"You're digging your own graves!"
Sirin raised her delicate right hand, her expression twisted in rage.
The space around her rippled like water, and a spiral spear of black, white, and gold slowly materialized beside her.
Its sharp edges gleamed with a cold light, and with a flick of her arm, the Void Spear shot forward at bullet speed, aimed directly at the two girls.
"I won't give you a chance to use the Fenghuang Down!"
The deadly spear, laced with icy killing intent, surged toward them in an instant.
The heiress started to dodge but stopped herself mid-movement.
They were still inside a flying transport.
With the energy Sirin had just released from her Herrscher form, it was a miracle the craft hadn't crashed already.
If that spear actually landed, even a high-spec Valkyrie aircraft wouldn't survive the impact.
[Cyclone! Joker!]
There was no verbal incantation—just instant synchronization through telepathy.
With a burst of emerald green light, the transformation completed.
The knight-like girl now stood with crimson eyes and caught the Void Spear one-handed.
"Too bad for you! If you'd attacked earlier, we really wouldn't have been able to stop you. But now…"
Her ruby-like eyes glinted with confidence, her voice now layered in harmony as if echoing between two people.
"Right now, we're the stronger ones."
The deadly spear shattered into particles of light within her delicate white hand.
Of course, a spear forged of Void power couldn't be destroyed on a physical level.
But they were using Schariac Power—don't forget what its essence truly was.
And now that the knight form had been activated, the resonance between their Schariac powers wasn't as simple as 1 + 1 = 2—it was far more powerful.
"Foolish humans! You're trying to fight me—what a joke!"
Three more Void Spears appeared in the air around Sirin, each crackling with pure Honkai energy as they streaked toward them.
"Nagami was right," the knight muttered. "As long as the pufferfish can't stop inflating her ego, she'll keep eating dirt."
With a flick of her hand, she inserted a memory chip into her belt slot.
A digital chime echoed through the air, and with three consecutive high-speed kicks, she shattered all three incoming spears.
"My sister isn't someone who can be taken down by a brat like you."
With a confident smirk, the knight's expression then turned serious as she faced the Herrscher of the Void.
"Kiana!"
"Wh-What?!"
At that cry, all the Honkai energy gathering around Sirin suddenly dispersed.
The floating Herrscher hunched over, clutching her face in pain as golden irises flickered with threads of radiant blue.
"Let her take control—for now!"
The knight raised her right hand.
A feather appeared, glowing with gentle stardust light, radiating a soft halo that surrounded Sirin.
It was a manifested feather, enhanced with Void energy.
The moment the feather connected, the consciousnesses of the heiress and True Kiana were pulled into Sirin's mindscape.
And just faintly—they heard the sharp, sorrowful sound of something shattering.
"What… was that?"
The heiress and True Kiana both looked up at once.
The mindscape, touched by the Fenghuang Down, was fracturing—dozens of cracks stretched outward like spiderwebs.
From the rift above, a single glowing feather descended, sparkling with starlight.
"Humans! How dare you—!"
But before she could finish, Sirin's furious voice faltered.
Her expression, once filled with wrath, froze and then shifted to disbelief.
Bathed in the soft glow of stardust, the entire consciousness space fell still.
Sirin's gaze wandered, as though something had stirred within her.
She looked up at the starry sky the feather had formed, and a trace of recognition flickered across her eyes.
It was like time had reversed itself.
Memories long sealed away surged back.
Her golden pupils revealed an emotion far more complex than anything she'd shown before.
This was completely unexpected.
Even the heiress and True Kiana watched the skies cautiously, unsure what would happen next.
Time passed quietly.
The silence in the mindscape was finally broken by a snap—the crisp sound of fingers snapping.
A spatial gate, etched with Imaginary Tree patterns, appeared before the Herrscher.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!"
The heiress shouted, sensing that Sirin no longer had any intention of fighting.
Sirin didn't answer.
Without even healing herself, she just gave them a cold glance—then turned and drifted into the portal behind her.
"What was that about?"
"How should I know?"
Holding the feather in their hands, the girls could feel it: Sirin had truly relinquished her grip on the body—for now, at least.
"Could this be a fake-out? Maybe she's pretending to back off and will come back after we let our guard down?"
"Hmm… I mean, considering Pufferfish's intelligence and personality… that's probably too advanced a plan for her."
The heiress shrugged toward True Kiana.
