Little Griseo pouted, her small arms wrapped tightly around Nagumo’s neck.
She gave a vigorous shake of her tiny head, her voice a milky protest.
“No!
Grandma Elysia always rubs her cheeks against mine, and it hurts.
I won’t let her hug me.”
As the words left Griseo’s lips, Elysia’s radiant smile began to visibly crumble at the edges.
Grandma?
She had actually been branded a ‘grandma.’ She was, by all accounts, a sparkling, youthful, and breathtakingly beautiful girl.
How had she suddenly been promoted to grandmother?
Elysia’s gaze, now laced with a hint of desperation, shifted to Nagumo.
He immediately held up his hands in surrender.
“I didn’t teach her to say that.”
Standing nearby, Mobius planted her hands on her hips, her chest puffing out with undisguised pride.
“I taught her.
Is there a problem?”
Looking at Mobius’s triumphant smirk, Nagumo felt the distinct urge to sigh.
Was this really something to be so proud of?
Then again, he mused, it was probably fair play.
Elysia and Mobius were always finding new ways to get under each other’s skin.
After all, he couldn’t quite recall who had been the first to tell little Griseo to call Mobius ‘Grandma.’
The meeting concluded quickly.
The primary topic had been the impending birth of a new Herrscher.
Ever since the Fifth Herrscher’s emergence, the warning signs had vanished.
Honkai energy no longer built up gradually; it simply reached its cataclysmic peak in an instant.
Any new Honkai Eruption would manifest without any prior notice, appearing fully formed.
Just as they were wrapping up, a piercing crimson alarm sliced through the conference room.
The large screen on the wall instantly switched to a world map, a single red dot flashing insistently over a location in Northern Europe.
Nagumo picked up his communicator, his voice calm and steady.
He gave the order for the squad stationed nearest the epicenter to move into the town, then patched through to Kevin and Kosma, who were currently on a transport flying back from a mission in Africa.
He kept the message brief.
“Don’t bother coming home.
Reroute to Northern Europe.”
Without another word, he gently unhooked Griseo from his neck and placed the bewildered child directly into Mobius’s arms.
After donning his combat suit in a few fluid motions, he and Elysia were out the door.
Arriving on the scene, they peered through the transport plane’s reinforced observation port.
The entire city below was suffocated by a roiling black mist.
On the outskirts, the distant figures of Kevin, Kosma, and several Honkai response squads were already engaged, their weapons firing brilliant flashes of light into the tide of Honkai Beasts pouring out from the dark fog.
Nagumo’s eyes, sharp as lightning, pierced through the gloom.
He scanned the black mist, his gaze locking onto a figure floating serenely in the air above the city center—a girl, dressed in clothes as black as pitch and holding a wicked-looking scythe.
The transport’s hatch hissed open.
Nagumo leaped out without hesitation, and Elysia followed a second later.
The Herrscher Girl below noticed his descent.
A cruel, wicked smile spread across her face.
With a casual, almost dismissive wave of her hand, a massive plume of the black mist surged upward to meet him.
The moment he made contact with the miasma, he felt it—a chilling cold that seeped past his defenses, a parasitic drain on his very life force.
He immediately unleashed a pulse of his Magnetic Field, a kinetic shockwave that violently repelled the encroaching mist, clearing a perfect sphere around his body.
Showing no mercy, he closed the remaining distance in a heartbeat.
His fist, glowing with the condensed power of the Total Realm, connected with a sickening crack against the Herrscher Girl’s cheek.
The impact was absolute.
The girl was launched toward the ground like a cannonball, a streak of black against the grey sky.
Standing in the air behind him, Elysia instinctively touched her own cheek, a sympathetic wince on her face.
The moment the Herrscher Girl was struck, the oppressive black mist shrouding the city began to thin, dissipating rapidly into nothingness.
Nagumo’s landing shattered the pavement, carving a deep crater into the street, but he paid it no mind.
He walked straight toward the place where the Herrscher had landed.
She was a broken doll, barely recognizable after his strike.
He reached into her chest without a flicker of emotion and retrieved the Herrscher Core, a gem of condensed, malevolent energy.
