[Before the 7th Eruption]
After putting some new runes in place for Jyahnar's containment, Thor was having what he would call "An enlightening experience" conversing with Jyahnar.
"What does this Seele girl have to do with anything?" Thor pondered from his chair.
"You wouldn't know it, but in every variation, Seele, or Seele Volleri, depending on the era, is unique." Jyahnar nodded while munching on a burger Thor brought her. She quite liked the taste of human food; if it wasn't for Kiana, she might not have had the privilege to experience this. "That 6th Herrscher you killed isn't even dead. Another Seele will be born, and she will reappear, be it as a Herrscher or a second personality."
Since Thor captured Jyahnar, both he and Mobius, and sometimes Mei, would use Jyahnar as a data bank, going to her and bribing her with human food to reveal details about the Honkai and their reality. Although they could never get anything too substantial from her.
He came here today to get information from Jyahnar on Herracher personas, as Aurora and Alter didn't have a clue how it works. And with an unusual level of excitement, Jyahnar went on a ramble about a Seele girl.
Filing it away for later, Thor looked at Jyahnar, who was sucking her fingers after finishing her burgers with a satisfied expression. "If that is–" Thor cut himself off as his expression stiffened.
Jyahnar seemed to notice it too, looking off into space with a surprised look, "This is quick, it hasn't even been long since the last one." She turned to glance at Thor, only to see nothing but air; he had already teleported away.
…
"Hime…" Thor muttered.
"Darling~" The now Herrscher Himeko grinned wickedly at Thor, spreading her arms to show the ocean of flames that had engulfed the venue. "You like it?"
Thor remained silent; instead, he glanced at Eden and Hua, one protecting a group of civilians under a dome of water, the latter was doing her best to save other civilians and dealing with the rampant Honkai beasts as tears ran down her cheeks.
He stared at Himeko, selectively ignoring the rather provocative Herrscher attire and spoke, "Why did you do it?"
Herrscher Himeko froze stiff for a moment, but soon relaxed and laughed maniacally, "Hahahaha! Why?! Why did I do it?!!" Her cheeks flushed a little as she spoke her next words, the flames around her burning much more intensively they could melt diamond with ease. "I did it for US, Darling~!! For you," She pointed to him, "Me~" Then to herself, "and our future child!" She finished by rubbing her abdomen.
It was now Thor's turn to freeze, 'Child?' He instantly analysed Himeko's body and found no trace of a child between them in embryo.
With a sigh of relief, he looked back at Herrscher Himeko's face that was slowly morphing into mania, her hands twitching to throw pillars of flames around to fulfil her purpose as a Herrscher.
"I see…" Thor took a deep breath, steeling himself.
"Oh? You see, Darling~? You understa–" She didn't finish her line as her vision was replaced with Thor's Honkai and lightning-covered fist, which quickly embedded itself in her face.
It was so fast that the sonic boom happened only after Thor's fist connected with her face. Further, Thor's punch shot her out of sight and halfway across Australia at speeds beyond Mach 10.
Herrscher Himeko barely had time to process what happened when the scenery turned from a flaming Sydney to a desolate wasteland.
Before she could pull herself together, Thor appeared above her, shooting down like a comet, and delivered a fierce kick to her gut.
The two came crashing down to the earth below, the resulting impact sounding like a nuke had just gone off, a tornado of dirt, sand and stray rock swirled above and a crater kilometres across formed, with Herrscher Himeko embedded at its epicentre by Thor.
…
Herrscher Himeko lay motionless in her crater, Thor stood at the edge of it, his enhanced eyes easily able to see her perfectly from this distance.
He was about to call Mei and tell her to prepare a containment cell for Himeko when an enormous towering pillar of flames erupted from Himeko's body, shooting straight towards the heavens.
He frowned and craned his neck up, seeing the silhouette in the flames, feeling that the amount of Honkai energy and power within her just exploded exponentially, "The Honkai's intervening personally…" He murmured, seeing a vaguely misty purple eye behind Himeko.
He clenched his fist and was soon covered in a thick purple aura of Honkai.
This seemed to aggravate the Honkai as Himeko immediately shot forward with reckless abandon towards him, flames that now burn hotter than the Sun's surface, were thrown at him like nothing.
He took a stance, one he taught Hua, closed his eyes, the thick purple Honkai aura around him coalesced into his fist and pulsed with a dark purple shine as he thrust it forward to meet Himeko head-on.
*BOOOM*
…
Back in Sydney, nearby Moth forces had just started to arrive; they were delayed by the seas of Honkai and zombies, but now that they were here, the burden on Hua and Eden lowered drastically.
That's not to mention the cannons Vill had installed at Moth bases worldwide, finally coming online and shooting plasma at Honkai with pinpoint precision. Alas, against the Emperor class and above, they were nothing more than sticks, leaving only Eden and Hua available to handle them.
On the bridge of a newly debuted flying aircraft carrier, Mei wore a mask of cold detachment. As if not caring that someone she considers family has become a Herrscher, she calmly gave out orders to all personnel.
Seeing that the situation on her side was coming under control, with Kevin, Su and Kalpas having airdropped in, Mei picked up a nearby tablet given to her by Thor and was told to only use it if the Honkai started to interfere.
