In the sky, a storm of golden chains blotted out the sun.
They writhed like metallic serpents, constantly lashing out, trying to ensnare the single, agile figure of Wendy. Several times, a chain would get agonizingly close, only for her to deftly weave out of the way at the last possible second.
Despite the spectacular display, Mo Wang's brow was furrowed in frustration.
"Tsk, this speed is ridiculous. Even Judah can't keep up. How am I supposed to play this?" he grumbled, watching Wendy flit through the air like a swallow.
After a brief exchange, he'd already gotten a read on her. Although she looked the part of the "Heavenly Emperor Wendy" from the neighboring game, her actual strength wasn't quite at that terrifying, Planet scale level yet. Thank god.
But even so, she was leagues stronger than her original HI3 counterpart. Her speed was absurd, her attacks were lightning-fast, and her wind barrier defense was surprisingly tough.
If the original Wendy was a glass cannon—high attack and speed, but low defense—this new version had leveled up her magic and defense stats on top of that.
She was a hexagonal warrior, easily on par with the awakened Herrscher of Thunder, Mei.
And to top it all off, she had a field effect.
No matter what Mo Wang did, he was constantly fighting against a gale-force wind.
Anyone who's played a competitive game knows that if the opponent sets up a field that benefits them, you're in for a bad time unless you can somehow benefit from it too. Fighting in this hurricane was a nightmare.
Normal attacks couldn't connect, and even if they did, they couldn't break her defense. It was pure prison gameplay.
The feeling gave Mo Wang a flashback to playing Star Rail's main story, fighting the Sunday boss after it had turned off all his support characters. Not only were his attacks doing scratch damage, but he also had to worry about getting one-shot.
But while Mo Wang thought Wendy was ridiculous, Wendy was thinking Mo Wang was super ridiculous. Like, ten times more ridiculous than she was.
The current Wendy was having a genuine identity crisis. Who am I? Where am I? I'm the Herrscher, right? Why does it feel like I'm the one being hunted down?
Once she became a Herrscher, Wendy thought she was invincible. She never expected some random Schicksal captain to be a hidden final boss who could beat her black and blue with a casual swing. She wanted to scream that this was impossible!
Yes, Mo Wang's chains couldn't catch her. But that didn't mean she was having an easy time. More than a dozen Judahs were spewing chains at her simultaneously. It was only because of her incredible speed that she wasn't already tied up like a pretzel.
The goose-riding Durandal would probably have to run away overnight with her horse if she saw this display. In the game, Otto only ever projected four or five at once. Who else but Mo Wang would just set up a turret farm?
The most ridiculous part was that her own wind blades, which were made of pure Herrscher energy, couldn't even scratch the chains.
And when she finally managed to sneak one past the golden net, Mo Wang just casually smashed it to pieces with his baseball bat. That bat was clearly some kind of Divine Key in disguise.
She had no doubt that if it hit her on the head, her skull would explode like a watermelon.
Compared to her, he was the real monster. Was this captain secretly the First Herrscher or something?
"Hey! Wendy! Can't you just stop for a second? Aren't you getting tired of this?" Mo Wang finally shouted, exasperated that neither of them could land a decisive blow.
"If you don't chase me, I won't run!" Wendy shot back.
"If you don't run, I won't chase!"
"Really? You swear!"
"I swear! Just stop!"
Just as Mo Wang was bracing himself for an endless loop of cat and mouse, Wendy actually stopped, hovering in the air.
He didn't know whether to be glad that this silly girl was still so easy to deceive, or worried that if she ever had a kid, its IQ would be on par with a blade of grass.
"Okay, Wendy. First, tell me what I did to get you so worked up," he said, de-materializing the Judahs. After all this fighting, he still had no idea what had set her off.
"You... you still won't admit it? Captain!" Wendy shouted, puffed up like a Pufferchick facing a cheating scumbag.
"Admit what? You have to actually tell me what's going on," Mo Wang said, feeling like he was arguing with an unreasonable girlfriend (not that he'd ever had one).
"That video! I saw it," she said, her voice cracking.
"What video? Huh?" Mo Wang stared at her blankly. Crap, was I secretly filmed? That can't be right. I haven't done anything weird... I think. He'd only been here for two days, and one of those was spent organizing the race. Who could have possibly filmed him without his knowledge?
"See for yourself!" Wendy threw a phone down to him.
He caught it and watched the video with curiosity. A few seconds in, he couldn't hold back his disbelief.
"No way, this kind of video? This is just a bunch of randomly cut surveillance clips with AI-generated dialogue slapped on top. You actually believed this?" He could tell at a glance that it was a cheap fake.
The kind of thing even a middle schooler on Bilibili wouldn't fall for.
Yet a former A-rank Valkyrie bought it hook, line, and sinker?
"This... isn't real?" Wendy's anger deflated, replaced by confusion.
"What do you think? Am I crazy? If I wanted to kill you, wouldn't it be easier to just stab you? Why would I go through all the trouble of holding a whole competition for you? Do you invite all your friends and relatives over for a party when you're about to slaughter a pig? Someone sends you one fishy video and you immediately believe it. You really need to download an anti-fraud app!"
Mo Wang was on the verge of calling her a pig brain. Fortunately, as he spoke, he could see the gears turning in her head, her IQ slowly returning.
Thinking about it carefully, the timing of the video was just too coincidental.
Now, Wendy felt a hot flush of shame and anger. She had been manipulated into this state by a poorly made fake video. Thinking of this, her eyes welled up with tears.
Seeing her start to cry, the scolding words Mo Wang wanted to say got stuck in his throat. To be fair, she was still young and probably hadn't been exposed to the wonders of telecom fraud. But now he really wanted to know who the bastard was that used AI to frame him.
"Hey, Wendy..."
Just as he was about to go and comfort her, he suddenly felt the Honkai energy in her body begin to surge again, even stronger than before.
"Don't come over!" Wendy waved her hand, and a terrifying gust of wind blasted towards him. Caught off guard, Mo Wang was sent tumbling back.
"Now what's wrong?" he groaned, picking himself up. The Honkai energy radiating from her was still increasing exponentially.
What? This boss has a second phase?