"It's so cold... Is this... a snowfield?"
Stepping through the portal Kaslana (Kevin) had opened, Ren Amamiya and his group found themselves in a vast expanse blanketed in pristine white snow.
The abrupt shift from a crimson desert to a silvery snowfield made Seele's slender frame tremble. She instinctively hugged herself, shivering slightly to generate more warmth. After adjusting somewhat to the frigid temperature, Seele straightened her posture and looked around. Her sea-blue eyes took in the seemingly endless, massive snowfield stretching before them.
"So this is the Herrscher of the Void's Palace..." Ren surveyed the surroundings. "Though we're likely just on the outskirts. To reach the Herrscher's Shadow, we first need to find a way into that tower."
His gaze quickly locked onto the imposing structure dominating the snowy plain—a towering, jet-black spire that seemed to pierce the clouds, connecting heaven and earth. Such a colossal and conspicuous tower practically screamed, "I'm the anomaly! Come closer!"
Ren was already adept at infiltrating Palaces. He knew they wouldn't always land directly in the heart of the target's distorted cognition; sometimes, they'd be deposited on the periphery like this. This situation was actually quite fortunate; the target tower was visible at a glance and wasn't too far from their entry point.
"If we pick up the pace, we should reach the tower within ten minutes... Everyone stay alert, let's proceed cautiously."
Just as Ren finished speaking, before they could even take the first step towards the tower—
"Joker, Shadow readings approaching!" Hare's brow furrowed slightly. Her keen senses detected the aura of Honkai Beasts hidden within the snow, closing in on their position almost instantaneously.
Exposed by Hare's warning, the Honkai Beasts lurking beneath the white blanket abandoned their cover, bursting forth from the deep snow to launch a fierce assault on the uninvited intruders.
"Encountering Shadows already? And they're attacking proactively... Looks like the Herrscher of the Void is aware of our intrusion," Ren murmured, his eyes narrowing slightly as he observed the dense swarm of pinkish-white Shadows charging towards them. He instantly prepared for battle.
These common Shadows weren't a major threat, but the Herrscher pulling the strings from behind the scenes demanded caution. According to Kaslana (Kevin) and Siegfried, the Herrscher of the Void possessed the power to manipulate space, allowing her to appear anywhere at will.
Now that the game had become reality, Palace rulers wouldn't just passively wait until their Treasure was about to be stolen before striking back. Moreover, Ren was currently tackling the Palace of a non-human entity like the Herrscher of the Void, who harbored deep animosity towards humans.
Given her hostility and spatial powers, it wouldn't be surprising if she suddenly appeared on the battlefield leading her Shadow guards in an attack.
"Leave these Shadows to me—Roar, Kurikara!!" Raiden Mei stepped forward decisively, raising a delicate hand to remove the black oni mask from her fair face.
As Mei tossed the mask high into the air, a profound beam of crimson lightning struck down from the heavens. Persona Kurikara unfurled a pair of crimson dragon wings that seemed to blot out the sky, unleashing a deafening roar upon the ant-like Shadows below.
Accompanying the crimson dragon's roar, a tempestuous gale surged forth. The incredibly powerful airflow acted like a vortex, gathering the desperately resisting Shadow soldiers scattered across the ground.
Then, crimson lightning rained down incessantly. Thick bolts descended from the sky, striking the Shadows trapped in the storm's eye, instantly vaporizing the helpless soldiers into nothingness.
Although Mei had only recently awakened her Persona, these weakest Shadow soldiers were no longer capable of impeding her progress. In the blink of an eye, she had commanded Kurikara to completely clear the battlefield, eliminating every Shadow that dared show itself.
"Nice work, Acheron. Please continue clearing the way until we formally encounter the Herrscher of the Void."
During Palace exploration, Ren addressed Mei not by name, but by the codename she herself had chosen, praising her effectiveness. Mei was slightly less powerful than Hare, but her Persona, Kurikara, possessed high-damage lightning skills capable of hitting all enemies—a perfect mob-clearing machine.
To conserve the team's stamina and SP before the main confrontation, having Mei handle the rank-and-file Shadows was a logical arrangement.
As for Seele, whose strength was comparable to Mei's... Ren knew she wasn't adept at handling multiple enemies simultaneously. She fought more like a diligent farmer, methodically swinging her scythe to eliminate foes one by one—lacking the convenient, energy-saving efficiency of Mei's Kurikara.
"Mm... Thank you for the praise. I'll keep doing my best!"
Kurikara's colossal form slowly faded from the sky, and the skull-like black oni mask returned to Mei's grasp. A faint blush touched Mei's fair, delicate cheeks at Ren's compliment. She clenched her fists lightly, then somewhat flusteredly placed the mask squarely over her face, hiding her current expression.
