"But too many of them are just a nuisance," Sirin said. "Without anyone to clear out the small fry, you'll need to keep an eye on your surroundings during battle."
"Is it just you and Welt here?"
"Welt and I can barely withstand the pressure in this place," she explained. "There's no one else we can rely on right now. But with Howl and your help, Kiana, we might actually have a chance to bring down Everbreath quickly."
She tried to put it in the best way she could.
In truth, she knew this mission was likely a one-way trip. Everbreath had arrived with overwhelming force—far stronger than Almighty Thunder had ever been. And neither she nor Welt had any resistance to this new phenomenon, the Honkai. Their power was suppressed, unable to be fully unleashed.
She'd only been here half an hour, and she could already understand the suffocating despair Almighty Thunder must have felt before dying.
If Almighty Thunder had been in a metamorphic stage—its two opposing powers clashing, unable to exert even half its strength, dying an agonizing death—then Everbreath was the complete, evolved form after such transformation.
Could it even still be called a Kami at this point?
Feeling her stamina drain away with every moment, Sirin grew increasingly irritable.
"The Honkai energy concentration here is too high. Without a Stigma, it's impossible to fight properly."
Kiana immediately bought the Stigma [Spacetime Star Dream]. Its sigil shone brightly upon her hand.
"This one should suit you well."
Kiana didn't want to think about anything else—she just wanted to end this storm, to suppress this sudden Honkai Eruption as soon as possible.
"The Stigma will grant you resistance to Honkai energy. Find a spot, and I'll attach it."
"You have something like that too?"
Sirin picked a spot on her body at random and pointed. "Here's fine. Hurry up—Welt's waiting ahead for our support."
Kiana didn't waste time. She placed the [Spacetime Star Dream] onto Sirin's body. With no interference or resistance, the Stigma merged seamlessly with her.
In the high-concentration Honkai zone, Sirin immediately felt the Stigma's effects—just as Kiana had said. The result was instant.
Aside from the added strength, the exhaustion caused by the Honkai energy's corrosion began to subside.
No, it was more than that.
She could even sense herself harnessing a portion of the Honkai energy to enhance her own power.
"I feel much better. But now's not the time to discuss it—stay close to me."
Dodging twisters and bursts of azure wind, Sirin led them toward the distant city wrapped in tangible blue gales.
That was undoubtedly where Everbreath was.
In the nearest safe zone outside the city, the three of them saw a middle-aged man waiting.
"You've arrived just in time. This is our only chance to defeat it."
When Welt saw them, he didn't waste a word. "After breaking its seal, it turned this entire continent into its playground. That consumed an enormous amount of its energy."
Thus, the Everbreath of the skies now rested within this ruined city rather than soaring above it.
It was recovering its strength.
Welt didn't know how long it would take for Everbreath to fully recover—but he knew this was their only window to strike it down.
Even if it cost their lives, they had to stop Everbreath from moving the continent any further.
"Its weakened phase?"
Sirin's face hardened. Even in crisis, she dropped all pretense of animosity toward Welt. He was right—if Everbreath was in a weakened state, then this was the one and only chance for the four of them to defeat it.
"You're being eroded by the Honkai energy," Kiana noticed, her expression tensing as she saw the strain in Welt's body. She immediately took out the [Guardian Circuit], which she had bought alongside the [Spacetime Star Dream].
After all, neither Houkai Gakuen 2 nor Honkai Impact 3rd had any playable male characters—so naturally, no male-targeted Stigmata existed.
Kiana didn't know which Stigma would suit Welt. Thinking of Bronya from Honkai Impact 3rd, who was also the Herrscher of Reason, she decided to take the risk and purchased Bronya's Stigma. Whether it would work or not didn't matter—what mattered was stopping the Honkai corrosion first.
"That's why we have to end this quickly."
"I have a way to counter Honkai corrosion. Let me try it on you."
She took out Bronya's exclusive Stigma, intending to apply it to Welt—but something unexpected happened.
[Compatibility Error: Cannot Equip]
A message window appeared abruptly before her eyes, freezing Kiana in place.
She had only bought two Stigmata before—Mei's and Sirin's—and both had been given to their rightful owners.
She hadn't realized that Stigmata required compatibility.