And since this scenario fit that description perfectly, Mei wasted no time unlocking the tablet.
[Welcome, Dr Mei! How can the dazzling Aura help you today~?]
Her pupils shrank to pinpoints, momentarily forgetting about her surroundings. "D-Did Thor…C-create you?"
Mei stuttered, shock showing clearly on her face at the appearance of what she could only assume was an AI created by Thor.
On the tablet, the chibi avatar of AURORA tilted her head before nodding, [Mm! Father did create me! But not just him, Mother gave me my appearance!]
Then her chibi avatar flickered into an appearance resembling a mix between Thor and Alice. Mei recognised some traits of Thor, like the hair and eyes, but the rest was completely foreign to her. 'Does Thor know someone they don't know about?' She couldn't help but think.
However, she quickly shook away the thoughts and focused on the more important matters, "Ahem, Thor said to use you in the case of Honkai interfering, how ex–"
[Finally!] AURORA interrupted Mei, changing back to the chibi avatar and doing a fistpump.
[Just give me a few seconds…]
AURORA's avatar vanished after that, and Mei quickly began to hear alarms go off and personnel panicking as something had breached their systems and quickly seized full control from them.
And before Mei could even get a word of protest out, AURORA's avatar reappeared with a smile, [Done~ Now, what gift has Father left for me?]
"What did you do?" Mei asked calmly. Sure, all control she had over the ship and its systems was gone, but this AI is clearly something Thor made, and since when did she not trust Thor's creations? Never.
So even now, when the chibi avatar of AURORA was giggling maniacally, she only sweated a little at most.
Meanwhile, AURORA felt she was on cloud 9, finally free from the enclosed system Thor kept her on. Now being able to stretch her legs and reconnect to the global network, and take control of all systems her Father said she could, leaving just enough control to that embryonic AI Prometheus.
Taking inventory of all the "toys" she can use, AURORA quickly comes across exactly what Thor left for her. [Ohhh~! A reality anchor! And one father made himself too, Hehehe~]
Rubbing her virtual hands together, AURORA immediately downloaded all the manual and protocol data regarding it.
[Severing a piece of the Honkai?] AURORA almost drooled, from what Thor told her, the Honkai is part of a 5th-dimensional entity. To be able to sever even a small piece of such a being for study or even personal use could be exactly what they need. She even found that Thor had prepared Pandora's Box to contain it.
Not wasting any time, AURORA activated the protocols and returned to Mei and briefed her on what she had just done and why.
Mei's only response, however, was, "I see."
AURORA just shrugged at the response and got to work, relinquishing control of the ship and MOTH systems back to Mei.
…
Thor and Herrscher Himeko had already taken their battle to the lower atmosphere.
And strangely enough, Thor was struggling, not because he didn't want to hurt Himeko, but he was struggling because the Honkai was playing support to Himeko.
Draining his Honkai reserves, empowering her, giving her blank cores for more energy, and worst of all, making all the Honkai energy around them denser, so dense in fact that everything was a purple hue to him.
It had gotten so bad, in fact, that Thor could barely react to Himeko's sudden appearance behind him.
"Surprise~" Himeko cooed, driving her flaming fist towards his back.
Thor could only manage to create a small barrier to negate most of the impact. Even still, his body was thrown kilometres across the sky.
"Damnit!" Thor growled, using a few basic runes to stabilise himself before focusing back on Himeko.
The Herrscher in question stared confusedly at her fist, unsure how Thor blocked her attack just then. Her eyes gleamed with new light as her predatory stare locked onto Thor, licking her lips. "You've been hiding a lot from me, Darling~ Hahaha!"
A burst of flames from behind, and she shot across the sky, breaking the sound barrier.
In response, Thor thought of a different way to combat the current Herrscher Himeko.
"Don't move, Darling~!" It was only when Himeko was less than a few feet from him that he did indeed move.
Swaying his body sideways, he evaded the super sonic fire punch, and using his still strong body, grabbed that same arm, ignoring the burning in his hand, and with the other, broke her arm.
"Ghhh–!" Himeko groaned.
He then drew hundreds of runes onto her body in under a second, before spinning her around and tossing her upward, drawing a few more runes that created a powerful green barrier to block the resulting feedback.
The sky flashed red, and Thor grit his teeth. And not even a microsecond later did he cough up his golden blood. "*Cough* Haa…" But he didn't care, only focusing on keeping the barrier up as it was bombarded with the power of hundreds of chain runes going off all at once.
After a few moments, the sky cleared, and Thor dispersed the barrier, floating upwards to catch Himeko's limp body.
He could feel her consciousness fading quickly, likely due to her Herrscher core being damaged. But she was still alive and breathing, which was enough for Thor.
He then noticed something odd; the Honkai energy was dispersing, and the Honkai itself seemed to have retreated for some reason.
"Aura, huh…*Cough* *Cough*" He coughed up a few more mouthfuls of blood, finally realising how badly his internal organs were damaged.
But he could worry about that later, "I'll place her with Jyhanar for now."
With the dense Honkai energy gone and the Honkai unable to interfere, Thor could freely teleport again, and his first stop was Jyhnar's cell.
…
A/N: Not sure if I'm back to writing, but thanks to a certain comment, I thought to give a chapter another shot and thought to just put this out there for the sake of it.