The moment they saw the boy's figure, the Herrscher girls floated over, surrounding Nagami and bombarding him with questions.
It was a bit overwhelming, to say the least.
"Where's C.C.?"
After Kiana briefly explaining the situation on her end with Mei, she looked around, her diamond-shaped azure eyes filled with slight confusion.
A heavy silence immediately fell over the group as everyone turned to Nagami.
Fu Hua and Yae Sakura looked like they wanted to speak but held back.
They were the only two who knew the truth: that C.C. and Nagami were one and the same.
"Don't worry. C.C. is fine," Nagami said with a slight nod to the two, then turned to address the rest. "I can feel her. She's reviving, using the power of the Herrscher of Reason."
That part was technically true… but not the full story.
The power that was reviving her wasn't the Herrscher of Reason—it was Code.
Under the annihilating force at the epicenter of that nuclear blast, even the Herrscher of Reason's regenerative powers couldn't withstand it. C.C. had, without a doubt, died once.
Because the body had died, the resurrection process was progressing rapidly—but during this time, Nagami could not afford to die again.
If both bodies perished simultaneously, and with the Honkai Will still suppressing them, the Code's revival process could slow to an unprecedented crawl.
It could take decades, even centuries.
So for the next two hours—he must not die.
Nagami took a deep breath and looked up at a point in the sky that had returned to a clear blue.
It looked like nothing was there—yet not even Herrschers could see what lay beyond.
The structure of that space was highly unstable, with faint traces of high-intensity Honkai energy leaking from within.
"Everyone… this isn't over yet," Nagami said solemnly, his expression grave. "The Pre-Era Herrscher wielding seven cores… isn't someone we can take down so easily."
His tone carried the weight of a black hole, dense and heavy.
"The real battle begins now."
At that moment, the air shimmered with the sound of cracking glass—like a mirror breaking.
It was followed by the deafening rumble of a collapsing world.
The Herrscher of Domination returned, descending once more with her dark golden blade in hand.
Nagami could sense it: Ji Lin's—power had clearly decreased compared to earlier.
But the reduction wasn't much.
It wasn't that the combined might of four Herrschers and the Golden Goose's ultimate strike had failed.
Rather, the strongest clone-body that had fought Nagami had transferred its energy into the other clone right before the attack landed.
The Herrscher of Domination and Chiyou weren't fools.
They wouldn't just stand there and let themselves be obliterated.
In the instant the Trinity Bomb detonated, Chiyou had enlarged itself, swallowing both Ji Lin and the Xuanyuan Sword into its internal dimension, and took the brunt of the blast.
The remaining damage was still manageable at least against the six-core Xuanyuan Sword—.
At first glance, it seemed like a loss: trading C.C.'s temporary death for Chiyou's exit and a lightly injured Ji Lin.
But that wasn't the case at all.
Without that chance, none of them could've landed a meaningful blow on the Herrscher of Domination.
With her Authority and the buffs from six other Herrscher cores, she was terrifyingly powerful!
Nagami narrowed his eyes at Ji Lin, who now floated midair.
Her ornate dress fluttered like waves, and something… felt off.
Those pitch-black pupils once rigid and divine—now seemed filled with… clarity? And hatred?
She slowly descended before Fu Hua, her posture composed like a warrior descending from the heavens.
"Red Kite Immortal," she said with a bright smile. "It's been a while~ Do you still recognize me?"
Her dazzling grin spread across her delicate features—so bright, in fact, it was almost unsettling.
"Ji… Lin?" Fu Hua replied hesitantly. "You… you've regained your consciousness?"
Even though Ji Lin's tone was calm and gentle, Fu Hua felt a strange sense of dread.
She didn't drop her guard—instead, she instinctively retreated several dozen meters, eyes wary.
"Nope~ I never lost it to begin with," Ji Lin said, tilting her head playfully.
A thousand years ago, Ji Lin had sealed Chiyou by embedding her consciousness into her own stigma.
Using that stigma as a foundation, with the Xuanyuan Sword as a key, she had sealed Chiyou from within its own body.
But a seal like that needed external energy to sustain itself.
Otherwise, it would decay quickly.
And inside Chiyou's internal dimension, the only available power source was the corrosive Honkai energy that filled its body.
That… was why Ji Lin turned dark in the game's story.
