"Wh... what kind of power was that?! That's insane! I've never seen a Forte like it! Is there anything else you two are hiding? Swallowing Tacet Discords whole? Grilling Echoes over a campfire?"
Chixia's eyes were practically sparkling as she stared at the two Rovers.
Absorbing an Overlord Class Echo directly into your body.
The sight shattered every rule she knew, and the sheer spectacle of it lingered in the air like a shockwave.
Even Yangyang, composed as ever, and Baizhi, cool and unflappable, couldn't stop their eyes from going wide. They stared at the pair in open disbelief.
"Hmm, calling it a Forte doesn't feel quite right, though." The female Rover squeezed her fists, testing the strength now coursing through her, clearly stronger than before. Beside her, the male Rover wore the look of a man whose plan had come together perfectly. Of course. I'm in the male Rover's body now, so naturally Abby comes with the package.
And she wasn't wrong. In the official lore, the Rovers' Forte was Vessel of Sound, the power to contain every Frequency in the world. Brutally simple and absurdly overpowered.
But the "absorption" step? That was Abby's doing.
The Crownless they'd just fought had been converted into raw nourishment, split between him and her. In game terms, he felt like he'd leapt from a fresh level-one character to a fully maxed-out level thirty in one gulp.
"Hehe, good. This way nothing goes to waste."
She said it with genuine cheer, throwing a few test jabs that cut the air like lashes of wind, each one packed with terrifying force. She was more than satisfied. Compared to binding the Crownless as an Echo, she preferred pouring its power directly into herself.
Echoes were borrowed strength, in the end.
She'd always rather rely on what was hers.
Maybe it was instinct, something that persisted even without memories. Somewhere deep down, her body remembered that across all the journeys she'd taken, no one had ever kept pace with her. Every road ended the same way: alone.
And yet...
"Yeah, at least nothing goes to waste." He said it with the opposite energy entirely.
Getting stronger was nice, sure. But he'd wanted a Crownless Echo. Given the choice between treating it as an EXP pack or catching it like a Pokemon, he'd have picked the latter every time.
No deep reason.
He'd wanted to, and that was enough.
Because unlike the game, where you summoned an Echo for a quick skill animation and it vanished, here he could've had one trailing him like a personal bodyguard. Following him everywhere, attacking whatever he pointed at. How cool would that be?
He was already daydreaming about future fights where he'd summon a whole squad of Overlord Class, maybe even Calamity Class Echoes.
That alone would probably scare the enemy to death.
Still, if he couldn't absorb it into the Pangu Terminal for now, using it as an EXP pack was the next best thing. At least it hadn't gone to waste.
"...If you want them that badly, I'll farm them with you." She blinked, then clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Next time."
If he wanted Echoes, then she'd grind with him until they dropped. One in a thousand odds, one in ten thousand, it didn't matter. She'd make sure he got that Crownless Echo.
He looked at her, surprised by how serious her expression was. The sting of regret evaporated on the spot, and before he could think about it, he'd pulled her into a hug.
"Then it's a promise. Thanks."
"Ha, don't mention it. Since when do we stand on ceremony?"
She hugged him back without a second thought.
To anyone watching, it would have looked intimate. To the two of them, it was as natural as breathing. Not a shred of awkwardness. In a sense, what they shared ran deeper than family, deeper than lovers.
A hug like this was nothing.
Barely more than a greeting.
Yangyang and the others, however, had gone pink. Without that same instinctive closeness and Resonance the two Rovers shared, all they could see was two people wrapped in each other's arms, and the only thought that crossed their minds was...
They look so good together.
"Ahem! You Rovers really are something else." Baizhi cleared her throat. "There don't appear to be any negative side effects, but I'd still recommend a thorough examination. The Resonance medical department at the Huaxu Academy in Jinzhou can handle it. Would you be open to that?"
"Absolutely. Doctor's orders."
