Honestly, the current Lunelle, at a quick glance, did share a pretty striking resemblance to his own precious Seele—his number one waifu.
But the moment one looked deeper, there were inevitably huge, glaring differences that couldn't hold up under scrutiny.
Just appearance-wise, for starters: his dear waifu Seele had her signature adorable, shoulder-length bob cut.
Lunelle, on the other hand, sported a hairstyle like Dark Seele's, with long, flowing locks that reached all the way down to his waist.
Then there was his beloved Seele.
Despite her bone age being just fourteen, she had already developed a ridiculously, unfairly perfect figure.
Lunelle, however—since his physiological sex was still male, and he didn't have much of a workout habit—didn't even have the faintest hint of a manly, muscular chest.
In short, for now at least, Lunelle's front was as flat as an airport runway.
Of course, the most crucial, fundamental difference was this: Lunelle's current Honkai energy adaptability, while arguably high compared to an average person, was absolutely night-and-day compared to someone like my wife Seele—a Natural Stigma Awakener.
With such a massive gap, Lunelle seriously doubted that Cocolia could be so blind as to not realize he was just a fake!
And once Cocolia discovered that some guy with 'equipment' had dared to "impersonate" her precious daughter Seele...
Lunelle could easily imagine the horrifying scene: his identity exposed, and getting instantly smashed into "Valkyrie Fragments" by a single backhand slap from a Titan.
After all, Cocolia was, at the end of the day, an iron-willed military officer of Russian origin.
Her methods against enemies were far more ruthless and brutal than most people could ever imagine.
Great...
Looks like I'm well and truly pinned down in Nagazora City by that sly old fox Cocolia.
At this stage, if Lunelle tried to leave Nagazora and somehow, by a stroke of dog-luck, wasn't noticed, fine.
But once he ran into Anti-Entropy's patrols, his current appearance would absolutely draw Cocolia's attention!
Plus, Lunelle remembered that Anti-Entropy's mechs, thanks to the results of the experiment where Seele fell into the Sea of Quanta, had successfully mastered quantum camouflage!
With invisible units like that lying in ambush, Lunelle didn't think his measly 4-point-something Stamina stat would be enough to force his way through.
He really didn't want to be smacked into pieces by a Titan's slap while still so young.
So, the earliest Lunelle could even think of escaping was after the main trio was recovered by the Hyperion and taken to St. Freya Academy.
By that point in the story, Cocolia, realizing there was no point in staying in the ruined city of Nagazora, naturally wouldn't waste Anti-Entropy's already-strained tactical mech forces there any longer.
It was then that Lunelle also noticed some details he'd missed when reading the comics to catch up on the plot.
According to the comic's storyline, if the Schicksal's battleship Hyperion hadn't unexpectedly swooped in, intercepting the Herrscher of Thunder, then even if the trio had fought their way out of Nagazora by sheer luck, the outcome they'd most likely have faced afterward would have been a direct confrontation with Cocolia—that absolute menace in internal conflicts.
After all, among the three was Bronya, who had a bio-chip planted in her brain by Cocolia, a little mole.
Even though Bronya would be forcibly brainwashed and turn traitor by the plot's sheer force within just a few days, the trio's location coordinates definitely wouldn't stay hidden from Cocolia.
The real question was, if Cocolia—who had grossly underestimated a Herrscher's combat power—directly faced the Queen of Thunder, who nearly tore the Hyperion apart with her bare hands, who would actually win?
But before Lunelle had any spare time to ponder that answer, in the blink of an eye, he suddenly noticed that all the electronic devices in the rental unit, which had been working fine just moments ago, had completely shut down.
As this abnormal halt of electrical facilities occurred, a strange, deep rumbling sound, as if buried far underground, suddenly echoed forth.
Lunelle clearly felt a violent tremor, earthquake-like, that shook the entire residential building fiercely!
The ceiling and walls of his already-not-so-sturdy little rental room visibly developed a dense web of cracks.
Fortunately, although the small room was teetering on the brink of collapse, this sudden, bizarre tremor only lasted a few seconds before subsiding.
Otherwise, Lunelle had no doubt that if another quake of similar intensity hit, his precarious ceiling would come crashing down, burying him alive on the spot.
Lunelle quickly grabbed the chair beside him, narrowly avoiding the embarrassment of a clumsy flat-on-his-face fall.
Honestly, since the storyline never explicitly mentioned the exact method Cocolia used to trigger the Third Honkai Eruption, Lunelle had initially guessed that Cocolia must have used some means to locally increase the Honkai energy concentration around Chiba Academy.
This would cause the originally incomplete Gem of Conquest, catalyzed by the dense Honkai energy, to fully form into a Herrscher core within Raiden Mei's body.
Only after the Herrscher's birth would the Honkai's erosion have spread to engulf the entire Nagazora City.
But seeing this now...
Lunelle hadn't expected that Cocolia, to reliably create a cradle for a Herrscher's birth through artificial means, seemed to have planted some special devices underground across all areas of Nagazora City from the very start, designed to facilitate the spread of Honkai energy!
And now, the area beneath this building in the Nagazora suburbs where Lunelle was located was clearly within the blast's effective range!
She only needed to concentrate on raising the levels at Chiba Academy, yet she went so far as to madly include even these suburban outskirts.
Truly worthy of being the only one in all of Anti-Entropy who, when taking action, almost never gave a second thought to budget costs—that absolute menace in internal conflicts.
As the building's tremors temporarily ceased, the massive amount of Honkai energy stored in the devices buried deep underground began to spread and diffuse through the surrounding space at a terrifying speed.
Perhaps because Lunelle's building was quite close to the epicenter, in less than a few minutes, he clearly perceived a strange, oppressively eerie energy instantly saturating the space around him.
"Is this... Honkai energy?"
As someone familiar with the Honkai world's lore, Lunelle immediately guessed what this pervasive, bizarre energy was.
After three days of frantic simulations, Lunelle in his current cross-dressed state possessed a Honkai energy adaptability of 21 points.
This level, numerically speaking, was already over four times that of an average woman in the Honkai world.
This "so high" adaptability, as Lunelle saw it, gave him a certain degree of confidence.
His initial target resistance had only been a bit over 10 points, after all. Now he had more than doubled that!
With his current accumulation, he should be able to withstand the Honkai energy's erosion, right?
But what happened next completely shattered the little confidence he had built up, leaving not even a speck behind!
For no reason other than this: the moment he made first contact with Honkai energy, Lunelle was horrified to discover that his fair, snow-like skin was rapidly developing the eerie patterns characteristic of Honkai erosion—visible to the naked eye!
"Huh?!!!"
At that moment, Lunelle felt his brain short-circuit.
Was my mighty 21-point Honkai energy adaptability all just for show, made of paper?
I'm about to turn into a zombie here—can it please do something, anything?!
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.