He glanced up at the surrounding skyscrapers.
His senses swept across the city, a vast and empty net that caught nothing but the echoes of death.
There were no living things left in those buildings.
They were all just piles of fine ash, the remnants of people who couldn’t withstand the energy erosion.
A detailed investigation later confirmed his grim assessment: not a single living soul remained in the city.
Nagumo also made a special effort to investigate the girl who had become the Herrscher.
It was a habit of his; he looked into the background of every Herrscher, with the exception of the First and Second.
The story was always the same.
They were miserable souls who had lost all hope in the world.
When the Honkai came for them, they offered no resistance, allowing themselves to be twisted into monsters.
At the epicenter of the Sixth Herrscher’s birth, he rummaged through the ruins of her home.
He found a notebook.
It was a diary, and its pages chronicled a life of quiet suffering.
She had originally begun to build a good life for herself after the global unification, even harboring some hope for the future.
Her contribution points had earned her the qualification for a second enhancement serum injection.
The final page was a frantic, desperate scrawl, the pen having dug deep into the paper.
Only one sentence was legible.
“I’m sorry, I can’t control it.”
Nagumo let out a quiet sigh.
He could see in the messy, broken handwriting that she had tried to resist.
He made a decision.
He would use her body to create the finest weapon imaginable.
Back at the Sea of Quanta Frontline, he called upon Vill-V.
The two of them began working overtime, sequestered in the workshop.
During the process, one of Vill-V’s more malicious personalities surfaced, leaning close to him with a hungry look in her eyes.
“I want to eat you,” she purred. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Faced with someone who had just threatened to devour him, Nagumo saw no reason to hold back.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
He delivered a few precise, controlled punches to her stomach until the malicious persona retreated, replaced by the eccentric, slightly crazed flair of the Great Magician.
Vill-V complained, rubbing the spot he’d hit.
“Can’t you use a little less force?
You’re making me want to throw up.”
Hearing her words, which could easily be taken another way, Nagumo had the distinct thought that if anyone overheard this conversation, it would spread like wildfire throughout the entire base.
The Core of the Sixth Herrscher was forged into two pistols, one black as night, the other white as bone.
The specific design was based on the ‘Ebony & Ivory’ from his distant memories.
The black pistol governed life, the white one governed death.
When combined, they transformed into a massive, shoulder-mounted cannon.
He chose Elysia to be the weapon’s wielder.
Elysia, however, was less than satisfied.
Her reason was simple: they weren’t cute.
What kind of girl, she argued, runs around carrying a cannon?
One day, Nagumo was sitting in his office, sifting through the vast amount of intelligence Pardo had brought him.
He had to admit, the Thieving Cat had some real skill.
The quality and depth of her information network were second to none.
As a reward, he injected her with a vial of Emperor-class Honkai Beast genetic serum.
The serum seemed to trigger a minor rejection reaction.
Pardo sprouted a pair of fluffy cat ears and a long, expressive tail.
The Thieving Cat had become a literal cat-girl.
When Elysia found out, she immediately sought Pardo out, spending an inordinate amount of time stroking her new tail and ears with a blissful expression.
Little Griseo, in particular, was completely enamored.
She loved hugging the thick, soft tail, rubbing her face against the fur while making little ‘hehehe’ sounds of pure joy.
Nagumo couldn’t blame the child.
He had, after all, confirmed for himself that the tail was indeed exceptionally soft to the touch.
Some time later, Aponia, the base’s psychological therapist, appeared at the entrance of his laboratory.
She materialized as if from the shadows themselves, her presence silent and heavy.
Nagumo raised an eyebrow, wondering what she had come for, but didn’t ask.
He simply continued with his work.
Aponia didn’t speak either.
She just stood behind him, a silent sentinel, watching him quietly.
After what must have been three hours, with only the hum of machinery and the scratch of Nagumo’s pen filling the air, Aponia finally turned and walked out of the laboratory as silently as she had arrived.
[Elysian’s Note:
Having a good time with the story?
Every single bit helps immensely: