Eleven-twenty at night.
The jeep's engine died, and its headlights dimmed along with it.
Su Yu pulled out the key, pushed open the door, and stepped onto the concrete ground of the Arc City special training base.
The late-August night breeze carried a lingering heat.
The dormitory buildings all around stood dark, and only the sound-activated streetlamps lining both sides of the road cast dim yellow halos, slicing the tree-lined path into alternating segments of light and shadow.
Su Yu walked in the direction of the commander's dormitory.
His mind was still turning over the story material he'd just extracted back at the studio.
The storyboard for that climactic CG in The Queen's Descent still needed a major overhaul—the frame count of Sirin snapping her fingers just barely missed that world-scorning sense of oppressive dominance.
That girl Nuwa had insisted on adding some triple-layer radiant particle effect, and he'd shot it down in no uncertain terms.
Too much light pollution just made it look cheap; better to simply push the camera in for a facial close-up—
Suddenly, he stopped.
The perception amplification of Tai Xu Sword Qi had been deliberately switched off by him, in order to hone his body's raw instincts.
The active skills in his System panel had all been locked down as well, to accommodate the special training mission.
The Su Yu of right now could rely only on this body enhanced by the second-stage Genetic Lock, and on the instincts carved into his DNA.
The rhythm of his footsteps didn't change. The cadence of his breathing didn't change. Even his weary gaze didn't shift in the slightest.
But his spirit, in that instant, snapped away from the CG storyboard of The Queen's Descent and locked dead onto every inch of air within thirty meters around him.
The sound-activated streetlamp overhead went out with a "zzzt."
Su Yu's pupils contracted abruptly in the darkness.
A scent pressed in from his left rear, at a forty-five-degree angle.
Darjeeling black tea.
Roses.
And a faint trace of metallic lubricating oil—the kind that clings only to someone who tends the edge of a blade over long stretches of time.
No killing intent.
That was the most terrifying part.
Su Yu's waist folded backward, his whole body arching nearly flat against the ground.
Iron Bridge!
His spine, empowered by the second-stage Genetic Lock, bent into an exaggerated angle that utterly defied human physiology, the back of his head not even ten centimeters from the lawn below.
"Swish—"
A slender black silhouette sheared past horizontally, almost grazing the tip of his nose.
No blade's edge.
No cold gleam.
Only a swath of black lace with the texture of fine, high-end fabric, brushing playfully across his cheek and trailing that pleasant scent of black tea and roses.
It was the hem of a maid dress!
"Your Reaction Speed just barely passes, Master Su Yu."
The voice came from extremely close—right beside his right ear, less than twenty centimeters away.
"But your attention seems to have been distracted by my skirt hem, hm? In actual combat, that could cost you your life."
Su Yu didn't even have time to snap back with "who the hell would be staring at your skirt in the dead of night."
Because a slender hand sheathed in a white lace glove had already, lightly and airily, struck toward his throat like lightning!
Su Yu jerked his head aside to dodge that lethal "gentle caress," pushed off with his feet, and sprang up like a leopard, his right fist tearing through the air with a howl as it smashed straight toward the source of the voice!
The wind of the punch was ferocious—the terrifying strength granted by the second-stage Genetic Lock, enough to punch clean through a load-bearing wall.
But he hit nothing.
Where his fist passed through, there was only the August night breeze and the lingering scent of black tea.
The next second, the outer side of Su Yu's knee was lightly kicked.
Not much force—but an angle so wickedly precise it landed exactly on the joint's weak point.
Su Yu's center of gravity shifted in an instant, his body tilting involuntarily to the right.
He gritted his teeth and steadied himself, sweeping his left elbow across.
Empty again.
Immediately after, two icy fingers tapped lightly at the back of his neck, as if pinpointing a pressure point.
Rita's smiling voice came from behind him: "Master Su Yu, if my fingertips had been holding a poison needle just now, your central nervous system would already have completely dissolved by now."
Su Yu spun around sharply and swept out a whip kick.
Rita's figure flickered in the moonlight.
She didn't retreat—instead she stepped half a pace forward, slipping right inside the arc of Su Yu's whip kick, letting the leg skim past just above the tips of her hair.
She was in close!
Before Su Yu could even withdraw his kick, Rita's right hand had already clamped onto his wrist.
Her five fingers locked exactly at the very limit of the wrist joint's range of motion.
