"Little Sister! You smell so good!"
Fuli gave a thumbs-up, his smile clean, bright, and sunny, as if it had gathered all the beauty in the world.
Based on that expression alone, no one could possibly imagine what his other hand was doing at that moment.
Like Bronya, for instance.
The girl—no, the young woman—stared down blankly, her beautiful eyes fixed on the twin peaks that were constantly undergoing physical changes under the external force.
The unexpected development caused her supercomputer-like brain to crash completely. She didn't even put up a token resistance, letting him take whatever he pleased.
As the saying goes: in fair weather, you rely on Bronya; in foul weather, you rely on Kiana. But in a desperate situation like this, it had to be our Mei who stepped up.
"Realm of the Empyrean Scourge!"
The Judge of the Underworld armor shifted into its defensive mode at her command. An absolute defense field made of electromagnetic energy expanded from her, pushing away the lecherous boyfriend who was having his way with the well-endowed Bronya. He was pinned, spread-eagled, against a sturdy metal wall infused with a trace of Honkai energy.
Mei was filled with regret. Immense regret.
If she could travel through time, she would definitely go back four days and three nights and give her past self a resounding slap across the face.
—You had so much free time, couldn't you have just done a few more practice problems? Why did you have to give the HTR-Type Modification Serum to Bronya?
Due to well-known issues, her little sister had been firmly on the "platonic adoptive sibling" track, with no way to switch lanes.
But now? One shot of the serum, and her body had developed to its adult state. She'd joined the game several years ahead of schedule!
And she didn't just join the game!
Mei considered herself a super-beautiful girl of the "natural beauty is hard to abandon" level, capable of attracting hordes of the opposite sex without a speck of makeup.
It wasn't just her. Kiana, Durandal, Rita, Fu Hua... most of the women Fuli interacted with on a daily basis met this standard, not to mention the two game-breaking entities, Kallen and Elysia.
But even with those last two, Fuli hadn't immediately gotten handsy with them!
What did this mean?
It meant that Bronya, in her adult state, was tailor-made for his personal "XP system" from head to toe!
Instinct overrode thought, emotion suppressed reason. Before he even knew it, his body had acted on its own!
Judging by that clean, bright smile, Fuli himself might not even have realized what he was doing at that moment!
What do you call that?
To make an inappropriate analogy, it was as if someone had implanted the "Lady Bronya's Dog" debuff on Fuli, only for a "Duplicate Weakness Implanted!" message to pop up over his head!
If that were all, Mei wouldn't be so agitated.
She looked at Bronya.
The angelic-faced girl's pretty features were a mix of panic, confusion, and bewilderment, like an overturned paint palette, with colorful emotions spilling and blending.
Yet, amid it all, there was no trace of anger. On the contrary, in the depths of her crystal-clear eyes, a hint of joy, so faint that even she might not have noticed it, was quietly flowing.
A certain sage from Shenzhou once said: when it comes to poaching someone's lover, one doesn't fear handsome men or beautiful women; what one fears is mutual affection.
After spending half a year together day and night, fighting side-by-side in life-and-death situations, Bronya's affection level for this "brother," who cared for and protected her from the bottom of his heart for no apparent reason, was extremely high.
Before, their relationship was constrained by their adoptive sibling status. Once that was removed, her feelings were likely to advance with the force of a flooding Amazon River, completely unstoppable!
No! Why am I thinking about poaching? Bronya Zaychik, you're the newcomer! I'm the one who met Yuan first!
Realizing she was once again undermining her own position, Miss Mei's expression grew darker. The Realm of the Empyrean Scourge responded to its master's remorse and anxiety, the interwoven lights and electricity of the absolute defense field crackling with divine thunder.
The imprisoned Fuli, however, was doing just fine. Firstly, he had his invincible golden armor, which could ignore ninety percent of damage below S-Rank. Secondly, he had the Stigma of Thunder, which not only allowed him to ignore 80% of lightning-based effects but also boosted his power in such an environment.
Add to that the fact that Mei was subconsciously holding back, and the combined effect was that the electromagnetic field of the Empyrean Scourge felt no different from the gentle spa massage of a beautiful technician's hands roaming over his body.
Compared to that, Fuli looked at Bronya, who was still standing there, and spoke with nine-tenths, if not a full ten-tenths, sincerity:
"I was just checking if those two... things... on your chest were fakes. Would you believe me if I told you that?"
Just as Mei had thought, he only realized what his left hand had been doing after he was embedded in the wall.
He, Prisoner Li, was an upstanding gentleman!
If he were really going to grope them, he would have definitely made a gentlemanly request first and only gotten hands-on after getting his little sister's consent!
Oh, wait, she wasn't his "little" sister anymore.
She was big. Big in every sense of the word.
While gratified, Fuli also felt like he had lost something.
It was like a brother watching his sister grow up day by day, her curves becoming more pronounced, becoming more and more like a "woman." One day, she would no longer call you "Onii-chan, Onii-chan," but "Hey!", "Cough up some cash, you loser!", or even just your name.
