"Why the hell is it Shu?!" Kiana finally lost it as the figure completely emerged from the metallic sphere.
Down in the arena, the girls were shouting in disbelief. Up in the stands, Shu was still glaring at Joachim, waiting for an answer.
"Ahem... this obviously isn't a joke." Feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up under Shu's death glare, Joachim pushed up his glasses, forcing himself to remain calm.
"Not a joke?" Shu didn't even blink. "Then why don't I sense a single trace of Honkai Energy or Authority radiating from that thing?
"Without Honkai Energy or Authority, how exactly do you plan on simulating my powers?"
"You're right, we have no way of replicating your Authority and projecting it onto that composite construct.
"However, we can replicate a fraction of a Herrscher's combat manifestation through other means..."
It was like comparing a knife to a gun. The way a knife kills a person is simple and direct—you just stab them a few times.
Compared to the simple forging process and straightforward usage of a blade, the mechanics of a firearm and a bullet killing someone are vastly more complex.
But the end result is exactly the same:
"Target Eliminated."
"This is different from the simulated Honkai Beasts you saw earlier. When we simulate a Honkai Beast, the nanomachines that compose its physical form are the entirety of the simulation.
"But when simulating your combat data, we knew that simply relying on those nanomachines would never be enough to replicate your miraculous abilities..."
"Authority," Shu corrected him, though he already understood where Joachim's explanation was going.
"So, you guys just focused on constructing a hyper-durable physical body for the avatar, and you're leaving the manifestation of the Authority to the arena itself?"
Joachim nodded affirmatively.
"At the end of the day, we are only simulating combat scenarios against a Herrscher. By coordinating every single nanomachine across the entire facility, we can simulate the vast majority of enemy attack patterns.
"While the raw power output still falls drastically short of a true Herrscher, at the very least... we can mimic almost every combat scenario."
I see...
"That makes sense. After all, the goal isn't to figure out a hyper-specific counter to a single attack, but to simulate as many combat variables as possible," Shu nodded in profound agreement.
Take notes, Otto. This is what real training looks like. You don't just secretly organize an 'Anti-Shu Coalition' and jump me using an information gap.
His favorability rating for Future City just went up by one.
However, Shu still had one pressing question.
"So why did you use my likeness?" Shu tilted his head, his unblinking gaze locking right back onto Joachim.
Joachim: "..."
"That was Otto's idea." Without skipping a beat or batting an eye, Joachim instantly threw his boss under the bus.
Shu maintained his deadpan expression, mechanically turning his gaze away from Joachim's face.
Down in the arena, the girls weren't privy to Joachim's explanation. All they saw was a desaturated, monochromatic Shu standing quietly in front of them.
And this... was their next opponent.
"I have to fight Captain Shu? Are you kidding me?" Lyle was exhausted. Even though he had practically been slacking off the entire previous round—with Bronya's commands for him mostly revolving around 'find cover' and 'stay alive'—the constant repositioning had still left him panting heavily.
Now, looking at their new enemy, Lyle felt like he couldn't breathe at all.
"This is obviously real..." Sora was doing even worse than Lyle. Her constitution was already fragile, and the physical enhancements she received from the Revelation Key were minimal.
After all that running around, she was in the worst shape out of everyone on the team, save for Sirin.
And as for Sirin...
"You've gotta be joking!" Sirin practically screamed, leaning heavily against Frélle for support. Staring at the silent "Shu" standing before them, she couldn't muster even a shred of fighting spirit.
Yes, she had participated in that operation—which was disguised as a 'selection test' but was essentially a gang-beatdown on Shu. But that didn't mean she actually wanted to fight him!
Moreover, the Snowwolf Squad wasn't here this time. The Immortal Blades only had Bianka. There was no White Blood Cell, and absolutely no backup strike from the Edge of Taixuan...
Seele was practically letting her "other self" pilot her body the entire time, awkwardly fighting with a scythe Theresa tossed her.
That meant they didn't have the Book of time to lock him down with crowd control... Oh, and Kiana didn't have her Genesis Key equipped, so she couldn't perfectly sync up with Bianka.
Add to that the absence of Noah's Ark's fire support...
Out of the entire anti-Shu strike force, Bianka was the only core heavy-hitter actually present. Were they sure this "Shu" wouldn't just treat the rest of them like speed bumps and blast them all into orbit?
Nah, we'd win?
Bullshit!
There is absolutely no reason for us to fight a completely unwinnable boss!
Sirin was practically overflowing with negative energy. Bronya, however, observed the avatar closely, her expression relaxing slightly.
"Don't worry, everyone. That 'Shu' in front of us doesn't possess the real Shu's power," Bronya rapidly explained her deduction to everyone via the neural link.
"According to Bronya's hypothesis, our true enemy isn't the Shu avatar at all, but rather the very arena beneath our feet..."
Eavesdropping on the mental channel, Shu gave a subtle nod. He glanced over at Joachim—the only person present completely locked out of the network and unable to hear their secret tactical meeting.
Taking the initiative, Shu stepped closer and lightly clapped a hand onto Joachim's shoulder.
Joachim turned to look at Shu in confusion, but the very next second, his mind exploded with clarity.
Bronya's rapid-fire analysis, followed immediately by her complex deployment orders, flooded directly into Joachim's brain. The sheer density of the information drop made Joachim feel like he had just been hit by an Unlimited Void.
"This is..." Joachim felt his entire worldview undergo a seismic shock.
Herrschers were miraculous beings. Joachim knew that.
The moment he arrived at the base, his first priority had been to use the Revelation Key to buff his Honkai Resistance, lest a stray wisp of Honkai Energy instantly single-target him and turn him into a braindead zombie.
He was already blown away by the Genesis Key. When he later heard about the Book of Time, he found it completely unfathomable.
It was precisely because he had lived in Future City for so long that he fully grasped the true weight of these technologies.
Biological modification? Future City could do that. Altering genetic sequences? Future City could do that, too.
To Future City, those weren't extreme, unreachable technologies. If not for self-imposed ethical constraints, a new breed of super-humans would have already populated the world. But the efficacy and universal compatibility of the Genesis Key made Future City's biotechnology look like obsolete garbage from a bygone era.
Outrageous.
Joachim didn't know much about the Book of Time, but he estimated it was, at minimum, a computational storage core on par with a quantum cluster array.
Thinking bigger, it might even rival the Zeroth Sequence itself.
Truly outrageous.
And then there was the Theoretical Thousand-Stars, which was basically being mass-produced...
And now, the Oath of Judah pops out of nowhere. This method of direct neural linking fundamentally revolutionized the very concept of human communication.
It was just way too outrageous!