Su Yu tried to reverse the grapple, reaching with his left hand to pry her fingers loose.
In that very instant, Rita moved.
Borrowing the force from Su Yu's arm, she launched her whole body into the air.
The motion was so elegant it looked nothing like a life-and-death struggle, more like a black rose petal swept up by a midnight gale, dancing gracefully under the moonlight.
The clouds parted, and the pure, radiant moonlight poured down without reserve, illuminating exactly those two impossibly long legs suspended in midair.
Black semi-sheer stockings extended from her exquisite ankles all the way up to the base of her thighs hidden beneath the skirt hem, tracing out the explosively powerful lines of muscle in vivid detail.
That gossamer, nearly transparent, tantalizing fabric clung tight to her skin, and with the contraction and extension of the muscles, gave off a deadly silken sheen at the back of her knees and along the sides of her legs.
Those two legs suddenly spread apart in midair, then snapped shut like an enormous animal trap at a textbook-perfect, utterly unavoidable angle!
Her left leg wrapped around from behind Su Yu's neck and pinned it down hard, her right leg crossed over and locked it from the front, the ankles of both feet clamping together like iron shackles.
The muscles on the inside of Rita's thighs abruptly tightened, cinching Su Yu's carotid artery and his grappled right arm both, all at once and completely, into a cramped space where he couldn't muster any strength!
Flying Swallow triangle choke.
Powerful core torque drove the weight of both bodies down toward the ground.
"BAM—!!"
Su Yu's back slammed heavily into the lawn, the dull thud carrying far across the silent camp.
The juice of the grass blades splashed across his face.
Rita's legs were locked dead around his neck.
The texture of those stockings pressed against his carotid artery—smooth, delicate, warm with body heat.
Su Yu's right hand was pinned between Rita's thigh and his own neck, utterly unable to move.
His left hand could still move, but Rita's upper body leaned slightly forward, one hand pressing down on his left shoulder while the index finger of the other tapped lightly at his forehead, almost like flirtation.
"Master Su Yu."
She looked down from above at the man locked tight beneath her.
The moonlight struck her from behind, plating her maid dress with a silver rim, yet hiding her expression completely in shadow.
Only those wine-red eyes glinted in the darkness with a delighted, dangerous crimson light.
"In real combat, even the softest stockings on a maid's body can become the most beautiful noose for strangling the throat of prey."
The pad of her index finger, carrying a trace of chill, slid slowly from Su Yu's forehead down to the tip of his nose, then withdrew with restraint.
"If tonight there had been a poisoned blade strapped to my leg, you could now be peacefully laid to rest in the earth. This special midnight tutoring session—did you learn it?"
Su Yu opened his mouth.
He patted the grass with his left hand.
Once, twice, three times.
The internationally recognized signal of surrender.
Rita's legs slowly loosened.
In the instant blood surged back into his brain, Su Yu felt the whole world brighten by one shade.
He rolled over, sprawling on the grass and gasping in great gulps of air, his face buried in the dew-dampened blades.
"...Did you cut the wiring on the streetlamp beforehand?"
"Oh my, how could that be?" Rita had already stood up, brushing the grass clippings off her skirt as if nothing had happened. "A maid merely made a tiny, insignificant little preparation, all to create a better learning atmosphere for her master."
"After all, a real enemy won't wait for you to get ready, then shine a spotlight on you before making their move, Master Su Yu."
Su Yu climbed up off the grass and rubbed his neck.
The area over his carotid artery was burning; it had probably already been rubbed into an obvious red mark.
"So tell me—where did I fall short just now?"
He wasn't the least bit sulky over losing; a half-baked amateur like him had a great deal to learn to begin with.
Rita stopped tidying her skirt and tilted her head slightly, as if seriously reviewing a report card.
"First, your alert radar switched on far too slowly. From the moment you got out of the car to the moment you truly entered a state of stress-reactive vigilance, there was nearly four full seconds of terrifying blank time. In those four seconds, your brain was actually still processing work? That kind of amateur distraction would have gotten you killed three times over in real combat."
Su Yu nodded silently, unable to refute it.
It was true—his head had been full of the image of Sirin snapping her fingers, and he'd nearly gotten his own head treated like a fingersnap.
