A black off-road jeep ran along the ring-road overpass that led to the Starfire Furnace base.
Night wind poured in through the half-lowered window, scattering the last faint trace of Theresa's black tea fragrance still clinging to Su Yu.
And right then, in the quiet of the cabin, a crisp chime rang out from somewhere deep in his mind.
[System Notice: Major breakthrough achieved in the Bond with target individual Theresa Apocalypse.]
[Tarot Array updated: Strength Bond level raised to RANK 6.]
[Congratulations, Host. Passive skill acquired: Saint's Radiance (Pseudo).]
[Skill description: When persuading, instructing, or comforting other carbon-based lifeforms, the Host gains a natural affinity bonus that effectively lowers the target's psychological defenses.]
Su Yu's hands went still on the steering wheel, his face twitching.
"Hold on... Sys, translate that for me, would you?"
he grumbled inwardly.
"The card is called Strength, right? Here I was, thrilled, thinking I'd finally pulled a monstrous-strength bonus or a damage-resistance passive. And what you hand me is a sweet-talking aura for soothing small animals?"
The System's insufferable electronic voice popped up at once.
[Host, you've fallen straight into the trap of stereotypes! Look at the protagonists in all those hot-blooded anime - is there a single one whose mouth isn't their deadliest weapon? To subdue the enemy without fighting: that is the highest realm of strength!]
[Strength does not refer only to the circumference of your muscles. It encompasses the toughness of your spirit and the magnetism of your character! Moving your enemies with love and peace - that is the true essence of a Saint!]
Su Yu rolled his eyes so hard it hurt.
"Fine, fine, fine. Right, right, right. Whatever you say."
Faced with a System that got better at making excuses by the day, Su Yu had long since worked out the perfect countermeasure - master the twin arts of "yeah, yeah, yeah" and "there, there, let me tuck you in," and you could spare yourself the high blood pressure that wretched thing would otherwise give you.
Half an hour later, the jeep rolled smoothly into the private underground parking level of the Starfire Furnace base.
The place was dead silent, save for the low drone of the ventilation fans turning in the walls.
Su Yu pulled out the key, pushed open the door, and set his right foot down on the hard concrete.
And in the instant he reached back to shut the door -
A hum split the air.
Instinctive alarm tore up Su Yu's spine like a high-voltage current.
His body moved before his brain had even finished issuing the order.
He dropped low, back nearly scraping the car door, and slid half a meter backward.
A bone-chilling shriek of cloven air whistled past his scalp.
It was an enormous reaper's scythe, radiating a cold, ghostly light.
The broad edge parted the air effortlessly, shaved past Su Yu's hair, and slammed down into the exact spot where he had been standing.
A tenth of a second slower and his head would already be rolling across the floor like an overripe watermelon.
"Whew..."
Su Yu steadied himself and followed the scythe's retreating arc with his eyes.
Under the dim garage lighting, a tall, exquisite figure stood a few meters off, radiating lethal danger with perfect elegance.
Rita Rossweisse.
But tonight she wasn't wearing that signature Dark Rose maid uniform.
In its place was a dark purple evening gown cut close to the body, tailored to trace every line of her impossible figure, slit high along the leg.
The slit rose to an alarming height - nearly to her waist.
Those long, smoothly rounded thighs were wrapped tight in black tights thin as cicada wings, gleaming under the cold light with a shine that was inviting and dangerous in equal measure.
This was the uniform Rita had once worn as Schicksal's top-tier operative, moving through high-society galas across the world to carry out assassinations and infiltrations at the highest clearance level - Graceful Spy Shadow.
The outfit looked noble and refined, but countless refinements had been worked into the elasticity of the fabric and the seams where hidden weapons lay.
In a very real sense, this was this S-rank Valkyrie's true battle dress for killing.
"No maid uniform today?"
Su Yu straightened up, brushed the dust off his hands, and looked at the woman before him - a fairy out of the deep night - with something between a smile and a smirk.
"Ordinary assassination methods, and the visual stimulation of before, clearly no longer have much effect on you these days."
