[Rosentina Archipelago]
[Ground Zero of the Fifth Eruption]
Because of his grievous injuries, Kalpas had lost most of his senses. His eyes could no longer see clearly, and neither his hands nor his legs would respond properly.
His body was covered in scars. Under the Herrscher's domain of extreme cold, any blood that seeped out froze into solid ice the moment it appeared, making it even harder for him to move.
It was honestly hard to even say this with a straight face.
The birth of a Herrscher had not left these scars on Kalpas.
Every one of them came from a primitive tribe, ignorant savages from an uncivilized clan.
He was an alien, fallen from the heavens onto the Rosentina Archipelago. A backward, foolish place where human sacrifice was common and modern civilization was rejected outright.
But the Honkai did not spare them either.
These tribes were also plagued by Honkai Beasts. Because of their low level of civilization, the scale was far smaller than in major cities, yet it was still more than enough to drive them to despair.
Kalpas helped them.
He defeated the Honkai Beasts that invaded the tribe, and soon after, the people of the Rosentina Archipelago worshipped him as a god.
Kalpas treated the villagers as friends. He did not rule them as a god, but lived alongside them in peace. Having lost his homeland, he came to see this place as his new home.
Up to this point, everything was still fairly normal.
But primitive tribes are ignorant. Because Kalpas was too approachable, fetching water for villagers, hunting wild chickens and boars in the mountains with them, the people gradually stopped fearing their god.
Instead, they began to covet his power.
"As long as you drink the god's blood, you can obtain the god's power. If it does not work, it means your faith is impure, your fate is bad, your ancestors' graves have poor feng shui, or you simply did not drink enough."
A cult of god worshippers was born.
Under its guidance, the villagers bound Kalpas to the totem pole at the center of the tribe.
Every day, they offered fruits, meat, and vegetables, while subjecting him to all kinds of torment from dawn till dusk.
According to the cult, blood drawn from different parts of the god's body had different effects. Bruised blood from beatings would bring favorable weather. Blood near the eyes would sharpen vision. Blood from the legs would grant divine speed.
Kalpas.
He possessed the power to annihilate the entire village with ease, yet he never did. He endured the endless torture and pain in silence, because this place was his home.
Until the Fifth Eruption began. In an instant, the village was completely erased by the shockwaves of a Herrscher's birth.
Kalpas left that village wearing a carved wooden mask, leaving behind the first home he had after arriving here.
He found the one responsible.
He had come to avenge his home.
His eyes could not see, his ears could not hear, his external senses had been almost completely destroyed. But there was still something he could rely on. As long as that remained, he was still himself.
Rage.
As long as what stood in his way was a creation of the Honkai, Kalpas burned it all without discrimination, until he finally arrived before the Herrscher of Ice.
The Herrscher of Ice cast a cold glance at him.
She manipulated Honkai energy, letting it continuously gather and stack within the extreme cold domain.
The life before her was nothing but wounds.
So much so that she could not even be bothered to pause the Honkai energy buildup in her hands, power enough to wipe out three continents, assuming the Honkai God had not stripped her of reason.
If she still had her full sanity, she would have scoffed and said something like this:
"Well, you gave me a scare. I didn't expect a human this badly injured to still be standing. But honestly, lying down would probably make you happier."
"Heh. I can practically see the scenery on the other side through the holes in your body."
"I'm a kind person. Normally, seeing you in this much pain, I'd send you on your way out of mercy."
"But time is running out. The warriors of MOTH are closing in, and I don't have time to waste on you."
The Herrscher of Ice calmly stepped into Kalpas's attack range, that of someone who could neither see nor hear, as if deliberately mocking this grievously wounded opponent.
"Heh…"
"The Honkai energy in your body is pathetically weak. You're this feeble, and you think you can defeat me, a messenger of the gods?"
Kalpas wanted to laugh wildly, but he could not. The villagers had left wounds on his neck, and until they healed, he was completely unable to speak.
So the only thing he could do was ignite the boundless fury in his heart. Let it burn forever, never fading.
The Herrscher of Ice was completely unprepared.
Her body was blasted away like a shell, her speed easily surpassing physical limits, breaking the sound barrier as freezing winds tore at her form.
Blazing flames erupted all over Kalpas's body. Even in an environment nearing absolute zero, they refused to be extinguished.
