Emperor-class Honkai Beast—these six words signify a High-Tier Honkai Beast that sits above the Honkai Emperor, the pinnacle of lower-tier Honkai Beasts.
The reason these six words are completely distinct from lower-tier Honkai Beasts is twofold. First, unlike the silicon-based lower-tier Honkai Beasts, High-Tier Honkai Beasts are entirely composed of pure Honkai energy. Their physical strength and ability to manipulate Honkai energy are far beyond anything lower-tier Honkai Beasts can achieve.
Second is the uniqueness of High-Tier Honkai Beasts: they do not belong to any existing Honkai Beast category. They are singular, unique Honkai Beasts, and even if Honkai Emperors or Honkai: Heavy Crusher continued to evolve, they could never become an Emperor-class Honkai Beast.
This is why High-Tier Honkai Beasts are so troublesome. Lin only had one experience fighting an Emperor-class Honkai Beast, which was a highly specialized companion Honkai Beast of the Second Herrscher. But that encounter could not be used as a reference, as this new High-Tier Honkai Beast would certainly have completely different abilities and fighting methods.
"Clang."
Lin swung his grappling hook to the rooftop, crouched at the edge, and checked the coordinates of the Honkai Beast. That was also the direction from which the roar originated.
Silence.
With Lin's position as the dividing line, the nearly five-kilometer area before his eyes seemed to have been completely stripped away from Changkong City.
Apart from the sound of the rain, nothing else could be heard.
There were no low growls from Honkai Beasts or Honkai Zombies, nor the noisy collapse of buildings. There were only greedy and unsettling gazes watching everyone who entered this area, hidden in the blind spots of vision.
If Changkong City after the Honkai eruption was a beast cage full of hidden dangers, with Honkai Zombies and Honkai Beasts stirring in the thick shadows, then the area before Lin was the territory of the true Beast King, lurking with genuine danger.
[Communication connecting... Failed]
Completely cut off from everyone else. It seemed only he and the Emperor-class Honkai Beast, whose location was unknown in the darkness, remained in this area.
His judgment seemed correct. The Emperor-class Honkai Beast had turned this into a hunting ground. The Fifth Squad had just been within dangerous range. Besides attacking the other squads, if they had been a few minutes slower, or if the Emperor-class Honkai Beast had set its sights on them, the end result would have been the Fifth Squad fighting the Honkai Beast while escorting survivors.
Now, should he actively enter, or continue to observe...
"Cough, cough..."
A few drops of conspicuous blood appeared on the viewport.
[Detecting blood pressure drop, heart rate increase, initiating internal organ scan...]
Lin canceled the detection system that intended to scan his internal body. His previous suit didn't have this system; it seemed to be a new feature added by the R&D head.
In this high-concentration Honkai energy environment, Lin's damaged body was deteriorating every second. His high tolerance for pain didn't mean the pain wouldn't affect his movements.
"..."
Lin half-knelt on the ground, regulating his breathing. He took out all the glowing green vials of inhibitor from Mobius and placed them in the articulation unit of his armor, allowing him to directly control the unit to inject the agent.
"Sizzle!"
A full vial of the agent was injected into Lin's body. The abnormally colored fluid diffused from his blood vessels.
"Hoo..."
The pain vanished. At the same time, a ten-minute countdown appeared on the upper-left of the viewport. That was the duration of the drug written on the syringe. Once that time was up, Lin would have to bear the side effects.
Five vials remained.
Lin had no way out. He had to distract or defeat the Honkai Beast within this one hour.
Or trust that Himeko and the others could complete the escort and contact the other squads to come here and defeat the Emperor-class Honkai Beast within the hour.
Regardless, he had to move.
Lin opened his eyes, his pupils glowing green inside the helmet.
A black dot bounced and zipped between the buildings. The jet pack assisted his flexible movement, even on the flat surfaces of the walls. In the steel jungle, he moved like a minuscule spider.
The last confirmed signal of the Emperor-class Honkai Beast was where the Seventh Squad lost contact. Lin quickly found the exact location on the map generated by the 3D model. He leaped down from the sky, crashing heavily onto a pile of scrap metal.
Blood ran through the gaps in the armor beneath his feet.
Internal organs pulled from the body, flattened eyePartys, and brain matter oozing from holes—these mixed with the rainwater among the sparking power armor, creating a grotesque and horrifying scene.
Even without opening the helmet to smell, Lin knew the air was permeated with a bloody stench that the downpour couldn't wash away.
This was the last known location of the Seventh Squad. Their fate needed no further explanation.
But Lin wasn't here to mourn them. He first quickly assessed the range of the battle and the distance between the bodies, then squatted down to examine the wounds of the Seventh Squad soldiers.
Burns from lightning strikes, crushing injuries, piercing wounds...
After spending a minute inspecting all the corpses, Lin roughly determined the Honkai Beast's attack patterns and range.
It was larger than a typical Temple-class Honkai Beast, capable of using lightning attacks similar to the Third Herrscher. Judging by the death of several members who were pierced from below, it could also use ground-spike-like attacks. Several bodies were separated by distances of ten to fifty meters, and there were signs of the Honkai Beast pursuing them, meaning its attack range was also roughly within this distance...
The battle ended quickly, likely in less than fifty seconds. Its speed was much faster than his estimate.
There were still some liquid substances, like black sludge, left on the path of movement. That was...
"Sizzle."
A faint, jarring sound suddenly flashed in Lin's ear, distinct amidst the continuous rain—like something scaly brushing against a sharp edge.
He instinctively turned and drew his knife. The dark-blue blade cut through the air, stopping in mid-air.
There was nothing behind him. On a street not far away, a viscous, transparent fluid secreted by some entity dissolved into the rain and vanished.
"Crash..."
Only the sound of the rain remained.
The feeling of being watched intensified.
Lin sharply turned sideways, aiming his knife at the shadow beneath a broken wall. Then, his internal alarm blared, and he turned again to face the corner of a tall building not far away.
In the place his vision couldn't reach, less than a few meters from his feet, the remnants of the black fluid began to slowly creep toward him.
It was not a hallucination. In every direction, a pair of eerie green snake eyes was silently staring at him.
It wasn't in a hurry at all. It was just waiting for a chance to strike.
It flicked its tongue, licking its lips, watching the cornered, weak human.
"Sizzle..."
Just then, a syringe was ejected from Lin's armor, and another dose of the agent was injected into his body.
This brief moment—the less than half-second lapse when the drug wore off, the instant his knife-gripping muscles relaxed—was seized upon by the creature in the shadows.
"Clang!"
The black fluid at his feet suddenly transformed into razor-sharp spikes, piercing through the rain and lunging toward the back of Lin's head!
"I fell for it."
Lin's intentionally vacant eyes instantly became solid and focused. His glowing green pupils contracted into tiny points. He spun around, presenting the high-frequency sonic cutting knife.
"Scream—"
The burst of sparks illuminated Lin's helmet.
And at the same time, it illuminated the serpentine shape lurking in the shadows.