Rita spun the scythe in one hand and shouldered the massive weapon on that slender shoulder.
Her smile remained flawless, but a cold killing intent glittered in those wine-red eyes.
"Changing into this combat dress also means that from here on, the Dark Rose will use every ounce of her strength to kill you, without mercy."
She raised her chin slightly and leveled the scythe at Su Yu.
"Tonight is merely an advance announcement. That is why I deliberately chose this weapon, which I normally reserve for the open battlefield. But after tonight, I will employ every method that cannot bear the light of day, for no purpose but to take your life."
Su Yu laughed easily at that and rolled his wrists and neck.
"So what you mean is, today's a holiday for me. You get to slack off a little."
"What do you think?"
Rita gave a soft laugh and flipped her wrist. With a metallic ring, the huge scythe drove point-down into the concrete beside her.
Then her knees bent slightly, one hand forward and one back, settling into the textbook opening stance of Schicksal Advanced Unrestricted Combat Technique.
It had to be said: that purple high-slit gown, paired with the raw power in Rita's fighting posture and that bewitchingly inhuman face of hers -
this was beauty enough to shatter a man's reason, and it was not something a human being could easily withstand.
But the Su Yu of today had been ground down to still water by three weeks of hellish training.
His gaze sharpened. He planted both feet and dropped into a stance identical to Rita's, mirror for mirror.
The moment he took the stance, his personal panel surfaced in his mind for the first time in a while.
[Current Host Status Assessment:]
[Realm: second-stage Genetic Lock (fully stabilized; physical vitality and neural reflexes vastly enhanced)]
[Martial Modules: Taixuan Dharma (Great Accomplishment), Taixuan Sword Art (Minor Accomplishment), Hokushin Itto-ryu (Minor Accomplishment), Inch Heart Fist (Great Accomplishment - note: proficiency skyrocketed under Rita's high-pressure sparring), Schicksal Valkyrie Combat Technique (Minor Accomplishment)]
[Core Abilities: Divine Key - Star of Eden (evolvable), Herrscher of the Void authority (partial spatial mastery)]
[Armament Reserve: custom tactical combat knife White Dwarf, gravity hand cannon Neutron Star]
"Miss Maid always used to walk me patiently through human weak points and assassination know-how before we started." Su Yu watched her, focused. "No lecture today? Straight to an honest, up-front brawl?"
Rita smiled faintly, her heels clicking crisply against the floor.
"In terms of theory, there is nothing left I can teach you. Please do remember this: no matter how hopeless the situation, staying calm will always be the most important foundation for a competent assassin - however -"
The word was still echoing in the air.
In the next instant Rita's body ghosted forward, crossing several meters in a blink, and appeared right at Su Yu's flank.
The air howled.
A long, beautiful leg sheathed in black silk swept toward his ribs like a battle axe, carrying enough force to shatter steel plate.
Su Yu's eyes narrowed. He didn't try to eat the blow - he twisted aside instead.
At the same time his right hand shot out like lightning, snatching precisely for the calf as it whipped past, meaning to borrow her own momentum and wreck her balance.
But the instant his fingers closed on that calf, his expression changed.
Slick.
Far too slick.
That deceptively thin layer of black tights was made of some extraordinarily peculiar material.
Add the terrifying power exploding through her leg and the clever torque of her rotation, and Su Yu might as well have been gripping a loach. There was no way to lock down her point of leverage at all.
Rita seized the moment his grip slipped, twisted her waist lightly in midair, landed cleanly on her other foot and used the motion to open the distance.
"So that's how it is." Su Yu shook out his tingling palm and stared at those long, straight legs with genuine wonder. "Stockings aren't just for seducing a target - they can shed force and serve as defense too? I've learned something today."
"Hoho." Rita settled her stance and reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "A month ago, Lord Su Yu could do nothing under my hands but roll about in the mud. And now you have the leisure to crack jokes with Rita mid-battle. Is this the charm of those so-called raising games?"
