It was dinnertime, and the cozy dining hall of the Hyperion was filled with the mouthwatering aroma of freshly cooked food.
Fuli sat at his usual spot, his gaze sweeping over his companions gathered around the table before finally landing on Kiana.
The white-haired girl, usually a bundle of boundless energy, looked uncharacteristically wilted. She was listlessly poking at the rice in her bowl, letting out a long, heavy sigh after every other bite.
"Who was it that came barging through the door earlier screaming they were hungry enough to eat a whole cow? Hmm?" Fuli scooted his chair closer, using the back end of his chopsticks to gently poke the girl's cheek. "It's a rare occasion that I'm the one cooking. What, is the food not to our Lady Kaslana's liking?"
"It's probably related to the mission she just completed," Bronya, currently in her small form, swallowed her food and casually shoved the half-eaten grilled fish she couldn't finish straight into her adoptive brother's mouth.
Mei was currently occupied with Anna's situation over at the Massive Electric Corp lab and wasn't present. Otherwise, Bronya wouldn't have dared to do such a thing—at least, not until those five Energy Conversion Rings were fully fabricated.
Because they hadn't skipped the opening ceremony of the Wardance, the girls had easily linked up with their respective teammates.
The Dimensional Boundary Breakers squad was led by Bronya, with team members including Kaguya, Raiden Ei, and Miyuki Asakura.
The Everlasting Flames squad consisted of Kiana, Topaz, and Yuno, led by Durandal, who had registered for the tournament in her child form.
Similar to Fuli and Anna's experience, under the arrangements of the Matrix of Prescience, they had just completed a large-scale joint mission.
"I recall the mission briefing saying you were supposed to defeat some Great Demon Lord trying to destroy an AA-class Bubble Universe?" Fuli recalled the information from the Luofu's official website. "And supposedly, he was an Isekai protagonist?"
Given the existence of the Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta, the phenomenon of people transmigrating across universes wasn't exactly rare in the Honkai world. The vast majority of them died instantly upon arrival, but a select few managed to carve out a name for themselves.
"Yes," Bronya nodded, a complex emotion flashing through her gray eyes. "That transmigrator originally came from Shenzhou in our own universe. By the time we arrived, nearly a third of his Bubble Universe had already been completely annihilated by him. The rest of the world was on the brink of total collapse."
"Was there some hidden backstory behind it?"
Combining his past life and current one, Fuli considered himself fairly knowledgeable about Kiana's mindset.
The white-haired girl fell silent for a moment before speaking in a low voice. "When we confronted him, he looked completely deranged. He told us that before he transmigrated, his father had died early, and his mother—who had worked herself to the bone raising him alone—was diagnosed with leukemia. After desperately searching, they finally found a matching bone marrow donor."
"He did absolutely everything he could to scrape together the surgery fee. He sold their house, their car, and took out a mountain of loans and debts."
The girl took a deep breath. "But right as he was on his way to the hospital to pay for the surgery, he was forcibly summoned to that Bubble Universe."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the dining hall, as if an angel had just passed overhead.
"I'm not going to lie. My rational mind clearly tells me that none of this had anything to do with the innocent residents of that world," Fuli slowly shook his head. "But if it were me... I might have done something even worse than him."
He paused, looking at Kiana. "So what happened? Did you execute him?"
"Yeah," Kiana rested her chin on her hand, her voice devoid of energy. "The ordinary people were innocent, after all."
They didn't need Fuli to give them some profound philosophical lecture. Deep down, the girls knew that stopping the destruction of a world and protecting innocent lives was the right thing to do. But they still couldn't help but feel an indescribable, suffocating sorrow at the sheer cruelty of fate's twisted arrangements.
This feeling was only magnified when they returned to their home universe and conducted a follow-up investigation. They discovered that the transmigrator's mother had never once believed her son had absconded with the money, waiting desperately for his return until her very last breath.
Kiana slumped heavily onto the table. "A-Li."
"What's up?"
"You were right to be so obsessed all this time." The girl lifted her head, her sapphire-blue eyes filled with an unprecedented seriousness. "If we truly want to live exactly how we want to—if we want to protect everything we care about from being dictated by this kind of tragedy... we really do need to reach the Major Sequence level, don't we?"
At the end of the day, love, ideals, and even the simple peace of everyday life... were all ultimate luxuries in a civilized world. The prerequisite for possessing them was having the power to secure your right to exist.
