Chapter 151: Into the Belly of the Beast
Himeko caught Rovel by the sleeve, her grip tight enough to pull the fabric taut. She dragged him a few paces away from Kiana and the others, casting a quick glance over her shoulder to ensure they were out of earshot. Her voice dropped to a hushed, urgent whisper.
"Rovel, let me confirm this with you first. Is Ji Lin's Stigmata in a safe place?"
"It is inside Chiyou's body," Rovel replied, keeping his tone perfectly level. There was no point in hiding it; the truth would come out the moment the colossal Honkai beast made its next move anyway.
Himeko's brow instantly knit together, forming a deep crease. "Inside Chiyou's body? You... do not tell me you plan to run into that monster's belly all by yourself to retrieve the Stigmata!"
"That is more or less the plan," Rovel admitted, offering an apologetic smile. "But I am sorry, Himeko. I might not be able to hand the Stigmata over to you this time, because—"
Himeko cut him off with a sharp wave of her hand. "I do not care about that right now!" she snapped, her amber eyes flashing with genuine concern. "I just want to know if you can guarantee your own safety."
"Himeko, have you forgotten?" Rovel tapped his own chest lightly. "I am a Descender. Death is merely a temporary setback for us. As long as my physical body is not completely eroded by Honkai Energy, I will respawn perfectly fine in most scenarios."
Himeko blinked, then let out a heavy sigh, tapping her own forehead in frustration. Having spent so much time fighting alongside him, she frequently forgot the bizarre, reality-bending mechanics of his existence. She recalled his last medical checkup at St. Freya. Not only had Rovel's Honkai Energy infection progress plummeted to absolute zero, but his natural resistance readings were terrifyingly high.
Unless he actively flooded his own veins with the power of erosion—like he did when wielding the cursed blade Jizo Mitama—there was virtually no risk of him succumbing to corruption.
"Himeko, there is a much more pressing issue at hand," Rovel continued, his expression shifting to something far more serious. "You need to find a way to stop the Descenders from other regions from slaughtering the Descenders aligned with Shenzhou. Due to the world rules governing this space, I cannot explain the specific mechanics to you."
He met her gaze squarely. "In short, the longer this massive conflict is dragged out outside, the safer it will be for me in here. So... I am leaving the surface to you and the girls."
Himeko remained silent for a long moment, studying his face. Finally, she gave a slow, reluctant nod. "...I understand."
She took a deep, steadying breath. "Be careful down there. When this mission is over, come back and have a drink with me..."
Before she could finish the sentence, Rovel reached out and gently pressed his index finger against her lips.
"Alright, let us not set any classic death flags," Rovel said, a dry, half-joking smirk playing on his lips. "If you say things like that, I am afraid I really will not be able to make it back."
He turned away from the red-haired major and approached the raven-haired girl standing nearby. "Sorry, Mei. I have some personal matters to handle down here. You and Ms. Himeko should head up to the surface first."
Rovel stepped close, gently wrapping his arm around Mei's slender waist, and leaned in to whisper the words directly into her ear.
Mei's fingers curled inward, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the hem of Rovel's jacket. Her head bowed slightly. A bitter sense of powerlessness gnawed at her chest. It was always like this. Because she was too weak, she could only stand on the sidelines and watch as Rovel marched off into danger alone.
'If only I had power...'she thought, biting her lower lip.'If only I had the strength to sweep all these obstacles away...'
"Do not overthink things," Rovel murmured. He saw right through the dark clouds gathering in her indigo eyes. Reaching up, he gently pinched the bridge of her nose, forcing her to look at him. "It is just a division of labor. Our missions are different. Your main task right now is to figure out how to cooperate with Ms. Himeko and deal with the hostile Descenders outside."
His thumb brushed softly against her cheek. "You must be careful this time. I will not be there to watch your back."
Mei took a shaky breath, forcing the sadness out of her expression. She looked up, meeting his gaze with newfound earnestness. "...Do not worry, Mr. Ruo Bai. After all the training we have been through, I have grown much stronger too. I absolutely will not be as pathetic as I was before."
"Go on," Rovel urged, stepping back. "If you do not leave right this second, it might be too late."
As if on cue, the cavern around them groaned. The vibrations beneath their boots grew violently pronounced. Jagged chunks of rock and debris began raining from the cavern ceiling, splashing into the dark waters below. Chiyou was waking up. The colossal beast had started to move.
"Rovel... be careful," Fu Hua said. The martial artist gave him one last, deeply unreadable look before pivoting and diving gracefully into the churning water.
Kiana and Bronya quickly shouted their own hurried goodbyes, their voices nearly drowned out by the rumbling earth. Mei lingered for a fraction of a second longer. She leaned in, pressing a light, fleeting kiss against Rovel's lips, before turning and following the others into the current.
Raising his hands, Rovel tapped into his water manipulation abilities. The dark currents surged at his command, forming a powerful, concentrated geyser beneath the retreating Valkyries. The thrust propelled them upward at breakneck speed, shooting them toward the surface.
However, his current mastery over the element had its limits. The water column carried them up roughly a hundred meters before the kinetic force dissipated, leaving him unable to push them any further.
