Honkai World, Nagazora City.
A young man with long black hair walked through the streets of this long-unseen city.
"Haaah~~ It feels unexpectedly peaceful here."
After slicing off a piece of the Heaven's Feel and implanting it into Mash's body, the young man had decisively brought about the advent of the Honkai in the Type-Moon world. Now, he took a breath of the air, which was somewhat lacking in magical energy, and sighed with emotion.
"What's peaceful or not peaceful about it?" Ling, who had descended with him, retorted.
"For you, as long as an old lover isn't chasing you with a knife, even the end of the world would count as a peaceful day."
"So, aren't I running around right now precisely to avoid getting the hatchet?"
Although he had said he would introduce the girls from the Honkai world to Alice and Aoko, the man had instead run for the hills immediately after bringing the Honkai over. He rolled his eyes.
"I still have girls on this side I haven't settled things with. If I let them meet rashly, I'll crash and burn for sure."
"Are you talking about that pitiful child, Raiden Mei?"
The system's voice, which vaguely remembered the name of the girl who was engaged to Li Zihan, sounded a little strange.
That child could practically ask Otto to be her godfather and inherit the position of Schicksal Overseer. As Li Zihan's fiancée, if the green hat on Miss Mei's head could materialize, it was estimated that even with the body of the Herrscher of Thunder, she'd get cervical spondylosis from the weight.
"That's why I'm going to give her a proper explanation next," the young man, who was now planning to propose directly to Miss Mei, said with great seriousness.
"What kind of explanation?"
"That's a secret for now."
The young man, who was probably going to give Mei a surprise, smiled faintly.
"Alright, let's not talk about this."
"What's the reward for completing the mission this time?"
"It's a self-selection gift pack."
The system's honest reply left Li Zihan a little stunned.
The so-called reward of finding a suitable power system was a self-selection gift pack?
"Sorry, I really couldn't find any systems like Joyful Union or anything."
The system, which had apparently listened to a certain someone's wish and had genuinely searched for tantric or dual cultivation methods, apologized to its host.
"With no other options, I could only find three power systems with a relatively high compatibility with you for you to choose from."
Ehhh—
No Joyful Union or dual cultivation methods?
Li Zihan was a little disappointed. But it wasn't the first time the system had wavered between being awesome and useless; he was getting used to it.
With this thought, he casually opened the so-called three-choice gift pack.
And then—
He froze.
Written on the self-selection gift pack were the words: "Shinza System Self-Selection Gift Pack."
Hey, hey, no way.
The three major systems from the Shinza Series, a franchise that mass-produces psychopaths, paranoiacs, and chuunibyous?
A strange feeling that this reward was a bit… bizarre washed over the young man as he opened the system's gift pack.
Then, three options emerged.
[Law of the First Heaven, Zarathustra's Precepts.]
[Law of the Second Heaven, Satanel's Ware-Ryoku.]
[Law of the Fourth Heaven, Mercurius's Demon-Man Forging.]
Emmm…
They were all power systems used or created by psychopaths.
Zarathustra, the ultimate scumbag who, wanting to see "unique" souls, divided the world into good and evil and carved the instinct to "kill the opposing faction" into the nature of all things, making it a priority even over "survival."
Satanel, the ultimate paranoiac who, having witnessed a world where "good cannot be protected, and evil cannot be eradicated," carved "Original Sin" into the human body, turning everyone evil so that evil could be used to control evil.
And Mercurius, who "refuses to accept any ending he doesn't approve of," making the world revolve around his own desires in an infinite loop.
"I get the feeling you're calling me a psychopath."
Li Zihan muttered, feeling that the system placing the powers created by these three before him was some kind of insinuation.
"It's not that I'm calling you a psychopath, but…" the system said, its tone extremely strange.
"The powers from the Shinza Series are actually quite compatible with you."
"I'm not that much of a psychopath."
The young man grimaced and said. Then, he began to think.
The Precepts could be seen as a high-spec version of a geas. The more extreme the vow, the more terrifying the power gained. For example, the Killing Princess from Dies Irae made a vow to "not resist any attack," and in return, she gained an immortal power that could defend against even universe-destroying attacks.
The childhood friend of the Second Heaven's ruler, Satanel, made a vow of sacred devotion: she could only have sex with enemies, and any enemy who slept with her, so long as they had not reached the level of the Throne's ruler (a transcendent being), would die instantly.
Satanel's Ware-Ryoku, on the other hand, was a completely indefensible, abnormal power that directly twisted the laws of the universe. It shattered the enemy along with the laws of their location, and each use caused the universe to shrink. At Satanel's level, a single sword swing would directly result in the universe's demise.
And then there was Mercurius's method of Demon-Man Forging, which seized the souls of others and converted them into one's own power, honing oneself with them, and ultimately overwriting the universe with one's own paranoia.
They were all systems with a strong chuunibyou flavor, and they were all terrifying.
So thought the young man, whose highest-level exposure to raw output so far had been Goetia's Humanity Incineration Cannon.
A vow that exchanged extreme restraint for a powerful but unknown blessing.
A difficult-to-control "Ware-Ryoku" that pushed the universe one step closer to destruction with every use, a power even Satanel himself couldn't properly manage.
And a four-stage process of eternal destruction, where the first three stages were still in the realm of anti-personnel or anti-fortress, but the fourth stage—Emanation—rewrote the laws of the universe according to the user's wish.
"Can I have them all?" Li Zihan asked his system with great seriousness.
"That is impossible."
The system, as if it had long anticipated this response, answered swiftly.
"You've already brought them out. Is there a problem with just handing them all over at once?" Li Zihan pondered for a moment, then asked.
"How is that even possible?!" the system, eternally wavering on the duality of awesome and useless, yelled.
"Reading the seed of a system requires permission! I only have permission for one! How could I possibly give you the seeds for three systems at once?!"
So the system needs corresponding permission for every action it takes? Is that how it works?
Li Zihan was lost in thought.
"In that case, if I complete another emergency mission, can I still claim a reward from this pool?"
"Probably… you can," the system's voice was a bit strange.
"Then that settles it. I'll just choose the type that can flip the table first."
The young man spoke quite naturally.