"The goal is to follow your heart's desires without overstepping the boundaries," the boy gently ruffled Kiana's soft white hair, his voice carrying a deeply reassuring weight. "But you can't just bury your head in the sand chasing after power, completely ignoring the beautiful scenery right beside you."
"Remember what Big Sis Himeko always used to say? When it's time to study, study hard. When it's time to eat, eat well. When it's time to play, play to your heart's content. And when it's time to rest, make absolutely sure you rest properly."
"Mhm! Awoo! Awoo! Awoo!"
Kiana responded with explosive energy, instantly tearing into her food with the ferocity of someone seeking bloody vengeance.
"Big Bro always knows what to say," Bronya murmured, watching the scene with genuine admiration.
"Of course! If I ever left, this family would completely fall apart!" Fuli preened smugly, pulling out a napkin to wipe the grease off Kiana's mouth.
After dinner, he boxed up the leftovers he had specifically set aside and delivered them to the Massive Electric Corp lab.
"Teacher Fufu, uuu..."
Anna! My poor Anna!
The utterly pitiful, pleading look Anna shot him from over the top of her massive stack of books nearly made Fuli want to channel the spirit of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, instantly sparking a peasant rebellion to overthrow the cruel tyranny of Emperor Ying Zheng.
"Thinking of rebelling?" Mei asked smoothly without looking up.
"No, no, absolutely not!"
The second Mei's gaze flicked toward him, Fuli instantly chose cowardice. He carefully set down the food and fled the room as if his life depended on it.
Don't be fooled by the fact that Fuli now possessed three phases of the Peerless Nine Turn and an arsenal of Supreme Stigmas, carving out a formidable reputation for himself in the outside world. When facing Mei, he sincerely felt his win rate was probably less than fifty percent.
And that was assuming a fair, straightforward duel. If the battlefield happened to be the ME-C Workshop—a domain Mei had built from the ground up—he didn't even want to imagine the outcome.
As the saying goes: Formulas are experience, and algorithms are raw firepower.
In Mei's own words: "If I, a scientist, have to risk my life fighting in the trenches just to get stronger like you meatheads, then haven't I completely wasted my time deciphering the fundamental truths of the universe?"
Though, from Fuli's perspective, whether the terrifying contraptions the Doctor of Massive Electric churned out could actually be considered "legitimate science" was highly debatable. They felt far more like WAAAGH! Orkish green-skin technology powered purely by the sheer force of "I fink it works!"
---||---
Returning to the familiar comfort of his own room, Fuli took a hot, relaxing shower before habitually wrapping himself up in his soft quilt.
"Ah, nothing beats your own bed."
The boy let out a long, satisfied sigh, staring out at the starlight as he muttered to himself. He truly hadn't had a proper night's sleep in quite some time.
Before the tournament, he had spent his nights relentlessly sparring with his Master in her Fragmentum Shadow disguise; after the Wardance began, he had rushed straight to Jigui City for a non-stop slaughterfest.
Soon, the familiar, gentle tide of exhaustion washed over him.
"Haaah... I wonder if I'll dream of Miss Sixth Serenade tonight..."
Bathed in the tranquil starlight filtering through the window, his breathing soon leveled out into a soft, steady rhythm.
Deep in the middle of the night, right as Fuli was having a fantastic dream about playing around with Sin Hunter, he felt something burrowing its way under his covers.
"Who's there...?"
Fuli mumbled groggily, not feeling particularly alarmed. Given the current living situation on the Hyperion, it honestly wouldn't be too surprising no matter who had crawled into his bed.
That is, until his hand brushed against a lock of blonde hair.
Bianka?
No, wait!
I've cuddled Smol-Randal plenty of times, and her hair definitely doesn't feel like this!
His eyes snapped open.
"Martial Uncle..."
By the dim moonlight filtering through the window, he saw Yanqing half-leaning over his bed, smiling down at him. The young Sword Champion's handsome face was dusted with a faint, embarrassed blush.
Seeing this exact scene with his own two eyes, Fuli's soul nearly left his body.
In a daze, he recalled a widely circulated internet meme:
My wife went back to her parents' house for the night. Late that evening, I secretly put on her pink nightgown, crept up to my brother-in-law's bed, and whispered hotly into his ear, "Brother-in-law, don't you think I'm prettier than my sister?"
