By now almost everyone understood: Otto was deliberately courting death.
He didn't simply launch himself at Durandal without reason—he wanted Durandal to strike him, or at least to be forced into a confrontation.
Elysia didn't hesitate. The fight phase began and she focused hard. But the duel proved unexpectedly brief.
Otto—four health bars—used no flashy skills. He fought with his fists. The brawl was over quickly.
A final illustration flashed across the screen: Otto half-kneeling, Durandal standing over him with the Black Abyss White Bloom pointed but not yet thrust down.
"This ends here, Bishop," she said. "Tell me everything. Sit with Theresa and explain, while there's still time."
Otto gave a cold laugh. "I told you: you should have come to kill me instead of stopping at this point."
The chat went strangely quiet. Oddly, witnessing Otto get beaten did not bring viewers the cathartic joy they expected. No one urged Durandal to plunge the blade home. Everyone was waiting—hungry—for the next revelation. Whatever Otto had been doing, there had to be a reason.
Durandal pressed on. "Killing you is a right for Kiana or others, not mine. I want the truth."
"Oh?" Otto smiled. "Well then—yes, there are things I'm hiding. But unfortunately, this is not the moment to reveal them. And thanks to our quite vigorous clash, Bianka, I managed to slip your attention and push forward my sublimation. "
A strange energy coalesced around Otto.
"What—Bishop, what are you—" Durandal began.
"It's too late for you, Bianka Atagina!" Otto said, rising slowly.
"Genius-plus: forced coordinate transform!"
He spoke and gave Durandal no time to react. A gate of imaginary numbers tore open, and she was swallowed through.
"The Imaginary Gate opens. I, as God, command—" Otto intoned. "It will remove this pawn from the board."
Viewers' hearts clenched. When Otto had not killed Durandal outright, people breathed a brief sigh of relief. Then panic registered again: what had he done?
"Is Otto a Herrscher now?!" the chat shouted.
"He planned everything… this man is terrifying."
"But he didn't kill Durandal—maybe he still has humanity?"
"Maybe he won't slaughter so long as it doesn't block resurrecting Kallen."
"Shut up—you can never forgive Otto!"
"Wait, what Herrscher power did he gain?"
"Constraint? Or a brand-new eleventh authority?"
"Imagine if he has both Domination and Constraint… or more. He called himself God."
Speculation swirled.
Scene cut back to Kiana's perspective—time returned to the present. She reached the church and finally confronted Otto. Fu Hua had intercepted Li Sushang, leaving Kiana alone to meet Otto in the sanctuary.
"Oh—second guest arrives just in time," Otto quipped.
"Kiana," he said, holding the Black Abyss White Bloom. Her brow tightened; a bad premonition rose up like metal in her gut.
"That's something the first guest left behind," Otto said smoothly. "She is resting in Imaginary Space. I hope that doesn't disappoint you. From now on this church is the fulcrum of world change. For your safety, we should treat this Bloom as a boundary."
Kiana stared. "Do you think I'll sit and watch?"
Otto sighed. "What a nuisance. I didn't want to fight further—because the gift from the Imaginary Tree has started to show."
As he spoke, Otto's power turned dreadful—no longer merely Herrscher-like, but something more blasphemous. The sheer pressure was inhuman. Kiana tightened her grip on the Flamebrand and felt it: an oppressive, alien force unlike anything she'd met.
"This pressure… he may be more dangerous than any enemy I've faced," she thought.
The game entered combat, but this time strikes against Otto barely budged his health. No matter how Kiana slashed, his HP did not drop.
"Is this one of those scripted moments…" Elysia fretted aloud, worried for Kiana. But the encounter was only a demonstration—Kiana neither won nor lost.
"Quiet, Flame-born," Otto said. He spread a golden screen of light.
"I will absorb a god's prerogatives one by one. In twelve hours I'll present you all with a new world of wonder."
His form blurred inside the light and then vanished outside the church, leaving only the golden veil behind. The pressure abated, and Kiana rushed forward—but the magic barrier screamed danger through her bones.
"This curtain is dangerous!"
She approached tentatively—and felt her power draining.
"My Harmonious Flame… the flow of Honkai energy is being siphoned off!" As she neared, her Herrscher power bled away. Her Flameblade dissolved into motes of light.
Panic rose in her throat. "I can't summon the Flamebrand—what did Otto do?"
A narrator answered the dread: it was another Herrscher power—Constraint.
The audience tensed as one. They felt Kiana's helplessness through the screen: suddenly unable to use Honkai energy, not understanding the enemy that neutralized their powers. Anxiety flooded chat. The Constraint authority was the stuff of legend—capable, the players knew, of devastating feats. In the ancient age it had cut down fused warriors; its mechanics were obscure and terrifying.
"Constraint?!" typed thousands.
"They made Juda's key from Constraint, right? Didn't Judas's zero mode create a field that nullifies Honkai energy?"
"Maybe that's what's happening—Kiana's Honkai is neutralized!"
"Then how do they fight? If Valkyries become normal humans inside that field, Otto could be punching through them one-by-one!"
"How do you beat this?"
"Please don't cut the cast, Mo Li…"
"Eleventh Herrscher confirmed… concluding final stage?"
Elysia and Eden shared the room's tension. Otto had assumed two Herrscher authorities and dared to remake the world. The Valkyries would oppose him—and someone might die. The audience wanted to look away, but couldn't.
Elysia tried to soothe Eden. "Remember the earlier setup? Otto said he'd go to his death. Maybe this chapter is his end. The heroes shouldn't all die; the story needs protagonists." Her lightheartedness helped Eden breathe.
That thought caught on with many viewers. Otto had been center stage for chapters; if others were cut now, it would steal their arcs. Fans relaxed a little.
"Alright. Let's keep watching," they decided—and the stream rolled on into the golden curtain, the unknown, and twelve ticking hours.
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