The genome reaper's mechanical claws tore the sheet-metal gate of the abandoned factory open with ease.
Beyond the door, the space opened up wide — what should have been a workshop full of heavy stamping presses was now shrouded in a layer of pale blue light.
The air was thick with a pungent smell of ozone.
A few Zombies wandered aimlessly in the darkness.
Hearing the noise, they whipped their pale faces around, let out a chorus of hoarse growls, and lurched forward.
Kiana didn't draw her guns.
She kept her hands tucked in her jacket pockets, walking with an easy, unhurried gait.
The Carbon-based Hunter padding ahead let out an electronic chirp, and its limbs suddenly surged with power.
A dark green afterimage streaked through the air — its forepaws snapped out high-frequency oscillation blades and, in almost an instant, slit the throats of the two Zombies in front.
No blood sprayed out; the Zombies' bodies crumbled swiftly into gray-white dust and scattered away.
"Not bad work, little guy," Kiana said, giving a low whistle.
Rita trailed just behind and to the side of the hound, her steps so light they left no sound at all.
She held her scythe, eyes sweeping continuously over the containers and heaps of abandoned machinery around them.
"Lady Kiana, watch your left blind spot."
The words had barely left her mouth when three Chariot-class Honkai Beasts burst from a ventilation duct up on the left, their translucent conical bodies charging straight at the pair.
Kiana drew her guns.
Draw. Raise. Squeeze the trigger.
The Firmament Tearer's muzzles spat blinding orange light.
The Chariot-class Honkai Beasts, still airborne, were detonated point-blank by specialized armor-piercing rounds, bursting into blinding clusters of energy light.
The two of them pressed forward.
The workshop was vast, and the deeper they went, the more monsters appeared.
Their exchanges were brief, and their coordination remarkably seamless.
Kiana's Gun Kata was bold and expansive.
At times she used cover to leap high, weaving her twin guns into a lethal web of fire in midair that precisely blocked the Honkai Beasts' approach lanes; at other times she slid through the pincer of two Knight-class Honkai Beasts, firing point-blank with her muzzle pressed almost against their shells.
Rita, meanwhile, stayed completely hidden within the blind spots Kiana's gunfire carved out.
Whenever Kiana's bullets scattered a Honkai Beast formation or drew the attention of some especially massive creature, that huge scythe would swing out silently from the monster's dead angle.
Twenty minutes later.
The two of them stood in the very center of the workshop.
Around them lay scattered piles of residue left behind by dissipated Honkai Beasts.
That pale blue rift hung just over a dozen meters ahead, like an eye that had opened out of nowhere.
Kiana lowered her twin guns, the barrels still faintly warm.
She glanced over at Rita.
Rita was calmly wiping a speck of dust off her scythe blade with a white handkerchief pulled from who knew where.
"Something's off," Kiana said, frowning as she looked at the residue on the ground.
"You noticed it too?" Rita tucked the handkerchief away and looked up.
"Too weak," Kiana said, flicking one of her braids back over her shoulder. "We've fought our way from the door to here, and all we've run into are Zombies and the lowest-tier Honkai Beasts. Not a single Chariot-class, let alone a Honkai Emperor."
She remembered Su Yu telling her that the last time he'd been in this rift, he'd had to fight through an Ice-Fire Honkai Emperor and a whole crowd of elite monsters just to destroy the core.
Rita gazed at the rift ahead and fell silent for a moment.
"I'm afraid there's another possibility."
Her eyes tried to pierce through that warped curtain of light to make out what lay on the other side.
"On the far side of the barrier, someone got here before us — or entered this rift at the same time we did. Just like what happened when Lord Su Yu reported last time."
Something stirred in Kiana's mind.
She thought of Su Yu's report — the one he'd never hidden from anyone.
In the spatial rift at the scrapyard, Su Yu had run into Raiden Mei, who was fighting on the other side.
Most of the Honkai Beasts there had been cleared out by Mei's lightning.
If today was the same as that day, then right now, on the other side of the barrier, who could it be?
Just as the thought crossed both their minds, a series of muffled explosions suddenly rang out from beyond the curtain of light.
Even the concrete floor beneath their feet trembled slightly.
Rita's eyes narrowed sharply.
Through the gradually thinning spatial barrier, she saw clearly a swarm of dark-painted, fully automated combat mechs pouring in from the other side of the light curtain.
The mechs' cannon muzzles spat tongues of flame, mercilessly wiping out the massive high-tier Honkai Beasts and the packs of Zombies.
It was that very wall of firepower that had drawn away all the monsters that should have been charging toward this side.