My brother-in-law jolted awake in terror. "What the hell are you doing, bro?!"
Right now, Fuli perfectly embodied the sheer horror of the brother-in-law in that story.
"Holy shit!"
He violently scrambled out of bed, pointing a trembling finger at Yanqing, his words tumbling out in a panicked rush. "You—you—you stay away from me! Wait, no! Why the hell are you sneaking into my bed in the middle of the night without saying a word?!"
"Ah, well, hehe."
Probably realizing how incredibly abrupt and highly questionable his actions were, the usually dashing and heroic Luofu Sword Champion showed a rare expression of deep embarrassment.
He stammered out an explanation. "I heard that you were taken in as Martial Grandmaster's final disciple, Martial Uncle. I was so filled with admiration and respect that I wanted to come over and ask for some guidance..."
"Who the hell asks for guidance by crawling into someone's bed in the middle of the night?!" Fuli choked, completely speechless. "And in the pitch black, no less?! What exactly are you trying to 'discuss'? Swordplay?!"
Given the precedent of Yunli acting as his older sister figure, he was relatively tolerant of the kid standing in front of him. Oh right, and now I have to add the title of 'Martial Nephew' into the mix.
"Insights, philosophies, anything at all!"
Yanqing's expression turned incredibly earnest, a fiery passion burning in his eyes.
Ever since his childhood, when Jingliu had "cured his arrogance" with a single strike—or, to put it nicely, defeated him; to put it bluntly, completely one-shot him—he had worshipped his Martial Grandmaster with total devotion.
Regrettably, while Jing Yuan had inherited her legacy, the General was ultimately far more skilled with the Glaive and his Lightning-Lord avatar. This meant that whenever Yanqing tried to comprehend the true essence of the Transcendent Flash's sword Dao, he always felt as though a pane of frosted glass was blocking his view, preventing him from grasping the absolute core.
Furthermore, Jingliu's whereabouts were practically a myth. He couldn't find her even if he tried, and even if he did, she might not be willing to teach him. Combined with his ever-increasing workload after becoming the Luofu's Sword Champion, Yanqing could only suppress his burning desire and diligently train on his own.
But now? His Martial Grandmaster's final, closing-door disciple had appeared!
What did that mean?!
It meant Fuli had access to the most authentic, undiluted version of his Grandmaster's swordplay! Even if he could only glean a few secondhand scraps of insight from his little Martial Uncle, it was an absolutely unmissable, precious opportunity for Yanqing!
"Anything... well, if you say anything goes."
Fuli sat cross-legged on the bed, looking rather conflicted. He scratched his cheek. "I won't lie to you. I actually got kicked out by Master today."
"Huh? Why?"
"She said my sword wasn't pure enough," Fuli sighed, flawlessly imitating Jingliu's icy, ethereal tone. "According to Master, all techniques executed through a physical form are nothing but trivial, superficial paths. Now, she has cast aside mortal iron, stealing a single ray of moonlight to illuminate the ten thousand rivers of the mortal realm."
"Ohhhh! The legendary, ultimate state where all things in creation become the sword!" Yanqing's eyes sparkled like stars, so overwhelmingly excited he was practically doing a happy dance. "That has clearly surpassed the realm of Soul Resonance! As expected of Martial Grandmaster!"
Soul Resonance—the absolute core essence of swordsmanship, categorized by the Celestial of Taixu as one of the Five Resonances of the Taixu Sword Qi.
The Dao of the Sword possesses ten thousand variations, but the sword itself is merely a vessel. Once one comprehends Soul Resonance, every weapon in the world becomes a sword in their hands.
When striking, one is no longer bound by the physical form of a blade. Only upon reaching this state can one's swordsmanship be considered truly mastered.
Yet, Jingliu's personal realm had ascended even higher, reaching the point where all the myriad variations of swordplay were condensed into a single, absolute truth, returning to the origin. When she struck, all methods returned to the Dao.
The Great Dao is the ultimate simplicity; she completely ignored the variations in her enemy's techniques, striking directly at the absolute core to sever their very rules and origin.
"But I think doing that is wrong," Fuli said, sounding deeply depressed. "Well, not necessarily 'wrong,' but I just don't think you should abandon mortal iron—meaning, I don't think you should stop using weapons."
