He didn't need to turn around. Otto already knew who was speaking.
Holding Fu Hua's hand, he turned his head to look at the slender figure standing in the middle of the road.
She looked like a young girl, but her form was distorted, her entire body covered in a mosaic-like effect that obscured her face. The only thing that could be clearly felt was the savage malice radiating from her.
When Otto looked at her, the mosaic obscuring her figure dissipated.
Azure eyes, like the sky, held an endless violence and hatred. Her cherry-pink hair was as dark as blood. The white shirt and pink plaid skirt that wrapped her slender body were stained red with blood, like a crimson wedding gown.
Drip, drip.
Her limbs were twisted, and fresh blood dripped from the hem of her skirt onto the ground.
Her once-beautiful face was covered in countless wounds, as if it had been slashed by a sharp blade, and was still bleeding profusely. The thick smell of blood assaulted the senses.
This was the Herrscher of Corruption from the Previous Era.
Also known as Higokumaru.
And before becoming a Herrscher, she was the younger sister of "Sakura," one of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers of MOTH.
She had the lovely name "Rin."
Seeing the Herrscher of Corruption in this state, Otto fell silent. If he wasn't mistaken, this was how she looked right before she died.
She had been brutally murdered by the very humans her sister had sworn to protect.
She was the Herrscher who was most likely to have sided with humanity, yet she was pushed to the opposing side by humanity's own hands.
Otto couldn't understand it, and yet, he could.
Because the humanity of the Previous Era could not afford to lose.
Although they had already defeated eleven Herrschers by that point, they had paid a terrible price. Most people harbored an immense hatred and fear of Herrschers, for they were the monsters that had destroyed their homes.
So, even though Rin still possessed her humanity and reason when she became the Herrscher of Corruption, just like a normal person, she was still "secretly" killed by some.
Perhaps, in their eyes, it was called "judgment."
Otto couldn't help but be reminded of Miki's gruesome fate in Devilman.
However, hatred can only beget more hatred.
The murdered Rin developed an unimaginable hatred for humanity. After her death, the Herrscher of Corruption, now a true apostle of the Honkai, carried this hatred and extinguished humanity's last hope.
The Herrscher of Corruption destroyed all of humanity's remaining cities.
Making humanity pay an exceptionally tragic price.
Otto felt Fu Hua squeeze his hand. She was staring in terror at the manifested Herrscher, her right hand covering her mouth.
Fu Hua could also see the Herrscher of Corruption, but Carol, it seemed, saw nothing at all.
"Fellow."
The Herrscher of Corruption stared at Otto and addressed him as such.
Because Otto could wield Herrscher Authorities, this apostle of god assumed he was an apostle of Honkai as well.
"Let go of her."
The distorted voice was like an inescapable whisper, drilling into Otto's mind, seeming to caress every single groove of his brain.
"Herrscher of Corruption, why do you want to kill her?" Otto asked. The "her" he spoke of was Fu Hua.
As he spoke, Otto took a step forward, remaining wary of any danger that might appear.
"No." The Herrscher of Corruption's voice, containing nothing but hatred, was hoarse and twisted. "I don't want to kill her."
Her words confused Otto. You threw a Chariot-class Honkai Beast at her, and now you say you don't want to kill her?
This little girl isn't being honest.
"How could she be allowed to die so easily!"
But in the next moment, the resentment and hatred in the Herrscher's words nearly overflowed, like the polluted mud pouring from the Holy Grail, threatening to contaminate everything it touched.
"I will trap her in an eternal cycle of suffering, and she will be powerless to do anything about it."
The Herrscher of Corruption looked at Fu Hua, who was being sheltered behind Otto, her face contorted in a vicious snarl.
Otto frowned slightly. So the Herrscher didn't want to kill Fu Hua and possess her body; she wanted to torture her.
But was there a need for that?
Suddenly, Otto seemed to think of something.
"You hate her?" he asked.
The Herrscher of Corruption didn't answer, simply standing there with her head lowered.
As if searching for something in a distant memory.
Otto watched her.
Then, it was Otto who answered the question.
"Yes, you should hate her. You hate her because she was also at the base, yet she couldn't save your sister."
Otto said flatly.
Back when she was still human, the future Herrscher of Corruption was murdered in the MOTH base. After her death, her power fully awakened, and she nearly took control of the entire facility.