Seeing her expression change, Mei immediately asked, "What's wrong?"
"The compatibility is too low—it can't be equipped."
Welt didn't understand what she meant by "compatibility," but when he looked at the sigil in her hand and recalled her mention of resisting Honkai corrosion, he pieced it together.
Since waking up, he'd had some exchanges with this Kiana from another world. Although Sirin's influence had made their communication limited, they weren't complete strangers.
He could trust her—at least, that was what his instinct told him.
And now, standing at the brink of battle, trust was all he had left. If he couldn't trust his allies here and now, then the battle was already lost before it began.
"It's fine," Welt said firmly. "We'll just have to make it quick."
He repeated his earlier words and turned to Sirin. "Raise a barrier—we're going inside."
Kiana clenched her hand and withdrew the [Guardian Circuit]. Then, gritting her teeth, she poured all the money she'd earned so far into unlocking the custom Stigma creation feature.
Until now, the world's enemies had only been Kami. Starting from zero to research the Honkai would take who knew how long—far too long to develop countermeasures against Honkai energy.
There had only been three months between Everbreath and Almighty Thunder. Kiana felt that Izumo might not have much time left.
—[The Unending Road]!
She invested ten million credits, and the result was immediate.
A new Stigma template was created—a blue one, unlimited in quantity, its design depicting a road that stretched endlessly into the distance.
Its price: 10,000 per unit, unlimited purchases.
[The Unending Road (Stigma): Increases Honkai resistance and boosts melee weapon damage. A basic Stigma that can be strengthened through combat or Honkai Cubes.]
Just as she had hoped.
Without hesitation, Kiana bought one and remotely placed it onto Welt.
This time, no compatibility warning appeared. Kiana instantly understood—this was a foundational Stigma that could be mass-produced and distributed.
"Mr. Welt, how do you feel?"
Having finished her work, Kiana turned to him. By now, the group was already within the Imaginary barrier Sirin had created, heading straight toward the point with the strongest Honkai energy reaction.
Welt's pace didn't falter—not because he didn't feel the effects, but because his mental fortitude was unshakable.
Because of the Edict Edge, and because of the demonic symptoms in his body, he bore the power of the Oni. His appearance had been frozen in his prime; though now in his fifties or sixties, Welt still looked like a man in his mid-thirties, and his lifespan far surpassed that of any ordinary human.
Those eroded by the Edict Edge became half-Oni.
They remained human, yet possessed certain demonic traits—longer lifespans, greater strength, and enhanced resilience.
"You've helped a great deal," he said.
His body, once riddled with Honkai corrosion, had been like a cracked vessel, constantly leaking strength.
Neither he nor Sirin were completely without resistance, but the concentration of Honkai energy here far exceeded what either of them had experienced before. It pushed the limits of human endurance.
Whatever Kiana had done, it had increased his adaptability to this hostile environment—and even began restoring the stamina he had been losing.
Everbreath.
The fourth of the Twelve Kami to appear.
A colossal azure bird with twelve wings, perched atop a high-rise building—the very eye of the storm, the only zone untouched by the raging winds.
It was the sovereign of the storm.
The hurricane that consumed the ruined city, and even the tempests raging across the entire continent, were all manifestations of its power.
Its might was beyond question.
"Raiden Mei, be ready. Sirin and I will create your opening."
"Understood."
Kiana hesitated for a moment before saying, "I can provide fire support."
"Adapt as you see fit," Welt replied.
He hadn't assigned her a role because he had no idea what her true capabilities were.
He and Sirin moved first, initiating the battle. Mei gave Kiana a brief nod of encouragement before leaping into the fray.
Shriek—!
The ear-piercing cry split the sky.
The twelve-winged azure bird took flight, and with a screech, exhaled a massive teal hurricane.
Once that gale touched the ground, its destructive force would be unstoppable—but Sirin didn't give it the chance. A spatial gate opened before her, swallowing the wind entirely, and another portal redirected it outside the city.
Everbreath's first strike was flawlessly nullified by Sirin and her Edict Edge of Sky.
It beat its wings again, unleashing a downpour of wind-forged feathers like a storm of arrows. Their number and spread were so vast that evasion was impossible.
And this was merely its casual attack.
"The barrier won't last long," Sirin warned.