"Second, your combat rhythm relies too heavily on the brute force granted by the Genetic Lock." Rita's voice turned professional and cold. "Every punch, every kick you threw just now was blindly chasing maximum destructive output."
"But your reservoir of technique is too shallow to sustain that kind of berserker style at all. Against a speed-type or technique-type opponent, your attack lines—so straightforward they're nearly crude—are like swinging a sledgehammer at a fly. The enemy can easily exploit your momentum and lead you straight into a fatal trap."
"Third."
Rita's tone softened just a bit, carrying a barely perceptible teasing note.
"You're far too accustomed to standing your ground and toughing it out head-on like some reckless brute. When I grabbed your wrist just now, your first reaction was actually to force your way free through raw strength, rather than going with the flow and using your opponent's force against them."
"That shows your body hasn't established any conditioned reflex whatsoever for jiu-jitsu or joint-reversal techniques. Your muscles are even stiffer than your thoughts."
Su Yu quickly ran those three scathing critiques through his mind and nodded in complete, thorough agreement.
"Point taken. Is there more?"
"One last thing."
Rita's wine-red eyes fixed on him through the night, the corners of her lips curving into a stunning arc.
"The Dark Rose will absolutely never use the same technique twice. The location, the time, even the method of assassination—next time I appear, all of them will be completely different."
"So please, whatever you do, do not let tonight's experience lead you to form any laughable predictions about me."
She paused, her tone as gentle as a whisper murmured into a lover's ear, yet the words she spoke were chilling to the extreme:
"Because prediction is often the greatest opening that prey exposes to the hunter."
Su Yu: "..."
The corners of his mouth twitched wildly twice: "Rita, next time you deliver one of these villain-boss-exclusive lines, could you maybe not smile so happily while you do it? It's genuinely creepy!"
Rita paid no attention at all to that empty little quip.
She bent her knees slightly, lifted her skirt with both hands, and performed a flawless, perfect maid's curtsy in the moonlight.
"Well then, tonight's tutoring session ends here. I wish you sweet dreams, Master Su Yu."
With that, she gracefully turned around, the black-and-white maid skirt swaying just twice in the darkness before her whole figure seemed to melt into the night, vanishing completely.
Not a single trace of a footstep was left behind.
Su Yu stood alone on the lawn as the night breeze blew past, cooling the sweat on his forehead.
In his mind, Fenghuang's voice rose up.
"Now, do you see clearly the gap between yourself and an S-rank Valkyrie?"
Su Yu sat down leaning against the streetlamp pole, his legs stretched out straight, the back of his head resting against the cold metal.
"I see it clearly. She saw right through me, down to my underwear."
"The fact that you could suppress her at the abandoned building was pure luck."
Fenghuang began the post-mortem.
"First, because the enhancement serum gave you recovery and stamina rivaling a monster's."
"Second, because that utterly reckless, mad-dog style of yours—trading wound for wound—rattled her."
"Third, and most important of all—at that time she had just crossed over, and her body hadn't yet adapted to the physical laws of this world at all."
"If even one of those three conditions had been missing, you probably wouldn't have survived to see Kiana's return."
Fenghuang's tone held no fluctuation at all; she was simply stating facts.
"And just now you experienced it firsthand. On the level of pure close-quarters combat and killing techniques, there's a clear gap between you and her."
"In those ten seconds just now, she never once used any ability beyond an ordinary person's physical range. She killed you purely through muscle-memory technique and battlefield experience."
The perception amplification of Tai Xu Sword Qi, the overload state of the second-stage Genetic Lock, the gravity field of the Star of Eden, and the Authority of the Herrscher of the Void—these were all indeed immensely powerful.
But one's own strength was what would always matter most. His own foundation was still far too weak, and Rita just happened to be Schicksal's top-tier agent, her experience and combat skills unmatched by anyone in this world.
This was probably why the System wanted him to actively let himself be "assassinated" by her. Only in the process of crossing blades with a powerhouse from that world could he keep drawing on more and more experience to strengthen himself.
"You can't count on gambling with grievous injuries to yourself every single time, trading blood for blood with your opponent."
Fenghuang's voice sank low in a rare moment, carrying a trace of severity.
This too was her critique of Su Yu's combat methods up to this point.
"In this world, you are the one and only supreme commander, an irreplaceable and vital combat force—not a disposable, single-use consumable to be thrown away the moment it's used!"
