Chapter 219: Rabble
The Herrscher of the Legion wanted to fight back, but the Valkyries had already deployed the specially formulated Gatling rounds loaded with Honkai-clearing reagent — and on top of that, the reagent grenades that had detonated in their hands moments ago had already done their work.
The result was that the puppets couldn't muster a shred of Honkai energy for combat. Only the Herrschers standing at the rear, who hadn't been hit yet, still had any energy to draw on — and even they weren't thinking about fighting. They were thinking about tearing open a rift to the Theater of Domination and running.
It was a trap. They needed to get out. They had no intention of dying here alongside everyone else. But before they could tear the rift open, Little Senti and the others were already on top of them.
Irene stood atop a cargo crate with Rita at her side. Irene let out a low whistle. "That worked even better than I expected. Dr. Magi really did come up with something good."
"I heard Dr. Magi is with you now, Miss Irene?" Rita glanced at her with something like curiosity. "I wonder how the Doctor is getting on over at Anti-Entropy."
"Doing great." Irene nodded. "With these reagents, I think Schicksal should have no trouble handling the vast majority of Honkai Beasts."
"Against Herrschers, though, it's still a different story."
Put plainly: Herrschers were resistant to ranged weapons — or had ways of countering them. Landing a direct hit on a Herrscher with a projectile in a straight-up fight was an extraordinarily difficult proposition.
It was almost only possible through ambush, or when a Herrscher had already been weakened to a certain degree. Only then could this kind of approach even begin to work.
Vill-V's Gatlings and turrets, for instance — those were always designed for Honkai Beasts. Never for Herrschers. Even Vill-V herself would admit that.
What could actually trade blows with a Herrscher was always something operating on the same principle — like the Moonlight Throne, purpose-built against Honkai energy, or attacks carrying equivalent Honkai energy output.
A reagent loaded into a physical bullet — trying to actually hit a Herrscher with that was one thing. Getting it to take effect was another problem entirely.
Virtually every Herrscher had a counter for it. The Herrscher of the Void had teleportation. The Herrschchers of Thunder and Flame could simply carpet-bomb the area and vaporize any physical carrier. The Herrschchers of Ice and Wind could project their Authorities outward and simply refuse to let the reagent near their bodies.
The Herrscher of Rock, who could manipulate gravity, went without saying. And as for himself — as the Herrscher of Death, the black mist alone was the undisputed apex predator of anything physical.
There was simply no getting close to them.
The Herrscher of the Legion technically had counters too — only, they had already been ambushed once, then hit with a preemptive strike, and by that point they simply couldn't rally any response.
And besides, the reagent rounds were only there to neutralize. The ones actually doing the heavy lifting were Little Senti and the others.
"So, Rita — if you're having any thoughts you shouldn't be having, I'd drop them." Irene looked at her. "Herrschers were never easy to deal with, were they?"
"Miss Irene worries too much. Rita has no such thoughts." Rita smiled. How could she? This was a principle she understood perfectly well as vice-captain of the Immortal Blades.
Conventional firepower was nearly useless against Honkai Beasts. Only specialized ranged attacks could be effective against them — which was exactly why Valkyries carried weapons and closed in for melee in the first place.
It wasn't that they didn't know how to use ranged weapons or lacked firearms. It was simply that even a Honkai Beast could charge through a line of fire without much trouble if it put its mind to it.
Meanwhile, in a corner that seemed to have been forgotten by everyone, a cluster of puppets had apparently at last shaken off the reagent's effects. Working together with great effort, they tore open a rift leading to the Theater of Domination.
They didn't bother calling out to any surviving allies. They were only thinking about themselves — about squeezing through that opening. But just as they were about to do exactly that, a mocking voice rang out from behind them.
"Thanks for holding the door for us."
The words had barely left Sirin's lips when two Lances of the Void came slicing in from the side, punching clean through the skulls of several puppets. Starved of its supply, the rift immediately began to collapse.
Sirin thrust out her hand at once and seized control of the rift, wrenching it back open by sheer force, exposing the grand interior of the Theater of Domination beyond. The people inside the Theater naturally noticed their entrance had been commandeered by something else, and immediately moved to seal it shut.
But Sirin, as the Herrscher of the Void, outclassed every one of them in this particular domain by an immeasurable margin. Even with every surviving Herrscher of the Legion straining in unison, they could not wrest control back from her.
Once the remaining Herrschers of the Legion had been dealt with, the group rushed in together, piling through the rift Sirin had torn open. Irene leapt down from the cargo truck and jumped straight through.
They stood in a corridor built of stone, looking at the puppets ahead of them — whose expressions, it had to be said, were remarkably sour for dolls. Getting a sour expression out of a puppet was not usually an easy thing to observe.
