Three days later, August 16th.
Ten o'clock in the morning.
The western outskirts of Arc City.
This stretch of land, temporarily requisitioned as the Special District's training base, had been an abandoned heavy-industry factory zone just three months ago.
Anti-Entropy's infrastructure engineering crews had shown everyone the meaning of "infrastructure maniacs." In a mere seventy-two hours, they had leveled those rust-stained factory buildings, poured fresh high-strength asphalt pavement, and erected a three-meter-tall, high-voltage electrified wire fence around the perimeter.
Hanging at the front gate was a plain—almost slapdash—white sign with black lettering: "Arc City Comprehensive Emergency Training Center."
Su Yu stood in the middle of the base, on that wide-open asphalt parade ground, a roster clutched in his hand.
The wind blew in from the west, kicking up dust from the ground.
August in Arc City was hot as a steamer basket. The asphalt had gone soft under the sun, and the air was thick with the mingled stench of fresh asphalt and rust.
He was dressed casually today.
A black T-shirt, dark work trousers, and a pair of running shoes.
The wind had tousled his hair, and he couldn't be bothered to fix it.
The roar of diesel engines came from the distance.
Five military heavy trucks rolled in a single-file column, filing through the base gate like steel behemoths. Their enormous tires ground across the asphalt, throwing up a spray of yellow-gray dust.
The convoy screeched to a halt at the edge of the parade ground.
The tailgates dropped in unison with a resounding "clang," and figures in matching desert-camouflage fatigues leapt down from the truck beds in one crisp motion, like fierce tigers charging down a mountain.
One, ten, fifty.
In under thirty seconds, five hundred people were arrayed in perfect formation across the parade ground.
Su Yu swept his gaze over them.
The people standing in the front ranks carried an air completely different from ordinary rank-and-file soldiers.
Their stances were relaxed—but it was the kind of relaxation forged through countless life-and-death battles, a "coiled-spring" readiness that could switch seamlessly from stillness to explosive, lethal violence in an instant.
Every pair of eyes gleamed like a wolf's—so bright it was almost piercing.
These were the cream of the crop, the elite of the elite, handpicked from Shenzhou's five great military regions and their ace special-forces units.
But there were also those with special talents, individuals possessing unusual resistance to Honkai—after all, Su Yu had previously stipulated that Honkai energy resistance was the top priority.
On that foundation, the stronger the selected elites, the better.
But right now, these five hundred pairs of eyes were all trained on Su Yu, their gazes brimming with the very same undisguised emotion—contempt.
People in the ranks began whispering to one another.
The voices weren't kept especially low; Su Yu heard every word clearly.
"This is it? Some young punk in a T-shirt?"
"Are the higher-ups joking? They call this guy the Special District Commander-in-Chief? Look at that frame—he's scrawnier than my nephew who just started high school. Pure twig-dog."
"Old Squad Monitor says he's some kind of game developer? So we've come to be playthings for a young master's live-action CS experience camp?"
Scattered guffaws drifted up from the back of the ranks.
Su Yu said nothing. His expression didn't so much as flicker.
Many in this crowd were the elites and aces of their former units, suddenly dragged to this place by one baffling conscription order.
In their shoes, Su Yu would have assumed he'd been brought in for some circus act too.
He lowered his head and glanced at the roster in his hand, flipping to the first page.
At the very top of the list, one name was circled in red ink.
Sin Mal.
Another familiar Counterpart.
The remarks column was crammed with a whole string of glorious deeds: recruited through special enlistment, demolitions prodigy, S-rank combat talent. Three serious disciplinary violations during her service, thrown into solitary confinement twice, and once beat an instructor into the hospital—nearly getting stripped of her military status.
The final line was written in bold, blackened font as a warning: "Extremely violent and volatile temperament, utterly undisciplined. Recommend extreme priority monitoring!"
But sadly, she had nothing to do with the little angel from Honkai 2—this was pure, unfiltered Lord Xing from Honkai 3.
Before Su Yu could even put the roster away—
Right in the middle of the ranks, the crowd automatically parted to either side.
A military jeep had somehow slipped in among the heavy trucks at some point, and was now parked at the edge of the parade ground.
Someone was crouched on the hood.
To be precise, it was a petite girl.
She wore the same camouflage fatigues as everyone else, but had somehow made them look like the getup of a street-punk delinquent girl: the sleeves brutally shoved up past her elbows, the pant legs sloppily tucked into a pair of tactical combat boots that looked a full two sizes too big for her feet.
A head of messy pink short hair bristled arrogantly, making her look like some hooligan brat who'd just blown up an outhouse.
A lollipop dangled from her mouth.