"What normal person plays a raising game with a reaper's scythe and a daily fist-to-flesh beating?" Su Yu shot back without mercy. "If any company actually released a Galgame like that, the players would flame them out of business."
"Would they?"
A dangerous curve tugged at the corner of Rita's mouth. Her body tilted forward again, coiled like a leopard about to spring.
"But do you not find that only in this tension, this pacing back and forth between life and death, can a person be moved to feel a certain... inexplicable stirring of the heart?"
"Psychology calls that the suspension bridge effect, doesn't it?" Su Yu crossed both arms in front of his chest and blocked a heavy punch cleanly. They collided and separated in the same breath. "The suspension bridge effect requires two people facing an external danger together. Whereas the current situation is that I'm one-sidedly experiencing a mortal threat from you, Miss Maid."
"Since you bring up... maids..."
Rita's offense turned savage. In the middle of a flurry of short exchanges, she dropped her voice and asked in a breathy, seductive whisper:
"That maid outfit Lady Theresa wore today - how was it? That was a gift I prepared for you with great care, you know. Did you... properly enjoy being personally waited on by that young mistress?"
The question caught him completely off guard.
His breathing hitched for an instant, and his movements slowed half a beat without his meaning them to.
In a top-level fight to the death, that half beat was fatal.
Light flashed in those wine-red eyes.
She caught the opening instantly. The feint of a knife-hand transformed mid-motion into a vicious whip kick that crashed down onto Su Yu's crossed forearms.
The impact cracked like a gunshot.
The force drove straight through his forearms.
Pain flared through both arms, and the sheer power of it sent Su Yu skidding back a full three or four meters, his soles scraping two black streaks across the concrete.
"Oh my."
Rita didn't press the advantage.
She simply held that high kick exactly where it was.
The black-stockinged leg stayed raised, and the purple high-slit hem slid down with it, laying out everything beneath the skirt in full, unhidden view for Su Yu.
She was doing it on purpose.
Deliberately using a pose of maximum visual impact to further rattle the composure she had just knocked loose.
Rita drew her leg back and straightened elegantly, her smile carrying the sly satisfaction of a prank landing perfectly.
"It seems... time in the office was a rare and wonderful experience indeed~ Even your Reaction Speed has gone dull."
"Heh..." Su Yu lowered his numb arms, shook out his wrists, and let out a helpless sigh. "Then I really do have you to thank for that brilliant idea of yours, Rita."
"You are most welcome, Lord Su Yu."
Rita advanced on him with the prowling steps of a cat, one after another.
"So then, honored Master. Having secretly enjoyed someone else's black tea out there, now that you're face to face once again with your true and exclusive maid... how do you feel? Does it give you the sort of tension a man gets when his wife catches him cheating in the act?"
Su Yu wiped the sweat off his forehead and shook his head with a bitter smile.
"The way you put it, you're practically nailing me to a pillory. You make me sound like some irredeemable scumbag and heartbreaker."
"Hoho, you are far too modest. Even someone as self-possessed as I am feels a little jealous now and then, seeing how popular you've become, Lord Su Yu -"
The words weren't finished before her figure blurred into a streak of purple, skimming low along the ground straight at him.
"You're just trying to split my attention with words. That trick doesn't work twice." Su Yu settled his mind and snapped into the opening form of Inch Heart Fist, bracing for the storm.
"Have I been seen through?"
Rita's voice didn't come from in front of him.
Alarm bells screamed in Su Yu's head. He whipped around - and found that at some point Rita had wound around behind him like a water snake, impossibly, silently.
Her body was pressed almost flush against his back. She rose slightly onto her toes, brought her warm lips close to his ear, and blew a soft breath against it.
"Still, Lord Su Yu, this trick really does seem to work quite well on you."
Her voice dropped low and enchanting, like the whisper of a devil.
"You may not even have noticed it yourself. In tactics and in scheming you never miss a step - but you have one fatal weakness."
"And that is - you have absolutely no idea how to handle open, direct affection from a woman."
Her fingers trailed lightly across his shoulder.
