Xia Yu opened her eyes to find herself floating in low Earth orbit.
Yes, low Earth orbit.
The azure planet below looked incredibly familiar; she appeared to be directly above the Japanese archipelago. Stunned for a moment, she instinctively tried to hold her breath, only to realize belatedly—'Wait, I don't think I need to breathe.'
It seemed this new body was quite formidable.
Following her usual routine, she looked down at her hands. She wore metal gauntlets inset with an unknown black fabric, covering her right thumb, index, and middle fingers, leaving the other two exposed. In her hand, she gripped a sheathed tachi.
There was no need for further inspection. She recognized the blade immediately.
Acheron.
'No way. Is the jump really this big?'
To go straight from a Tarnished and Furina to an Emanator-level powerhouse like Acheron... it felt utterly absurd.
At the thought, Xia Yu couldn't help but raise the blade. She didn't intend to unsheathe it, merely to look, but the moment she moved, an endless void surged from her chest. In an instant, every color before her eyes and every emotion in her heart were torn asunder by that hollow impact. It was Nihility. It was erosion.
Xia Yu took a deep breath, struggling to stabilize her emotions. It took several hours before she slowly adapted.
Then, she decisively swapped characters!
Furina couldn't survive in space either, but the physical constitution of the Tarnished could endure it. As the figure in heavy armor appeared in the void, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The influence of Nihility was simply too overwhelming. Acheron could endure it because of her extraordinary will; Xia Yu estimated she would lose herself within an hour or two.
The good news: the new body was Peerless. The bad news: it was too strong.
Still, an hour of power at the level of an Emanator was enough to complete a scorched-earth operation against an entire star system.
Thinking this, she cautiously switched back to Acheron. The sense of emptiness still washed over her soul, but it was no longer a torrential flood. She could hold her ground.
She turned her attention to the three glowing orbs before her—the rewards from the previous world.
[Noble Phantasm: Reincarnation Pandora (Godly Thief)]
From Fate/strange fake. One of the Noble Phantasms of Alcides (Avenger Heracles). Its effect allows the user to steal the Noble Phantasms of others for their own use.
'Doesn't feel as good as God Hand,' she thought. If she possessed the Twelve Labors, she could at least stack enough resistance to the Nihility erosion, even if she couldn't solve it. But it wasn't useless; it might have miraculous effects later.
[Tool: Omni-Synthesizer]
From Honkai: Star Rail. A great item for turning trash into treasure. Whether you can stomach the resulting "treasure" is your own business.
[Revive Coin]
Resurrects the user upon death, clearing all negative status effects.
A simple description, yet peak power. As the coin landed in her hand, Xia Yu knew she could officially start "playing risky." An extra life! This was easily the most precious reward.
She quickly stowed the coin and surveyed her surroundings. Space. Perfect. Time to test this.
Xia Yu reached out, gently gripping the hilt. She took a deep breath and slowly drew the blade just a fraction. Instantly, a seemingly infinite power erupted within her. She felt that if she fully unsheathed this sword and gave the planet a gentle swing...
The atmosphere would be sliced open instantly. The Pacific Ocean would witness a miracle akin to Moses parting the sea. The tectonic plates would crumble like broken bars of chocolate.
This wasn't a hypothetical. If she truly swung the blade, everything would be "solved."
Of course, she wasn't so deranged as to test her blade on Earth; she wasn't an ancient samurai practicing tsujigiri. But the power was terrifying, and the price was equally steep. In her eyes, the azure planet had turned into a world of grey and white, as if all color was distancing itself from her.
Xia Yu snapped the long blade shut with a sharp clack.
The surging power receded with the motion. The erosion of Nihility stopped being a tide that swallowed everything, and the Earth below gradually regained its color.
The power wasn't stored in the sword; drawing it was simply the trigger to mobilize the energy in her body. Honestly, she felt she had gotten the better end of the deal. If she were the real Acheron, Nihility would erode her every second regardless of whether she used that power. But Xia Yu was only eroded when she tapped into her Emanator strength. If the real Acheron knew, she would be green with envy!
'What is this? An "Improved Model" Emanator of Nihility?' Though the side effects remained, they didn't interfere with daily life. Of course, the erosion would deepen with every use of power until, one day, she might become just like Acheron.
But by then, wouldn't she still have the Revive Coin? Perfect!
She summoned her flight gear, Itzal, and dived toward Earth. She didn't care where she landed; she just headed straight down into the atmosphere. After a few minutes of flight, she spotted a prosperous steel city and steered toward it, eventually landing quietly in a remote alley.
'First, let's see what kind of world this is...'
As she rounded a corner, she witnessed an ongoing act of violence.
A beautiful white-haired girl was swinging a baseball bat, knocking down hoodlums one by one while muttering: "Trying to pick me up, huh!"
Thwack!
"Getting mad and trying to get physical after being rejected, huh!"
Thwack!
"Ten grown men ganging up on people!"
Thwack!
"And you can't even beat a 'weak' girl like me!"
Thwack!
"That's it? This is all you've got for a kidnapping attempt?"
Thwack!
As the thugs hit the ground one by one, falling into a "baby-like" sleep, the white-haired girl smiled kindly at the last trembling hoodlum.
"You. Go find all their wallets for me!"
In the eyes of the last thug, that "kind" smile was more terrifying than a demon. "Be... Beautiful lady..."
"Hmm?" The white-haired girl raised an eyebrow and slightly lifted her bat.
Thump!
"Heroine! Great Master!" The thug collapsed to his knees, snot and tears streaming down his face. "We don't have any money!"