The white plastic stick jutted out from the corner of her lips, bobbing up and down as she chewed.
She hopped down off the hood.
Her combat boots slammed against the asphalt with a dull "thud."
Sin Mal.
She barely stood as tall as Su Yu's chest.
But those eyes—the very second Su Yu saw her eyes, he understood exactly why the remarks column read "extremely violent and volatile."
It was an aggression that seeped out from the very marrow of her bones, utterly undisguised.
Xing pulled the lollipop out of her mouth and pointed at Su Yu with the stick.
"Oi."
Her voice was sharper than Su Yu had imagined, laced with an intensely cocky, thuggish swagger.
Su Yu looked at her calmly. "That's me."
Xing cocked her head and, like she was sizing up some cheap piece of merchandise, gave Su Yu a head-to-toe once-over. Twice.
Then she burst out laughing.
"Hahahaha! You? Seriously?"
She shoved the lollipop back into her mouth, jammed both hands into her trouser pockets, and sauntered over with a devil-may-care swagger, planting herself less than a meter from Su Yu.
"Back in my old unit, this lady beat down three company commanders, two battalion commanders, and one special-ops staff officer who didn't know what was good for him—all with my bare hands. Wanna guess where they are now?"
She held up three slender fingers and grinned, baring gleaming white teeth. "Lying in the deluxe VIP wards of the orthopedic hospital."
Not a single person laughed at her boasting, because they all knew full well this mad dog's record was every bit the real deal.
Xing folded her fingers back down and poked Su Yu in the chest with the plastic lollipop stick.
"So here's the deal, Twig-Dog Commander. You think you're gonna waltz in and take charge of us? This lady could grind every bone in your body to powder with one finger."
"If you know what's good for you, hand over command right now, then crawl back into mommy's arms and go suck on a bottle!"
For two seconds, the parade ground fell silent.
Five hundred pairs of eyes fixed on Su Yu, waiting to see how this "frail bookworm" would salvage the situation.
Su Yu lowered his head to look at the mark the lollipop had left on his chest, then raised it again to look at Xing's face, which practically screamed "come on, hit me."
He wasn't angry. There wasn't a shred of it inside him—if anything, he almost wanted to laugh.
He simply folded the roster in his hand and tucked it into his trouser pocket.
And just as he was unhurriedly folding the roster and slipping it away, a completely different engine sound came from the distance.
Three black business sedans drove in through the base gate and stopped at the edge of the parade ground.
The car doors opened.
The first to step out was a man built to an almost absurd degree.
He wore a black martial-arts uniform that looked ready to burst at the seams from the muscle beneath it—bald head, full beard, and the finger bones of both hands as thick as small rolling pins.
Ma Feima.
After getting out, he didn't rush off. Instead, he turned and pulled open the rear door.
The second person to emerge made the whispering across the parade ground instantly drop by half.
A woman in a grayish-white martial-arts uniform.
The way she stepped forward made a single phrase leap into the minds of every combat-savvy soldier-king present at the same moment—"flowing like water."
It wasn't a deliberate runway strut. It was the aura of a grandmaster, radiating naturally from someone who had honed control over every single muscle to the point of perfection.
Fu Hua.
Her red-framed glasses caught a flash of sunlight.
The door of the third car opened, and a young woman who looked like she might collapse and fall asleep at any moment ambled out sluggishly.
She wore the same style of martial-arts uniform as Fu Hua, but her belt was tied loose and slack, and her hair was simply gathered into a listless, half-hearted ponytail.
Cheng Lingshuang.
The first thing she did after getting out of the car was let loose an enormous yawn, without the slightest concern for appearances.
Su Yu walked forward to greet them.
Fu Hua came to a stop before him and pushed up her glasses.
No pleasantries, no small talk, not even any extra expression.
"Senior."
Her voice wasn't loud, but on the noisy parade ground, every word came through crystal clear.
"Starting today, the Inch Heart Dojo is no longer just the motion-capture team for your studio."
Her gaze swept past Su Yu's shoulder, calmly scanning over the five hundred unruly, camouflage-clad figures on the parade ground—like she was looking at five hundred heads of cabbage.
"All inner-sect disciples of the Tai Xu Sect are hereby formally incorporated into the core defensive line of the Arc Special District."
Ma Feima stood behind Fu Hua and clenched his fists.
His finger bones let out a string of crisp "crack-crack" sounds, like he was cracking walnuts.
"Eldest Senior Brother!"
He called out to Su Yu with utmost respect, his voice booming like a great bell, clearly audible across the entire parade ground.