"On that basis, calling you a Master who is emotionally oblivious and yet scatters affection everywhere to a truly appalling degree would not be the least bit unfair."
Su Yu's eyes hardened. With a low shout he drove power up from his waist and swung a heavy backhand punch around behind him, turning his whole body into it.
The wind of the fist grazed past Rita's purple hem.
Her reaction was faster than thought. Like a weightless falling leaf she drifted several meters back on the wake of his own punch, still poised, still serenely above it all, her breathing not even disturbed.
Su Yu pulled his fist back and smiled at her.
"So? You dress like this tonight and feed me all that nonsense. This is really about warning me off - reminding me not to drown myself in soft arms and pretty faces?"
Rita walked to the scythe planted point-down in the floor and closed her hand around the cold haft.
"That is not it at all."
She wrenched the enormous reaper's scythe free with ease and spun it through a dazzling, lethal flourish that dragged a trail of purple light through the air.
"If anything, I hope you will enjoy those beautiful fragments of your life as much as you possibly can. Fall in love. Drink black tea. Feel those Bonds of the heart."
Rita raised her head, and those wine-red eyes shone unusually bright in the dark.
"Before the apocalypse that must inevitably come, one person's feelings, one person's life or death, become insignificant beside the vast proposition of saving the world."
"And yet... a certain esteemed lady to whom I once swore my loyalty said something to me once."
"She said: the resolve to protect others, the will to shield the people precious to you - in the end, that becomes the true power that calls forth miracles."
Rita looked at Su Yu, and the smile at the corner of her mouth turned more genuine than he had ever seen it.
"Although I am only a cold, unfeeling assassin maid who has never once believed there are such things as miracles in this world..."
"Even so, Lord Su Yu, the power you unleashed a month ago to protect someone precious to you still makes my heart shake when I think of it today."
She was referring, of course, to that life-or-death battle between the two of them.
And in the very instant Rita's words fell -
A cascade of semi-transparent data came pouring across Su Yu's retinas, refreshing in a frenzy.
Golden light gathered at the center of his vision.
[System Notice: Major breakthrough achieved in the Bond with target individual Rita Rossweisse!]
[Tarot Array updated: The Hanged Man Bond level broken through to RANK 7.]
[Congratulations, Host. Passive skill acquired: The Perfect Maid's Magic Mirror.]
[Skill description: Stealth and disguise arts inherited from a top-tier operative. The Host may now perfectly alter and disguise appearance and presence by regulating micro-expressions in the musculature, breathing rhythm, and biological magnetic field. This skill is an indispensable divine art for robbery, murder, plunder, and avoiding a total wipeout in a warzone of jealous women!]
Standing a few meters away, Rita seemed to sense - with the instincts of a peerless assassin - the subtle shift in the magnetic field around Su Yu.
It was the resonance of souls that arose between them, unique to a breakthrough in the Hanged Man card.
The corner of Rita's mouth curved into a lovely arc, her smile carrying a relief and gladness she had never shown before.
"It seems my strength has truly reached you - Lord Su Yu."
With that gentle murmur, the razor-edged killing intent hanging in the air receded all at once, like a tide going out.
Rita drew back that long leg, so full of explosive power and temptation, and brought her feet together gracefully.
She leaned the enormous reaper's scythe casually against a load-bearing pillar, then gathered the hem of that dark purple high-slit gown delicately between her fingers.
And this S-rank Valkyrie of Schicksal, in her expensive heels, performed for the man before her a flawless curtsy in the manner of Europe's old aristocracy.
Like a Dark Rose blooming quietly amid the ruins of the night.
Dangerous - and heart-stoppingly beautiful.
"Before the apocalypse fully descends, please enjoy that beautiful life of yours as much as you can."
Holding the curtsy, Rita lifted her head a little.
In those eyes lay the deepest kind of hope.
"And then..."
Her voice dropped abruptly.
"With that resolve of yours to protect the ones you hold precious."
Rita looked straight into his eyes.
"Go and crush them. The Honkai."
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