The rain of wind-arrows was inescapable, so Kiana didn't even try to dodge. She drew her weapons and opened fire on Everbreath.
Explosions thundered endlessly across the battlefield.
But Everbreath, master of the gales, raised a barrier of condensed wind around itself. Kiana's bombardment struck the shield uselessly.
The real battle had begun.
Everbreath's tenacity was overwhelming. They couldn't even break through its storm barrier, let alone harm its true form.
"Get down!"
Only the power of the Void could bypass the storm's defense—chains of pure nothingness shot out from the rift, wrapping around Everbreath and attempting to drag it down.
But the winds turned into their fiercest assault yet, and in a single instant, the chains were covered in glowing teal cracks.
Everbreath flapped its wings, and the chains—manifestations of Eternal Zenith's divine power—shattered like glass.
Not even spatial force could restrain the wildest of tempests. The effort barely slowed it at all.
Would this battle come down to attrition?
The moment the chains broke, Sirin pulled everyone into the Imaginary Space to prevent Everbreath from escaping.
If it chose to flee instead of fight, they would never catch up—and even if they did, it would be too late.
As the environment shifted, multiple sword strikes slashed toward Everbreath, but every one of them was blocked by its barrier.
Dragged into the Imaginary Space, the azure bird screeched again, circling once in the air before unleashing a storm so fierce it tore the very ground apart.
A cataclysmic, all-encompassing attack.
Sirin's eyes widened—the scale of the assault left no room to dodge, and she doubted even her spatial barrier could withstand it.
Just as Sirin was about to shift the space again—to return to the outside world and avoid the attack—the descending wind projectiles suddenly slowed by a thousandfold. Even Everbreath's movements became sluggish, as if time itself had turned to molasses.
"Can't completely stop it?"
Seeing the impossible, Sirin instinctively turned toward Kiana—only to find her just lowering her hand, murmuring something under her breath.
This was their chance.
Neither Welt nor Raiden Mei wasted a second, and Sirin forced her amazement aside.
"If it could really stop time completely, what would we even have to worry about?"
Kiana shook her head, dismissing the unrealistic thought.
The anomaly lasted only a few seconds—but it was enough. In those fleeting moments, they poured all their strength into the weakest point of Everbreath's barrier, finally shattering the storm shield tougher than any armor.
The explosion of released wind nearly swept them away. Three streaks of brilliant color clashed with the azure giant bird as Kiana switched weapons, giving her companions covering fire.
But weapons that usually yielded powerful results proved far less effective against Everbreath.
"A fusion of Kami and Honkai… its power surpasses that of most Herrschers," Kiana muttered, her lips pressed tight and her eyes fixed on the creature.
To turn an entire continent into ruins within moments—yes, the Honkai eruption had aided it, but Everbreath's own power accounted for most of the devastation.
Would a Honkai eruption make a Herrscher weaker?
No—it would make them stronger.
Its rampage released even more Honkai energy, the primary reason this continent's Honkai concentration had reached such absurd levels.
It had annihilated a continent, pushing the global Honkai level up by fifteen points. Was it truly in a weakened state now?
Was this really all the strength it had?
The next instant seemed to answer her doubts. A terrifying pulse of energy burst from Everbreath's body—like a massive sphere of light, its condensed power spread outward in an overwhelming wave.
Kiana, her instincts sharp, reacted immediately—but against that immense surge of Honkai energy, her time-stop only managed to freeze a fraction of a second.
She couldn't fully halt it—and before she could use Phase Shuttle to escape, the impact hit.
The explosion struck like a metal wall slamming into her body. Kiana was thrown violently, her vision spinning, blood rising in her throat as she coughed several times.
Her head rang, her body trembling. There was no time to check on the others. Every second counted—life or death could be decided in a heartbeat. She quickly pulled out an item and began stabilizing her condition.
They hadn't trapped Everbreath—it had trapped them.
What was supposed to be their ambush had turned into Everbreath's perfect counterstrike. One single blast had nearly wiped them all out.
It was intelligent.
Everbreath's form had grown since they first encountered it—its twelve wings, veined with deep violet patterns, radiated gathering power as the surrounding winds coalesced.
It was charging another massive attack, preparing to obliterate the entire Imaginary Space.