A few well-informed soldiers were taken aback—anyone with the faintest knowledge of combat had heard of Ma Feima's name. True, the Tai Xu Sword Sect behind him had long fallen into decline, but every sinew of muscle on this man was the genuine article.
Over the years he'd gone around challenging experts of every stripe, even sparring against special forces—and walked away with nothing but a few light scratches. No one knew the outcome of that contest.
But everyone had a pretty good idea in their hearts.
Among the five hundred recruits, there were even a few who had crossed hands with Ma Feima before, and the moment they saw him, their expressions all shifted.
Eldest Senior Brother?
Ma Feima was calling the Commander-in-Chief "Eldest Senior Brother"?
Cheng Lingshuang yawned again, but her right hand hung at her side, its five fingers slightly curled, something swirling around her fingertips.
That something was invisible to the naked eye, but Su Yu's Tai Xu perception caught it—restrained, condensed sword qi.
Standing off to the side, the lollipop in Sin Mal's mouth stopped turning.
Her gaze swept back and forth over these three "martial-arts folk," whose aesthetic clashed so utterly with a modern army.
Then, with a "pfft," she spat the lollipop out onto the ground.
"Oho."
There wasn't a trace of reverence in her tone—if anything, she sounded like an intensely bloodthirsty psychopath who'd just laid eyes on a coveted new toy.
"Martial artists?"
She strode over with great, sweeping steps, her combat boots stamping menacingly against the asphalt.
"And here I thought that these days, folks who practice traditional martial arts were all out setting up stalls under overpasses, or teaching old geezers and grannies in the park to do tai chi so they could swindle their pension money. What, you lot came to the barracks to perform Chest Crushing Boulder? Or to teach us the Eighth Set of Radio Calisthenics?"
Her mockery was so loud that all five hundred people heard it clearly, and a wave of unrestrained laughter immediately rose up from the ranks again.
But the sharp-eyed ones had already shut their mouths early, letting out a sigh: "And here I thought this was just gonna be a formality. Looks like this training's gonna beat us bloody."
Ma Feima's thick eyebrows shot up.
Fu Hua remained as placid as a still lake.
Xing folded her arms across her chest and swaggered up to Fu Hua, cocking her head provocatively.
"Oi, glasses girl. You the leader of this circus troupe? You look pretty prim and proper. How about we have a little spar? Let this lady see whether your fraudulent traditional martial arts can hold up against my modern hand-to-hand—"
Before she'd even finished speaking, her body had already exploded forward like a leopard!.
A sneak attack!
Sin Mal's explosive power ranked without a doubt in the top three among these five hundred.
Her opening move was vicious—a special-forces close-quarters killing technique, a one-strike guaranteed kill.
Her right hand hardened into a blade-hand, carrying the shriek of tearing air as it struck straight for Fu Hua's vulnerable throat!
The speed was pushed to the absolute limit, the angle cunning and ruthless. If this blade-hand had landed clean, even an ox would have dropped on the spot with its windpipe shattered.
But this strike, in the end, never even touched a corner of Fu Hua's clothing.
"Dealing with a mannerless stray mutt like you isn't even worthy of my Master lifting a hand!"
Ma Feima's voice seemed to erupt from underground.
His body cut horizontally into the space between Xing and Fu Hua, his speed utterly disproportionate to his hulking frame.
Xing's blade-hand chopped down onto Ma Feima's raised forearm.
"Bam."
A muffled thud.
Xing's expression changed.
Su Yu saw that subtle collapse of her expression very clearly.
Her blade-hand had struck Ma Feima's forearm, and the sensation was nothing like chopping into human muscle—it was more like chopping into a block of cast iron wrapped in skin.
From the base of her palm all the way to her shoulder, her entire arm went numb.
Ma Feima gave her no time to react.
His left hand had already shot out, five thick fingers clamping around Xing's wrist, then yanking and hauling with the momentum.
Xing's body lost its balance, and she was dragged stumbling forward two steps.
At the same time, Ma Feima's right knee rose up.
It wasn't a kick—it was a driving thrust.
The knee slammed with pinpoint precision into the armored section over Xing's abdomen, the force controlled to an exquisite degree—enough to double her over in pain, but not enough to cause internal injury.
Xing let out a muffled grunt, her body folding into the shape of a shrimp.
But she didn't fall.
This girl's ability to take a hit truly lived up to the title of "soldier-king."
Gritting her teeth, she borrowed the momentum of her doubled-over posture and swept her right leg horizontally at the back of Ma Feima's knee.
Ma Feima's heel ground slightly against the ground as he sank into a horse stance, steady as Mount Tai.
"Bam!" Xing's sweeping kick struck Ma Feima's leg as if kicking a mountain—Ma Feima didn't budge an inch.