To be precise, Mei wasn't embarrassed by the praise itself. Given the ambiguous relationship between her and Ren, just one step short of confirmation, there was no need to hide her happiness at his words. She chose to cover her face now mainly because Ren had used the codename she'd picked.
How to put it... Mei considered herself thoroughly graduated from her chuunibyou phase.
But hearing Ren call her "Acheron," she felt a cringey sort of shyness, yet simultaneously, a secret thrill and sense of coolness washed over her. This lingering trace of her "eighth-grader syndrome" made Mei feel even more ashamed, momentarily feeling like she couldn't face anyone.
Thus, she pressed the usually slanted oni mask firmly onto the front of her face, hiding her conflicting flush of embarrassment and satisfaction.
"'Acheron' and 'Joker,' and 'Hare' too... Does Seele also need a codename like everyone else?" Seele asked, tapping a slender white finger against her chin. Her words, devoid of malice yet tinged with hesitation, landed like a critical hit on Mei's already turbulent emotions.
"Come to think of it, you don't have a codename yet, Seele..." Ren realized. "If you want one, pick one. If not, that's fine too." If hiding her real-world identity wasn't a factor, Ren felt "Seele" already sounded quite codename-like; it could easily pass for the name of some mysterious organization.
And due to Cocolia's experiments, Seele didn't have a mask or Phantom Thief attire like the other Persona users. However, considering the real Seele had fallen into the Sea of Quanta and was effectively missing in the real world, hiding her identity seemed somewhat moot.
"It's not that Seele doesn't want a codename like everyone else, I just couldn't think of a good name..." Seele waved her hands frantically, worried Ren might misunderstand. "Big Brother Ren, ah, sorry, Captain Joker, could you pick a codename for Seele?" she requested softly.
"Hmm, you want me to choose..." Ren mused. It was the classic Joker-assigns-a-codename-to-the-new-recruit moment.
"Death? Double? Vanny?... Which one do you like, Seele?" Ren pondered for a moment before offering three options.
"'Death' and... 'Double'?" Hearing the first two choices, a stunned expression flickered across Seele's fair face. She instinctively hugged her blue scythe tighter. Because Acheron (Underworld) is on the team, and I use a scythe, that's why 'Death' is an option? 'Double' is even easier to understand; it directly refers to my dual personality.
To hide her other self's existence, Seele hadn't even told Bronya about Dark Seele back at the orphanage. Naturally, she didn't want her codename broadcasting her split personality either.
Therefore, the only remaining choice was the last one. Luckily, "Vanny" (Butterfly) sounded normal enough, even rather pleasant. Otherwise, Seele might have had to risk frying her brain's CPU trying to come up with a codename on the spot.
"Seele, Seele chooses the third one! Seele's codename will be 'Vanny'!!"
"Then it's decided. From now on, Seele, your codename is 'Vanny'!" Ren nodded at Seele's choice, announcing it to the relieved Seele, as well as Hare and Mei.
Speaking of butterflies, the more common word was "Butterfly." However, that term felt a bit too on-the-nose for Ren, giving him a strange feeling that Seele might suddenly start spinning around and evolving mid-fight.
"Vanny" felt more fitting for Seele as a girl's name.
As Ren, Seele, and the others walked and talked, the black tower that seemed distant from their entry point was now looming right before them, radiating an icy, cruel aura.
"What a tall tower! Built way out here in this desolate, uninhabited snowfield... What's it for?" Mei tilted her head back, gazing up at the towering black structure. She could faintly glimpse mechanical red lights flashing through slits in the tower, making her even more curious about its origin and purpose.
Mei had learned much about Palaces from Ren; she knew the landscape reflected the Palace ruler's perception and impression of the real world. In other words, this black tower must exist somewhere in reality and hold some profound significance for the Herrscher of the Void.
"Could it be a weather tower? To monitor the environmental parameters of this snowfield... Huh?! What's that sound?!" Seele cautiously offered her idea to Mei. Just then, the entire snowfield began to tremble violently. A dizzying, furious roar echoed from high above.
"ROOOOAAAAARRRR—!!!"
A massive dark shadow fell from the sky, engulfing Ren and his group as they approached the black tower. And the colossal shadow covering them continued to grow larger with each passing second.
"Shadow reading detected... Joker, be careful! This Shadow is strong!!" Hare reacted instantly, sharply warning Ren.
"Is that... a dragon?" Shrouded in shadow, Ren snapped his head up, looking towards the sky.
And then he saw it: a terrifying demonic dragon with four blue eyes, a colossal deep-blue body, and its surface covered in white, bone-like outer armor.
The white demonic dragon, known as Benares, opened its cavernous maw, unleashing a deafening roar. It then blasted a sky-obscuring torrent of frigid breath down upon the Phantom Thieves on the ground below, daring to invade the domain of the Queen of the Void!!
(End of Volume IV: Tower in the Sea of Stars)