"You must learn to defeat your opponents efficiently, without getting injured, or at the minimum possible cost."
"Only then can you preserve your stamina on the complex, ever-shifting apocalyptic battlefield of the future, survive, and cut down more of the enemies that will surge in like a tidal wave!"
Su Yu stared for a while at the starry sky overhead, dimmed somewhat by the city's light pollution.
"I know."
He patted the grass off his backside, braced himself on the streetlamp pole to stand, his gaze turning bright and resolute.
"That's exactly why I swallowed my pride and took the initiative to ask her to be my sparring partner. For the next month, once every day, this kind of assassination walking the razor's edge between life and death. Squad Monitor—do you think it's enough to strike a few sparks out of a lump of pig iron like me?"
Fenghuang fell silent in the sea of consciousness for a few seconds.
"Far from enough, but for the you of right now, it's better than nothing."
"Once you're back, start on the basic training immediately. Your footwork is still too flimsy and unsteady. Cultivate the Inch Heart Fist and Tai Xu Sword Qi to their peak—"
"And then I'll win?"
"At the very least you won't lose this badly."
Su Yu rolled his eyes hugely: "Great, your words of encouragement really do get the blood pumping and fill a man with fighting spirit."
"I only tell the truth. I don't ladle out chicken soup."
Honkai invasion, 175 days remaining.
Looking at the glaring countdown on the System panel.
"I know."
Su Yu worked his sore neck a bit and strode off in the direction of the dormitory.
"In this godforsaken apocalyptic countdown, the truth is the most useful lifesaving straw of all."
And at this very moment.
Less than twenty meters from this lawn.
In the hidden shadow of the corner along the side of the commander's dormitory building, Susannah Manatt was clamping her mouth shut with all her might, not daring even to breathe hard.
Her whole body was plastered against the wall like a startled gecko, her back pressed tight against the rough, jabbing concrete surface, the knees of both legs trembling frantically like sifted chaff.
This was absolutely not because of the cold.
An August midnight, even with a breeze, was hot enough to fray the nerves.
She was purely, simply scared out of her wits! And—utterly stunned!
Rewind time five minutes. Susannah had still been crouched in this corner all wretched and miserable, wiping away tears like some abandoned little pitiable thing.
For her, today was the worst, bleakest day in her twenty years of life.
During the five-kilometer cross-country run, her left foot tripped over her right and she took an ugly face-plant into the dirt, scraping a large patch of skin off her knee.
Sin Mal had been standing right there at the time, arms crossed, the expression on her face like she was looking at a lump of non-combustible garbage.
"Did you come to special training camp to be a soldier, or did you come here for a spring picnic outing? Trash."
During shooting practice, because the recoil was too strong, she'd sent three rounds flying clean off the target.
Sin Mal, without a word, slammed her noise-canceling earmuffs hard onto the ground, turned, and walked off, leaving behind only four words brimming with killing intent: "Wasting ammunition."
Even at dinner, Susannah had summoned every ounce of her courage, wanting to carry her tray over and ask whether she'd like an extra big drumstick.
The result was that Sin Mal didn't so much as lift an eyelid. That kind of dismissive coldness hurt worse than a slap straight across the face.
Susannah felt she was a thorough, out-and-out joke within this elite formation of five hundred.
What was she worth? A logistics clerk whose physical fitness rating barely scraped an F, who couldn't even hold a gun steady—what right did she have to stand among these soldier kings? Just because her nouveau-riche merchant of a father had a few stinking coins?
Or was it because she'd read too many chuunibyou superhero comics as a kid, and in a moment of hot-headedness signed this damned life-and-death waiver?
She crouched in despair in the corner, burying her face deep in her knees, her aggrieved tears wetting a small patch of her camo trouser leg.
Give up.
That cowardly voice screamed frantically in her mind.
Withdraw! First thing tomorrow morning, go submit the withdrawal report!
Senior Sin can't wait to shake off a useless dead weight like me anyway.
Anyway... I was never hero material to begin with.
Anyway, this world wouldn't care whether it had one more of me or one less...
Right at the edge of completely breaking down and giving up.
"Zzzt."
The streetlamp not far off went out without any warning.
Susannah lifted her head like a startled rabbit, her red, swollen eyes struggling to adjust to the light in the darkness.
And then she saw the scene that would be seared into her memory for the rest of her life.
Beneath the moonlight, clear and cold as water.
Two figures were crossing, colliding, separating, and once more violently colliding on the tree-lined path at a terrifying speed! A speed so fast her naked eyes could barely capture it—she could only see black afterimages and the occasional flash of moonlight reflecting off a hem of clothing.
The air even carried the dull, booming concussions of fists and feet tearing through the wind!
She recognized one of them at a glance—that tall, upright silhouette. That was the supreme ruler who, standing on the high platform in the daytime, had used nothing but a single glance and a single wave of presence to press five hundred unruly, elite soldiers until they couldn't breathe—the supreme commander, Su Yu.
And the other, a petite figure, moved fast as a bolt of black lightning.
The skirt hem whipped wildly through the darkness, and every uncanny movement carried an extreme, flowing smoothness that made Susannah's scalp prickle and her heart nearly stop.
That was the chief instructor. The monster maid who, in the daytime, had smilingly caught a live RPG high-explosive warhead with her bare hands—Lady Rita!
Susannah clamped her mouth shut with all her might, her eyes bulging like brass bells. She watched with her own eyes as Rita launched into the air as if defying gravity itself.
She watched those beautiful, powerfully sculpted legs sheathed in black stockings spread apart like scissors in midair and then cruelly snap shut, precisely and lethally coiling dead around Master Su Yu's neck!
She watched the two of them, carrying a terrifying downward force, slam heavily onto the lawn, letting out that heart-stopping, dull sound of impact!
The hand Susannah had originally been using to wipe her tears was now clamped desperately over her own mouth, which had nearly screamed out loud.
Good heavens... it was almost midnight right now! The supreme commander had just rushed back to base from the city after burning the midnight oil on official business.
And yet the chief instructor had, at this very hour, set up a lethal ambush on the unavoidable path back to the dormitory! Every move a throat-lock! Not the slightest bit of holding back! She'd even nearly strangled the supreme commander's neck clean through!
This... this was absolutely some kind of extremely brutal anti-assassination extreme training!
Susannah's eyes instantly reddened again.
But this time, it was absolutely not from feeling wronged.
It was from a soul-striking, extreme shock, and a blood-boiling fervor mixed with shame so deep she wished the ground would swallow her!
The supreme commander was already strong to that monstrous degree! That invincible presence on the officers' review stand during the day had left everyone too scared to make even a peep!
And yet he... he was still training! While everyone else was sound asleep, complaining that the day's training was too exhausting!
This officer, who could have stood high and lofty above them all, was instead in the dead of night, taking a beating of his own free will!
Being worked over to the death by that inhuman-level master of a chief instructor, with real killing techniques, one move after another, not leaving himself even a moment to catch his breath!
Just what was he pushing himself this hard for?
Susannah slowly lowered her head and, by the moonlight, looked at her own knee—the one with a bit of scraped skin, still covered with a sterile gauze pad.
That little wound now seemed downright pretentious, like a joke.
She looked again at her own pair of soft, fair hands.
Under her fingernails, there still remained a tiny bit of black gunpowder residue picked up during the afternoon's shooting practice.
And then, into her mind, clearly surfaced the image of that anti-noise earmuff Sin Mal had savagely slammed onto the ground during the day.
"Wasting ammunition." She remembered that merciless insult—
Senior Sin was right to curse me.
I really am a resource-wasting piece of trash.
The supreme commander and the chief instructor—they're already ceiling-tier immortals, and yet they're still out here at night gambling their lives in mortal combat, breaking past their limits! And me?!
I only scraped off a little skin, only got cursed at a few times, and I actually hid in this dark corner sniveling and crying? I actually dared to fantasize about being a deserter, running home to find my mommy?!
Susannah, just what on earth are you doing?! Do you have any right to face that vow of "wanting to become a hero"?!
I'm not withdrawing! I won't withdraw even if it kills me! Even if I really am a talentless tail-ender, even if I get cursed to a bloody pulp by Senior Sin every single day, I am absolutely going to bite down and cling to their backs no matter what!
Susannah clenched her teeth tight, both hands balled fiercely into fists.
Into her mind, at the most inopportune moment, resurfaced a scene—a snowy mountain, a motorcycle, an officer named Ichijo, and the young man standing before him.
Master Su Yu, Lady Rita! Please, watch me closely!
This is my transformation—
No—this is my, Susannah's, resolve!
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