The two of them stared blankly at the spot where Sirin had vanished, then exchanged glances and finally released the feather's power.
"So this... is Herrscher power?"
Kiana looked at herself.
Blue cross-shaped pupils burned in her eyes.
Her white outfit revealed her thighs, paired with sheer black thigh-highs and black heels lined with orange.
She examined her appearance with curiosity.
Until now, she'd never seen the true terror that Herrschers were known for—"walking natural disasters" thanks to Nagami's protection and the fact that everyone around her was a Herrscher.
Kiana's attitude toward Herrschers was… complicated—much different from how it played out in the games.
Her favorite person was the Herrscher of Reason, her best friend was the Herrscher of Thunder, and now she herself had become a Herrscher.
That couldn't be a bad thing, right?
There was barely any fear or resistance in her heart—just a touch of unease, really.
As her consciousness returned to her body, the knight girl's crimson eyes shimmered with flowing gold.
The Schariac Power within her surged, ready to suppress any sudden backlash from Sirin if necessary.
But seeing Kiana's excited, slightly goofy grin, the knight slowly relaxed her guard.
She still had questions about Sirin's behavior had been totally unpredictable—but at the moment, that unpredictability was working in their favor.
"Onee-chan, I feel totally invincible now!"
Grinning from ear to ear, Kiana clenched her fists and laughed, her whole body tingling with the powerful storm of energy rushing through her.
"Idiot! I let you inherit the Herrscher of the Void's power, not her inflated ego!"
With a sharp whoosh, the knight armor dissolved into light.
Kiana and the alternate Kiana—deadpan and perfectly in sync both delivered a swift karate chop to Kiana's forehead.
"Alright, once you've gotten the hang of the power, hurry and go help Nagami."
"R-Right!"
Startled into obedience by their authoritative big-sister energy, Kiana nodded rapidly.
Taking a deep breath, she calmed her thoughts and closed her eyes.
As she reached out with her new senses, she clearly felt several intense Herrscher-level forces clashing in the far East.
Drawing a circle in the air with a flick of her finger, a deep spatial rift laced with imaginary numbers appeared before her.
Without hesitation, Void-tuna and Kiana dove straight through it.
————————————————————————
A battle unlike any ever seen before raged over the sea.
For hundreds of miles, the ocean exploded with blasts so deafening they sent tidal waves soaring hundreds of meters into the air.
The sheer concentration of Honkai energy had dyed the sea below a deep, glowing purple.
"She's finally here!"
Sensing the rapidly approaching Herrscher of the Void, C.C. raised her Godsbane blade, which crackled with primal flames.
The inferno danced wildly, then surged forward in a scorching slash.
At the same time, Nagami's greatsword—wrapped in threads of crystalized void energy swung down in perfect sync.
The flame and crystal, sourced from the same origin of power, merged into a single devastating strike.
Honestly, it kind of counted as dual-wielding, didn't it?
After all, I am one person using two oversized swords.
Chiyou's four legs stomped down in midair, detonating the atmosphere with an explosive shockwave.
Ji Lin's Xuanyuan sword sliced out in a deadly arc, breaking through the flames alongside Chiyou's crushing force.
The green-haired girl was blasted backward at a speed even faster than her arrival, flung like a comet.
Then came another golden blade, marked by the Herrscher Core, intercepting the Sword of Void with chilling precision.
Another Herrscher-class clone had appeared beside Ji Lin.
Her hand, half-clenched, summoned a devastating burst—flames, lightning, wind, and a black radiance that withered everything it touched all erupted in tandem.
At the same time, Chiyou opened its monstrous maw and instantly fired an uncharged energy cannon.
The deafening explosion that followed flung Nagami across the battlefield, his body scorched by fire and thunder, his skin blistering and blackening in the heat.
The Death Herrscher's withering energy proved particularly tricky—his left arm, engulfed in black light, simply snapped off.
But the next moment, particles of blue light gathered and reformed a new limb from thin air.
"Oh, come on! Can't you fight me one-on-one like a real warrior?! Ganging up on someone isn't exactly fair!"
Like a machine built for war, Ji Lin didn't react to his complaint at all.
Any hope Nagami had of buying time through banter was dashed.
"Tch! What a pain..."
Even after splitting off five Herrscher-class clones, they still had this much power left?
Right now, Nagami felt incredibly lucky he had weakened Chiyou down from full Herrscher-level before the real battle began.
Otherwise? Yeah… this would've been unwinnable.