A thunderous crash followed.
The Herrscher of Ice slammed heavily into the ground, gravely injured. Her body was like a sack riddled with holes, Honkai energy spilling out and sweeping across more than half the island in a ring-shaped shockwave.
Snowy mountains collapsed, ice sheets shattered, the ground split apart. Snowflakes drifted through the air like dust.
She was going to die.
She understood this clearly. Unfortunately, although she had destroyed that backward, ignorant tribe, she was still half a step away from wiping out all of humanity.
Shakily, she extended her hand, trying to use her last strength to force the extreme cold domain to self-detonate early. But with her Honkai energy rapidly dispersing, she could not do it.
The Herrscher of Ice gave a bitter smile, surprisingly human.
At that moment, a girl's clear shout rang out.
"Hey! Herrscher of Ice! I've brought you destruction!"
The Herrscher of Ice saw hope.
An ally. A companion. She sensed the presence of another Herrscher, one carrying an exceptionally pure power of destruction.
"Herrscher of Ice! I've brought you destruction!"
Naturally, the Herrscher of Ice interpreted this as, "I'm here to join you in bringing destruction to this world."
What a pity. I am already gravely injured and cannot destroy the world alongside you. Take this. This is my final Herrscher core and the extreme cold domain.
The Herrscher of Ice shakily took out her Herrscher core, ready to contribute her last strength to the great cause of annihilating humanity.
Instead, the core was forcefully shoved back into her, while the other party started crying.
"No, no, don't!"
Elysia, in some sort of destruction form, wiped her tears away and continuously poured Honkai energy into the Herrscher of Ice's body, repairing her shattered wounds.
The Herrscher of Ice, on the verge of dispersing, felt something impossible.
The massive breach blown open by that elbow strike was actually healing. By all logic, this should not have been possible.
In less than a minute, the Herrscher of Ice recovered to full strength.
Instinctively, she expressed goodwill toward her fellow Herrscher and invited her to join forces in destroying the world together.
"Wow, you're finally alive! My dear partner, if you had really died, I would have been in so much trouble!"
The Herrscher of Ice had just begun to express her gratitude when, in the next instant, the pink-haired girl's expression darkened.
"Burn to nothing. This body!"
Crimson-gold divine flames of destruction swept over the Herrscher of Ice.
She was blasted away again.
Another deafening crash.
The same force. The same sound barrier shattered. The same mountains collapsing, ice sheets breaking, the earth cracking apart.
Only this time, the flames consuming her were far more lethal.
The Herrscher of Ice flew back to Kalpas's side, but this time, it was nothing more than a corpse, dead beyond any doubt.
Kalpas paused.
Someone's flames burned even fiercer than his own.
Unable to see or hear, Kalpas silently memorized the aura of those flames and left without a word.
Moments later, Kevin arrived and froze as well.
"The Herrscher of Ice has been confirmed dead. Judging from the traces on the body, I estimate that both she and the judgment-class Honkai Beast that manifested alongside her were killed by the same move."
Kevin examined the Herrscher's remains.
At MOTH headquarters, the commander was equally stunned.
What did this mean?
The higher-ups had just ordered preparations for a plan targeting Elysia after the Honkai disaster ended.
And now Elysia had suddenly experienced a massive surge in power. In less than ten minutes, she had directly killed a Herrscher and her companion beast.
In front of the screen, the commander's expression grew increasingly grim.
A terrifying thought crossed his mind.
Could Elysia's actions be seen as a response to the plan the higher-ups had made against her?
The worst-case scenario was that Elysia already knew about the plan to deal with her after the Honkai incident.
So this was killing a chicken to warn the monkeys.
A Herrscher was strong enough, right? Strong enough to wipe out all of MOTH's higher-ups and their direct forces.
Behave yourselves, or I will wipe all of you out.
That seemed to be the message Elysia was sending.
Sorting through the information at hand, the MOTH commander's expression turned heavy.
Elysia was unbeatable.
The higher-ups might have power and money, but the situation had changed. The strength Elysia displayed was enough to crush every variable.
A person's life is a one-way road made of choices. No one knows where it will lead.
Having climbed to this position, the MOTH commander understood better than anyone the weight of choice.
And this time, he still had a chance to abandon the darkness and step into the light.
…
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Let me know if I got a name wrong. I know basically nothing about MyGO.