But since siphoning Honkai Energy from her own body wouldn't affect her beloved wife Dark Seele, and after this simulation, Lunelle figured out that Fire Moth's whole grand production seemed to be just about extracting this useless (to her) Honkai Energy from within her...
Lunelle's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled completely.
So it's just about draining "a bit" of that worthless Honkai Energy inside me that I can't even use anyway?
Drain away!
Take as much as you want, go wild!
If you can't drain it all, don't blame me for looking down on you!
Moreover, Lunelle started thinking she might even use this situation of being drained dry to pull off something!
Like using this chance to logically become a "truly harmless little darling" on the surface!
"Hey, Seele? Since the core inside me is something Seele can control, there's something I'm wondering if you can do?"
Feeling her idea of playing weak really had potential, Lunelle immediately contacted her wife Dark Seele to ask if her plan was feasible.
"Oh? What kind of good idea could a little dummy like you come up with? Let's hear it."
As a tsundere through and through, Dark Seele was actually intensely interested now that Seele was taking the initiative to ask for her help.
But her sharp little mouth couldn't help but lace every other sentence with "little dummy."
Thankfully, having thoroughly gotten used to her wife's tsundere ways by now, Lunelle could naturally translate the constantly repeated "little dummy" into "little darling" in her head.
After all, if you took everything her contrary-mouthed wife said at face value, life would simply be unbearable!
Then Lunelle explained her seemingly workable "play weak" plan to her wife.
Her idea was basically this: she hoped Dark Seele could, while her body was being drained, synchronously fake the Honkai Energy fluctuations within the Herrscher core to show a clear weakening effect.
If this method succeeded, it probably wouldn't let Lunelle shake off the troublesome label of "Herrscher" entirely, but it should allow her to significantly lower her perceived threat level in Fire Moth's eyes through disguise.
But Lunelle understood whether this idea could work depended entirely on whether her beloved Dark Seele could pull it off.
And whether her tsundere wife was even willing to help her like this.
Thinking of her wife's domineering personality—the kind where if someone displeased her, she'd just cut them down on the spot—Lunelle felt her hope of getting her wife to "lay low" with her might not be well received.
But if her wife clearly said no, Lunelle would never force her to do something against her will.
For Lunelle, the worst outcome would just be having to "fight, fight till the end" in this simulation anyway.
However, in her somewhat pessimistic thinking, Lunelle severely underestimated just how important a request from her would be to her beloved wife Dark Seele!
"Hmph! Though it's a bit of a hassle, I'm not a little dummy like you. Suppressing Honkai Energy fluctuations is nothing—if I want to do it, I can find a way!"
So almost immediately after Lunelle finished explaining her idea...
Having roughly understood, her wife Dark Seele gave her reply without a hint of hesitation.
"Eh? Really? Hehe, I knew Seele was the best to me!"
Hearing her wife's confirmation, Lunelle couldn't help but let out a surprised, delighted laugh within their shared consciousness.
But before she could bask in her triumph for long, a pair of fragrant, soft little hands very naturally—and quite domineeringly—wrapped around Lunelle's slender, supple waist within the mental space.
Feeling the sudden, warm, soft presence of her wife pressing against her from behind, the smile on Lunelle's face instantly froze.
It's unclear whether that smile transferred onto our dear readers' faces...
Or onto the face of her wife Dark Seele, who was now holding her from behind.
"But... my adorable Seele? You know the rules about asking me for favors, right?"
Pulling her little darling even more possessively into her embrace, Dark Seele's somewhat restless paws began wandering—on a mental level—to places they really shouldn't be.
Watching the little cutie Seele instantly turn into a steaming, blushing mess, Dark Seele couldn't help but reveal a teasing, dangerous smile!
"Mmm... Seele! P-please don't..."
Though Lunelle dearly wanted to turn the tables and start teasing her wife instead, she was bound by her own restrictions—no matter what, she just couldn't take the initiative.
So for now, Lunelle quickly slipped into the role of the delicate, vulnerable little flower.
Even tightly held in her wife's arms, as if playing with fire on purpose, she struggled slightly but made no real effort to break free.
"Hmph! Just a little dummy Seele! Already in my hands, and still so disobedient? Let me show you some 'color' today!"
Her restless squirming in Dark Seele's embrace had thoroughly stoked her wife's fiery temper!
To paint the scene, dear readers, just think of the general vibe of that famous line, "How dare you seduce me!"
And then...
Well, the pitiful little Lunelle—mentally in her twenties—was quite ruthlessly and "thoroughly" dealt with by her beloved wife, whose eyes were now sparkling with hearts.
The terrifying scale of that "battle" was truly...
A sight too gruesome to behold!
A river of... fluids!
Even the great cosmic order itself might have been worn away by the aftershocks of that fearsome clash!!!
To summarize: those who get it, get it. Blah blah blah...
And at this moment, thoroughly "handled" by her wife once again, Lunelle had no idea that for Dark Seele, something like suppressing her nature to play weak or act meek—enduring for a bit—was just a simple, passing matter...
If it was a request from Seele...
Even if it meant dying right now, Dark Seele would absolutely do it!
After all, being able to develop such an intimately wonderful relationship with Seele, one where the two have grown exceptionally close, was already more than enough for Dark Seele—a personality born from negative emotions yet somehow made whole.
So now, Dark Seele was a bit like a vengeful spirit whose lingering obsession had been fulfilled.
