Ten minutes later, outside the Emergency Operation node – Moss Hand.
“Uh, Sister Selia…” Yaya’s voice carried a hint of confusion, “What does ‘you absolutely must not get injured’ mean?”
“If Sister Selia is giving this instruction because she’s worried about Bronya, then it might not be necessary.
Bronya was a mercenary when she was little, and pain and injury are commonplace for Bronya.”
“Worrying about you is one aspect, but more importantly, in the Schicksal Snowfield, once you get injured, it will trigger a series of chain reactions.”
“Of course, even if you’re not injured, strange situations will arise after a certain depth into the snowfield, but injuries will cause these situations to arrive prematurely.”
That’s right, what Selia was referring to was the Collapse Paradigm in the Schicksal roguelike.
As mentioned before, the system’s trials did not have a quantified health point setting, nor was there a concept of ‘leaking’ enemies.
Instead, the health and shield values were reflected in Selia and her squad members.
The result of this reflection was that health and shield values would proportionally increase Selia and her squad members’ self-healing, physical fitness, stamina recovery, and armor strength.
However, whenever a member took damage, the collapse degree would increase by an equivalent amount, depending on the severity of the damage.
This rule essentially made Selia abandon the tactic of trading damage for kills.
Trading damage for kills?
For what?
After one round, the country would be paved with collapse.
So Selia’s strategy has always been to be as cautious as possible.
Taking it slow doesn’t matter, as there’s plenty of time.
Plus, her high speed gives her ample mobility to slowly wear down enemies.
“Is that so?” Bronya tilted her head.
“Although I don’t quite understand what Sister Selia means, Bronya will do as instructed.”
“Alright, then I’ll go over the battle plan,” Selia said.
Selia opened the detector map and zoomed in on the map of the emergency combat node marked in red.
On the right side of the map, the number and types of enemies within this node were displayed.
“Within this node, the most troublesome enemies are these Crossbowmen and these three Veteran Butchers wielding large axes.”
“The former’s sneak attacks can easily increase our chances of getting injured, and the latter’s reinforced bodies also pose a significant threat.”
“So we need to prioritize eliminating these Crossbowmen, right?” Bronya looked at Selia.
“Exactly.
These nodes have a mechanism that prioritizes locking onto the first person to enter their alert range.
So I need you to go in first to draw aggro, then I’ll quickly take out these Crossbowmen, and then pull the monsters in batches to deal with them.”
“Bronya understands.
It’s like playing a game, right?
Except this time, Bronya needs to be the main tank and hold aggro.” As an expert gamer, Bronya easily grasped Selia’s idea.
“Yes, what you need to pay attention to is never to be greedy for damage.
Just focus on controlling Project Bunny for defense.
Avoiding injury is the most important thing.”
“Bronya understands.”
Rubbing Yaya’s little head, Selia flashed a few times, arriving at a position she had scouted earlier.
Then, from a distance, she gestured to Bronya, indicating she could “start the fight.”
Bronya nodded.
The cannon in her hand fired three long-charged shells simultaneously, while the exoskeleton on her legs unleashed a powerful thrust, propelling Bronya directly into the settlement.
At this moment, Project Bunny also instantly appeared from behind Bronya, its massive mechanical arm shielding Bronya.
Its other hand picked up a Syracusan Thug holding a small knife nearby and directly threw him into the crowd.
This is where the value of emergency combat became apparent: despite suffering such severe injuries, the Thug slowly got back up a few seconds later.
Although he wouldn’t be combat-ready for a while, recovery was clearly only a matter of time.
On the other side, upon seeing Bronya’s intrusion, Selia also moved at almost the same time.
While the close-quarters combat environment within the settlement restricted Bronya’s advantage in suppressing fire, it also limited the enemies’ vision.
In the blind spots of the various Thugs, a red blade shadow quietly passed through.
Relying on her previous experience of entering this node multiple times, Selia easily found the Crossbowmen hidden on the rooftops and in alley corners.
As a Crossbowman fired his first arrow and began reloading the second, Selia’s figure suddenly appeared behind him, and the Crescent Rose in her hand heavily struck down from the back of the Crossbowman’s head.
However, the Crossbowman’s vitality far exceeded Selia’s expectations.
Despite the deep, bone-visible gash on his back, the Crossbowman managed to reload with difficulty, trembling as he activated his Originium Arts, aiming the arrow at Selia.
“Tsk, my assassination was so cool, but you not dying for me makes things difficult.”
Selia’s figure instantly blurred.
This time, the scythe blade’s angle was from bottom to top, and while striking, it directly knocked the Crossbowman’s crossbow out of his hand.
The Crossbowman, severely wounded both front and back, was now completely silent.
Selia flicked the liquid from her scythe blade backward, and before the Thugs could surround her, she left the scene, heading to the next Crossbowman’s location.
“Clang—”
The Veteran Butcher’s massive axe heavily struck Project Bunny’s arm guard, emitting a clash of metal.
The immense force from the arm made Bronya involuntarily take a step back.
Project Bunny swept its arm, just forcing the axe back, when the next attack already arrived.
Facing encirclement by multiple enemies, Bronya initially maintained her composure, but when the other two Veteran Butchers joined the fray, Bronya’s situation became precarious.
Fortunately, Selia had also dealt with the Crossbowmen by this time.
With a muffled gunshot, a Veteran Butcher’s raised axe paused, then he knelt on the ground.
A bloody hole had been blasted open in his left leg by a bullet.
Bronya immediately felt a sense of relief, and she rallied her spirits, controlling Project Bunny’s defense to be impenetrable.
After firing a few shots from a distance, Selia did not continue with long-range harassment.
Instead, she performed a leap while continuously firing several shots from the Crescent Rose behind her.
Using the recoil, she accelerated several times, rushing towards Bronya’s position.
Just as she had killed the Crossbowman, inspired by some phenomenon on the Crossbowman’s body, Selia had thought of a new use for Honkai Energy materialization.
She was now planning to test it on these enemies.
Under Bronya’s puzzled gaze, Selia rapidly approached, but instead of using her high output advantage to first clear the weaker Syracusan Thugs around her, she went straight for a completely healthy Veteran Butcher.
Of the three Veteran Butchers currently on the field, one was entangled with Bronya, and another had been shot in the knee and was temporarily incapacitated.
Facing two Veteran Butchers was not too dangerous a situation for Bronya.
So Selia’s objective at this moment was very clear: she had a way to directly eliminate a Veteran Butcher!
It might not seem tempting right now but who knows what the future holds?
“And If you’re enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!”