The Herrscher of the Legion had absolutely no desire to fight this many Herrschers at once. Snatching one or two Authorities might have been worth it — but the problem was they were still a blank slate at this point.
And now they were being blocked at the door.
The Theater of Domination shuddered once more, attempting to sever its own tail and flee like it had before — but this time it wouldn't be so easy. Those who had come prepared immediately drew on their respective abilities.
Storms rose silently within the Imaginary Space, building into a colossal wall of wind. A solid layer of ice began to spread across the entire Theater of Domination.
The two with containment abilities encircled the Theater completely. If they wanted to leave, they were welcome to try breaking through — and even if they managed it, the group had already prepared countermeasures for that scenario.
"I think, as guests, we deserve rather more attentive hospitality." Within the black mist, Irene's voice rang out, and a brand-new formal garment materialized upon her in an instant.
Unable to escape by relocating the Theater of Domination, the Herrschers of the Legion immediately decided to simply abandon it and rip open space to flee.
But the space around them felt as though a massive lock had been clamped onto it — there was no forcing it open. High above, Sirin crouched in the air, her eyes fixed on them with open provocation.
She'd been playing with spatial teleportation and Imaginary Space since before these people even existed. And besides, she'd done her homework since then — she was now a dual Herrscher of Void and Reason.
"When guests have arrived, how can the hosts leave?" Irene's unhurried voice drifted up from behind the two Herrschers of the Legion who had just been about to make their move.
An irresistible gravitational force slammed down on their skulls from behind, smashing both of them bodily into the floor. Black mist curled and coiled around the shattered remains of the puppets.
Across the room, Little Senti was laughing wildly, hefting her greatsword and charging straight in — looking nothing at all like the Herrscher of Sentience and everything like a pure berserker.
After reinforcing the spatial locks once more, Sirin drifted back serenely into the depths of consciousness and passed control to Kiana — who accepted it without hesitation, wreathing herself in flame.
The sight was almost a mirror image of Kalpas. It seemed she'd learned quite a lot. With her entire body blazing, Kiana plunged downward and crashed into the midst of the Herrscher of the Legion crowd.
Scorching flames immediately began to melt the stone floor, turning it into boiling magma. Shattered puppet parts scattered in all directions. Kiana stood up from the two broken bodies in her grip, like some fire deity, and looked around.
"Alright. Who's next?" Kiana stared down the remaining Herrschers of the Legion with a grin, and all she could feel was a bizarrely satisfying rush.
She had to admit — getting beaten by Kalpas had felt absolutely awful. But beating someone else with Kalpas's methods? That felt inexplicably, unreasonably good. Especially the part where your fist connected with someone's face.
The Herrschers of the Legion were not entirely without fight in them, but once it became clear that escape was off the table, they threw themselves into a last stand — releasing the Honkai Beasts they had captured over the past several days.
The Honkai Beasts, controlled by Imaginary Cores, surged toward the group. The Herrschers of the Legion mixed in among them, attempting to land strikes with their weakened Authorities.
Kiana grinned at the charging mass. Compared to hitting a training post, an enemy that fought back had so much more satisfying feedback. She closed her hand gently, and the dragon-shaped magma on the ground, mixed with the surrounding flames, flowed straight into her grip.
A rough but massive flaming greatsword came to rest on Kiana's shoulder. She'd originally been thinking of doing it Kalpas-style — making a pillar — but it didn't quite seem to suit her.
She wasn't great at that, but she'd stumbled onto something: she had a natural feel for heavy swords. So she switched to a greatsword. It wasn't actually a strange instinct at all.
After all, the Kaslana Gun Kata was called a gun kata, but in practice it existed entirely to serve Judgment of Shamash — and Judgment of Shamash could be condensed into a greatsword, couldn't it?
The others weren't about to be outdone either, and surged toward the Herrschers of the Legion. Irene led the charge in a resplendent white feathered gown, black-and-white wings spread wide at her back, a longsword in hand.
Like a Valkyrie descending from the heavens, she wove through the Herrschers of the Legion, and with each rise and fall of her blade, puppet heads went flying.
BOOM!!!
A thunderous concussion rolled through the entire Theater of Domination. From time to time, severed limbs and broken pieces sailed up and smashed against the walls.
Little Senti grabbed a dragon-type Honkai Beast puppet by the head and slammed it into the ground with full force, the sheer impact gouging a deep crater into the Theater floor.
"Little Senti, are you — are you actually the Herrscher of Sentience?" Mei twitched at the corner of her mouth nearby, staring at the dragon-type Honkai Beast pinned and crushed into the ground, then looking back up at Little Senti.