"Why?" Yanqing looked utterly baffled. Could Martial Grandmaster's absolute pinnacle of swordsmanship possibly be flawed?
"Because weapons give you stat boosts and all sorts of passive effects!" Fuli looked at him as if he were an idiot who couldn't grasp basic math.
He stated it as if it were the most obvious universal truth. "For example, my Plasma Kagehide can passively slow down the kinetic velocity of everything around it. Your Zhaodan sword has a massive damage multiplier against Honkai Beasts and zombies."
(T/N: Fuli is calling Yanqing "Lao Ma" / "Old Ma" here. This is an internet meme/nickname used by Honkai players to mock Yanqing, comparing him to the famously arrogant but ultimately incompetent "Master Ma" of Tai Chi).
"Look," Fuli continued to passionately preach his hyper-utilitarian Dao of the Sword. "Even if Master has reached a realm where she doesn't need to hold a physical sword, the innate stats and passive effects attached to the weapons themselves aren't bad! If you pick one up and use it, those buffs stack on top of your own power! One plus one is definitely greater than one!"
"That... actually sounds kind of logical?" Yanqing, completely dizzy from Fuli's twisted logic, subconsciously asked, "So how did Martial Grandmaster react to that?"
"She kicked me right out the win— I mean, right out of bed." Fuli looked incredibly depressed and deeply wronged.
Yes, this was exactly why Jingliu had evaluated him as having "chaotic accumulated intent, lacking purity."
Logically speaking, given Fuli's terrifying talent for the sword—even if he was learning a mishmash of a hundred different styles—combined with all the agonizing trials he had endured, he should have long since achieved a state of absolute clarity in his Sword Heart.
The core reason he hadn't achieved 'purity' yet was his overwhelmingly utilitarian mindset.
From the very beginning, Fuli had never treated a sword as a sword. Forget about romanticizing the blade or devoting one's soul to it—he only used swords because they felt convenient. If you handed him a machine gun that gave the exact same passive buffs, he would have used it just the same!
Honestly, from Jingliu's perspective, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing at first. A sword is just a sword—an instrument designed to sever life and death. There was no need to project excessive, distracting emotions onto it, nor was there any need to stick rigidly to tradition.
However, she still harbored a fundamental respect for the sword itself. It was precisely this respect that had supported her ascent to her current realm.
But what about this newly accepted, traitorous disciple of hers? His utilitarianism was practically overflowing! He outright stated that the only thing he cared about was the weapon's base stats and passive effects, and to hell with everything else!
Setsuna Blade? Taixu Form Resonance? Give me a pair of gauntlets with higher sub-stats, and I'll turn them into Setsuna Punch and Taixu Fist Resonance in a heartbeat!
This had absolutely infuriated the Master, who had dedicated her entire life to the sword. She immediately lifted her leg and violently kicked her traitorous disciple—who was currently buried deep between her legs, hard at work—straight out the window. She then flipped the dynamic, forcefully pinning him down and giving him a thorough, grueling "re-education."
It wasn't just her. Even Yanqing, merely listening to this philosophy, felt his entire worldview taking a catastrophic hit, leaving him completely dazed.
His instincts screamed that his Martial Grandmaster's philosophy had to be correct. She had reached that absolute pinnacle, so her insight was undoubtedly superior to his own.
But every single textbook he had read since childhood clearly stated that 1+1 > 1. The violent clash between common sense and absolute martial truth was causing Yanqing's CPU to overheat and melt down.
In a total daze, he stood up, opened the window, and leaped out into the night, completely oblivious to Kallen—whose private time had been rudely interrupted—sticking her tongue out and making faces at his retreating back.
"Hey, Old Ma, who do you think is right... Ah, he's gone."
Fuli closed the window, sounding rather disappointed.
He had actually wanted to discuss the Fu Xuan issue with the Luofu Sword Champion. When he woke up tomorrow, he was supposed to provide "professional ear-cleaning services" to the General and Diviner Qingque.
The Matrix of Prescience's system had specifically suggested that the service would be most effective if he roleplayed as their husband!
But how could Fuli possibly dare?! (Dare!!)
With Master Jingliu, at least she had initiated things by getting dead drunk first. But if he made even the slightest misstep inside the Seat of Divine Foresight, wouldn't the Cloud Knights grind his bones to dust in seconds?!