If you asked her who she went shopping with, she'd tell you it was none of your business. When you wanted a hug, she'd subconsciously take half a step back and tell you only her man could do that.
he knew this day would come sooner or later; he just never thought it would come so fast.
Speaking of which, is my lil—ahem, big sis going commando under there?
Recalling the wonderful sensation from a moment ago, the boy, who was quite experienced in this area, wondered.
She is.
Bronya's mood was... strange.
Due to her sudden physical growth, the Hyperion simply didn't have any undergarments in her size.
Mei's development was still half a step behind, while Kallen was about comparable. The only problem was that the Saintess was an AI and didn't need to wear physical clothes.
It wasn't that Bronya's newly awakened ability couldn't create some, but she was still in the "testing" phase and hadn't gotten around to it before Fuli, pushed by Kallen, burst into the room.
Where's Angela?
The girl looked around. As expected, the main culprit was nowhere to be found.
Kallen was a repeat offender. She was lightning-fast at running away whenever she caused trouble or trouble started, and she was definitely hiding somewhere, secretly watching the drama unfold.
Bronya snorted softly, her slender fingertips tracing patterns in the air.
She raised her hand.
"Eh? Eh? Eh?"
The white-haired mole she was holding blinked its eyes. Realizing what had happened, it let out a groundhog shriek. "Bronya, how did you do that?! The Hyperion is my turf!"
Even if she was distracted by the drama and had let her internal guard down, she shouldn't have been snatched out so easily!
"New ability."
The girl put Kallen down, letting the panicked Saintess flash away and flee again.
Her lotus-like legs, wrapped in white stockings, moved lightly, and she gracefully paced to stand before Fuli.
"Onii-chan, touch me."
She tilted her head up and said softly, a captivating light reflecting in her crystal-clear pupils.
"Huh?"
Prisoner Li's pupils quaked.
What's the meaning of this?
"You were so bold just now, but now you've suddenly chickened out," Bronya said with a deadpan expression. "Touch me, then activate the third rated power of Jizo Mitama."
"That thing doesn't work on people."
The information analysis could only be used on non-living things that the Key of Erosion's wielder touched.
"Just touch me."
Big Bronya was getting a little impatient. She first shot a defiant look at Mei, and amidst Mei's teeth-grinding, she grabbed Fuli's hand and nonchalantly pressed it against her own front armor.
In the next second, an information box popped up, visible to everyone present.
[Name: Ether Editing]
[Grade: A]
[Category: Status]
[Effect: Also known as Particle Interference (AphroDite), a powerful intrusive ability that can weave reality. It manipulates data through hacking techniques to modify reality, such as teleporting enemies to designated coordinates, generating virtual entities, etc.
In essence, it is the rewriting of the world's underlying code, leaning more towards the Sea of Quanta domain.
The upper limit of intrusion is equivalent to one's own energy level or combat power. Forcing it to run can allow for minor interference with the next level up, with the side effect of forcing the user into a cooldown (hibernation) mode, recovering after a period of careful rest.]
[Note: Bronya Zaychik! The Jerusalem of the gacha game world!]
Letting go of her brother's hand, the girl spoke calmly, "I used Ether Editing to modify my own data, allowing it to be read by Jizo Mitama."
Fuli muttered under his breath, "Since it can be read, does that mean you can be 'invaded' by Jizo Mitama too?"
"Why don't you try, Onii-chan?"
Bronya raised a delicate eyebrow, her cool and aloof posture suggesting she didn't care.
So what if the invasion succeeds? I already work under him anyway. At worst, I'll just move from being under him in one way to being under him in another.
She then flashed a mischievous, impish smile. "That is, if Onii-chan can unlock the next level of the Key of Erosion's rated power, instead of being stuck where you are now."
A challenge!
A blatant challenge!
Fuli was furious. Just because she'd grown up, she dared to tease the King of the Hyperion!
"You dare challenge me today, tomorrow you'll dare to overthrow me and become the master!"
"Bron—I'm just getting reasonable revenge."
"If you've got the guts, let's fight one-on-one!"
"One-on-one it is. Location: Mount Taixuan."
The girl crossed her arms, tilting her swan-like white neck to stand before him, her beautiful face a mixture of three parts cold arrogance, three parts mockery, and four parts eagerness.
The only small regret was that the grown-up Bronya (165cm) was still half a head shorter than Fuli, but her imposing aura and figure more than made up for it.
As for the "revenge" the little girl spoke of—
A few days prior, Mei and Kallen had gone out shopping, and Kiana was at St. Freya for her final exams.
Seeing that only the two of them were left on the Hyperion, Fuli approached Bronya with a bright smile, handed her a cup of black tea, and sat opposite her, persistently urging her to drink it.
The problem was, the girl, hiding in a corner, had just personally witnessed him secretly drugging the tea. The packaging was that pinkish-red kind, looking rather suspicious and immediately bringing to mind... certain accessories and scenarios.
Holding the cup, Bronya hesitated for a long time. She sent a barrage of messages to Seele, with whom she was on good terms at Anti-Entropy, imagined countless unfolding scenarios, and finally decided to drink the "sleepy-time tea."
