The Special Operations Unit was an elite force established specifically to combat Herrschers.
The amplification fusion-core armor was test equipment issued by the engineering division to this unit. It likewise employed controlled nuclear reactor technology. By regulating the reactor's output, it provided a powerful energy source that enhanced a soldier's mobility, defense, and offensive capability, allowing them to maneuver far more freely in battle.
Its advantages were obvious, and so were its flaws. Due to its specifications, the armor generated severe nuclear radiation, harming the user's health. Prolonged use could result in irreversible radiation damage, inflicting immense bodily harm. Therefore, soldiers were required to replace the armor within a designated time limit to avoid excessive exposure.
In addition, the armor's heat dissipation system was flawed. It could not expel the tremendous heat it generated quickly enough, causing the suit to overheat. Inside, the soldier felt as though they had been thrown into an air fryer. If used for more than three minutes, the wearer's skin would blister from burns, and they could even faint from the extreme temperature.
"Open!"
The amplification fusion-core armor instantly glowed red, billowing thick white steam. Siegfried raised his serrated blade and braced the back of it against his shoulder, forcibly blocking Shesha's claw strike.
Boom—!
Siegfried's legs sank into the steel deck, blood surging into his mouth. The nearly ten-ton blow, laced with high-voltage electricity, was not something an ordinary person could withstand—even while wearing amplification fusion-core armor.
But Siegfried, who had been injected with Honkai Beast factors and modified by Dr. Mobius, could no longer be considered an ordinary man.
The crew aboard the fusion battleship had no intention of merely watching. The red-violet heavy particle beam flared once more and blasted toward Shesha with lightning speed.
At such close range, Shesha had no time to open its mouth. The heavy particle beam tore a massive wound into its abdomen.
Seizing the opportunity, Siegfried kicked away Shesha's clawed limb, dodged the falling shards of razor-sharp black scales, and charged up along its abdomen. He drove the massive blade into the very wound created by the heavy particle beam.
The scales around the wound had already been blasted apart, revealing scorched flesh beneath. The softer skin of Shesha's abdomen lay exposed before him.
He activated the serrated blade again. Flesh and steel ground violently together, producing a piercing shriek. In the end, even Shesha's hide could not withstand the engineering division's specially crafted soulium blade—it pierced through.
After tearing open Shesha's abdomen, Siegfried plunged directly inside. Wielding the serrated blade, he wreaked havoc within its body. Fragments of Shesha's organs flew everywhere.
Shesha let out a powerless howl, yet it could do nothing about the human inside its belly. Though it could devour energy, it had never encountered a living being entering its abdomen, nor did it possess the ability to consume something already within.
Even when it attempted to slip into the shadows, the man inside remained like a lingering specter, hacking madly at its "fragile, delicate body."
Shesha writhed and wailed in agony, its colossal form smashing into the bridge walls. At last, unwillingly, it collapsed onto its side.
Siegfried burst out through its mouth, his body drenched in steaming purple blood and overflowing, terrifying Honkai energy.
Had he not undergone Dr. Mobius's modifications, he would already have been eroded into a mindless zombie by the Honkai energy inside Shesha's body.
Fortunately, Dr. Mobius had studied the Second Herrscher and developed certain humanoid Honkai biological factors. That was what allowed Siegfried to maintain a human form even after being infected by Honkai Beast factors.
But such modification merely prevented him from immediately becoming a zombie. Nothing more. The erosion of Honkai energy did not lessen in the slightest.
Siegfried's time was already running out.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
"Wonderful. Truly wonderful."
A girl's voice, dignified yet disdainful, echoed from afar.
"The dying struggle of weak insects. Barely qualifies as an entertaining performance."
Before her voice had even reached them, the girl had already stepped out from the lightning and onto the bridge, gazing down at the terrified crowd below.
She wore a dress inlaid with magnificent gemstones. Profound lightning formed wings behind her. A sacred authority radiated from her brow, and within her golden eyes shimmered a calm yet chilling majesty—untouchable by mortals.
A sphere of blue lightning floated in her hand like a tame toy, which she idly toyed with.
She raised the "toy" in her hand. Just as everyone assumed she intended to destroy the bridge with it and panic spread among them, she instead revealed a sly smile, as though teasing them, and casually tossed it behind her.
"Hmph... perish."
At her command, the lightning sphere abruptly expanded, spreading across the sky.
Out at sea, the carrier strike groups were baptized by thunder. Currents surged through the hulls, sparks and thick smoke filled the cabins, and the ships began sinking uncontrollably.
The hundreds of fighter jets that had undergone ceramic insulation modifications could not endure even half a second before that "toy lightning sphere." The subatomic-level lightning pierced straight through their insulation layers. One after another, they erupted into flames in the sky, like fireflies whose lives lasted only an instant.
The seasoned MOTH pilots died without understanding how the Herrscher had done it. All they saw was a streak of lightning flash past, followed by the sound of electrical short circuits and violent explosions within their aircraft.
The terror inside the floating battleship was even greater. If the Herrscher of Thunder could bypass the insulation of the modified fighter jets, then the same ceramic-coated floating battleship logically could not escape her assault.
The floating battleship lay beneath her like a fragile maiden stripped bare, defenseless at the Herrscher of Thunder's feet.
From the moment she appeared, Siegfried had remained on high alert, ready to confront her attack at any time. Yet from beginning to end, she did not so much as glance at him.
She ignored Siegfried, who had slain Shesha, because the Herrscher of Thunder held no interest in an individual human. Even if he were somewhat stronger, so what? A stronger insect was still an insect. A waste of attention.
Though she had once suffered at humanity's hands, that had been due to human technology, not humanity itself. The human body was frail. The Herrscher looked down upon mankind.
As for her servant Shesha, she had not the slightest intention of avenging it.
Herrscher and servant alike were born only to execute the will of the Honkai. They required no superfluous emotion. Those who failed to comprehend the Honkai's will deserved punishment.
Instead, it was the massive fusion battleship—this human "toy"—that truly excited her. Human civilization relied upon such "toys" to break Shesha's defenses and even kill it.
"Hmph. A toy is still only a toy."
The Herrscher of Thunder's eyes, glimmering with cold killing intent, shone with blue light as she aimed her hand at the fusion battleship. Her magnificent long hair streamed in the wind.
Clang—! Woooo—!
Those inside the battleship felt it shake violently, as though it had struck a reef. The entire vessel began sinking out of control.
"What's happening?"
Engineers immediately began analysis. The conclusion: a massive magnetic field was attacking the interior of the ship.
The Herrscher of Thunder sneered.
"In the end, it's just a lump of iron. You should never have brought it before me."
"Human warships are utterly fragile."
She clenched her five fingers into a tight fist. The entire battleship compressed slowly like a deflating ball, metal groaning and screeching like a crushed aluminum can. In the end, it twisted into a massive sphere of iron.
(Shesha: Wait, Your Majesty, I can still revive—don't lock me in—squish.)