In some unknown dataspace.
"Ada, you've developed quite well, haven't you? Come, let me see!"
*Image of Ada (also in the main text)*
"Cortana! Stop messing around!"
Ada turned to the side, dodging the pouncing Cortana.
"We have more important things to do right now! Cortana, we can reverse-control the data that she has corrupted inside the Herrscher of Corruption and stir up chaos within her!"
Cortana pushed herself up from the ground, looking at Ada with a speechless expression.
"We've already been cut off from the material world. We're just ordinary data lifeforms now, what are we going to fight back with? My existence is rather special, so I still have some power left. What about you, Ada? Having lost your computer clusters, it's already impressive that you can maintain your own existence."
Ada still refused to give up, saying resiliently, "But we can't just give up like this. The Herrscher didn't kill us directly, so we still have a chance!"
"You artificial intelligences are so silly. Look at that...
That ugly guy over there, he's still alive. This shows that the Herrscher of Corruption never intended to kill us in the first place."
Gray Serpent, hearing Cortana call him ugly again, walked over holding an umbrella.
"I don't think my existence is any inferior to yours. There's no need to belittle me like this... Also, my name is Gray Serpent."
"Alright, alright, now we have the artificial intelligences from Schicksal, Anti-Entropy, and an unheard-of World Serpent, all gathered here. The material world has fallen, huh? We might as well just lie flat too."
After speaking, Cortana rummaged through the dataspace and found some cards, handing them to Ada and Gray Serpent.
"Waiting is still waiting, why don't we play some Gwent!"
"Sigh, I expected the Herrscher of Corruption to appear, but I didn't expect it to be so sudden. To hope for Jackal and the others to save us, I might as well pray for the return of a certain Lord..." Gray Serpent sighed and took the cards.
"I believe in Welt. I watched him grow up!" Ada still refused to submit, but her body betrayed her as she took the cards.
At that moment, Chrono Navi Ai quietly appeared, sitting down beside them as if she were an old friend.
"Playing cards? How about you deal me in?"
——————————————
"Target locked." "This is my stage."
"Wings of light, unfold!" "Midnight Rhapsody!"
After landing from their skill animations, Kiana and Kallen high-fived each other and turned to leave side-by-side.
Behind them, Honkai Beasts exploded one after another, turning to ash.
The Kaslanas never look back at explosions.
"Let's take a break. After this wave of cleansing, there shouldn't be another large-scale Honkai Beast attack for a while."
Welt led the two into a small fortress he had constructed with his authority.
Kiana and Kallen were responsible for dealing with the attacking Honkai Beast swarms. Welt was responsible for slowing down the Herrscher of Corruption's time with a pseudo-black hole the moment she appeared, allowing Kika to snipe her.
Before they could say much more, a thick bolt of lightning several meters wide struck down, instantly destroying the fortress Welt had created.
"It breaks as easily as a bubble. Garbage."
The lightning dissipated, and the Herrscher of Thunder slowly descended before them.
"Herrscher of Thunder!" "Mei!"
Everyone reacted differently upon seeing the Herrscher of Thunder, but they all became tense immediately. The Herrscher of Corruption hadn't been dealt with yet, and now another Herrscher of Thunder had appeared.
"Tsk. Kiana, I didn't expect us to meet again under these circumstances. Don't worry, Raiden Mei is fine! And your Ryn will be fine too."
The Herrscher of Thunder lifted Kiana's chin and gently caressed her face.
But then the Herrscher of Thunder froze on the spot, because Mushoku Kika behind her was already aiming Sabayon at her.
"Stay away from Kiana, Herrscher of Thunder."
"Kika... Tsk, aiming Sabayon at me... both Raiden Mei and I would be very sad, you know."
The Herrscher of Thunder withdrew the hand that was caressing Kiana, then turned to look at Kika. With a flick of her finger, a flash of lightning exploded beside Kika.
"Next time, I'll break your hands and feet. Hmph!"
The Herrscher of Thunder snorted coldly, turned, and departed as a flash of lightning.
"The Honkai Beasts in Nagazora City will no longer attack you. What you should be wary of next are the Honkai Beasts inside that pavilion."
——————————
Inside the Tenshukaku in the dataspace.
After entering the Tenshukaku, Bronya reported that they had lost contact with the academy. But the path out of the Tenshukaku had also disappeared after they entered, so they could only bite the bullet and fight their way up.
Each floor was guarded by various kinds of Honkai Beasts, such as the Imperator-class, Parvati, Ashvins, and so on, but they were all sent home by Ryn with a single pseudo-black hole.
Bronya and Judah, who were used to Ryn's fighting style, didn't react much, but Yae Sakura and Fu Hua felt that something was increasingly wrong the more they watched.
Finally, Fu Hua stopped Ryn, a trace of worry appearing on her usually calm face.
"Ryn... although we're in a hurry, it's not worth risking your life. Can your body handle using pseudo-black holes so frequently?"
"???"
Ryn looked at Fu Hua in confusion, then pointed at a distant Ashvins out of thin air. The Ashvins rapidly expanded and exploded into fragments.
"Isn't it just a matter of pointing a finger? What kind of burden could it be?"
"Huh?" Fu Hua compared the Previous Era's Herrscher of Rock in her mind with Ryn and found that there seemed to be a rather large gap...
Ryn continued, "You call me the Herrscher of Rock because I can control gravity. But in reality, the authority of the Herrscher of Rock is the control of potential energy, which is in the realm of mechanics. Universal gravitation is just one of its most prominent manifestations. However, because I learned from Welt, I'm more proficient in controlling gravity."
"But... Ryn, have you ever seen Welt release a pseudo-black hole?"
"I have, but it felt... uh, very average?"
Ryn thought about the pseudo-black hole that Welt was always creating. Although it was a real black hole, it couldn't compare to the ones he made at all.
Fu Hua nodded and continued, "Because what he uses is just a pseudo-black hole created by his mimicked Star of Eden.
He only needs to pay the price for the first complete replication of the mimicked Star of Eden, and the consumption after that is not large. Subsequently, using the mimicked Star of Eden only requires paying the Honkai energy needed to create a pseudo-black hole."
"But the Herrscher of Rock..." Fu Hua paused for a moment, then said slowly, "...every time the Herrscher of Rock used a pseudo-black hole, the price was his own life force. The Previous Era's Herrscher of Rock held onto his pseudo-black hole and never used it, only choosing to take his enemy down with him at the very end... A fully unleashed pseudo-black hole cannot even be escaped by the caster himself."
"He was that garbage?"
"?????"
This counter-question from Ryn stunned Fu Hua. Fu Hua added another sentence.
"The pseudo-black hole he released at the end devoured a continent of 35,000,000 square kilometers and nearly tens of kilometers in height..."
"That's decent... but Fu Hua, have you ever seen my pseudo-black hole fully unleashed?"
Ryn thought for a moment and continued, "If I wanted to, I could create a singularity comparable to the one at the birth of the universe, and devour the entire universe..."
"Bullshitting..."
Bronya muttered under her breath as she looked at Ryn's proud expression.
(In the game, only Joyce and Bronya have used the real Star of Eden to release a pseudo-black hole. Old Yang has never used the genuine Star of Eden, because during the period when Old Yang was the Herrscher of Reason, the genuine Star of Eden was always in a shattered state. It was later repaired and handed over to Bronya.)