A deafening crack—like thunder splitting the very sky—shattered the silence of the world.
In the near-vacuum of the upper atmosphere, the hypervelocity railgun had already broken multiple times the speed of sound.
It was so fast, it left no visible trace.
Not even the Alpha Stigma Eyes could capture more than the residual afterimage of its path.
A raw, uncompressed Honkai energy cannon was effortlessly split apart by that beam of light. It was like stabbing tofu with a blade—too easy. But the most terrifying part wasn't just that…
The beam pierced Chiyou, that mythic, titan-like monstrosity, and slammed it into the ocean.
A blinding explosion erupted beneath the waves.
For a split second, the sea stood still—then the sheer force, light, and heat detonated all at once.
A monstrous shockwave rippled across the water, and with the thunderous sound of a skyquake, tsunamis spread outward like an expanding ring of destruction.
Yes. That beam of light—it split the sea itself.
Millions of tons of seawater vaporized into steam.
And plumes of vapor rose thousands of meters high, with cloud columns stretching tens of kilometers into the sky.
The tide seemed to vanish into a bottomless void, rapidly receding and exposing the drenched, barren seabed.
The entire coastline disappeared from sight everyone who witnessed it was struck speechless.
From satellite monitors across the globe, people stared, frozen:
—World Serpent operatives.
—Anti-Entropy commanders.
—Heads of various Schicksal branches.
Even Otto himself showed a rare flicker of emotion—momentary shock and awe.
Back on the battlefield, Valkyries fighting in the city stopped and turned toward the blinding white curtain behind them, blinking in disbelief.
"…Why does that thing look like a wave?"
Unfortunately… it wasn't just a wave.
A towering wall of water, hundreds of meters high, surged toward the east coast of Shenzhou from deep within the Pacific—a colossal curtain of doom.
Billions of tons of ocean water hurtled from the sky.
If no one stopped it, the continent beneath would be utterly annihilated.
"This is… beyond absurd!" Himeko's crimson hair flickered like fire.
She stared at the monstrous wave like a mountain descending from the heavens. Her jaw dropped.
But she quickly regained her composure and smirked.
"The Archbishop really knows how to time an entrance."
In her hand, she casually swung the glowing crimson greatsword—Surtur, the Divine Bane Blade, delivered via quantum transmission straight from Schicksal HQ.
Otto had already predicted C.C. would unleash a railgun shot of that magnitude, but even he was unprepared for the sheer scale of the destruction.
Right now, the most suitable weapon for Himeko would've been the Judgment of Shamash.
Just imagining the Flame Herrscher unleashing it without limits was enough to stir anyone's blood.
Unfortunately, there wasn't time to go snatch it from Siegfried.
"Flames…"
A scorching blaze exploded from Himeko's lithe frame, blasting the air into molten fury.
The atmosphere distorted, heatwaves rising like magma erupting from the Earth's core.
The Divine Blade in her hand shimmered with radiant power—pure, condensed might.
"Burn—everything!"
The sword's crimson edge glowed white-hot.
From its tip, an inferno burst forth—flames of extinction that could erase ages past.
A towering blade of fire surged toward the looming wall of water, stretching for hundreds of kilometers.
The searing inferno vaporized the colossal tsunami with sheer, relentless heat.
White mist exploded into the sky.
With the wave neutralized, Himeko didn't hesitate.
She rushed to the next battlefield at blinding speed.
Compared to Himeko the newly reborn as the Herrscher of Flames and still unaware of what her predecessor had endured—Fu Hua remained perfectly calm.
"Everyone sit down, sit down, this is fine..."
To Fu Hua, this was merely a reenactment of the scenes from the Previous Era's war against the Herrschers.
Except back then, humanity didn't have the manpower to protect their cities—hence, why they nearly went extinct.
When battles on a continental scale erupt, the damage is unimaginable.
Yet, they must fight—because doing nothing would mean even faster annihilation.
For people like Kevin and Dr. Mei, sacrificing civilians for experiments, such as the Stigmata Project, was standard procedure.
It wasn't because they were cruel. They had no choice.
Trying to save people would only distract them in battle—leading to more casualties, including their own.
These weren't shounen manga heroes who could protect everyone with the power of friendship.
These were survivors of the Previous Era, willing to freeze their hearts to ensure victory, trading minimal losses for maximum gain.
"…So this is what warfare in the Previous Era looked like."
Fu Hua murmured to herself, her gaze fixed on the massive tsunami wall surging like a fortress toward the shore. Her expression was complicated.
In the final days of the Previous Era, even she had stopped trying to protect civilians.
But thankfully, those memories were burned away by the Fengshuang Down—along with the despair they carried.
In some ways… that was a blessing.
"Nagami… I hope you can change something…"
She shook her head, casting those thoughts aside.
Closing her eyes, she raised one arm, tracing an elegant arc through the air.