He looked down at Xing, her face contorted with pain, and let out a disdainful cold snort through his nose:
"This is it?"
Three little words—low on damage, sky-high on insult.
Xing's eyes instantly went bloodshot, flushing completely red.
It wasn't hurt or grievance—it was the fully deranged mad-dog mode of someone who had been utterly enraged past the point of reason!
"This lady's gonna gut you!!!"
She let out a beast-like roar, her left hand sweeping suddenly at the small of her back.
A pitch-black military tactical combat knife appeared in her hand! Fifteen centimeters of blade, single-edged, with a deep blood groove and a serrated spine, reflecting a bloodthirsty cold glint under the scorching sun.
The atmosphere on the parade ground plunged to freezing point in an instant.
The faces of the spectating soldiers all changed.
"Xing—have you lost your goddamn mind?!"
"Don't get anybody killed!"
Sparring bare-handed was one thing, but drawing a blade and going straight for a vital point—this shit could land you in a military tribunal!
The few people closest had already rushed in, trying to stop this crazed stray dog.
Xing gripped the knife in a reverse hold and, with reckless madness, stabbed straight for Ma Feima's heart!
Ma Feima's gaze darkened. His body began adjusting its center of gravity, preparing to take the blade head-on.
At that very moment, a sigh laced with a touch of grogginess rang out.
"Ugh, so noisy..."
A withered willow branch, picked up from who-knows-where.
From his right side, at an angle that completely defied the laws of physics, it thrust in soundlessly.
"Ding—!"
An extremely crisp, clear ring.
Xing felt only a numbness shoot through her wrist as a formless edge, deep as an abyss and vast as a sea, invaded her meridians in an instant.
The tactical knife she'd been gripping so tightly actually flew straight out of her hand!
The knife tumbled a dozen-odd times in midair, then with a "thunk" buried itself to the hilt in the asphalt pavement ten meters away, leaving only the handle trembling madly under the scorching sun!
And the right sleeve of Xing's camouflage uniform, from shoulder to elbow, was neatly sliced open by a formless current of air into a gash a full meter long!
The cut edge of the fabric was smooth as a mirror, as if it had been cut by the highest-precision industrial laser.
On her right cheek, a line of blood as fine as a hair had appeared.
A single bead of blood seeped out and slid down her cheek.
The entire parade ground—five hundred battle-hardened modern soldier-kings—collectively crashed and froze.
Every one of them rubbed their eyes, staring at that lazy woman holding a busted tree branch not far off, screaming inside their minds: The hell?! Sword qi?! Did some cultivation-drama film crew wander onto the wrong set?! Does physics not exist anymore?!
Cheng Lingshuang casually tossed aside the withered branch, whose tip had already crumbled to powder, clapped her hands, and yawned again.
Then she went right back to resting with her eyes closed.
Xing stood frozen in place, her chest heaving violently.
Her gaze moved from the knife in the distance to Cheng Lingshuang, then to Fu Hua, and finally locked dead onto Su Yu.
Fear? No such thing.
For a lunatic, being publicly humiliated by this kind of "circus trick" would only drive her into utter madness.
"Every last one of you can go to hell—!!!"
Xing shrieked hysterically, her left hand plunging suddenly into the inner side of the tactical combat boot of her fatigues!
The next second, a spare tactical recurve blade—jet-black from tip to tail, its spine lined with vicious barbs—appeared in her hand.
This thoroughly rabid mad dog had bared her final fangs!
She paid no mind whatsoever to any notion of a controlled, pull-your-punches spar. Borrowing the violent momentum of her forward-leaning body, she lunged like a beast driven into a corner, the blade tip turning into a deadly cold glimmer, stabbing at a cunning, ruthless angle straight for the carotid artery in Su Yu's throat!
"Holy shit! This crazy bitch is going for real!"
"Stop her!!"
The entire formation on the parade ground descended into chaos in an instant. The front-row soldiers' eyes nearly split open, but there was simply no time to intervene.
At that split second of life and death, Su Yu moved.
There was no running start, no gradual acceleration.
On everyone's retinas, Su Yu's body simply "blinked" forward, trailing an afterimage!
Second-stage Genetic Lock, full-power eruption!
Xing's deadly blade tip halted abruptly less than three centimeters from Su Yu's carotid artery. It could advance not a single hair's breadth further.
Because her wrist was clamped fast in a huge hand like an industrial-grade hydraulic iron vise.
"Aaah—!!"
Xing let out a shrill, agonized scream.
That terrifying grip was so immense that the bones of her wrist gave off a teeth-grating "crunch."