After a few rounds of concentrated fire, every Honkai Beast in sight had been cleared away.
The mechs stopped firing and spread out into formation.
At some point, a figure had appeared beside the mech formation.
It was a woman in a black trench coat.
The hem of her coat hung long, rippling faintly in the airflow. A half-face mask covered part of her face, and she carried an oddly shaped sniper rifle.
Third Divine Key, Seven Thunders of Retribution.
It was Raven.
A cadre of the World Serpent.
Through the thinning curtain of light, Raven's gaze landed on Kiana standing across the way.
The corner of her mouth curled into a mocking arc.
"We meet again, Herrscher of the Void."
She casually slung the sniper rifle over her back, her eyes drifting idly to the side.
Then her gaze locked onto Rita, standing beside Kiana.
A flicker of unmistakable shock crossed Raven's eyes.
"Oh?"
The mockery on her face gave way instantly to a look of amused interest as she looked the maid up and down, taking in the tactical armor she wore.
"Am I seeing right? You actually survived, Rita."
The air on both sides of the light curtain seemed to freeze in that instant.
The two women stared at each other across that thin, ever-fragile membrane between worlds.
Rita said nothing.
Her fingers tightened around the long handle of her scythe.
Without a word exchanged, Raven's grip tightened around her sniper rifle in kind.
Two undisguised bursts of killing intent collided across the curtain of light, sending unstable ripples across the thin surface of the barrier.
"Uninvited guests really are a pain," Rita finally spoke.
Her expression remained flawlessly composed — not a crack in it anywhere.
Raven let out a scornful laugh and lowered her rifle.
"This isn't your living room," Raven said, her tone sharp and cutting. "I'll come and go as I please — not that you could stop me, could you, little maid?"
She took half a step forward, stopping right at the curtain of light.
"Still," Raven said, watching Rita from less than two meters away, "I never expected you'd show your face in front of me so brazenly. The deputy captain of the elite Immortal Blades Valkyrie squad — and you abandoned your own teammates like trash, tucked your tail, and ran off to that other world."
Raven shook her head.
"Tch. Real dutiful of you."
Rita looked at Raven, the corner of her mouth curling faintly upward.
"You can drop that cheap provocation — it won't work on me."
Her voice held no trace of anger.
"I know Lady Mei already saved them. They're safe now. You don't need to trouble yourself trying to probe for more."
Rita took a step forward.
The scythe in her hand drew a faint white line across the ground.
"As for you and me," Rita said, looking Raven in the face, "there's certainly an old debt that needs settling."
Raven snorted, unbothered by the threat.
"And so what?"
She spread her hands.
"You know as well as I do — across this barrier, you can't touch me, and I can't touch you."
"Let's cut this pointless bickering short. I only came to this dump to gather a bit of experimental data for a certain troublesome scientist."
Raven turned to leave.
"You're not getting anything out of me by asking, either. So that's that."
She'd just lifted her foot, ready to go.
Rita said nothing, made no move to stop her.
She simply turned calmly, gripped the scythe with both hands, and walked straight toward the core of the rift suspended deep within the workshop, glowing with blinding light.
Destroy the core, and the rift would close.
Everything would be over.
She raised the scythe, drew power from her back and hips, and swung hard at the glowing crystal.
Just as the blade was about to touch the core's outer shell —
"Vwoom—"
A piercing roar tore through the factory.
The rift core suddenly unleashed an enormous suction force.
Rita had no time to react at all before the force yanked her entire body inward.
At the same moment, on the far side of the light curtain, Raven let out a startled cry.
The force ignored the World Barrier entirely and forcibly dragged her in as she was about to leave.
The scene before their eyes warped violently.
Kiana watched, wide-eyed, as Rita and Raven both vanished into that blinding light at the same instant.
When the light finally faded—
In the spot where the core used to be, a translucent, roughly twenty-meter-wide spherical space had appeared.
Rita and Raven both stood inside that bubble-like space.
No more than five or six meters apart.
"What's going on?!"
Kiana surged forward several steps, only to be bounced back by an invisible wall.
She didn't even hear the sound of the impact.
Bronie's voice cut in through the link via Fenghuang — ever since Fenghuang's return, she'd been able to maintain a three-way link between Kiana, Su Yu, and herself, able to establish a stable channel even inside a rift with signal interference.
"Kiana, can you hear me? Fall back. Don't touch that bubble."
There was an unusual note of seriousness in Bronie's voice.
"There was an abnormal spatial fluctuation in the core area just now. Let me relay Dr. Tesla's analysis."
"The World Barrier collapsed locally near the rift core — in simple terms, the spaces of the two worlds overlapped in that small region right in front of you."
Bronie offered a comparison.
"It's like two sheets of paper soaked soft and stuck together. That translucent zone is an unstable bubble, and the energy sustaining it is coming from the core — which hasn't been fully destroyed yet."
"So that means..." Kiana stared at the two figures inside the bubble, now getting to their feet.
"Right. Inside that bubble, the barrier's separation doesn't exist," Bronie said. "They're in the same physical space now — they can touch each other."
"So how do they get out?" Kiana clenched her fists.
"They can't. It's a dead end," Bronie answered quickly. "The core's energy is decaying fast. Once it's spent, the bubble will collapse on its own. The instant it does, the barrier will reseal, and whoever's inside will be forcibly thrown back into their own original world."
"Thrown back to their own world?" Kiana froze. "So Raven will get thrown back to her side too?"
"Yes. Neither of them can cross over to the other's world. Based on the decay rate, that bubble can hold for maybe another fifteen to twenty minutes at most."
Inside the bubble.
Rita steadied herself.
She held her scythe, eyes level, staring straight ahead.
Directly across from her, Raven was pushing herself up, brushing the dust off her coat.
There was nothing between them now.
"Lady Kiana,"
Rita's voice carried through the bubble's surface.
"I heard that intel just now, too."
She didn't turn around, still facing Raven.
"Please step back. Whatever happens, please don't intervene."
Outside the bubble, Kiana pressed her lips together.
She studied the side of Rita's face.
That beautiful face still wore its usual, flawless smile — but Kiana could see clearly what churned beneath the surface of her eyes.
Undisguised killing intent.
This debt ran deep.
In the industrial district of Shencheng Pharmaceuticals, this very woman had released a cloud of neutralizing serum mist, along with those sickening Death Web constructs.
The Immortal Blades squad had come within a hair of total annihilation.
If it hadn't been for the power Su Yu pulled her out with, Rita would already be a cold corpse buried beneath that rubble.
Someone who's crawled back from the brink of death doesn't easily let go, not when facing the person who nearly pushed her into the abyss.
Kiana had almost used the Herrscher of the Void's Authority to tear the bubble open by force and pull Rita out.
But watching Rita's expression, she finally lowered her raised hand.
"This Miss Raven and I have an old score to settle — carefully, thoroughly."
Rita slowly planted the great ice scythe upright before her.
"Before all of this is over, please stand there and bear witness."
Kiana said nothing more.
She stepped back a couple paces, leaning against a piece of abandoned machinery.
"Go on."
She spoke toward the figure inside the bubble.
"I'll be right here waiting for you."
Inside the bubble.
Raven watched Rita settle into her battle stance, a mocking curl at her lips.
"Seems like you're a bit overconfident, little maid."
Raven kept her hands tucked in her coat pockets, eyes full of contempt.
"Is your memory really that bad? Do you need me to remind you how you gasped for air at my feet like a fish out of water back at the underground industrial district?"
The next moment—
Raven flicked the hem of her coat sharply.
Rows of miniature gas canisters, prepared in advance, shot out from the sides of her belt and burst apart in midair.
Thick smoke gushed out instantly, spreading with incredible speed through the small, sealed confines of the bubble.
In under two seconds, the dense toxic mist had completely enveloped Rita's body.
Neutralizing serum mist.
This lethal gas was engineered specifically to target the Honkai energy inside a Valkyrie's body — even a trace amount inhaled would leave a Valkyrie limp and powerless within seconds, unable to manage even a basic punch.
Raven stood at the edge of the toxic cloud.
The specialized gas mask over her face sealed itself automatically, feeding filtered air into her lungs.
Her armor had also been treated against penetration — the serum posed no threat to her at all.
"How is it?"
Raven watched the roiling mist ahead, her voice dripping with cruel amusement.
"Not a pleasant feeling, inhaling that special blend a second time, is it?"
She drew a dagger from a holster strapped to her thigh.
"I don't have to kill you, you know. A living S-rank Valkyrie is worth far more than a dead one. Just hand over what you know about you and that man named Su Yu, and..."
"Whoosh—!"
Before Raven could finish speaking, a sharp, piercing sound erupted from the center of the toxic cloud.
Then—
Before Raven's disbelieving eyes, the mist, thick enough that it seemed impossible to disperse, blew apart all at once.
A violent vortex spread outward, visible to the naked eye.
A slender figure emerged from the center of the swirling wind.
Rita gripped the huge scythe in one hand, its shaft striking the ground hard at the end.
She'd only just given the scythe a simple swing.
She hadn't drawn on even a trace of Imaginary energy.
