"Our daughter... is she living well right now?"
The moment Cecilia said those words, the smile on Siegfried's face instantly froze.
Although he had anticipated that his lover might ask this question after seeing her resurrected, Siegfried had subconsciously ignored this unanswerable question due to the joy in his heart.
True, he acknowledged K423 as his daughter [Kiana Kaslana], but the problem was that he hadn't discussed this with his wife... Of course, he couldn't discuss it; Cecilia had been dead for fourteen years and just resurrected. He simply didn't have the means to communicate with her.
Of course, that's not the main point. The main point is...
How does he explain to his wife that in order to save his adopted daughter, while escaping Schicksal, he caused their biological daughter to die in that accident due to his incompetence?
In an instant, the joy of his lover's resurrection completely turned into self-loathing and regret for the past, leaving Siegfried unable to utter a single word.
"Siegfried... what is that expression?"
Seeing the unsettling look on Siegfried's face, Cecilia seemed to guess something and suddenly became even more nervous.
"What exactly happened to Kiana?! Tell me!"
"Ahem, Ms. Schariac, let me explain this matter."
Glancing at Siegfried, who looked like death warmed over, Aaron coughed dryly twice before speaking to Cecilia and Siegfried.
"Several years ago, when Mr. Siegfried was escaping Schicksal, he was sniped by troops sent by Otto Apocalypse. Because of this, your daughter, Kiana Kaslana, was shot down into a valley by the pursuit troops at that time."
"..."
Having his most unwanted past exposed by someone else, Siegfried completely gave up thinking.
"It was me... it was all my fault... It was because I was too incompetent that Kiana..."
On the other side, Cecilia was completely dumbfounded by the facts Aaron spoke.
She had finally returned to her lover's side, but now, waiting for her was the nightmare news of her daughter's death...
In that instant, Cecilia, not knowing what to say, opened her mouth but couldn't make any sound.
"After that, the troops sent by Schicksal Overseer Otto recovered Kiana Kaslana. Discovering that she possessed the bloodlines of both the Schariac and Kaslana geniuses and had tenacious vitality, not dying on the spot, he immediately made a decision."
Hmm, wait... What?!
Kiana didn't die?!
"He healed the heavily injured Kiana Kaslana using the most advanced medical equipment, then casually gave her plastic surgery. He also used medical means to change her vocal cords, making it impossible for her to produce a voice similar to her original one."
"After that, he announced to the outside world that Kiana Kaslana was recuperating in a certain department of Schicksal. At the same time, he renamed the transformed Kiana Kaslana to 'Bianka Ataegina'."
After listening to these words, Siegfried said to Aaron with extreme excitement.
"Big... Young man, is what you said true?! Kiana isn't dead?"
"Yeah, right now she is Schicksal's strongest S-rank Valkyrie."
After saying this, Aaron saw a shadow cover the previously softened expressions of Siegfried and Cecilia again.
Valkyrie. This was supposed to be the title held by those who protect the world from the Honkai phenomenon.
However, after experiencing the Second Honkai Eruption, Siegfried and Cecilia clearly could no longer view the term 'Valkyrie' as purely a protector.
This didn't mean the hero couple had any issue with their former colleagues.
They knew very well that precisely because Valkyries were fighting bloody battles on the front lines, the rest of the world could maintain a generally stable life while being 'completely unaware of the existence of the Honkai phenomenon'.
But, are Valkyries really warriors who protect the world?
Perhaps within the Valkyries' own cognition, they are indeed such existences.
But the two who had touched upon the dark side of Schicksal knew very well that the reality was not so.
Valkyries... no, it should be said that the entire Schicksal organization, are just tools in Otto Apocalypse's hands.
Back then, after dealing with Sirin, Siegfried could have returned to Schicksal normally with his lover after Cecilia used the Black Abyss White Flower to heal him.
But on that day, Otto, perhaps suffering from a brain spasm caused by something he ate, directly bombarded the area where the two were located with Honkai Fissure Missiles.
Both Siegfried and Cecilia could be said to have been loyal to Schicksal.
Even to Otto, who viewed them as tools, they were definitely the best tools.
Yet they were bombed anyway. In the end, to protect Siegfried and other innocent civilians, Cecilia released all the Holy Blood in her body and died at the end of that great battle.
So many years have passed, and no matter how Siegfried thought about it, he couldn't understand why Otto made that decision back then.
But whether he reached a conclusion or not didn't stop him from making an evaluation of Otto that he felt was very correct.
Otto Apocalypse is definitely a lunatic.
And now, hearing their benefactor tell them that their daughter, who survived a great disaster, is still working under Otto...
It would be strange if they could feel at ease hearing that!
"Young man, thank you for telling me this."
Exhaling deeply, Siegfried's eyes suddenly became terrifying.
"Before, I heard from Theresa that she had a subordinate named 'Bianka' who was very talented and hardworking, just a pity that her brain wasn't very sharp. Now that I hear you say this, if she is Kiana, then I'm slightly more at ease."
"In any case, she is still alive. As long as she is alive, I have a chance to save her from Otto's demonic claws."
"Kiana... has now become Otto's subordinate..."
Thinking of her own past experiences, Cecilia felt a pang of pain in her heart.
Although she married the love of her life a few years before the great war, one cannot judge a person's experience by looking at only one period of their life.
In the past, Otto used Cecilia as a test subject for experiments to create the highly completed Schariac Holy Blood. The blood in Cecilia's body was all converted into Holy Blood capable of annihilating Honkai energy in an instant.