The searing pain shooting from her nerve endings instantly shattered her muscle control, and her five fingers spasmed violently and splayed open beyond her command.
With a crisp "clang," the pitch-black tactical knife dropped feebly onto the asphalt.
The entire disarm-and-counter took no more than 0.2 seconds!
Xing's wrist was pinned fast in Su Yu's single hand, the excruciating pain arching her whole body into a bow like an overcooked shrimp.
Su Yu looked down at her from above, his eyes cold, without the faintest trace of warmth.
"You goddamn—"
Facing the Xing before him, still unwilling to yield, a flicker of dark-golden light even lit up in the depths of Su Yu's jet-black pupils.
Star of Eden: Gravity Control!
"BOOM—!!!"
Without the aid of any instrument, without any physical wind-up.
A gravitational field—terrifying to the extreme, so solid the air seemed to visibly warp—crashed down with Su Yu at its center, like Mount Tai bearing down from above!
Sin Mal didn't even get the chance to scream. Her whole body was slapped from midair straight toward the ground, as if by an invisible, colossal hand from the heavens!
Her knees smashed heavily into the ground, followed by her chest, then her cheek.
She was pressed, in a humiliating spread-eagle posture, firmly into the asphalt pavement!
And not only her.
With her at the center, the ultra-high-strength asphalt pavement within a five-meter radius let out a teeth-grating crackle of fracturing.
Spiderweb-like black cracks spread madly outward, and the entire ground was forcibly pressed down, sinking three centimeters!
Xing's face was pressed tight against the scalding ground.
She strained with all her might to twitch even a little finger, only to find that before this "god-like power," even breathing had become a luxury.
That single white lollipop stick had rolled to the very edge of her blurring field of vision.
Of course, this was all thunder with little rain. Su Yu had precisely controlled the gravity field to crush the pavement, without actually harming Xing's body.
But it was more than enough to crush her arrogant, blustering spirit.
Dead silence.
A silence like that of a grave.
On the parade ground, the five hundred soldiers who had been sneering and jeering just moments ago now stood there, mouths agape, dumbstruck as wooden chickens.
If Cheng Lingshuang's sword qi had made them doubt whether Newton's coffin lid could hold, then the "Universal Gravitation / Gravity Crush" Su Yu had just unleashed barehanded had dug up the ancestral grave of materialism itself!
Is this something within human power?! This has to be a divine being descended to the mortal world!
Even the wind had stopped. The whole base was left with nothing but the sound of heavy panting.
Su Yu stood directly above Sin Mal, looking down at this girl nailed to the ground by the gravity field.
He lifted his gaze from her and slowly swept it across the five hundred faces on the parade ground.
The expression on every single face was different.
Some shocked, some terrified, some incredulous.
"The first rule of the Special District."
His voice was flat, but backed by absolute power, every word detonated like a thunderclap against everyone's eardrums.
"Here, put away that pitiful pride of yours—the pride of frogs at the bottom of a well."
He withdrew the gravity field.
Sin Mal's body bounced up off the ground, like a ball held down by water pressure suddenly set free.
She lay sprawled on the cracked asphalt, gulping down great mouthfuls of air, the front of her camouflage uniform worn through with several holes.
Su Yu crouched down, meeting her terror-filled eyes at their level:
"Because in the face of the apocalypse that's coming, your current strength isn't even enough to qualify you as cannon fodder on the front lines."
Xing raised her head, and in those violent, savage eyes, genuine fear and awe surfaced for the very first time.
Su Yu stood up and looked at her no more.
He turned and gave Fu Hua a slight nod of acknowledgment. Ma Feima cupped his fist toward him, his eyes full of shock.
He muttered to himself.
"Eldest Senior Brother grows more unfathomable by the day."
Even the perpetually lazy Cheng Lingshuang opened her eyes, her gaze lingering on Su Yu for a good while before she let out a long, wistful sigh.
"Old Six."
"What is it, Fifth Senior Sister?"
"If we sparred with Eldest Senior Brother again, even ten more of us wouldn't be enough for him to beat."
Ma Feima opened his mouth. In his mind rose the memory of the notice he'd received three days ago—something about how Eldest Senior Brother Su Yu wanted to secretly train a batch of elites to fight against some "alien invasion." At the time, Old Ma hadn't really felt the weight of it.
But after witnessing Su Yu's godlike display just now, Old Ma suddenly realized that this trip really wasn't any kind of joke after all.
Su Yu turned back to face the five hundred recruits, now hushed as cicadas in the cold.
August's vicious sun blazed down on five hundred sweat-drenched faces.
This time, even if the sun blinded them, not a single person dared wipe away their sweat—and not a single person dared make even the faintest sound of laughter again.
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