Hare and I just sat there on the prison cell bed, staring at each other for a long time. Finally, Ryn swirled his teacup, breaking the silent and awkward atmosphere.
"We're enemies, right?"
"Yes," Hare nodded.
Boom—
Ryn threw a punch at Hare, blasting straight through her and several dozen meters of wall behind her.
"If we're enemies, then there's nothing to be done." Ryn gave one last glance at Hare's remaining lower half, then turned to leave the cell.
Rita and the others were about to explore Glastonbury Tor, and the organization Hare belonged to, World Serpent or whatever it was called, would definitely make a move at this time.
Just as Ryn was about to take flight, a chill ran down his spine.
A crystal-violet spear materialized from the void and blew his head clean off.
Well, well, well. Now Ryn had well and truly lost his head.
Hare, who should have been obliterated by Ryn's punch, her shattered body re-formed into a whole, reappearing completely unharmed.
"Oh dear, I accidentally used too much force. I guess I'll have to transcribe Ryn into an Ideal as well…" Hare squatted next to Ryn's lower half, reaching out to touch his corpse, preparing to transcribe him into an Ideal as an alternative form of resurrection.
But just as Hare touched Ryn, a pair of hands cupped her head.
"Huh?" Hare's little head short-circuited. To be alive without an upper body… this was beyond the scope of a human or a Herrscher…
Crack—
Ryn twisted Hare's neck, tossed her dead body aside, and then used ten-thousand-fold gravity to annihilate her corpse until not even dust remained.
Before Ryn could even catch his breath, another spear pierced through his body.
"Alright, alright, so we're playing this game. Sis, you were annihilated to dust! You can regenerate from that?" Ryn raised his hands, his face ashen as he looked at the Hare behind him.
"It's not really regeneration, because I never died in the first place!" Hare smiled and stabbed another spear into Ryn. "I told you, we could have just stayed here peacefully until the mission was over. Why did you have to fight?"
"You mentioned a mission, didn't you? I have my mission too, sweetie!"
Ryn ignored the spears embedded in his body, reached out, grabbed Hare's arm, and ripped it off.
But in the next second, Hare's arm reappeared, perfectly intact. She grinned and stabbed another spear into Ryn's body.
Ryn's body was a mangled mess of flesh and blood. Warm blood spurted out, bathing both him and Hare until they were drenched in it.
"Hey, Ryn. A phrase suddenly came to mind—'flesh and blood devouring each other.' What do you think? Doesn't it fit our current situation perfectly?" Hare, though beaten to a pulp by Ryn, still looked at him with her gentle eyes and smile.
"If you don't know how to use an idiom, then don't. Your usage is making me feel rather disgusted…" Ryn shook his head, flinging the blood from his face.
Ryn had considered ignoring Hare and just running, but this space had been tampered with by her, and he couldn't leave easily. Even if he did, he would be shot down by her thrown spears every time.
What a trashy Herrscher transformation. Ryn now understood that Herrschers were nothing special. Even for a Herrscher, their body was just normal flesh. Once they lost the protection of their Honkai energy domain, even ordinary bullets could kill them.
And wouldn't you know it, there was a whole bunch of Honkai energy weapons specifically designed to destroy Honkai energy domains, especially Soulium, which could insulate against Honkai. Divine Keys made of Soulium could directly ignore the domain's defenses.
(In the game, the weapons held by named characters should all be Divine Keys. For example, the Herrscher of Reason's cannon is the Star of Eden, Kevin's demonic greatsword is Shuhadaku of Uriel, and Durandal's Midnight Ataegina is Abyss Flower. So I'm assuming that the weapons Kiana and Mei have are also forms of the Key of Domination, which is why they change shape according to their state of mind and abilities.)
Clearly, Hare's spear also had the ability to directly penetrate Honkai energy domains. Moreover, her attacks seemed illusory; physical laws had no effect on them. Every time she attacked, Ryn could only dodge. If he couldn't, he just had to wait to heal.
Although he didn't know what Hare's situation was, Ryn possessed the Authority of the Herrscher of Death. As long as he had Honkai energy, he was immortal.
And so, Hare couldn't kill Ryn, and Ryn couldn't kill Hare.
The two of them just kept blowing up each other's bodies, exploding and regenerating, fighting for a whole morning.
If it weren't for the Guixu Divine Turtle floating over to dispose of Ryn's severed limbs, he figured his own body parts would have filled the entire cell.
When Hare's body parts were scattered, they would disappear after a while. Ryn suspected that just as he couldn't see her Guixu Divine Turtle, she had something on her side that he couldn't see, dealing with her severed limbs.
"I'm done fighting. This is pointless." Ryn raised his hands, stopping his attacks first.
"Tired? We can take a break." Hare retracted the spears from Ryn's body, which had been turned into a pincushion. With a snap of her fingers, both she and the spears returned to their original state.
Ryn, who was still wiping his face, saw this, and his eyes lit up.
"Such a convenient ability. How do you do that?"
"Hmph, because I am an Ideal, a dream, a conceptual existence. So, for many things, I can make them happen just by thinking about them! For example, this."
With that, Hare blinked, and her form began to change. Her clothes transformed into a set of blue armor, and a quiver appeared on her back, filled with several spears.
Ryn frowned, a million curses running through his mind.
I was wondering why physical laws barely worked on you, why you could regenerate continuously just like me. I thought you had the same ability as the Herrscher of Death and something like the Guixu Divine Turtle to deal with your severed limbs, but now you're telling me you're just a dream-like existence…
"Change back." Ryn glanced at Hare with disgust. Normally, he might have been interested in her armor, but the thought of having fought with what was essentially a figment of imagination for a whole morning left him feeling a bit depressed.
"Fine, fine. I actually thought this armor was pretty cool…" Hare shrugged and reverted to her usual appearance.
Ryn used his hands as a pillow and lay on the bed, looking up at the blue sky through the ceiling that he and Hare had smashed through. He also sent a sliver of his consciousness out, possessing the little grass Ryn to check on Rita and the others.
The little grass Ryn was hopping along, following Rita and the others into the ruins, when suddenly a familiar, dumbfounded figure appeared in Ryn's field of vision.
"Nice view?" The little grass Hare waved at the little grass Ryn. "Leaving me all alone to stare into space, how rude!"
"How did you get here?" Ryn's consciousness returned to his main body, and he looked at the smiling Hare beside him, confused. "You can enter my consciousness?"
"Didn't you say I was bluffing earlier? I'm just proving it to you." Hare puffed out her chest proudly and explained seriously:
"When a person splits their consciousness, the activity of the main consciousness weakens, allowing the body's subconscious to surface and become active again. Isn't that like dreaming? When a person sleeps, the main consciousness rests, while the subconscious becomes active.
Your split consciousness is no different from a dream to me. Since I can freely enter and exit dreams, it's perfectly normal for me to appear in your little grass consciousness, right?"
"Normal my ass! Today, either you die, or I live!" Ryn leaped up from the bed, grabbing Hare by the neck and pinning her down.
This morning she was talking about having morals, and now she's casually entering people's dreams. Ryn couldn't even imagine what Hare would do at night.
"? Either I die or you live… Your words… doesn't that mean I die either way?" Hare kicked Ryn away, tilting her head in confusion.