During this period, she was constantly being modified as a test subject. Although it couldn't be seen from the outside, Cecilia could actually be considered half-cyborg.
Of course, Cecilia was glad she had powerful Holy Blood, because with this Holy Blood, she was able to save her lover during the Second Eruption.
But the problem was, even if this modification was generally beneficial to her, thinking that her daughter might be encountering the same experience caused Cecilia's heart to throb with pain.
Moreover, she was lucky to have met Siegfried, and they loved each other, but now... what about Kiana?
That beast Otto, who isn't even human, is definitely using Kiana as a tool.
And when Otto had Cecilia and Siegfried marry back then, looking at it now, he might have had the idea of 'combining the geniuses of the Schariac and Kaslana clans to give birth to an infant possessing the genes of both clans'.
In other words, to Otto, Kiana Kaslana is definitely an even more precious tool.
Then... wouldn't it be even harder for them to rescue Kiana?
At this moment, Siegfried realized something.
Although his lover resurrecting and his daughter not being dead were definitely heavenly joys for him, under these circumstances, new problems emerged.
His daughter has become Otto's subordinate and has forgotten everything about the past.
His lover might dissipate at any moment.
And what pained him even more was that he currently had no way to solve these problems.
Siegfried now only had one arm left, and the Honkai energy in his body was extremely chaotic. Let alone fighting the six-core Sirin, he didn't even feel he could securely win a duel against a single-core Herrscher.
And Otto's combat power... if nothing else, there are simply too many people.
Plus those divine machines developed by Schicksal. If Siegfried really charged into Schicksal now to try and take back his daughter, leaving aside whether his daughter would recognize him or not, he suspected that before he even fought his way in, his strength would be exhausted by the Valkyries and divine machines sent by Otto, and he would die in battle.
He was even more helpless regarding his wife. Someone else helped resurrect her; how was he supposed to know how to continue maintaining Cecilia's existence?
"Alright, telling you two these things today wasn't meant to make you frown."
Looking at the unlucky couple full of worry, Aaron felt the situation wasn't too terrible.
"Since the misunderstanding has been resolved, I hope Ms. Schariac can trust me a little."
After taking a deep look at the young man in front of her, Cecilia, like a medieval knight, knelt on one knee in front of Aaron.
"My life was saved by you. As long as you have any request that does not violate my bottom line, I will agree to it. From today onwards, I pledge my loyalty to you."
"...Wow, so cooperative?"
Looking at Cecilia in front of him, Aaron glanced at the slightly nervous Siegfried.
"You aren't going to stop her?"
"...I trust your character."
After exhaling deeply, Siegfried said with a bitter smile.
"Your power far exceeds the two of us. If you had any bad intentions, you wouldn't need to deceive us; you could have just done it directly."
"Hey, isn't this much more sensible than just now?"
Mobilizing the Power of Dominance within his body to condense in his hand, Aaron gently placed his palm on Cecilia's forehead.
As the Power of Dominance flowed into Cecilia's body, Aaron could feel that she indeed had no guard against him.
*Sigh*, I didn't feel it when I first drew the Power of Dominance, but now using this power to dominate others, why does it feel so weird?
After completing the contract of dominance, Aaron could feel that Cecilia's soul was indeed connected to him.
At the same time, he finally saw Cecilia's Servant panel.
Without the support of the Greater Grail, Cecilia's current state, rather than a normal Servant, was more like a Shadow Servant summoned because the 'summoning ritual was incomplete / summoner's power was insufficient'.
It was precisely for this reason that this former Saint with rule-breaking combat power was easily beaten down by Aaron with a few moves after being summoned as a Servant.
As for the *Black Abyss White Flower* in her hand, although its performance hadn't degraded compared to the real thing, because it was a product born alongside Cecilia's transformation into a Servant, only Cecilia could use it.
And currently, Cecilia is extremely weak and can't use the *Black Abyss White Flower* at all. Great job.
Forget it, I didn't expect her to be a combat force at this stage anyway.
"Ugh, this feeling... is a bit strange."
Feeling that her 'disappearing phenomenon' had stopped, Cecilia touched her cold forehead and said somewhat strangely.
"I feel like I can't leave this gentleman too far now..."
"Just bear with it. Right now, this is the only way to keep you from dissipating on the spot. As for the method of letting a soul reside in an object..."
Mid-sentence, Aaron remembered something.
There is good news and bad news.
The good news is that there is indeed a method in this world to attach a soul to an object.
The bad news is that the only person in this world who can use this method maturely is one guy.
Otto Apocalypse. Only the man who has manufactured who knows how many Soulium bodies can proficiently stuff a human soul into an object.
But Aaron obviously couldn't go to Otto and say, 'Hey buddy, can you help me stuff a person's soul into some Soulium?'.
After pulling Cecilia into the Demon Castle, Aaron looked at Siegfried, who had a very strange facial expression, and coughed dryly twice.
"Currently, Ms. Schariac's condition isn't great. For now, we can only use this method to maintain her existence."
"Understood, understood. I'm already very happy that Cecilia can come back to life."
Although he said that... *sigh*, just treat it as her going to work somewhere else.
Cecilia resurrected, Kiana isn't dead; everything is getting better.
Wait, I was so happy just now that I forgot something.
This young man looks very brutal, but his heart is actually relatively kind.
Then here comes the question...
—Where has Ryoma's daughter, who isn't in Nagazora City now, gone to?
...................