Europe, Schicksal HQ.
Having just wrapped up a deep-cover reconnaissance mission that had lasted more than half a month, Cecilia Schariac rubbed her throbbing temples as she stepped out of the isolation pod.
She pressed the power button on her communicator.
A flurry of chiming alert tones rang out, and dozens of unread messages cascaded down the screen like a waterfall.
Nearly every single one was from the same person — Theresa.
Cecilia leaned back against the cold metal wall and patiently began opening the voice messages.
The first few were normal enough — mostly Theresa asking when she'd be done with her "business survey" out in the field, and whether she wanted to go shopping together.
But by a message from a few days back, Theresa's voice had turned strange — even dropping to a whisper, as if she were guarding against someone overhearing.
"Um... Cecilia, it's about that thing I called you about before," Theresa hedged on the other end. "You and Siegfried... did the two of you ever, behind my back, have a daughter out there somewhere?"
Cecilia's mind blanked out for a full three seconds.
She glanced at the time on her phone screen, just to confirm she hadn't somehow been transported into some bizarre parallel universe.
If that single-celled organism Siegfried could manage to father a secret love child behind her back, it would be nothing short of a medical miracle.
Before she could even begin to make sense of it, the next voice message popped up right after.
This time, Theresa's voice had become a full-on furious roar.
"Anyway, the whole story is really complicated! But that bastard Siegfried has already fled out of guilt! Cecilia, don't worry! I will absolutely drag Siegfried back and string him up by his feet on the Schicksal chapel roof until he gives you an explanation!"
Cecilia silently held the phone a little further from her ear.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Instinct told her this was, without a doubt, some absurd misunderstanding that idiot Siegfried had caused yet again.
But the problem was, when she tried dialing Siegfried's encrypted frequency, all she got back was the cold, flat tone of a dead line.
No contact.
That was the truly abnormal part.
Siegfried might act like a slacker most of the time, but as an S-rank agent, there was no way he'd cut his tracking signal for no reason.
Half an hour later.
Inside the private office of the Schicksal Bishop.
Cecilia stood ramrod straight, setting a brief report on Siegfried's disappearance down on the wide mahogany desk.
Behind the desk, Otto Apocalypse, cradling that cup of black tea he never seemed to finish, quietly read through the report.
"Cecilia..."
Otto set down his teacup, laced his fingers beneath his chin, and let something indescribably complicated show in those green eyes.
He stayed silent for so long that Cecilia began to genuinely wonder if Siegfried really had defected.
"Do you trust your husband, Siegfried?"
Otto finally spoke.
Cecilia froze.
If anyone else had asked her that, she'd have thrown them over her shoulder without a second thought.
But coming from the mouth of Schicksal's supreme leader, the question took on an entirely different weight.
Had Siegfried really gotten himself entangled in something serious enough to shake Schicksal's very foundations?
She turned to look at Kallen, who was standing beside the desk.
Within the organization, Kallen was the senior Cecilia respected most.
But right now, Kallen's expression was even stranger than Otto's.
Kallen stepped forward and gave Cecilia's shoulder a heavy pat.
"Cecilia. Whatever happens... we'll be standing right there with you."
Kallen sighed, her eyes brimming with the kind of pity and sympathy you'd give a dear friend who'd just discovered her man was scum.
Cecilia was completely lost.
What on earth was even happening here?
Otto cleared his throat lightly, breaking the bizarre atmosphere.
"As it happens, there's a situation developing over in Arc City." Otto pulled up a holographic file.
"There's a smuggler carrying an extremely dangerous item about to make landfall at Arc City's harbor. As you know, Arc City is practically a breeding ground for hackers and black markets. This time, the smuggled goods are some highly advanced, unidentified technology."
Otto rapped his knuckles against the desktop.
"If that technology gets out, the consequences could be unimaginable. The meet is set for tomorrow before dawn."
He lifted his gaze to look at Cecilia.
"This mission is yours, Cecilia. You need to leave right now. As for that little family matter..." Otto gave a meaningful smile. "Once you've finished the job, you can spend as long as you like sorting things out in Arc City."
