest, in an extremely discreet manner, put up two thumbs.
This dragon-taming skill of yours... son-in-law, you really are a badass!
Su Yu looked at Kiana, so close at hand, a flicker of helpless amusement passing through the depths of his eyes.
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