From that day forth, people looked up at the starry sky and saw ice crystals lighting up hope across the scorched earth, the dim starlight reflected in transparent icicles.
Frozen fireworks were sealed within the chill.
The perpetrator of the calamity was pierced to death by a spear made of ice.
A name that inaugurated the era of the MANTIS drifted over the ruins of Australia, alongside the name of Fire Moth.
He was the first Fusion Warrior.
But no one knew that before him, there was another...
...
The battle was nearing its end.
This was the most grand and tumultuous battle since the birth of the Honkai. The sinner who betrayed humanity had burned Australia for seven days and seven nights, turning the land of human prosperity into a wasteland, oases into parched earth, and vitality into deathly silence.
Out of Australia's total population of 25.7 million, as many as 23 million became vengeful spirits in the raging flames. The remaining survivors would suffer from PTSD for the rest of their lives, fearing the sight of towering, surging fires.
After crossing four-fifths of the Australian continent, the high-and-mighty Herrscher of Fire was stopped by the Savior shrouded in frost.
No one could describe how spectacular that battle was. Raging flames devoured the sky, yet ice and snow enveloped and froze them before the fires could be extinguished, even leaving unquenched flames trapped within the blocks of ice.
The pitch-black path the Seventh Herrscher had walked was covered by snow, transforming into an extreme landscape of a different kind.
That unspeakable ability to manipulate ice and snow even surpassed that of the former Fifth Herrscher.
That was the Savior created by humanity. After half a century of research, they had finally turned the Honkai completely to their own use; a man-made god was about to pass judgment on the villain of destruction.
But none of that had anything to do with Hua.
She pushed aside a corner of the ruins, her dust-covered face searching in the dim light. Soon, she discovered a person buried under a collapsed wall.
Hua stepped forward to lift the wall, intending to call the emergency squad, but when she saw the person's lower body turned to powder beneath the structure, she stopped her hand in silence.
She knelt down and closed his eyes; it was the only thing she could do for him.
Hua had seen countless corpses here, but even more often, not even a corpse was left behind.
The destructive power of the Seventh Herrscher was unpredictable. In this Honkai eruption, not even Honkai beasts were born, because the all-consuming flames would draw all living creatures into them, regardless of friend or foe.
Only in the ruins after the Seventh Herrscher had rampaged would rare Honkai beasts be born due to the Honkai energy, while most potential hosts who could be eroded didn't even have the chance to turn into Honkai beasts.
Hua leaned against a blackened broken wall, listening to the sound of energy collisions coming from afar. Now, she no longer felt that heart-burning heat; in its place was a bone-chilling frost.
This meant that Kevin had gained the upper hand.
Humanity had defeated the Honkai once again.
But Hua could only stand here in a daze.
She didn't see the moment Himeko turned into a Herrscher, nor could she see the moment Himeko died.
It was as if it were all just a dream to her—both the meeting with Himeko and now her departure. Like everyone else she had lost before, Himeko vanished like a bubble.
The things Himeko had said, her habit of drinking, her boisterous yet reliable personality, and the smell of alcohol that dissipated every time she affectionately hugged her...
All of it was erased from this world, pointlessly.
In the early stages of the Seventh Honkai Eruption, the nearest branch was the 19th Branch. Logically, when the Herrscher was born, the 19th Branch should have been the first to bear the brunt. However, the Seventh Herrscher changed her route, avoiding the 19th Branch and giving them time to retreat.
There was no reason for the Seventh Herrscher to avoid the 19th Branch, just as she had no reason to let Lin go.
But Hua's intuition told her that the Seventh Herrscher was intentionally staying away from them.
Why?
Hua wanted to personally ask that Seventh Herrscher if she still remembered her, if she could still call out her name.
And... was she still Himeko?
But Hua couldn't go.
She could only stand here, waiting for the news that Kevin had subjugated the Seventh Herrscher.
This was not a beautiful story; it wasn't even a tragic one. Reality was just reality, devoid of the drama of a story.
Just as a person named Himeko once stood here.
Now, there was nothing left.
Amidst the starlight across the sky, humanity obtained a frigid dawn.
...
Kevin lowered his hand, and the overflowing chill began to retract.
The incarnation of destruction was nailed to a human building.
This battle had been arduous, not only because of the Seventh Herrscher's terrifying destructive power but also because of his own uncontrollable ability—the frozen land stretching for hundreds of kilometers was proof.
But he had still won.
Humanity had still won.
All communication equipment had been destroyed in the previous battle, but Mei would soon detect that the Herrscher's Honkai energy reaction had disappeared. Until then, he could stay here... and do whatever he wanted.
So, he looked at the corpse of the Seventh Herrscher, the person who had existed ever since he and Mei joined Fire Moth.
They had met at a ball; Kevin still remembered it was the ball after the Third Honkai Eruption ended.
Himeko, who had been in Fire Moth the longest, looked no different from the first time they met.
But Kevin had become the Fusion Warrior who killed her with his own hands.
Kevin didn't feel much grief. Perhaps it was because there wasn't much of a connection between him and Himeko to begin with. She was Lin former captain, Hua's guide, and a warrior with a good reputation in Fire Moth; he only encountered her occasionally because of Lin.
Besides that, nothing else?
But Kevin didn't think he was such a cold-blooded person. Even if a stranger died, he should feel a bit of sadness.
Perhaps it was just that he couldn't feel grief for a Herrscher. The corpses under her feet were enough to fill an ocean, and everywhere she passed became a dead land—why have any sympathy for a monster that attempted to destroy humanity?
But Himeko was Himeko, and the Seventh Herrscher was the Seventh Herrscher. Kevin would never consider them the same person. When Himeko turned into the Seventh Herrscher, she was already dead. He would not believe that the Seventh Herrscher still harbored any of Himeko's consciousness.
This was the lesson he had learned from the Sixth Herrscher.
Then what was it? What caused him to stand here so hollowly?
Kevin thought of Lin stepping into the operating room; his eyes had contained something he had never seen before.
Kevin understood.
Lin had wanted to personally subjugate the Seventh Herrscher; he wanted to personally grant Himeko release.
But Lin didn't do it; he didn't even have the qualification to step onto the battlefield.
Kevin calmly walked toward the corpse of the Seventh Herrscher, knelt on one knee by her side, and reached out to close her blank eyes.
During the Project Soldier surgery, he had lost his body temperature, but that was perhaps only a small part of what he had lost.
Snap.
Kevin's hand stopped.
From the corner of the Seventh Herrscher's eye, a frozen droplet fell and hit the ground.
That tear had not been burned away by the fire.
Yet, in the cold, it lost its form.