The next day, when the sun was already high in the sky, Lynelle rubbed her eyes and sat up in her soft bed.
Couldn't be helped.
It had been a while since their last meeting, and seeing Mei's adorable reaction yesterday when her horns were touched had really fired them both up, so… last night got just a little bit too intense.
As a result, Lynelle was only waking up now.
But no matter how wobbly her legs felt, she had to get moving. After all, there was still a mountain of things left to deal with in Nagazora City.
"Let's see what Bronya sent me… Wait, what is this? 'Remember to drink lots of hot water when you wake up'!"
Lynelle: Red-faced and steaming.
After firing back an angry cat emoji in reply to the girl's teasing message, Lynelle began sifting through the actual business at hand.
First, after Mei had absorbed the majority of the Honkai energy in Nagazora, the local concentration had steadily dropped back to safe levels.
The remaining Honkai beasts had also been mostly cleared out overnight by the relentless sweep of the Titan forces.
Compared to those beasts, the real headache was the mess Otto had stirred up—although the Imaginary Constructs had been shut down yesterday by Mei and Kiana working together, and that character had been successfully eliminated, the Imaginary Phantoms that had spilled out during the nearly two hours the rift was active were still running loose.
Neither Anti-Entropy's Quantum Titans nor Schicksal's Glory Blades had any combat experience against these Phantoms.
Simply shattering their shells wasn't enough to finish them; their cores needed to be subjected to invasive, acute metal poisoning at the same moment—in other words, the hidden core had to be found and smashed, too.
So, bright and early, Bronya had dragged Seele along to clean up the Imaginary Phantoms all over the city.
Mei and Susannah joined the fight the moment they woke up.
As for Bella, who arrived late to the scene… figuring there were already enough hands on deck, she simply stayed by Kiana's side, keeping watch over the unconscious Ana while helping with Nagazora's post-disaster recovery.
"Looks like they've all grown quite capable during my time away with World Serpent…"
Seeing how neatly the work had been divided, Lynelle nodded in satisfaction.
"Now then, time to deal with Ana… Her Herrscher authority is seriously powerful. Used well, she could be a major trump card for the upcoming Herrscher of Dominance and whatever Otto's planning next. But how much to seal, how much to leave… that's the tricky part."
"Oh, right. And the missing Herrscher of Rock!"
Muttering to herself, Lynelle suddenly remembered something she'd nearly forgotten.
If her core seals were meant to follow the order of the Herrschers' appearances, there was no reason for Prometheus to break that pattern now—meaning, since Little Senti had already surfaced, the Herrscher of Rock must have manifested, too… But where was it?
Her thoughts immediately turned to that man—Chen Tianwu, who in the original story had formed a truly star-crossed pair with Ana.
Funny thing, Chen Tianwu's voice actor from the original was the same as Dan Heng's—no wonder Dan Heng got called the Train's Gravity Guy.
Over here in Honkai Impact 3rd, he's the one playing with gravity. Haha.
"If the story hasn't changed, Chen Tianwu should still be under Raven's wing… But I did talk to some of the Glory Blades squad earlier."
"They said Ana didn't seem to show any interest in finding a partner, displaying that classic Schariac family cluelessness when it came to romance—she completely missed the hints several squadmates were throwing her way."
"Maybe it was the butterfly effect from Otto and Welt personally showing up in Manila back then? Whatever. I'll just ask Raven directly…"
With that, Lynelle picked up her communicator.
"Hey, Lynelle. What's got you in the mood to call me?"
A moment later, Raven's voice came through, sounding a bit puzzled.
"Nothing major. Just found some concerning things on my end, so I wanted to check in with you," Lynelle said after a moment's thought. "Do you have someone named Chen Tianwu under you?"
"Yeah," Raven replied, then caught on. "Wait, is that kid a Schicksal spy or something?"
"Huh?" Raven's immediate suspicion threw Lynelle, who'd been about to ask about Chen Tianwu's love life, for a loop. "Why would you think that?"
"Because back in Manila, it was Otto who saved him."
"What?!"
Lynelle suddenly remembered: a big part of why Chen Tianwu fell for Ana in the original was likely because she saved him in Manila back then…
Oh no. Did that mean in this timeline, Chen Tianwu might have feelings for Otto…
She felt a chill run down her spine.
"Wait, let's drop that topic. That's not what I'm asking—" Lynelle hurriedly cut off the dangerous line of conversation, terrified of hearing something she absolutely did not want to know.
"I wanted to ask if Chen Tianwu has shown any… nihilistic tendencies lately. And, what's his love life like?"
"Sssp—" Raven drew a sharp breath. "His reputation's reached Nagazora City already?"
"Reputation? Is he famous?"
"Yeah… Wait, Lynelle, don't tell me someone you know has a crush on this Chen Tianwu kid, and you're checking him out?" Raven finally pieced it together.
"Well, tough luck. That guy Chen Tianwu… he's universally known within World Serpent as a hardcore siscon!"
"Back during the Manila relief ops, World Serpent did some humanitarian work too. Otto picked up Chen Tianwu, and we found his little sister. That's why he joined us later…"
"Let me put it this way: if anyone falls for him, they'd better be prepared to stay single forever. And falling for his sister? That'd be even worse…"
As Raven chattered on with the gossip, Lynelle got the gist.
At least from Raven's observations, Chen Tianwu showed not the slightest sign of turning into a Herrscher—in the original, he was the type to turn dark first before herrscherizing, unlike Ana who transformed under murky circumstances.
Here, his sister was alive and well, so he had zero reason to turn.
So the question remained: where was the Herrscher of Rock?
--+--
Meanwhile, elsewhere…
"Fortunately, after I left Schicksal, they immediately launched a full investigation into Arc City. It just wrapped up not long ago… Meaning, right now, Arc City is a complete blind spot in their surveillance."
In a back alley of the city, a blond man lowered his hood, gazing thoughtfully at a broken puppet lying before him.
"As I thought. The Herrschers who descended this time weren't just Ice and Sentience… To be precise, there should be four."
"Then… this avatar of mine hasn't been wasted."
So saying, he extracted a small, glimmering core from the puppet's chest and, without hesitation, pressed it into his own body.
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.