Ren fired up Honkai: Civilization once again.
“Already did a Herrscher of Reason run,” Ren muttered, scanning the selection wheel of fourteen Herrscher Cores to decide his next playthrough.
“Since I picked Reason in Playthrough 1, guess I’ll go with Herrscher of the Void for Playthrough 2.”
“Kiana and Sirin…
Wait, there are this many characters to choose from?
I can even pick my future mother-in-law?!”
Ren stared in shock as he noticed Cecilia Schariac, Kiana’s mother, listed among the selectable avatars for the Herrscher of the Void Core.
Curiosity getting the better of him, he clicked on her profile details.
“Man, mother-in-law’s still got that timeless charm…” Gazing at Cecilia’s gentle smile, Ren’s inner Cao Cao couldn’t help but stir.
Returning to the character selection screen, Ren deliberated between Kiana and Sirin for a moment.
It didn’t take long for him to pick Sirin.
If he chose Kiana, he’d probably spawn right next to Siegfried, who’d be watching over her with Judgment of Shamash in hand.
If he got knocked out cold right off the bat due to a lack of Honkai energy and ended up forced down the original timeline canon, that’d be totally scamming himself.
Sirin was a way better start.
She spawns right next to a Honkai reactor to suck up energy, plus she can zip off to the Moon to claim four Herrscher Cores.
And if Welt pops over to the Moon again, that’s a straight-up 6-Core Opening!
“Honkai, launch!”
A New Honkai World
Still the familiar, desolate snowscapes of Siberia, except this time it was Babylon Labs, established by Schicksal.
Sirin opened her eyes.
Her pupils shone like pure, brilliant gold.
Right now, she was sitting inside a filthy, rancid cage, surrounded by several battered young girls covered in bruises and cuts.
Blood stained the concrete walls—some left behind as desperate drag marks where victims tried to cling to life, others splattered in gruesome clumps where girls had smashed their heads against the wall in final despair.
The stench of blood mixed with foul grime was unbearable, yet the test-subject girls trapped inside showed zero reaction.
Young girls who should have been enjoying their youth were lying like corpses, their eyes hollowed of all hope.
To them, even death had become a luxury.
Outside their cell, dozens of other cages held more victims.
Most had lost the strength to scream or cry, leaving only a few newly captured girls softly weeping in the dark.
There wasn’t a single guard posted outside.
The researchers running this laboratory didn’t believe for a second that these fragile test subjects could ever escape.
Sirin looked back.
If not for their faint, barely audible breathing, she would have assumed they were already dead.
“Do you want release?” she asked softly.
Silence.
Their souls were already dead.
“Do you want revenge?”
A few pairs of eyes shifted, looking over at Sirin—dressed in tattered rags and covered in wounds just like them.
Yet those radiant, non-human golden eyes burned with an impossible light.
“The price…
will be your lives.”
Sirin’s voice echoed calmly through the dim cage.
One girl slowly dragged herself forward.
She didn’t even have the strength left to lift her head, murmuring in a faint, bittersweet whisper.
“Thank you…”
The girl closed her eyes, her breathing coming to a peaceful halt.
Yet as she passed away, a soft smile rested on her lips.
“Make those…
bastards…
pay…” another girl rasped through gritted teeth, her voice trembling with hatred.
Sirin walked over and touched her forehead as well.
A silver-haired girl watched the scene, quiet sobs wracking her small frame, though no tears came—she had run dry long ago.
“I, I don’t wanna die…
but it hurts so much…
it hurts…”
Sirin stepped closer.
The silver-haired girl looked up.
Sirin crouched in front of her and gently stroked her hair.
“You will be reborn as new life.”
“Th-Thank you…”
The girl smiled through her sorrow and closed her eyes.
A second later, she fell into a deep sleep.
Every single girl in the cage chose to surrender her life to Sirin, and Sirin intended to keep her promise of giving them rebirth.
Even if it was just a spontaneous whim, she possessed the power to make it happen.
Even if her methods were still unrefined.
Walking to the cell door, Sirin glanced around the room.
She casually flicked her finger toward the iron bars.
In an instant, the doors, walls, and barriers of the entire block vanished as if erased from existence.
Yet none of the girls in the surrounding cages had the strength left to stand up.
The disappearance of their prison walls elicited no reaction whatsoever.
“I shall bring you release.”
“I shall deliver your revenge.”
“The price is your life.”
“And in return, you will welcome a new birth.”
Sirin’s voice echoed in the mind of every captive girl.
After endless, excruciating torment, they were completely broken and numb.
They had watched their peers dragged off for experiments and returned mutilated; they had seen the prettier girls brought back with violated, broken bodies; they had watched young lives wither and die in this lightless hellhole.
Most couldn’t speak or cry anymore, but inside, they burned with cold fury.
“Kill them!
You have to kill them!”
“Take whatever you want!
Just make them pay!”
A few girls glared upward at Sirin, shouting back with venomous resolve.
“Sleep, sleep…”
“May you have a sweet dream…
Dream of everything you love, and forget all the pain you suffered.”
Sirin began to hum softly.
Amid her gentle melody, the girls slipped away one by one into everlasting sleep.
A cheerful, fairytale-like lullaby echoed through the subterranean dungeons.
A moment later…
“How was my singing?
Pretty good for making it up on the spot, right?” Sirin tilted her head with a smirk, then flicked her wrist, pulling all their bodies into the Imaginary Space.
The Honkai energy harvested from these girls was pitifully small—barely enough to cover the cost of opening the portal to collect their bodies.
Not that Sirin cared.
She had already decided to build a kingdom of her own.
Naturally, her subjects wouldn’t be mere humans—humans weren’t worthy of being her people anyway.
Only those truly reborn into new life deserved that right.
“What kind of Queen wouldn’t have loyal subjects and an army?”
“And my domain…
shall be the vast, infinite Imaginary Space.”
Whispering quietly to herself, Sirin walked toward the exit of the prison.
The heavy iron gate locking down the cage was extraordinarily thick.
Anyone without lab clearance couldn’t hope to open it.
Though to Sirin, any door might as well be made of paper.
Right at that moment, however, the heavy gate suddenly swung open, bringing Sirin face-to-face with a group of researchers who were just about to enter the holding area.
The researchers froze instantly.
“Oopsie?”
Sirin blinked her brilliant golden eyes.
“Bleh!”
She stuck out her tongue playfully and crossed two fingers into a pair of scissors.
Snip snip!
“AAAGHHH!”
Before the researchers could even realize what was happening, an excruciating agony exploded between their legs.
Synchronized in their agony, they all collapsed, clutching their crotches and wailing uncontrollably.
“Having fun yet?”
…
“Yikes!”
Ren felt his legs clamp shut tightly.
Even he had to admit that doing something like that was…
well, a bit much.
But man, it was hilarious!
Plus, it was by far the most effective, soul-crushing strike against these scumbags who treated human lives like trash.
Granted…
just watching it gave him some serious phantom pain.
What he didn’t know, however, was that the microscopic nanobots floating in the air were recording every single second of it.
Meanwhile, on the other side…
Bronya sat in the brand-new CEO office of miHoYo, crossing her supple, shapely legs as she watched the surveillance feed beamed over by the nanobots.
Standing right before her were the three founders of miHoYo—including Da Wei—alongside every single executive in the company.
Their heads were bowed low toward the floor, cold sweat pouring down their faces in buckets.