"Awake?"
The voice of a stranger reached her ears.
The Black Princess slowly opened her eyes, biting her lower lip hard to dispel the pain that radiated from her lungs with every breath.
Her head throbbed.
Or rather, her entire body throbbed.
A violent agony washed over her soul like a tsunami crashing against a building, as if every inch of her skin, flesh, and marrow was letting out a sorrowful wail of pain.
Samadhi True Fire.
It was a divine art derived from the fusion of Buddhist and Daoist lore.
Clearly, an Authority with such an absurdly righteous and noble origin possessed a terrifying special effectiveness against races like Dead Apostles and Fallen True Ancestors.
The intense torment emanating from both her physical body and her soul caused the King of the Dead Apostles' beautiful face to twist fiercely.
But the King of the Dead Apostles was, after all, the King of the Dead Apostles, not some delicate little maiden.
Though her condition was one of unprecedented weakness, she still forced her eyes open and arduously turned her head toward the source of the voice.
Through her blurred vision, she could just barely make out a pair of golden eyes.
They were eyes that seemed to possess a demonic quality.
The briefest meeting of their gazes was enough to make one see an illusion of a star reigning over the heavens.
The rising sun.
And the sun sinking beneath the horizon.
"It seems your condition isn't very good."
As if facing a vexing problem, the youth with the golden eyes sighed, then brought his index finger to his own mouth.
His abnormally sharp canines easily pierced the skin, and a moment later, crimson blood welled from the wound.
While the Black Princess's gaze was still hazy, the youth—who was witnessing Fu Hua's Authority for the first time—used his uninjured hand to pry open her mouth and thrust his bloodied finger inside.
"...Ngh, mmph..."
The girl's eyes widened. She felt a strange, foreign object enter her mouth. His actions were far too rough, causing extreme discomfort in her delicate oral cavity and making the Black Princess want to gag.
But—
Simultaneously, there was the fresh sweetness of blood.
Blood, rich with magical energy, flowed from his finger down the girl's throat. Like the most potent of miracle drugs, the blood, imbued with a divinity intimately linked to life force, coursed through her mouth...
The King of the Dead Apostles, her body already an arrow at the end of its flight, instinctively swallowed it.
The sweetness was unprecedented. The Princess of the Dead Apostles seemed to ignore the prior urge to gag, closing her vivid lips tightly. Like a traveler who had journeyed through the desert for a long time, she sucked desperately, clumsily using her canines to bite the foreign object that had invaded her mouth, attempting to widen the wound upon it.
And then—
A finger rapped against the still-weak Black Princess's forehead with a sharp thunk.
For the Black Princess, the pain from the flick was certainly not severe, but it was enough to jolt her back to her senses.
Who is this?
Even with the rap on her head, the Black Princess continued to vigorously suckle the blood, directing her gaze forward.
Then, she saw a very handsome... and somewhat familiar youth.
He was a youth who couldn't be described by words like "dashing," but perhaps only by "exquisite" or "good-looking."
His ink-black hair had the faint luster of black jade, and the skin of his neck was as fine as beautiful porcelain.
In the Black Princess's memory, only one person matched such a description.
A little liar who made one's blood boil.
"Dear Princess, could you please not bite My hand?"
The youth, who had once sworn allegiance to the Black Princess only to tear up the contract a short time later, looked at the Princess—who resembled a baby latched onto a pacifier—with a distressed expression.
"Don't you think it's a little inappropriate for the King of the Dead Apostles to bite someone the moment she wakes up?"
It was only then that the Black Princess realized she was, in fact, sucking on the finger of the man before her.
"You saved me?"
Finally regaining her clarity after having drunk the blood, the Black Princess looked at the man who had thoroughly screwed her over in the past, her gaze shifting.
"Who else?"
After finishing his chat with Miss Stargazer, Li Zihan had activated his Clairvoyance, immediately spotted Fu Hua thrashing the Black Princess, and quickly grasped the situation. He rolled his eyes.
Fu Hua was a very lonely girl.
From a young age, she learned martial arts from her father, who ran a dojo. But the changing times had altered her father's thinking; he hoped Hua would walk her own path rather than inherit the increasingly obsolete dojo.
Thus, she was sent to Cānghǎi City for her education, but because of the habits ingrained in her from martial arts training, Hua was unable to fit in.
For this reason, there were very few people who could truly affect her emotions.
And the Black Princess was certainly not one of them.
So, the question arose.
Why would the Black Princess—who theoretically lived on the Moon and should have had absolutely no connection to Fu Hua—cause the normally placid Miss Fu Hua to suddenly unleash her full power?
Theoretically, they should have never crossed paths at all.
The man, who had explored the past of the Honkai world but had only taken cursory glances without scrutinizing it in detail, quickly realized the root of the problem.
And so, naturally, he went and dragged the Black Princess and her entourage—who had nearly been wiped from existence—out of the place that looked for all the world like a nuclear blast site.
To be honest, Li Zihan felt this was an act of courting death.
Even without continuing to observe with his Clairvoyance, he could guess that Miss Fu Hua was nearby, watching with cold eyes.
And yet, under these circumstances, he had chosen to drag the Black Princess away.
I just hope I don't get forced to kneel on a washboard when I get back.
The youth, who suspected he was also in for a severe beating, sighed.
Adulterer and adulteress.
Now that the "adulteress" had been dealt with, it was naturally his turn, the "head adulterer."
"As for Big Blackie and that gay lunatic, you don't have to worry. I dragged them both back," the youth nodded cheerfully, speaking to the newly awakened Princess.
"They're not completely dead."
That madwoman didn't manage to kill them?
The Black Princess let out a silent sigh of relief.
She looked at the youth who had once betrayed her, her gaze softening slightly, and then she spoke slowly.
"From this moment on, the grudges between you and I are erased."
This man had saved her from a half-dead state; their past grievances were now balanced.
"Though it's not a promise of marriage, having our grudges erased is quite nice too."
A promise of marriage... this guy is still spouting nonsense, as always.
The Black Princess made a difficult effort to sit up, intending to check on the condition of her subordinates.
And then—
The lingering damage from the Samadhi Fire flared up, causing her body to spasm slightly.
It hurts.
The intense pain made the Black Princess recall the scene of the fiery rain from the sky.
A blaze of fury immediately ignited in her heart.
That woman is sick!
She had been attacked by someone with a cuckold delusion, someone who saw everyone as a potential rival for her husband's affections and attacked them like a rabid dog.
The King of the Dead Apostles, who was at an absolute disadvantage in terms of power, recalled the Immortal who was seemingly afflicted with cuckold paranoia, a hint of malice flashing across her lips.
She's that afraid of being cuckolded?
She was suddenly reminded of a certain Mop-Head.
That creature who looked like a mop had said that created beings could be pulled into this world.
In that case, that psycho man... he could be pulled over too, right?