Purely through the contraction of her arm muscles, she'd generated a blast of wind pressure powerful enough to nearly knock a person off their feet.
That gust had forcibly blown away every trace of the neutralizing serum mist within a ten-meter radius!
Raven's eyes went wide.
Even the pupils behind her mask trembled violently from sheer shock.
How was this possible?
She knew that serum inside and out — it wasn't something that could be dispersed by ordinary means.
And more importantly, that swing of the scythe just now...
Was this really the same Rita?
A Valkyrie draws her strength from Honkai energy powering her armor — without using Honkai energy, how could a mere human body swing out wind pressure of that magnitude? It defied all logic!
The gust of wind slowly settled.
Rita stood exactly where she'd been, still carrying that same graceful, composed air.
"That's right."
Her voice carried with unusual clarity through the empty bubble.
"If it had been the old me, I'd already be lying on the ground again right now, struggling just to breathe. But Miss Raven, haven't you realized the most basic problem here?"
She lifted her gaze, cold as ice.
"A competent assassin never falls for the same trap twice."
She raised the scythe, its blade carving a cold gleam through the air.
"Since I dared to stand alone before you and challenge you one-on-one, naturally I'd already accounted for every one of your fighting methods. That, of course, includes such a lowly tactic as poison."
Raven instinctively stepped back half a pace. "You—"
The corner of Rita's mouth curled up gently.
"Ever since your... hospitality in the industrial district."
She began walking, closing the distance toward Raven slowly.
"Since then, I've been through a great many things."
Rita's gaze stayed locked on Raven, tracking her every slightest movement.
"Though to you, perhaps, it's only been a day or two."
Watching Rita advance step by step, Raven's heart began pounding.
She gritted her teeth, twisted her wrist, and grabbed another dozen or so miniature gas canisters, hurling them straight at Rita.
"Don't play games with me!"
In her mind, the fact that Rita had chosen that brute-force method to disperse the serum just now proved she still feared it on some level.
As long as the concentration in this area reached a level absurd enough, the wind pressure wouldn't be able to clear it out fast enough — as long as she inhaled even one breath, just one breath...
The canisters detonated simultaneously in midair.
Mist ten times denser than before instantly filled the entire space between them.
This time, Rita didn't swing her scythe to blow it away.
She stopped in her tracks and did something that Raven would never, in her entire life, be able to understand.
Rita tapped her toe lightly against the ground and flicked the tip of her scythe.
A swirl of residual mist, still releasing high concentrations of serum, lifted up in front of her.
Right in front of Raven, she tilted her chin up slightly.
With no protective measures whatsoever, without a moment's hesitation.
She leaned into the cloud and drew a long, deep breath.
That single breath pulled in more than half of the toxic mist.
Dead silence filled the entire bubble.
Even Kiana, watching from outside, couldn't help sucking in a sharp breath.
What in the world was this maid doing?
Rita lowered her scythe.
"Cough, cough..."
She covered her mouth with one hand, coughed twice, and frowned at Raven.
"I wonder," Rita said, her tone carrying genuine confusion and displeasure, "did the World Serpent's research staff never once consider, while formulating this poison, making it smell like flowers? This scent is really quite unpleasant."
Raven stared at the woman before her as if she'd seen a ghost.
Her legs had gone completely rigid.
"This... this is impossible..." Raven's voice trembled from behind her mask. "That's a highly purified, Valkyrie-specific serum. Why has nothing happened to you at all?!"
That serum had been engineered specifically to disrupt the circulation of Honkai energy inside a Valkyrie's body.
As long as any Honkai energy still flowed within her, immunity to that toxin should have been impossible!
Unless...
Unless right now, she wasn't using a shred of Honkai energy at all!
Rita lowered the hand that had covered her mouth.
She gripped her scythe, and this time the killing intent in her eyes went entirely undisguised.
"I told you."
She started walking again.
"Ever since that parting in the industrial district, I've been through a great many things."
"I also received true power — from someone I trust, someone I chose to follow."
Her voice grew colder, and more resolute, with every word.
"It's precisely because he entrusted this power to me that I'm able to stand before you now, like this."
Rita walked until she stood less than five paces from Raven, then stopped abruptly.
The cold scythe blade sliced through the air without resistance, pointed directly at Raven's throat.
"Now, then."
A cruel curve lifted the corner of Rita's mouth.
"Bring out whatever else you've got, Miss Raven."
She gripped the scythe's long handle with both hands, the muscles of her legs coiling taut to their limit.
"And then, run from me for all you're worth."
Rita's lips parted slightly.
The scythe's blade flashed once in the pale blue light.
"I'm going to kill you... very gently."
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