Lowering his arms, Rovel rolled his shoulders, stretching his muscles as he turned his gaze back toward the oppressive darkness of the ruins.
"Alright," he muttered to himself. "It is time to take Ji Lin home."
Without another word, he dashed forward, plunging deeper into the treacherous depths of Jiuyou.
Meanwhile, the world outside had completely descended into absolute chaos.
Almost every single Descender affiliated with the Shenzhou region had mobilized, converging on the sprawling metropolis of Nanwu City. While there were always a few eccentric outliers in any massive player base, ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of Shenzhou's Descenders felt an inexplicable, burning sense of loyalty to this virtual homeland.
Perhaps it was because the architecture, the culture, and the very air of this digital Shenzhou perfectly mirrored their real world outside the game.
, several neighboring regional factions had publicly declared their willingness to support Shenzhou in the coming war.
When the final tallies were counted, Faction 1 boasted a staggering two and a half million combatants!
Even in the worst-case scenario, where they would be forced into a brutal one-versus-three war of attrition against the allied Western regions, the odds were vastly superior to what anyone had initially predicted.
High above the chaotic streets of Nanwu City, Yuki Suou stood perched on the edge of a towering skyscraper. The fierce wind whipped her hair around her face as she stared down at the endless sea of mobilized players below.
'I still cannot contact Brother...' she thought, staring at her unresponsive system interface.
She shook her head, slapping her cheeks lightly to dispel her anxiety. "Brother must be busy with a hidden quest. He is doing something far more important right now. I have to work hard too, or I will never be able to keep up with his footsteps!"
Cheering herself on with a determined nod, Yuki bent her knees and launched herself off the concrete ledge, descending toward the battlefield in a series of agile, gravity-defying leaps.
Miles away, within the command tents of the opposing coalition, the atmosphere was thick with cold calculation.
"The higher-ups have made it explicitly clear," a heavily armored commander stated, his voice grim. "No matter the cost, we must completely crush the Descenders of Shenzhou in a single, decisive strike this time."
A strategist beside him nodded, pulling up a holographic map. "After the game's second major update, the progress of real-world synchronization has officially reached five percent. If we sit back and allow the Shenzhou Descenders to monopolize the resources here and grow stronger, our nation's position as the global hegemon will be severely threatened in the real world."
"also," another officer chimed in, tapping a blurry image on the tactical board, "that mysterious, overpowered Descender is highly likely to be a Shenzhou native. Securing a total victory in this operation will drastically cripple his leveling progress and cut off his support network."
The commander slammed his fist against the table, the metallic thud echoing through the tent. "Therefore, no matter what happens on that battlefield, we only accept absolute success. Failure is not an option!"
On the outskirts of the Shenzhou defensive lines, a different kind of tension brewed.
"Young Master, are we truly going to align ourselves with Faction 1?" a subordinate asked, his voice trembling with uncertainty.
"Obviously!" Funahiki Shin snapped. He stood with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his gaze fixed straight ahead with a mask of perfect composure.
But beneath that calm facade, his palms were slick with cold sweat.
This was a monumental gamble. He was betting his entire future, and his faction's survival, on a single variable. He firmly believed that Rovel would deliver a miracle.
This blind trust was not born of mere desperation; it was rooted in terrifying, obvious facts.
Shin knew the dark truth about his younger brother, Funahiki Gyō. After Gyō had been killed in Shenzhou, his body had been subjected to horrific cybernetic and biological modifications. Although Gyō's physical movements had been heavily restricted by the experiments, his real-world synchronization progress had skyrocketed—a fact the arrogant fool had not even realized himself.
It was not until a squad of elite assassins dispatched by the Apollo organization ambushed him that Gyō finally understood the monstrous nature of his new body. He had taken a direct, head-on hit from a high-explosive rocket, yet walked out of the smoke with nothing more than superficial skin abrasions.
According to the family's secret calculations, Gyō's synchronization progress had reached at least fifty percent at that moment. Later, bizarre energy constructs had even begun manifesting around his physical body, proving that his synchronization rate was still climbing.
By the time Gyō returned to Shenzhou, he was already capable of flawlessly executing his specially modified combat abilities. Conservative estimates placed his synchronization progress at a staggering seventy percent. He was a walking, breathing weapon of mass destruction.
And yet, even as an unstoppable monster, Funahiki Gyō had been slaughtered by Rovel.
Officially, the identity of Gyō's killer remained a mystery. The surveillance footage circulating on the dark web had been completely obscured by a dense, toxic mist.
However, Shin was no fool. After conducting his own private investigation into the real-world tracking logs, he discovered that the travel itineraries of Yuki Suou and Fang Ruobai placed them exactly in that sector during the time of the murder.
Connecting the dots was effortless. Funahiki Shin dared to bet his life that Rovel was the one who had effortlessly executed his monstrous brother.
While Shin harbored a morbid curiosity regarding Gyō's method of rapid real-world synchronization, the price was far too steep. The thought of mutating into a grotesque, inhuman weapon like his brother disgusted him to his core. He found the prospect utterly unacceptable.
His decision to ally with Shenzhou had drawn fierce criticism from the elders within his family, but Shin had already made up his mind.
He was going to cling tightly to Rovel's leg, and ride that unstoppable force all the way to the top!
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