North America.
"Bang!"
A slender arm shot out like a long spear.
The incomparably tough shell of the Emperor-class beast was pierced straight through from the front by a "normal person."
"Awooo!!"
With a roar of unwillingness, the demon-shaped Emperor-class Honkai Beast "Ithaqua," which had pitch-black horned wings, let out its final howl before death. The Honkai Core buried deep within its body was already covered in cracks. All it would take was a gentle squeeze from the human before it...
"Crack!"
"The third one."
Amidst soaring flames and dancing particles of Honkai energy, the last Emperor-class Honkai Beast to make landfall on the west coast of North America died a miserable death at Qianjie's hands.
Less than a quarter of the legion's remaining Honkai Beasts were left, and of those, nearly half had been killed by Qianjie alone.
His level of brutality was such that even the "rescued" humans couldn't help but feel fear.
Within a radius of several hundred meters centered on Qianjie, no one dared to approach.
The way those humans looked at him...
"Haah!"
A pillar of white air shot out from under his mask.
Aponia's discipline was not perfect, but it wasn't without effect. Qianjie suppressed the urge to destroy everything around him and hurried toward the center of the continent.
A fourth Emperor-class Honkai Beast was there, awaiting his "grace."
South America.
"Whoosh!"
A pillar of fire erupted from the serpent's mouth, the wave of flames scorching everything in the vicinity into twisted shapes, unrecognizable from their original forms.
However...
"BOOM!!"
A wave-like shockwave extinguished the sea of fire directly!
The gale stirred up by the impact alone blew the Emperor-class Honkai Beast in the air back more than ten meters!
"Oh, my."
Miss Pink Elf sighed softly.
"I didn't want to do this, but you all are just too naughty—"
"Swoosh!"
A lance that bloomed like a lily appeared in Elysia's hands.
The Sixth Key of God, the Key of Creation, Black Abyss White Flower.
A dark blue halo crazily converged and took shape as the body of the lance "bloomed."
The tip of the lance pointed from afar at the two Emperor-class Honkai Beasts that had just destroyed the Aztec Federation, and the legions they led.
"Ich bin das Schwarz auch das Weiß, Vor dem Beginn und zwar nach der Ende. (I am the black that devours all, I am the white that nurtures all; born before creation, existing after annihilation.)"
From the mouth of Miss Elf, the hymn-like language was graceful and moving, yet the power it summoned made the very earth tremble!
"Key of God, Black Abyss White Flower, first rated output—"
A pillar of light, like a divine punishment, descended from the heavens.
"Holy Lance, Bloom!"
"BOOM!!!"
"Thud!"
Other than the wreckage of warships that covered the entire sea surface, Griseo and Kosma found no trace of any Honkai Beasts in the Tsushima Strait.
"..."
Kosma casually scooped up a piece of the ship's hull.
His palm wiped gently across the surface. The dark red bloodstains, soaked by the seawater, were far from dry.
This Honkai Beast legion had not landed on the four islands of Yingzhou, nor had it rendezvoused with the other two nearby Emperor-class Honkai Beasts. Instead, after annihilating the "Zhuque" and "Izumo" fleets, it had vanished completely from human sight.
"Brother Griseo, what now?"
Griseo's gaze swept over the sea's surface again and again.
The residual Honkai energy gave Griseo a vague sense of familiarity, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.
"Let's go."
In the end, Griseo gave up on getting to the bottom of it.
"The defending forces at Vladivostok have already collapsed. The reinforcements from the interior won't arrive for at least another four hours."
"Before then,"
"We'll try to eliminate the two Emperor-class Honkai Beasts."
"Even if we can't... we'll save who we can. It's better than wasting time here."
Coordinating with another Yingzhou naval fleet approaching from the southern West Pacific, it wasn't impossible for Griseo and Kosma to find this Honkai Beast legion.
However, their time was not abundant.
To stand by and watch civilians being trampled under the iron hooves of Honkai Beasts was something neither of them could accept.
"Hiss!"
Flames jetted out.
An advanced unmanned support aircraft, the "Iron Crow," slowly descended from the sky.
For Fusion Warriors who couldn't fly or needed to conserve energy, the Iron Crow was the most suitable high-speed transport. Without needing to consider a pilot's physical limitations, the Iron Crow, built using the basic data of Fusion Warriors as a blueprint, possessed extremely high flight speeds and superior battlefield scanning and support functions.
Griseo and Kosma had arrived here aboard this very aircraft.
However...
Just as the Iron Crow was about to land, the moment when the two of them were at their most relaxed—
"Voom!!"
Five exaggerated pillars of lightning shot out from an unknown location, striking directly at the Iron Crow and the two men!
"BOOM!!!"
The sneak attack was a success.
Hiding deep within an island, using Super Perception in reverse to completely suppress its own aura, which had already become very faint due to the long distance... Sheshe had pulled out all the stops to make this one strike count.
After crushing the "Izumo" fleet, Sheshe had originally planned to take its newly acquired little brother and scram.
But on second thought, the Emperor would soon be making a big move. If it could eliminate more of humanity's effective strength here, it would certainly be a great help to the subsequent plan. Sheshe, already quite experienced in concealing its aura and confident that it could open a gate and leave at any time with the help of the Space-Time Crystals, decided to set up a small ambush here.
Sheshe certainly couldn't defeat humanity's top-tier combatants.
But the next tier down... for example, the human the Emperor had once impaled, or the fellow who had almost turned into a crocodile.
With its current strength, Sheshe felt quite confident.
Therefore, upon sensing the "familiar faces," Sheshe immediately took action. That crocodile Emperor might have other plans, so Sheshe focused the full power of the [Superconductive Wave Thunder Cannon] on Kosma, who was beside Griseo.
And then—
"BOOM!!!"
Smoke filled the air, and lightning flowed.
"Hm?"
In Sheshe's perception, Kosma, the primary target, had taken a significant drop in his aura after withstanding the blow, but he had not reached a state of being critically injured or near death. On the contrary, as his human aura gradually weakened, the part belonging to the Honkai began to grow more and more distinct.
"So that's how it is."
Seeing this, Sheshe no longer hid.
Its serpentine body slowly slithered out from the dark shadows.
"This guy, just like the crocodile, has already reached the domain of 'Overload Metamorphosis'."
"The Emperor's hypothesis of 'Artificial Honkai Eruption'... let me try and help them speed things up."