"Happy birthday!"
Today was a day worth commemorating. For others, it might not be a special holiday, but for a young couple, today was the two-year celebration of the birth of a young life that held immense significance for them.
The usually dominant wife watched her husband, who was holding their child, with clear, gentle eyes. When she saw her husband lifting the child above his head, she playfully scolded her cheerful husband.
Celebrating their child's birthday in this small family restaurant was the happiest thing they had ever done as parents.
Perhaps their son's naive mind didn't understand the significance, but he must have felt the love of his parents and their ordinary yet magnificent happiness.
"Whoo—"
An unfamiliar alarm stretched the expression on the husband's face.
The cozy atmosphere vanished. They looked around confusedly, noticing that others were equally bewildered, completely unaware of what the alarm meant.
"Waaah, waah…" The alarm was jarring and urgent. The son was immediately startled by it. The toddler, unable to control his emotions, could only express his fear through crying.
"Oh, don't cry, don't cry. Mommy and Daddy are here…" The husband quickly comforted his son, but it was no use, as the alarm continued its cycle.
Earthquake or fire?
While everyone was confused, their phones rang, and simultaneously, the programs on all the screens in the restaurant switched to an announcement.
"Immediately leave Nagazora and evacuate to the nearest shelter… Meteorite?!"
Just then, a sonic boom sounded over Nagazora. They looked up in terror at the shaking ceiling, which seemed precarious and ready to collapse at any moment.
An ominous figure and another figure with scattering azure particles rapidly plunged from the sky…
…
"Prometheus I, take Lin and leave."
In the gap while the Sixth Herrscher was pulling out the blade and repairing her body, Kevin placed Lin and Prometheus I into the cockpit of the last Titan that hadn't been destroyed. He tightly held Lin's already cold body, and the muscles in his face fiercely twitched the moment he released his hands.
The man's appearance was a stark contrast to his usual demeanor. Perhaps everyone thought that beneath the mask of that aloof, cold helmet would be a cold-blooded, killer-like face with necrotic muscles.
But at this moment, the person who looked barely like a teenager, perhaps only a youth, lay peacefully on the metallic floor, his head resting on the shoulder of the robot. His shoulder-length, dark hair covered his blood-stained profile. His face was gentle, with a trace of a mild smile on the corner of his lips. His appearance looked like a work of art carefully carved by a god to make everyone love him.
This work of art was frozen in this moment. Purple blemishes, the mark of desecration, crawled over his pale, bloodless face, destroying all the beauty, like a snapshot of his life.
He wasn't moving, nor breathing, frail as carved glass.
Kevin stared at the smile he had never seen before. He had seen Lin smile in school once, but that was just Lin mimicking how the smiling muscles moved. He had never felt genuine joy from Lin.
But now, why was he smiling?
Smiling so sincerely.
"Kevin, Lin's vital signs disappeared only seventeen seconds ago. He can still be resuscitated. Please immediately return to the Fifth Branch to perform…" Prometheus I supported Lin's body. Her pupils turned emerald green for scanning. After calmly scanning Lin, she said to Kevin.
"Take him back."
"Humans enter a temporary state of suspended animation. He only needs to be timely…"
"Take him back…"
"…"
Prometheus I mechanically repeated the records in her database, her stiff joints waving for unknown reasons. Acidic words stuttered intermittently from her voice structure, which sounded as if it were rusty.
Kevin bowed his head in silence. A bitter liquid flowed into his mouth.
Finally, Prometheus I stopped.
Looking at Lin's peacefully sleeping face, she stopped.
"Lin, I, want to cry. Can, you, teach, me, how."
…
The Sixth Herrscher threw away the dagger, repairing the damage to her chest with an expressionless face.
Normal weapons couldn't damage the Herrscher Core. No, even humanity's most advanced weapons couldn't inflict any damage on the Herrscher Core.
But her body still had a human structure. Most of her weaknesses were the same as a human's, such as this wound. Even a Herrscher could not avoid the consequences of damage to blood vessels, muscles, and organs. Even if Honkai Energy could accelerate healing, it didn't mean these wounds were meaningless.
It forced her to use her Authority to heal herself.
The Authority of Creation, the opposite of the Decay Authority that decomposes matter, was much more cumbersome to use. In the typical sense, she could use this Authority to create Honkai organisms, such as zombies, Honkai Beasts, and that tree. This was the simplest use.
Of course, since it was related to "life," healing was naturally involved. However, healing might be fundamentally contrary to the nature of the coexisting Decay Authority, so its use came with many restrictions. Even healing such a small wound required her complete, focused attention. The previous gunshots were similar.
Soon, under the action of the world's rules, her wound healed. Her crimson eyes flared again in the high-altitude darkness, staring at the swiftly approaching azure flash.
"Bang!"
The Sixth Herrscher and Kevin collided head-on. Dagger and scythe clashed, erupting in intense sparks that illuminated their faces.
Neither of them showed any emotion. They had both shed the shell of humanity, becoming machines whose sole purpose was to kill the other.
Her Authority fully activated. The black mist that devoured life emerged from the scythe, lunging at Kevin, but he had already anticipated it and retreated, vanishing into the air.
"!"
The Phase Transfer device!
Undoubtedly, Kevin had taken the Phase Transfer device that Lin had fought for with his life. At this moment, the Sixth Herrscher lost her mobility advantage and could only rely on visual judgment to determine Kevin's position.
To prevent Kevin from ambushing her from the surroundings, the Sixth Herrscher's black mist enveloped her entire body.
"Bang bang bang!"
The sound of three missiles launching made the Sixth Herrscher instinctively try to use her shield for defense, but in the next second, three armor-piercing rounds, which had not been fully destroyed, slammed into her shield. The ensuing explosion, which she couldn't block, violently shook her body, causing her to fall downward.
Kevin retracted the missile launcher pods on his legs, glanced at the three remaining mounted armor-piercing rounds, and with an icy expression, rushed toward the Herrscher.
The black mist's speed in eroding non-living matter was not instantaneous. Even if the black mist could absorb a portion of the armor-piercing round's kinetic and thermal energy, it couldn't completely block the impact at this range without prior defense. This meant the internal components would not be completely decomposed and rendered inert before impact, unlike the fission missiles fired at the transport plane, which had been completely neutralized before hitting the target.
As she fell, a trace of emerald green flashed in the Sixth Herrscher's eyes. Her scorched skin instantly returned to normal.
The Phase Transfer device? That man truly knew where her weakness lay. By stripping her of her mobility, her threat level was drastically reduced! That is why he had used such a low-life trick to deceive her without hesitation!
That despicable human!