Kevin and Sakura, who were at the base, moved to stop her. Fu Hua split off from them, going to rescue the people controlled by the Herrscher.
The final result was that Sakura's death caused a fluctuation in the Herrscher of Corruption's mental state. Dr. MEI seized this opportunity and sealed the Herrscher away.
Clearly, the death of her sister, Sakura, was something that the fallen Rin, now a hound of the Honkai, cared deeply about.
So, was the Herrscher of Corruption taking her anger out on Fu Hua, who was also at the base at the time?
"I despise humanity. I will exterminate all humans."
Hearing Otto's words, the Herrscher of Corruption raised her head.
"This woman... I don't remember who she is. But the first time I saw her, I knew that I hated her. That I should torture her. I want to make her feel pain. I want to make all humans feel pain."
"I will make the entire world feel pain!"
The Herrscher of Corruption spoke in her twisted voice. After awakening her Herrscher powers upon death, her memories as a human had become blurred. After more than fifty thousand years of being sealed, she had forgotten even more.
She only remembered that humanity deserved to die.
And this woman deserved to die, too.
If that white-haired man and this gray-haired woman had been a little more competent, maybe I wouldn't have lost...
Ah, I forgot. What was it that I lost back then?
But that didn't stop the Herrscher of Corruption from torturing this gray-haired woman.
"However," she stared daggers at Otto, "you gave me the power to take my revenge. Why are you stopping me now?"
A savage aura billowed from her, giving off the distinct impression that if Otto didn't give a good answer, she would kill him on the spot.
"And what if I don't let you touch her?"
Otto smiled. Although all Herrschers were apostles of the Honkai, there was no camaraderie between them. Some were even at each other's throats.
The only reason the Herrscher of Corruption was speaking to him civilly was because she couldn't corrupt him.
Otto's fist was bigger than hers.
"That's not for you to decide!" the Herrscher of Corruption shrieked, her voice sharp and piercing. She dissolved into an endless cloud of crimson smoke and surged toward Otto. He frowned slightly, let go of Fu Hua's hand, and turned his back to her.
"The gods grant me chains, to punish filthy sins, a prison drawn upon the ground—King of Binding!"
Against an incorporeal Herrscher, Otto felt the Authority of Binding was more effective.
If he could restrain the Herrscher of Corruption and isolate her Honkai energy, this illusionary world she had created would collapse on its own.
Golden chains appeared in Otto's hands. He gripped them and charged into the smoke, as if he intended to bind the mist with chains.
But this was merely a smokescreen.
The chains were just a diversion, meant to make her think he was trying to ensnare her with them.
The true domain of Binding had already been deployed.
He plunged headfirst into the crimson smoke.
Although the domain of Binding he could use in this illusion was smaller than that of the Previous Era's Herrscher, at this range, all of the smoke was within his field.
"Be a good little fox and obey."
A smirk tugged at the corner of Otto's mouth.
But then, his smile froze. He realized that within his domain of Binding, the smoke simply dissipated, leaving nothing behind.
Just like Carol and Fu Hua's father, it was just a fake construct of the illusion.
It wasn't a vessel for the Herrscher of Corruption at all.
The Herrscher had simply created a clone within the illusion to meet with him.
"Lesson learned."
Otto said softly.
Having always been a hands-on person since becoming the Bishop of Schicksal, he hadn't realized he was just meeting an illusion controlled by the Herrscher. Since when do two great commanders use stand-ins when they meet before a battle?
But then, Otto whipped his head around.
He realized the Herrscher's goal was to separate him from Fu Hua.
Still, at this distance, he could save her even if a few Honkai Emperors attacked.
And then Otto froze.
Because Fu Hua and Carol, who had been standing right there, were gone.
Huh? Where did they go?
Next, Otto noticed the sky had grown dark, as if storm clouds were gathering. The moment he looked up, a torrential downpour fell.
He felt an immense force on his shoulders, and his knees buckled violently.
Otto looked at the sky in disbelief. In just a single second, he was soaked to the bone. Even his underclothes felt like they had been submerged, as if he'd been standing in the storm for a long time.
This rain was so fast.
This rain was so heavy.
"Something's wrong." Otto frowned. In the rain, he felt as if a mountain were pressing down on his shoulders. The raindrops were falling so fast that each one felt like being struck hard with a club.