"What do you mean 'no money'?" The girl tapped the nearby wall menacingly with her bat. "There's over a dozen of you. You can't even produce 100,000 yen?"
In terms of yen, 100,000 wasn't a massive sum. If a dozen people couldn't scrape that together...
"Our boss was robbed!" the thug wailed. "Someone took hundreds of thousands of yen from him. To get revenge, we all chipped in for the boss. We really don't have anything left!"
"You're playing me," the white-haired girl sneered. "Your boss got beaten and needs his underlings to pay for his revenge? How pathetic is that?"
"I... I..." The thug looked ready to die. "Master, I think it's embarrassing too, but he's the boss... what else can we do?"
He pulled out his own wallet, shaking out a few coins—maybe about 1,000 yen. Then he searched his fallen comrades one by one, eventually scraping together a total of around 10,000 yen.
It was the white-haired girl's turn to be dumbfounded. "...You really weren't lying."
"Exactly, Master," the thug cried. "We're broke! All the money was taken by the guy who beat the boss. If we weren't broke, would a dozen of us be wandering the streets at dawn?"
They were hoping to find someone alone to shake down for some cash. Who knew they'd run into such a monster? A teenage girl was literally beating them senseless.
"Who dares to steal my business!" the white-haired girl shouted in anger. "Don't they have any civic sense!"
To find her old man, she had traveled across Eurasia. She relied on hard work and her fists to gather funds, but she had just been given a harsh lesson in the Far East. In Italy, she robbed the Mafia; in Russia, she fought gangs; she even snatched from warlords in Southeast Asia. And yet, here... is the Far Eastern criminal underworld this pathetic?
'As a country where gangs are legal, shouldn't you stand taller? A dozen men leaving the house with only 10,000 yen... and that boss, asking his subordinates for money after getting beaten?'
Can you at least act like a proper criminal?
"I heard the boss say it was a hulking brute, over two meters tall with arms thicker than a waist," the thug swallowed hard, terror filling his eyes. "Right by the arcade under the elevated tracks. He chased over a dozen of them and beat them all by himself! Plenty of them are still in the hospital!"
"Wait, that place sounds familiar," the white-haired girl said suspiciously. "Is that arcade a Taito Station franchise?"
"Yes!" the thug nodded.
The girl's expression became increasingly unfriendly. "Your boss... does he have long side-swept bangs, a nose ring, lip piercings, slanted eyes, and a missing piece of his right ear?"
"Ye... Yes..." The thug suddenly had a very bad feeling.
"Heh. Hehehehe." The girl nearly ground her teeth to dust. She tapped the bat against her palm. "Two meters tall?"
She stepped closer to the thug.
"Arms thicker than a waist?"
The thug realized something. He looked at his unconscious comrades, then at the "Asura" approaching him. His legs gave out, and he slumped to the ground.
"A hulking brute?"
"Master, it's not my fault!" the thug sobbed. "That's what the boss said! I really didn't know!"
Thwack!
A strike to the head!
The force was perfectly calculated—a clean knockout without brain damage, at most a few days in the hospital. This was a secret technique she had honed over the years. If she hit too hard and killed a dozen people, it would be a major incident for both the underground and the government. But if they were just unconscious for a few days, who would care? They were just low-level thugs.
She had used this trick from Europe to Asia without fail.
The girl bent down to pick up the scattered 10,000 yen and sighed. She hadn't expected the guy she knocked out a few weeks ago to be their boss. He didn't look like leader material at all.
She shook her head. 'Sigh, next month's rent isn't settled yet. Apartments near Chiba Academy aren't cheap.'
Nagazora City was a trade center in the Far East, a world-class city gathering elites. It was a global financial, economic, and technological hub, most notably housing the headquarters of the electronics giant, Massive Electric (ME) Corp. Chiba Academy was located in the Academic City on the outskirts of Nagazora.
This city contained the world's most advanced equipment. Its educational institutions covered everything from preschool to high-tech specialized colleges. There were six famous middle schools, ten universities, and various research institutes, with hundreds of thousands of students and staff living there. Chiba Academy was one of them, divided into elementary, middle, and high school sections. Its most famous feature was the research institute established by ME Corp.
Consequently, rent in the area was exorbitant. Her little "vault" was nearly empty. And these thugs didn't even drop any "gold coins." What was she supposed to do now?
Thinking of this, Kiana sighed and turned toward the depths of the alley.
"Hey," she raised her bat. "Have you seen enough? Are you the muscle that boss hired?"
"Heh, with a boss that pathetic and underlings this poor, the muscle they hired can't be much better. Come out!" Kiana said arrogantly. "I'm in a hurry!"
Hearing this, Xia Yu slowly walked out. She hadn't been hiding in the first place, so she wasn't surprised Kiana had spotted her.
Under the dim streetlights outside the alley, Kiana watched the "muscle" step out. The first thing she saw was those fair, long legs. The white-haired girl silently swallowed, thinking she might go a bit easier on her in a moment.
Then she saw the exaggeratedly long blade in the stranger's hand. 'Tch, that length... a pro?'
Next, she saw the exposed midriff and navel above the shorts, and the towering curves above that. In her heart, the "Paramecium" cried out: 'Nice!'
'I definitely need to get to know this big sister!'
Finally, the most exciting part: the face. As the features slowly revealed themselves, Kiana's mouth fell open.
"Me... Mei?" she exclaimed. "Mei, how are you... Wait, no!"
Her brain worked at lightning speed. This person clearly looked like Mei, but she was far more mature. So...
"Are you... Mei's mother?" Kiana blurted out.
Hearing this, Xia Yu's indifferent expression nearly cracked.
'Mother?'
Does Mei even know she suddenly has another mother?