He smiled as he answered, genuinely curious about what was going on inside his body now. Then he noticed Baizhi staring at him with an intensity bordering on fervor, a researcher's fire burning behind her eyes.
"Baizhi?"
"On the subject of physical Echo absorption... it isn't entirely without precedent."
"Wait, there are other people who can do what they did?"
Chixia gaped at Baizhi in shock, but before anyone could respond, Yangyang's expression shifted with recognition.
"I remember now. In the opening passage of the Huanglong chapter in the Chronicle of Ages, it states: 'Thus did one descend from the heavens, the cosmos resting in their palm. They drew the husks of monsters into their flesh, condensed them into a single breath, and from that breath Pangu was born. The sky was overturned, the earth reshaped, the meridians brought into alignment, and all four corners of the world were illuminated. And so began the history of Huanglong, with the first division of the courts...'"
"!!!" The two Rovers sucked in a sharp breath in unison. Full marks for dramatic delivery, but they hadn't understood a single word.
Both of them wore the exact same expression: the bewildered old man squinting at his phone. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds impressive. Then Chixia stepped in to translate.
"Basically, a loooong time ago, someone super powerful showed up. Like, 'holding-the-universe-in-their-hand' powerful. Back before Pangu Terminals even existed, they absorbed the strongest Tacet Discord in the world using nothing but their own body and turned it into an Echo. Then they used that Echo's power to reshape the entire world, sorted out, like, the fundamental principles of reality, and that's how Huanglong's history began..."
"Oh, that makes way more sense." They nodded in unison.
But hold on... did we just have a character-break moment? He blinked at Chixia. Since when can you parse classical literature? Is this child actually a genius? Has your brain been contaminated by knowledge?
"H-hey! Stop looking at me like that! I've heard that story from the grown-ups since I was little. It'd be harder not to memorize it."
"Ah, that explains it. I was going to say."
"Mm. Chixia is still Chixia."
"You two!!"
Chixia's composure shattered. The pair were gazing at her with the gentle, indulgent smiles of proud parents, and it felt like a sword through her chest. No, two swords.
The girl puffed out her cheeks. You don't actually think I'm dumb, right...? Okay fine, maybe I am.
As if I could forget, Rover thought. During the Moon-Chasing Festival event, a certain someone named Chixia started with a grand total of three out of ten on the knowledge quiz.
Meanwhile, though Yangyang and Baizhi had long suspected something like this, they couldn't help but marvel again. The two Rovers possessed a power identical to, or at least strikingly similar to, the godlike figure from Huanglong's creation myth.
Their true identities had to be extraordinary.
Not that it changed anything about their current situation. Right now, the Rovers were two amnesiacs who needed their help, and they were also the ones who'd saved everyone from the Crownless today.
But just as the group prepared to lead the way toward Jinzhou...
"Huh? Signal's back?"
"The Etheric Sea must have fully receded. Wait, this is... a city-wide broadcast from Jinzhou City Hall? A recorded message pushed directly to every Pangu Terminal in the region? The only person with that kind of clearance would be..."
Before Baizhi could finish, a projection flickered to life above the terminal in Yangyang's hand.
A figure appeared that took his breath away.
Silver-white hair, long enough to pool at her waist, swept into twin tails that fell on either side of her. Her eyes were the color of moonlight itself: clear, luminous silver. And her face held an ethereal, otherworldly beauty that belonged somewhere beyond the mortal world.
She looked like something born from moonlight.
There was a poise to her that rivaled Yangyang's, paired with a steadiness that made you forget how young she was. A warm smile graced her lips, the kind that drew people in without trying, yet beneath it lay an effortless authority and the composure of someone who never, ever lost her footing.
She wore a striking outfit in black and white, and the golden dragon-tail ornament coiling around her waist spoke, without a single word, of a station that stood above all others.
Then her voice came through, bright and clear as music.
"To all soldiers and citizens of Jinzhou: forgive the interruption. I am the current Magistrate of Jinzhou. My name is Jinhsi."