"An… na."
The instant Lin saw the beret, something flashed through his mind. His gaze was fixed on the gigantic block of ice that occupied half of the main hall.
At the base of the ice block, some scarlet ice crystals, slowly and despairingly, fell to his feet.
Anna is here.
He knows Anna is here.
In this moment, an indescribable emotion surged into his heart.
"Anna…"
The Fifth Herrscher opened her eyes in the ice cocoon, looking at Lin while murmuring.
And Lin also looked towards her, sensing her gaze.
Her soulless eyes mirrored everything before them.
This orphanage, like a frozen palace.
This world eternally shrouded in ice and snow.
…
"The Fifth Herrscher's Honkai energy signature is rapidly increasing! She's starting to move!"
Sigma waved his hand and commanded, "What is Ato's squad doing! Why didn't they follow orders! It's too late… have all squads converge on the Fifth Herrscher and prepare for direct subjugation!"
"B-but Commander-in-Chief, according to the information Ato sent back." The monitor swallowed hard, his eyes evasive, "Someone has already… engaged first."
Sigma was confused, "Who?"
"MSA-079, Lin."
…
Shattering layers of ice as he flew backward, Lin's body was crying out in agony. All the data was passing through his mind, but he was finding it difficult to concentrate and process it.
PROMETHEUS had preemptively disabled the negative readings on his panel so it wasn't completely red, but the tearing pain penetrating every muscle was a very real feedback.
"Bang!"
He crashed into a building. Shattered rubble and swirling snow fell onto him.
"Gah!"
Two snow-white Biting-type Honkai Beasts attacked from the sky. Lin's consciousness moved, and the floating cannons flew in from a distance, firing continuously and hitting the Honkai Beasts before they even arrived.
This also meant that "someone" was following the floating cannons.
Lin laboriously used the anti-gravity hovering device to lift himself out of the collapsed building. The terrifying figure, engulfed in extreme cold air, rushed toward him with blinding speed.
Lin gasped for breath. Everything he saw was overlaid with thick double vision.
The Fifth Herrscher had only recently been born, so she likely had less control over her authority than the Third Herrscher. Freezing herself in the orphanage was probably to rapidly adapt to her authority. Even though her abilities were still largely unknown, it was possible to win based on his experience from multiple battles with Herrschers.
However…
"Uwaah—"
Lin vomited a large mouthful of blood, the color of which was completely devoid of any human blood hue.
Not only was his body corrupted by Honkai energy, but his spirit was also damaged by the neural link. Both were at their absolute worst.
The Fifth Herrscher raised her hand while flying, making a clenching motion with her fist. An ice pillar with a radius of tens of meters erupted from beneath Lin, reaching his feet in the blink of an eye, threatening to freeze him inside.
Lin drove his flight device at full power, soaring upwards. The ice pillar relentlessly pursued him, carving out an ice-made corridor in the air.
Ato and his group, rushing toward the orphanage, saw the dazzling ice corridor. Ato's pupils contracted, "That's… Lin fighting the Fifth Herrscher! Everyone, go into combat mode and support Lin!"
With that, he immediately raised his gun and aimed at the Fifth Herrscher. Even though there was still a considerable distance between them, Ato pulled the trigger to draw her attention.
"Bang! Bang!"
However, before his bullets could reach her, two solid blocks of ice materialized out of thin air beside the Herrscher of Ice, easily blocking his attacks.
The Fifth Herrscher's icy eyes swept in Ato's direction. She raised her hand and pressed it down. Innumerable ice crystals appeared above, their sharp points aimed at the road below.
"Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh…"
This time, it was no longer "gentle" like hailstones, but countless sharp spikes, infused with the overwhelming power of the Fifth Herrscher's authority, shooting towards Ato's position.
In an instant, danger loomed overhead. Ato immediately halted his charge, "Dodge!"
However, the new recruits' reaction time was poor. Half of them had only drawn their weapons and charged forward upon hearing Ato enter combat mode. Because they heard backup was coming, they believed they weren't being sent to their deaths by the Moth of the Fire, and that other squads would join their charge.
This half, upon hearing "Dodge," hadn't even processed the command and just squatted down where they were to take cover.
Consequently, this led to the ensuing tragedy.
"Ahhhhhh!!"
The scattered blood turned into blooming ice flowers amidst the screams. The moment the ice spikes pierced the soldiers' bodies, they emitted a terrifying coldness, instantly freezing the human bodies and their life force, turning the people into ice sculptures.
And the ice prisms that didn't hit the bodies froze the surrounding objects and the ground after piercing the earth.
In one strike, over half of the team was turned into ice sculptures, their expressions of fear frozen in their last moment of life.
Kosma watched them die in front of him. He stood there stunned until Ato grabbed him and pulled him away from an incoming ice spike.
"Kosma!"
At Ato's furious shout, Kosma shuddered and snapped back to reality. He gritted his teeth, took one last look at his comrades, with whom he had only shared a single day, shouldered his gun, and followed Ato's pace.
In the air, Lin desperately evaded the relentless ice pillar. The floating cannons fired in a cross-shape, cutting and shattering the ice pillar.
"Bang!"
Before he could catch his breath, a heavy impact from behind sent him flying, and blood stained his mouth again.
The snowy Biting-type Honkai Beast howled, chasing the falling Lin.
Previously, Lin could have easily dodged this level of sneak attack, but now he couldn't find the information he needed amidst the massive data stream. The sheer volume of information, once an aid, had now become a distraction.
Innumerable chaotic particles flowed across Lin's black pupils. He barely managed to control the floating cannons to shoot down the Honkai Beast, but more Honkai Beasts quickly followed.
They howled, wanting to tear Lin apart and feast on him.
Lock on, lock on, lock on…
Lin's brain was operating in overdrive. The burden of the neural link made his vision turn white, forcing him to rely only on instinct to lock onto enemies and fire his cannons haphazardly.
"Bang!"
The high-output floating cannons swept across as a beam of light. The last Honkai Beast was annihilated.
Lin tried to adjust the flight device to take off again before he fell.
But—
"Swish."
An ice spike pierced his thigh.
An endless coldness began to spread outwards from the root of his thigh, instantly necrotizing his leg.
Lin immediately used the floating cannons to sever his injured thigh, peeling the entire leg away from his body.
Then, the Honkai energy within his body, stimulated by the "flesh being cut," began to spread wildly. All the pain multiplied exponentially.
I lost.
The Fifth Herrscher…
The frozen blood turned into a tragic ice crystal in the sky.
The snowy sun emitted a faint, sorrowful light.
The broken-winged bird cried out in agony.
The man falling downward weakly and despairingly reached out to the Ice Queen high above.
Foul purple lines grew wantonly on the skin beneath his broken armor.
Everything faded in the winter.
The Ice Queen finally extended her hand to him as well.
Then, an ice spike descended from the sky, piercing the man's helmet and entering through his right eye.
The shattered fragments of the helmet, along with the man's body, crashed heavily onto the ground.