The rain... had accelerated.
No!
It wasn't just the rain.
Otto looked around. Even in the downpour, he could see people running in the streets, as if trying to flee from something terrifying.
Deadwalkers and Honkai Beasts were hunting them.
But the speed at which they ran far surpassed that of any athlete.
Because they had been accelerated.
But no matter how fast they ran, they couldn't escape the Deadwalkers and Honkai Beasts behind them.
Because the Deadwalkers had been accelerated, too.
Before Otto could process this, he heard the ear-splitting screech of tires on pavement.
He threw himself to the side, and a car moving like a bullet grazed past him.
Otto scrambled to evade it. In his eyes, the car was as fast as lightning, covering a huge distance in just a few seconds.
Then it was crushed under the foot of a Chariot-class Honkai Beast.
The sound of the explosion hit him. Otto clamped his hands over his ears. Nearly a hundred seconds of sound were stacked together in that single moment, becoming one piercing, indistinguishable noise that assaulted his ears and sent a spike of pain through his mind.
Otto stared at the world that had gone mad before him.
He realized that everything in the world, including people, everything was accelerating.
As if a fast-forward button had been pressed on a video.
The entire illusion was accelerating.
The only thing that was normal was him.
No, perhaps he was the only outsider.
"..."
Otto was silent for a long moment before finally uttering two words.
"Made in Heaven?"
The Herrscher of Corruption had accelerated the entire illusion.
And it wasn't just acceleration.
Otto felt as if that car hadn't even seen him. Perhaps the Herrscher had placed a perceptual filter on him within the illusion.
They couldn't see him.
But Otto didn't stay put. He began to run through the city of Sapphire, now moving at a hundred times its normal speed, searching for that girl.
Soon, he found her.
Fu Hua was running through the downpour. No Deadwalkers or Honkai Beasts were behind her. She was carrying Carol on her back, knocking on the door of every house she passed.
No one answered.
With the Honkai disaster descending, with Deadwalkers and Honkai Beasts attacking, everyone was struggling to save themselves. They had all fled their homes.
The people of Sapphire were all trying to get out of the city.
The entire city had become a living portrait of hell.
And what would make them despair even more was that when they finally left Sapphire, they would discover it was only one of many epicenters of this great eruption.
This Great Honkai Eruption had affected more than half of Asia.
Otto stood there, but he realized that Fu Hua didn't seem to see him. Perhaps it was because they were not in the same space and time.
Or had the Herrscher of Corruption simply erased his existence?
But then Otto saw the bird-shaped hair ornament in Fu Hua's hair. That was a trace of his existence.
It must have been the moment I let go of her hand. That's when the Herrscher started accelerating the illusion and applying the perceptual filter.
Perhaps, in Fu Hua's eyes, her Big Brother Otto had simply vanished into thin air.
With a sorrowful gaze, Otto watched Fu Hua knock on door after door. Carol was slumped on her back, eyes tightly shut, arms hooked around Fu Hua's neck. The blood flowing from her body had stained the back of Fu Hua's clothes red.
Otto knew Fu Hua was trying to find someone to save her best friend.
But...
Otto looked at Carol on Fu Hua's back—at the girl who was only a torso.
Fu Hua's best friend was already dead.
Otto didn't know how she died.
Was she trampled by a Honkai Beast, or was she cut in half by a Deadwalker?
Otto didn't know.
No matter how he had tried to change things, events still proceeded according to the original history, because the Herrscher's true desire was to trap Fu Hua in a never-ending cycle of pain.
He watched as she stumbled and fell, her face slamming hard onto the concrete. She struggled to get back up, but she had no strength left.
Fu Hua stared at the ground.
She knew, too. She knew that the Carol on her back was already dead.
But she didn't want to believe it.
Rainwater pooled beneath her. Fu Hua felt like this was all a dream.
First, Big Brother Otto had suddenly vanished before her eyes, and then the whole city had become strange, with monsters appearing everywhere.
She had fled with Carol, and then... Carol had died.
She was all alone.
Fu Hua buried her face in the puddle of rainwater. Her face was warm; she couldn't tell if it was from tears or the rain.
She lay there on the ground, like a corpse.
And then, she suddenly felt her head become heavy.
As if a hand were resting on it.
Fu Hua lifted her head, but... there was no one there.
In this world, no one could see Otto anymore.
---o---