Except, due to the passive triggering of Lunelle's "Creation" authority, Dark Seele, as a vengeful spirit, was directly reconstructed from incomplete remnants into a fully completed soul, using the original lingering fragments as a foundation.
Thus, the vengeful spirit Dark Seele—who should have "ascended" and vanished—was able to reside within Lunelle's consciousness in such a complete form.
She even truly became the first Herrscher consciousness under the Honkai's influence to be externally intervened upon, transforming from a killing machine into a fully formed personality!
After all, a miracle like Elysia—born inherently human—wasn't something that could be casually replicated.
And it was precisely to pass on this hard-won "miracle" to later generations that Elysia of the original timeline resolutely chose a path destined for sacrifice.
Perhaps, in Elysia's view back then, rather than dying meaninglessly in a fight against an unbeatable Finality, it was far more meaningful to pass on this "Miracle of Humanity," born through Elysia herself, to the next era.
Moreover, Elysia deeply believed from start to finish that if Herrschers could possess the ability to communicate like ordinary people, then even the Finality—which led the previous civilization to its irreversible ruin—might not be impossible to overcome.
After all, just like that phrase Elysia often loved to say...
A beautiful girl can do anything, you know~?
And after paying a "painful" price to successfully enlist the help of her dear Dark Seele, Lunelle's "playing weak" plan proceeded smoothly.
Although Lunelle was a Herrscher without a core, the Honkai Energy within her was indeed at a genuine Herrscher level.
Especially since Lunelle hadn't voluntarily confessed this herself, no one else could possibly see that within her seemingly small, soft, and adorable body, there were not only two independent Herrscher personalities but also double the amount of Honkai Energy!
Extracting Honkai Energy from a Herrscher's body as gently as possible definitely couldn't be done quickly.
But even Dr. Mei didn't know why—even though Lunelle's body showed no obvious abnormalities—her mental state suddenly seemed off.
It was just extracting Honkai Energy from her body, so why would it affect little Seele's mental state?
Considering Lunelle's poor mental condition and to avoid making Seele develop dissatisfaction with the experiment too early, the procedure—originally planned to last three or four hours before stopping—was halted after only about one or two hours.
Dr. Mei temporarily shut down the equipment and signaled that Lunelle could go rest.
Before parting, Dr. Mei gave Lunelle a rather cute-looking crystal bracelet.
Dr. Mei also directly told Lunelle that, in a way, this item served as her exclusive access card within the organization.
Whenever Lunelle moved around inside Fire Moth, it would be best to wear this bracelet at all times.
For example, the doors to Snake's research institute or the Spiral Workshop required this specially designed pass to open.
However, after actually putting on the bracelet, Lunelle herself didn't feel much of a reaction.
But Dark Seele, who had just "eaten her fill" in every sense within Lunelle's consciousness, pointed out directly that this bracelet with its access function was merely a limiter suppressing the intensity of Lunelle's Honkai Energy.
As long as she kept wearing it, the Honkai Energy within Lunelle would be steadily controlled at its current level.
But Fire Moth had clearly underestimated what a Herrscher with human thinking was capable of.
After testing the suppression strength of this thing a bit, Dark Seele reached her own conclusion.
This limiter could only restrict someone like Lunelle—a little fool who couldn't actively utilize her own Honkai Energy at all.
If it were Dark Seele, who could freely wield the power of her Herrscher core, a targeted burst of concentrated Honkai Energy would blow this limiter to bits on the spot.
With Dark Seele's reassurance, Lunelle's simulated schedule over the next five or six days shifted from endlessly working overtime for Snake to being brought in daily for one or two hours of Honkai Energy extraction, followed by rest to adjust her condition.
As more and more Honkai Energy was drawn from her body and injected into that gradually morphing Soulium blank, Lunelle surprisingly discovered that the Honkai Energy within her—which she couldn't actively command—had formed a faint connection with her once inside that Soulium mass.
According to Dr. Mei and Vill-V, this mass was called "Blank Key."
When the time was ripe, it would automatically morph into its most suitable form.
In a way, this could be interpreted as: as long as enough Honkai Energy was extracted from Lunelle, this originally blank "Blank Key" would, due to being imprinted with vast amounts of Lunelle's Herrscher Authority, automatically evolve into the form best suited to its nature.
This was somewhat similar to how Fire Moth would later mass-produce the 10th Divine Key, Xuanyuan Sword, using the cores of the Thousand Herrschers.
When a Divine Key is truly activated, it transforms into a weapon suited to its activator.
For example, the Xuanyuan Sword for the Previous Era Herrscher became a gauntlet called "Grips of Tai Xuan"
And now, Lunelle vaguely sensed that this Soulium blank was a bit like how little Griseo would take on the "colors" of those around her through contact.
Because it had been stained with Lunelle's "color," theoretically, the form this "Blank Key" would ultimately take was determined by the abilities of Lunelle's Herrscher authority.
However, since Lunelle subconsciously felt that her current self, wearing Seele's guise, was essentially the "Herrscher of Death and Rebirth," by the final stages of the Honkai Energy extraction experiment, the originally spherical "Blank Key" gradually evolved into a not-very-cute-looking spear.
'Huh? So this is how Black Abyss White Flower was created by me in the simulation?'
Noticing what the "Blank Key" had finally transformed into, Lunelle felt an inexplicable eeriness.
After all, Lunelle knew very well that throughout the entire extraction process, only the Honkai Energy representing her "Creation" authority had been drawn.
So where did this "Death"-representing Honkai Energy come from?
It couldn't possibly have just popped out of thin air, could it?
--+--
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.