Honkai energy erupted from within her like a waterfall, surging into a spiraling tempest.
"True divinity is transformation. It transcends form and cannot be grasped through mere shape."
As she spoke, a golden Taoist sigil expanded behind her.
The shockwave burst forth with a force that could rend mountains.
With her pale, slender hand raised in a sword-finger gesture, a radiant beam of energy surged like a tidal wave—culminating in a majestic, heaven-piercing blade.
"Taixu Sword Qi – Divine Resonance."
With a soft wave of her hand, the ancient sword of light soared forward, following her gesture.
Brilliant and resplendent, it cleaved effortlessly through the deep-blue tsunami wall, splitting the wave in two and shattering it completely.
Together, the two Herrschers stopped the flood.
Countless people, oblivious to how close they'd come to death, had just walked away from the gates of hell.
High above—nearly 10,000 meters in the air—a green-haired girl hovered, her expression dead serious.
The black hem of her dress rippled around her.
Six-pointed stars spun in her eyes, glowing and turning like cosmic gears.
"…They're STILL not dead? Honkai, you're being excessive."
She had zero awareness of how outrageous it was to summon a Time Spirit and create two human-aligned Herrschers.
Frankly, C.C. was even considering letting Bronya go through Herrscher-ization too.
Originally, she planned to find Bronya a different core, but after the Herrscher of Reason's core evolved into Void Archives, she dropped the idea.
That smug little biker duck was just too pleasing to look at. So yeah—C.C. planned to dismantle Void Archives.
But don't worry.
Nagami, being the Herrscher of Reason, already understood the core's mechanics better than anyone.
He was confident in recreating a substitute core without the Void's will.
The only difference between his version and the original? His lacked Honkai's granted authority—meaning it couldn't fully turn someone into a Herrscher.
To use a metaphor:
Nagami could create a login for someone in the system, but without admin privileges.
They could enter, but they couldn't control.
Now that Void Archives was running on the core Nagami had created, it could still store knowledge but it had lost its ability to manifest that knowledge into weapons or constructs.
That was enough—for now. It's a shame the entire process took too long. Otherwise, they could've birthed three human-aligned Herrschers this time.
"But at least that thing's already crippled," C.C. muttered, fingers steepled beneath her chin as her head tilted slightly.
"Still… even in this state, it's stronger than a Judgment-class. One Herrscher should be enough to take it down."
Not ideal, but manageable.
"And if this little mid-boss is already this terrifying, then how insanely strong is that Herrscher going to be?!"
Scratching her head, C.C. looked up.
Her gaze pierced through the cloud layer, zeroing in on the highest point—a swirl of dense, pitch-black mist.
And as the dark fog parted, a figure emerged.
A girl cloaked in shadow, radiating pure darkness.
Her outfit remained largely unchanged—still luxurious, though now entirely black, sharply contrasting with her porcelain-white skin.
A crown of dark gold encircled her head, framing her midnight-black hair.
At its center, a glowing Herrscher core pulsed with an eerie, malevolent light.
The beautiful, otherworldly girl raised her sword—Xuanyuan, now corrupted into a golden weapon of darkness.
Embedded in the blade were six glowing gemstones, each a different color.
Lightning. Flame. Ice. Wind. Rock. Death.
Each gem housed the core of a Herrscher.
"…Seven—s-seven cores?!"
C.C.'s eyes widened in disbelief.
The Ice and Rock cores were expected.
But Lightning? Flame? Wind? Death? How was that possible?
It shouldn't be!
There should never be two cores of the same Herrscher type within one era!
The six-pointed star in her eyes spun wildly as C.C. completely dropped her "mysterious beauty" act.
"Are you kidding me?!"
To explain it simply: Honkai had created temporary accounts.
Yes—just as C.C. could fabricate cores, the Will of Honkai could do even more. It had granted those "accounts" temporary permissions.
Once a Herrscher core is born, its authority and identity are locked by the rules of the world—even the Honkai Will can't override that.
So instead of directly corrupting new Herrschers, the Honkai Will had rerouted its processing power into granting temporary access to other powers.
If Ji Lin could eliminate the Herrschers tied to each gem before the timer ran out, their temporary authorities would become permanent.
The Herrscher of Domination—her ink-black eyes locked onto the green-haired girl below and swung her dark Xuanyuan Sword.
Each of the six gems on the blade shimmered with terrifying light.
C.C. felt a chill like death creeping up her spine.
After that continental-crushing railgun shot, her body was still in a weakened state.
Normally, she'd recover quickly using the Void Archives core, but now…
No time.
She spun on her heels and bolted.
But she hadn't flown far before her field of vision suddenly split in half.
"…Eh?"
A soft, stunned sound escaped her lips—right before her body was split in two.
————————————————————————
Elsewhere...
Feeling C.C body respond got cut away Nagami's expression twisted, turning ashen.