"Absolutely, one hundred percent genuine." Little Senti patted her chest, which held nothing at all. "What's the matter? Is there a problem?"
"No, no, there isn't." Mei shook her head. "As long as you're having fun."
Irene straightened up and surveyed the surroundings. There was not a single puppet or controlled beast left standing anywhere near her. The floor was blanketed in shattered puppet fragments and the scattered debris of shattered Puppet Cores.
Irene looked up. Not one puppet dared stand at her side anymore — and there weren't many Herrschers of the Legion left either. Those that remained stared at the battle-hungry group assembled before them.
Then, steeling themselves, every puppet simultaneously raised a hand — and drove it into their own body. They pulled out their Herrscher of the Legion Cores from within. Stripped of their Cores, the puppets crumpled to the ground en masse.
Countless tiny points of light began to converge. At that same moment, the entire Theater of Domination shook, and a massive puppet came crashing down from above — those small Cores, assembled from countless gathered fragments of light, instantly merged into it.
The fusion had barely completed when Bronya immediately blasted it into the ground with a single shot. And behind her, three fully charged Moonlight Thrones stood at the ready.
"Project Bunny, fire!"
On Bronya's command, the fully charged Moonlight Thrones unleashed their beams — thick pillars of light slamming straight into the Herrscher of the Legion, forcibly drawing the Honkai energy out from within it and dispersing it into nothing.
The Moonlight Throne could strip away roughly twenty percent of Finality's Honkai energy — granted, that was under overloaded conditions that would blow themselves out, but the combined Honkai energy of ten Herrschers of the Legion didn't even add up to twenty percent of Finality's reserves.
So before three Moonlight Thrones, the Herrscher of the Legion's assembled rabble was nothing more than a speed bump. In the light of the beams, the mob they had cobbled together was simply disintegrated — scattered into nothing.
All that remained was the drained golden Core, which clattered down onto the floor of the Theater of Domination.
Irene walked over, picked up the Core, and let out a whistle. "Just a speed bump, weren't they?"
Stripped of its source, the Theater of Domination itself began to slowly collapse and crumble. Irene turned around, took out the detector, and removed the small Herrscher of the Legion Core inside — pressing it against the Core in her hand.
Fed a trickle of Honkai energy from the supply, the Herrscher of the Legion Core immediately began to absorb, drawing in the surrounding Cores that hadn't yet had time to merge and consolidating them into one.
"Shall we?" Irene yawned, and started for the exit of the Theater of Domination, which had begun to collapse. Everyone nodded in agreement, and Sirin tore open a rift straight back to real space.
The group encountered nothing unexpected on the way out. In the original timeline, this whole affair had really only been a matter of exploiting an information gap — getting the first strike and snatching the duck's Authority ahead of schedule.
After that, Fu Hua hadn't really known how to use it, so she'd handed all of Little Senti's Authorities over, and then the Herrscher of the Legion had turned around and taken those too — which was why a Herrscher of the Legion with three Authorities had seemed so formidable.
And back then, Kiana had genuinely been in poor shape; the enemy had also been running a psychological warfare campaign. But this time, the Herrscher of the Legion hadn't even gotten two sentences out before any question of psychological warfare was moot.
Perhaps some of them had been truly innocent before becoming Herrschers of the Legion. But once they had made that choice — and had gone on to cause havoc in human society — they could no longer claim complete innocence.
A Herrscher of the Legion caught flat-footed before it had finished developing, by an entire team of Herrschers — naturally, it got run over like a speed bump. In the end, they had been nothing more than a rabble.
Back at the warehouse, the Valkyries were cleaning up the battlefield. Irene casually tossed the item in her hand to Rita. "Here's your delivery — it's part of the deal. Your Overseer will understand."
Rita looked at the device in her hands and gave Irene a nod. "Thank you, Miss Irene. Then — we'll leave Durandal in your capable hands."
Kiana, who had been puzzled about why Irene was handing a Herrscher of the Legion Core to Rita, heard her older sister's name and immediately turned to Irene with wide, questioning eyes.
"Irene-nee, what's this about?"
"A deal. Don't worry about it." Irene gave Kiana a reassuring nod. By now, Kevin should have already deposited Durandal into the Stigmata Space over at Shenchen Pharmaceuticals.
Rita glanced at the thoroughly confused Kiana. "Miss Kiana, you're going to have to change how you address Durandal, you know. Whether or not you want to acknowledge it — well, that's entirely up to you."
At Rita's words, Kiana's eyes went wide. She stared at Rita. "Wait — you know."
Rita only smiled and said nothing. Irene patted Kiana on the head. "Alright, let's go. We're heading to Shenchen Pharmaceuticals — we've still got things to do."
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