The sea brought a moist fragrance. Cool spots mingled with the steam rising under the strong, swaying sun.
Lin put down his teacup. The fragrance of the tea on the rim was scattered by the wind. The shade under the parasol shifted as the sun slid across the blue sky. Tiny crabs drew a leisurely trail across the fine white sand.
The wind carried the end of the story. Having finished speaking with the others, he leaned back in the beach chair, wishing to sleep for a while.
Closing his eyes, the familiar darkness rushed toward him.
"Is that all?"
Only… that much?
Lin opened his eyes with slight surprise, seeing Seele, the furthest person from him, staring into the distance, sipping slowly from a cup of flat cola.
Expressionless.
Putting down the cup, Seele continued her thought: "Squad Member Lin, your story is too short. To this world, it's like a small, inconspicuous splash in the ocean… No, even among humans, your life was too brief."
Brief?
But weren't the lives of Delta, Anna, and Seele equally brief?
"To be blunt…" Seele uttered plainly, "I wasn't entertained enough. Next time, make it longer. Tell me more then."
"…"
"You need to go back. No matter how painful it is, you have to complete that path, instead of sinking into this illusion like me."
The beach, the ocean, the birdsong—everything visible peeled away like a shattered glass cup.
At the same time, the smiling people in the sunlight fragmented.
Lin looked impassive in the face of all this: "I can't go back."
Whether this was a pre-death hallucination or an after-death dream, he couldn't return to the body that had stopped breathing.
"You can, Squad Member Lin. Do you remember the thing we discussed together once?"
"…"
"Do you remember? Hehe… Then the time must be drawing near."
"Are you Seele? Or are you just a thought of mine?"
Lin stood amidst the fragments, looking at the girl who was shattering piece by piece, starting from her legs.
"Who knows? Perhaps the real Seele wasn't as beautiful as you imagined, and you weren't as omnipotent as she fantasized…" Seele smiled, as if letting go of something. "But you are still so handsome, Squad Member Lin. Even though we were both hurt and immersed in our own self-created illusions, you could still hold firm to your path."
"You are the same."
"Me? Not at all… I was always running away. When you were with me, I hid behind you. After you left, I hid behind a mask of madness. I truly… envy you."
Seele thought of something. She let out a small "Ah" and smiled at Lin: "By the way, Squad Member Lin, can you give me a hug?"
"…"
Lin gently nodded and walked slowly toward the gradually dissipating girl.
But the moment his fingers touched the girl, her figure dissolved into the darkness.
She didn't even have a chance to say her smiling "Goodbye."
…
Kevin still had a lot of stamina left.
His excellent Honkai Energy adaptability, along with the equipment that minimized energy consumption for each attack, allowed him to maintain a high level of combat proficiency in the dense Honkai Energy environment.
But fighting a Herrscher wasn't about endurance.
In fact, Herrscher subjugation battles often ended quickly. Either the Herrscher was swiftly defeated, or the Herrscher defeated them.
But this Sixth Herrscher was an exception, setting unprecedented records in multiple aspects. It was clear that after the war, her Herrscher Core and remains would be the focus of intense research, provided… humanity could defeat her.
"…"
The Sixth Herrscher's vacant eyes lifted slightly. She felt the death of her subordinate.
The porcupine's combat power might have been weaker than previously appeared Emperor-class Honkai Beasts, but with its command over other Honkai creatures and its near-human intelligence, it should not have been subjugated by humans in such a short time.
After Lin's sacrifice and ambush, she felt the flow of the battle was beginning to slip out of her control.
As expected, getting involved with that Lin always leads to unexpected events.
To prevent further incidents, she intensified her attack rhythm. Kevin was proving much more troublesome than she anticipated. Her body's memory held no record of ever fighting Kevin. Based solely on the dazzling combat records in the data, it was impossible to tell just how strong this man truly was.
She had initially assumed Lin was the most threatening individual among humans, but Kevin's performance was… without exaggeration, superior to Lin's in all aspects. Lin, even at his most formidable, could only be described as the peak of human capability, but Kevin had definitely surpassed the human boundary.
His neural reaction speed was faster than hers, the Herrscher's. Because of this, even with the augmentation of her Authority, the Sixth Herrscher, unable to unleash her full power, was temporarily unable to deal with him.
She couldn't hold back any longer. The porcupine at the Fifth Branch had been subjugated. Once forces were freed up to reinforce Kevin, there would be even more unexpected events.
But the Sixth Herrscher, caught up in overthinking, didn't realize that Kevin wasn't as relaxed as he appeared.
His lack of fatigue after using the Phase Transfer was simply a façade. Making the Sixth Herrscher feel that he was effortlessly evading her attacks was a deliberate performance of nonchalance.
His goal was singular: to make the Sixth Herrscher focus entirely on killing him, desperately seeking any means to end the battle quickly.
In the midst of her thoughts, a wave of black mist, large enough to startle him, rushed toward him like a high wall. In the urgency, he used his last remote cannon to attack the Sixth Herrscher from a different angle, then rapidly flew backward to escape.
Again, he narrowly dodged it.
Kevin was drenched in a cold sweat. The Sixth Herrscher's black mist range was continuously expanding; it was now double its initial size. He couldn't even close in without using the Phase Transfer device.
He continued to attack while retreating, maintaining a pattern of harassment to provoke the Sixth Herrscher's attack desire, making her follow him, continuously pushing her toward the outskirts of the city, in the direction of the giant tree.
Seeing that he had escaped the boundaries of Nagazora, Kevin inwardly sighed with relief.
Now he could fight without holding back…
"Boom!"
The pitch-black mist coiled around his arm guard. Kevin reacted instinctively in that moment of no time to spare for thought.
He discarded his arm guard, leaving the black mist, which was preparing to climb further up his body, to engulf the detached armor, and then retreated backward.
"Did you think I wouldn't know what you were plotting?"
A cold, clear voice instantly raised Kevin's alertness to maximum. The scythe sliced through the black mist, swinging toward Kevin's head.
"Clang!"
Kevin barely managed to twist his head. The scythe grazed his cheek, cutting a deep crack into his chest armor. Then her other hand seized the Phase Transfer device he was about to use.
"Bang!"
In the moment of crisis, a long-distance armor-piercing round shot toward the Sixth Herrscher's head. She glanced to the side and was forced to retreat, dodging the shot, which gave the otherwise about-to-be-decomposed Kevin time to escape.
The two of them separated again. Kevin's chest heaved rapidly as he stared at the Sixth Herrscher, who raised her hand.
"You wanted me to leave Nagazora, but I was also waiting for the moment you would expose a flaw…" She casually wore the Phase Transfer device she had just seized on her wrist. "This thing has changed hands several times, yet it still returned to mine. That idiot Lin died completely worthless, didn't he?"
"Hehehe…" She mocked him mercilessly.