"You… do you understand what you're doing?" Fu Hua asked cautiously, trying to use the Herrscher of Sentience's authority to pull back Ji Lin's original consciousness.
But the moment she touched the Herrscher of Domination's mind, it was like falling into a swamp—her thoughts sank into the mud, sluggish and suffocating.
"Of course I know. No one understands my state better than I do," Ji Lin answered coldly.
For thousands of years, she had fought alone, holding the seal.
How much had she sacrificed? How much had she lost?
Love? Hope?
What a cruel joke.
"Why should I be the one to give up my life to seal Chiyou? Why did no one come for me in all these millennia? Why should I fight alone until death?"
A burning fury simmered beneath every word she spoke—a wrath like Satan's growl, overflowing with hatred and loathing.
A millennium of solitude.
A fear of the Honkai.
The two twisted together, fusing and festering under the corruption of the Honkai until they became something else entirely—regret.
And with the erosion brought on by the Fourth Eruption, her soul had finally succumbed to darkness.
"I'll destroy Shenzhou!!"
Her delicate face twisted into a grimace of pure malice as she suddenly raised her voice.
"No… Ji Lin, this isn't who you are…"
Fu Hua bowed her head slightly, her voice barely more than a whisper carried by the wind.
"It doesn't matter anymore. If you want to stop me… then come at me—my old friend," Ji Lin replied coldly.
The other Herrscher girls had kept their eyes on Ji Lin ever since she approached.
And now that it was clear there was no room for reason, no space for words… each of them gripped their weapons tightly.
"Relax. Shenzhou might still have a little time left," she continued, her tone dripping with venom.
Then, her dark-golden sword, pulsing with the light of six different powers, rose and pointed straight at Nagami.
Her expression turned icy.
"Outsider… your life ends here."
Despite her falling into corruption, Ji Lin's presence still held traces of divine authority.
Her strong, arrogant posture reminded Nagami of a certain unemployed someone forced into re-employment…
Which got him thinking—if Teyvat's Heavenly Principles fought against a Pre-Era seven-core Herrscher, who would win?
He shook his head.
'Now's not the time for random thoughts.'
"Where's the Honkai God? Why'd they send you instead?"
Nagami raised his enormous Void Greatsword with one hand, effortlessly lifting the massive blade and pointing it at Ji Lin.
'Outsider'… what did she mean by that?
Fu Hua frowned the moment she heard the term, a flash of confusion crossing her gaze.
She wasn't the only one—none of the other girls seemed to understand what that word implied either.
"There's no need for that one to dirty their hands. Dealing with you… and these traitors… is well within my ability."
Ji Lin sneered, her icy gaze sweeping past Nagami and the Herrschers standing by his side.
That cruel smirk on her beautiful face deepened.
"Because—"
She raised the Xuanyuan Sword high.
A fleeting shadow of pure darkness rippled across its blade, followed by a wave of dim, eerie light.
Nagami's eyes twitched.
A bad feeling welled up inside him, rising fast.
"Everyone, move—now!"
Like an arrow fired from a bow, Nagami launched forward.
At that exact moment, Kiana opened a gate to the Imaginary Space before everyone.
The Void Greatsword wreathed in stardust, the flame-wreathed Judgment of Shamash, the heavens-splitting gauntlets, the decaying light of Abyss Flower, the corrupted force of Blood Sakura—
They all emerged simultaneously through portals surrounding Ji Lin, striking in unison—each aiming at a lethal point: the head, heart, neck, and core.
"Heh…"
But in the very next instant, another Imaginary Space gate opened—identical in origin, but completely different in essence.
It blossomed beside Ji Lin.
Then came the detonation.
A massive burst of Honkai energy exploded outward like a shockwave, dark energy crashing over them like a tide.
With a thunderous roar like artillery fire, the immense wave of corrupted energy erupted around Ji Lin, a black-violet torrent that shattered every incoming attack with overwhelming force.
"W-What… is that…?"
For the first time, Nagami's expression showed true shock.
His Six-Star Eye could see what was happening in full clarity.
"It's… Honkai."
The Will of Honkai, in its complete withdrawal from the scene, had sacrificed itself once more—to empower Ji Lin through a localized Honkai Eruption.
Black particles swirled and raged across the battlefield like a blizzard of ash, blotting out the sky above them like an iron curtain.