However, what Fuli had put inside was a carefully concocted "Chopped Beauty Spicy Oil." The girl was instantly brought to tears by the spiciness.
Afterward, when she went to protest with her tongue sticking out, that jerk had the audacity to declare, "Raise a sister for a thousand days, prank her in a single moment!"
You haven't even raised me for a thousand days! All you do is fcking prank me!*
And now he had the nerve to say, "Little Sister, you smell so good?" Hmph, where was that energy before?
Bronya had already made up her mind to rise up and sing the song of the freed slave, to ruthlessly ride this capitalist and squeeze out his very last drop of vigor!
The "vigor" here refers to energy and career, two necessary factors for a successful man. Anyone thinking otherwise, go face the wall.
There's no time like the present. Since he had decided to teach her a lesson—that is, to kindly help Bronya test out her new enhancements—Fuli got up, ready to take this rebellious amazon to the training grounds for a thorough drilling.
But before that.
The boy ran to a corner of the room and waved his hand in front of Kiana's eyes. "Hello? Hello? One, two, three? Can you hear me?"
He was a little puzzled. This girl had woken up before he even entered the room, yet she had been silent the whole time.
Mei's physical check-up had shown no problems. Was she still recovering from the pain? Or had she been engrossed in experiencing her new ability?
"...Ah."
Under Fuli's persistent calls, Kiana, who had been offline for a whole chapter, finally came to her senses.
She looked at the only "stranger" in the room, scratched her hair, and said with a silly grin, "Um, who are you? Are you a new guest on the Hyperion?"
Bronya almost fainted from exasperation. "Idiot Kiana, it's me!"
Kiana flinched and muttered aggrievedly, "Even if you say 'me,' I still don't know who 'me' is..."
"You've seriously been zoned out this entire time?"
Fuli sighed helplessly and gave her a rough summary of what had just happened.
Of course, he omitted certain details, like how he had started kneading big white buns the moment he entered the room.
Mei, standing nearby, shot him a glare but didn't expose the matter.
One doesn't air the family's dirty laundry in public. Even though Kiana was family, it was better for her not to know about such things.
As for Bronya, once she and Fuli became an old married couple in the future, she'd probably tease her husband with a playful tone about how lust had clouded his judgment.
But for now, it was still a bit too embarrassing.
"A fight? Awesome! This lady loves watching a good fight!"
Kiana's eyes lit up. She ran over to Bronya and poked her front armor.
"They're not padded?"
She frowned, uttering a familiar-sounding line.
"I guess that's the 'Fu-Ki' resemblance."
[T/N: i forgot to tell, Fuli and Kiana, which sound like 'fuqi' (夫妻), the Chinese word for a married couple.]
Big Bronya facepalmed. They even use the same excuse. These two should just get ma—
Looking at her beaming adoptive brother beside her, the silver-haired girl, for the first time, swallowed the word "married."
A change in physical age affects one's mental state, just as Fuli's mentality had gradually become more childish when he was turned into a shota.
It seemed now that Bronya couldn't escape this law either.
And at the same time, inside the outwardly cheerful Kiana's mind...
"Human, what in the world did you see?"
Sirin, wearing an oversized white shirt with a large "Otaku" character printed on the front and nothing on her legs, lay in a pool of water with a helpless expression.
The mental space reflects the person's mood. Right now, it was pouring rain here.
But the person in question wouldn't tell her what had happened, which left the Queen feeling very helpless.
Fuli used to call her "Quan (Fountain)" because her tears flowed like one. If this rain kept up, he'd call her Quan because she was living in a bottomless one!
—The Eye that Shines Upon the Distant. This was the Mystic Eye Kiana awakened after injecting the HTR serum. Opening and maintaining it consumed a large amount of Honkai energy.
This Mystic Eye granted its holder the ability to observe the future's direction and possibilities. Normally, it could observe the near future for a short period, such as an enemy's next move, the process and outcome of a battle, and so on.
However, the ability also had a special characteristic. Theoretically, it could be used to observe parallel worlds or even the existence of other space-times.
It sounded mysterious, but it was essentially still an application of the Herrscher of the Void's authority.
Similar to the Cosmic Juggernaut as One's ability to observe parallel worlds, Sirin could also activate it.
"..."
The Kiana in the outside world didn't answer her other self's question. Instead, she "cheerfully" urged Fuli and Bronya to hurry up.
The moment her Mystic Eye awakened, the girl had a dream.
No, the nerves, brain, and spirit of someone injected with the HTR-Type Modification Serum would be affected by the drug to remain absolutely lucid until the enhancement was complete. Therefore, she couldn't be sure if it was a dream at all.
In that vision, the awakened "herself" staggered through the corridor and arrived at the rooftop of Chiba Academy.
She walked to the edge of the rooftop in the pouring rain, but she didn't jump.
Because she saw a hill built from the corpses of ■■■■.
That hill was taller than the rooftop, vaster than the sea.
Their numbers were so great, it was as if they could fill the entire universe.
...