“Happy?” Silver Wolf skipped back into the room, humming a tune Zane didn’t recognize and looking completely satisfied.
He laughed as he mixed a drink.
“Obviously.
I am the invincible Wolf Lord!” Silver Wolf lifted her chin with pride, chewing her pink bubble gum and popping a bubble with a loud smack.
Zane shook his head.
Once she reached Level 10 and unlocked her ‘Aether Editing’ ability, plus a pile of strange items, Silver Wolf’s first move was to get revenge.
Zane gave her the entire day off.
She remembered everything.
Anyone who had ever bullied her was stuck in her memory for good.
That day, Punklorde’s underground forums went wild.
Some people woke up to find themselves teleported onto the mechanical claws of a waste processing plant, dangling helplessly in midair.
Others watched millions of virtual credits vanish from their accounts, leaving behind a solitary ’10’.
(Silver Wolf was ten years old and had just reached Level 10, so leaving ten credits seemed fitting.) Even more humiliating, some people had their social media pages suddenly plastered with embarrassing childhood photos of themselves running around in split-pants.
Silver Wolf let out all her frustrations that day.
The kind restaurant owner who had helped her before suddenly discovered a huge sum of credits in her account.
Return kindness to those who help you, and never forget a grudge.
—•——•——•——•——•——•— “There’s a present for you in your room.” Zane wiped down a glass and jutted his chin toward the bedroom.
“A present?” Silver Wolf’s eyes lit up.
She grabbed the freshly mixed ‘Data Storm’ cocktail from the bar and took a big gulp.
“Pfft!
Blegh!
Gross!
I really don’t get you adults.
How can you keep drinking this nasty stuff?” Her whole face turned bright red, and her tongue started to go numb.
She turned and walked into the bedroom.
A moment later…
“Ah?!
The Hacker’s Self-Mastery, File Zero: 123 Incidents, How the Prophet Was Forged…
Stupid old man, are you serious?!” Silver Wolf let out a frantic wail from the bedroom.
“If you want to be a legendary hacker, you can’t skip the theoretical basics.” Zane replied as he calmly slid a lemon slice onto the rim of a glass.
“I know, I know.” Silver Wolf grumbled softly.
Who would have thought she still had to study?
She lost interest after just a few minutes of reading and tossed the books aside.
Carrying the Wolf King’s huge left arm cybernetic, which was taller than she was, Silver Wolf grinned, made a peace sign, snapped a selfie, and sent it to the ‘Ultimate Grind Squad’ group chat.
(Image) Since it was her first ‘Elite Loot’ from a cross-level assassination, it quickly became the crown jewel of her collection.
Defeating a Level 30 Wolf King while she was only Level 9 was something she could brag about for years.
How could she pass up the chance to show off to the group?
[Elysia]: “Whoa~ That looks so cool!
But…
what exactly is it?
Is it your new wolf claw?” [Give Me Back My 76 Accounts]: “Loot from yesterday.
It’s the left arm cybernetic of a Level 30 Wolf King.” Zane had clearly picked that ID for her, so Silver Wolf saw no reason to change it.
She had already checked out the other group members.
Other than Himeko from the Astral Express and Evanescia from Planarcadia, who both lived in the same universe, she couldn’t find any records for the rest.
The rest had to be ‘aliens’ from other worlds.
[Martial Arts Addict Fox]: “Pardon my intrusion, but Miss Silver Wolf…
what level are you exactly?” At last, she had her chance to show off.
Silver Wolf’s eyes lit up right away.
[Give Me Back My 76 Accounts]: “Level 10…
No, wait, I was Level 9 at the time!
I fought that Wolf King all the way from the ‘Abandoned Factory’ down to the ‘Data Abyss’.
We brawled for four solid hours before I finally managed to kill it and hit Level 10!” Silver Wolf made the story sound much more dramatic, describing the battle as wild and dangerous.
She described how she dodged the Wolf King’s ‘Plasma Claw Strikes’.
How she leaped across suspended beams laced with razor wire.
And how she was blasted away by a sonic howl, crashing straight through three solid walls.
She added every close-call and life-or-death detail she could imagine, turning small cuts into ‘multiple broken ribs.’ Zane found all the ‘Data Abyss’ talk pretty funny, but he let her keep bragging.
It was just a little girl’s personality shining through.
She had finally unlocked the rare ‘Cross-Level Kill’ achievement, so of course she wanted to brag about it.
[Elysia]: “Whoa~ A 20-level gap!
Little Silver Wolf is super…
amazing!
That ‘mechanical arm’ looks even taller than you are.
A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR YOU!!!” Elysia was always the most supportive in the group, using just the right emoticon to keep the chat lively.
Everyone in the chat already understood what ‘Levels’ meant.
Even though Teyvat didn’t have video games, it still had board games and card games.
So, Furina knew how leveling worked.
But still…
[Furina]: “Pardon my asking, but this ‘Level’ thing…?” It made sense for a game character to have a level, but thinking about real people walking around with numbers floating above their heads just felt really strange.
She just couldn’t imagine it.
[Kiki Cat]: “Punklorde is a planet constructed entirely out of ‘data’ and ‘code’.
A person’s Level dictates absolutely everything there.” [Furina]: “Eh?
A world like that actually exists?” The hydro archon rested her chin in her hands, thinking hard.
She still didn’t really get it.
[Eva Can’t Fly]: “Yeah, little Silver Wolf is remarkable.
Slaying a Level 30 while only at Level 9 and shattering that level barrier…
You must have put in so much effort, right?
Must be nice.” …
Evanescia suddenly felt a wave of sadness.
In Punklorde, even being just one level lower usually meant getting overwhelmed by stronger opponents.
Pulling off a huge upset across tiers, like Silver Wolf did, was almost unheard of— But what about her?
She could only appear in the mortal world during the Phantasm Moon Game.
Trying to fit more than ten years of fun and beautiful sights into just twelve days—did anyone really understand how painful that was?
That suffocating feeling made her want to send Planarcadia flying into the sky.
Suddenly, Zane’s earlier words resounded in her mind: “I can take you out to have fun.” Could it really be…?
The group chat grew even more active as Silver Wolf kept bragging, but…
[Elysia]: “Huh?
Where is Kiana?
Is she actually in class right now?” [Kiki Cat]: “Well, you did call her a student.” —•——•——•——•——•——•— Right now, on the Earth of the Honkai Impact 3rd universe.
The Third Honkai Eruption in Nagazora had been raging for three hours.
The city, once full of life, was now just broken concrete and ruins.
Swarms of Honkai beasts, small and buzzing like mosquitoes, filled the gray sky.
On the ground, Templar-class beasts rampaged through the streets, ball-holding beasts threw huge boulders, and Chariot-class beasts focused on destroying buildings.
Survivors ran in every direction, their cries of pain echoing everywhere.
But the screams only drew more zombies.
Carrying rusty blades, they attacked the fleeing people, tearing them apart.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
A crossfire of bullets cut through the air again and again.
A beautiful white figure weaved through the horde of zombies, her twin ponytails flying behind her.
Kiana clenched her teeth.
Her white sailor uniform was smeared with ash and blood, and her black pantyhose were ripped in several spots.
She spun quickly, lifted her arms, and fired.
In a flash, bullets struck three zombies right between the eyes.
“Damn it…
Mei, you have to wait for me!” “If I had known, I wouldn’t have slept in.
I should have gone to school with Mei.” Kiana bit her lip, full of regret.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Her guns kept firing, sending bursts of flame from their muzzles.
After shooting down a group of zombies in her way, Kiana slumped against a wall, struggling to catch her breath.
The Eruption struck without any warning.
She woke up late and barely made it onto the tram, still chewing on a piece of bread, when the Honkai energy around her suddenly spiked to dangerous levels.
There were no sirens, no slow warning.
The whole city was thrown into chaos in a moment.
Except for her, every passenger on the tram turned into monsters in just ten seconds.
After a brutal fight, she smashed a window and escaped just as the tram derailed and crashed.
Behind her, the scene was a complete slaughterhouse.
Everywhere she looked, blood and bodies covered the streets.
Driverless cars crashed out of control, storefronts burned, and the whole city looked like the end of the world.
But there were just too many Honkai beasts and zombies.
Fighting through the city had left her more than halfway exhausted.
One kilometer.
She was exactly one kilometer away from Senba Academy.
Even with the incredible strength of the Kaslana bloodline, nonstop fighting made her arms shake badly.
On top of that, the academy had at least two or three thousand female students.
The number of zombies there would be overwhelming.
Trying to save Mei alone was just too hard.
“At least…
I have to make it to Senba Academy.” She looked up.
The last street ahead was packed with a sea of zombies.
The area around the school was a busy commercial district full of food stalls.
Because so many people used to walk there, the zombie horde was packed tightly, blocking every path like a swarm of army ants.
“Damn it!” Kiana punched the wall beside her.
The reinforced concrete cracked right away, and rubble fell to the ground.
The entire building shuddered.
The girl stared at her fist in shock.
A moment later, her eyes went wide.
A ‘Chariot-class Honkai Beast’ burst through the collapsing debris, standing as tall as a six-story apartment building.
Its huge forelegs rose high into the air, casting a shadow over her.
“!!” Kiana’s eyes shook.
She was exhausted and couldn’t move out of the way in time.
All she could do was watch as the giant legs came crashing down.
(Am I going to die?) At that moment, the image in her mind wasn’t Mei’s gentle smile or her dad’s lazy warnings.
Instead, she remembered Zane’s harsh words from the group chat.
[Simple-minded, no brain cells, thinks in a straight line, relies entirely on instinct, and gets easily hot-headed.] A bitter smirk pulled at the corner of the young girl’s mouth.
It seemed…
he was completely right.
(I think I’m going to…) (Wait!) [Kiana]: “Is anyone in the group free?!
Send someone strong!
SOS!
Save me, waaaaaah!!!
@Holy Spirit!” She suddenly remembered the group chat and used her last bit of strength to run, shouting for help through the digital interface.
She quickly took a photo of the huge Chariot-class Honkai Beast and sent it to the chat.
(Image) The once lively chat group suddenly went silent.
Zane paused.
Wasn’t this the perfect chance for Silver Wolf to gain some levels?
[Detected: The Third Honkai Eruption in Nagazora.
Generating Random Dungeon: ‘Escape from Nagazora’.] [Elysia]: “Eh?” —
Every little bit helps the story survive and grow!