A little over half an hour later.
Still caught in a hazy, half-dreaming sense of unreality, Cecilia boarded the private fighter jet bound for Arc City.
She hadn't told Theresa.
For one thing, Schicksal's true nature as a covert agency had to stay hidden from Theresa.
For another, she worried that if she reached out to Theresa, she'd get swept up the moment she landed by Theresa's sheer enthusiasm.
Within the clouds, an unmarked black private fighter shot skyward, its optical camouflage engaging.
Inside the cockpit, Cecilia leaned back against the leather seat, eyes closed.
Her mind drifted between the target's appearance and the photo Theresa had sent her.
The girl's name was Kiana Kaslana.
A name fit for a moonlight goddess.
Skyward Grand Hotel.
The top-floor luxury private room.
At the center of the dark-brown solid-wood round table, an empty wine bottle spun rapidly.
This was the final segment of the celebration for Honkai Impact 3rd's record-breaking open-beta revenue: a round of Truth or Dare.
Su Yu leaned back against his chair, watching the bottle gradually slow.
Across the table, Elysia propped her chin in both hands, her eyes gleaming as she watched the bottleneck.
The bottle stopped.
Its mouth pointed squarely at the tip of Su Yu's nose.
"Oh my." Elysia let out an exaggerated gasp. "Looks like the goddess of luck is smiling on our great game director tonight."
She drew a card from the deck, glanced at it, and her smile stretched wider and wider.
"Su Yu, listen closely." She cleared her throat. "What is the worst thing you've ever done to your best buddy in your entire life?"
The noise in the room instantly dropped.
Kiana had been wrestling with a lobster claw, but at the question, she immediately set down her tongs, her mismatched eyes turning curiously toward Su Yu.
Ma Feima even set down his wine glass, settling into the posture of a professional gossip-listener.
Su Yu looked around at this whole table of people who clearly loved nothing more than watching the show, and let out a deep sigh.
"This goes back to college," Su Yu said, rubbing his brow. "I was playing wingman for Kevin, helping him chase after... well, helping him chase someone. A few of us used to eat together a lot, either in the cafeteria or at little restaurants off campus."
He paused, his gaze drifting up to the ceiling.
"Back then, to give him a chance to be alone with her, I'd always make some excuse to leave early. But actually..." Su Yu's voice dropped. "Every time I left early, I'd sneak into the kitchen and get the owner to fry up a couple extra hearty dishes to go. Then I'd take them back to the dorm and eat them myself as a midnight snack."
Every eye in the room swung toward Kevin, sitting in the corner.
Kevin was holding a glass of soda water. At those words, the corner of his mouth twitched violently.
He set the glass down hard on the table with a sharp clink.
"I knew it." Kevin gritted his teeth, glaring at Su Yu. "That's why, that whole half-month I was starving myself half-blind just to save money for dates, you visibly packed on a good five pounds."
The whole room burst into laughter.
"Ahem, next round, next round."
Su Yu hurriedly spun the bottle.
The glass bottle scraped shrilly against the glass turntable.
A few seconds later, it came to a steady stop.
This time, it pointed at Kiana.
The white-haired girl who'd just been laughing at Su Yu instantly froze.
Elysia's hand shot out to draw a new card, her eyes darting back and forth between the card and Kiana, the gossip-hungry glint in them sharp enough to pierce right through a person.
"Kiana~ you have to answer this one honestly, okay?"
Elysia pressed the card flat on the table and leaned forward.
"Out of everyone in this room today, who... do you like the most?"
The moment the words left her mouth, the temperature in the air seemed to shift.
Kevin arched his sharp brows and leaned back, unbothered.
Theresa's fork froze in midair, her expression turning mysterious.
Eden, seated on the other side, swirled her wine glass gently, the red wine tracing a perfect arc against the crystal. She kept her head bowed, taking a small sip, her expression unreadable.
Welt, sitting at the far end of the table, pressed a fist to his lips and coughed heavily.
He shot Su Yu a look that plainly said, good luck with that.
Kiana's face flushed bright red in an instant.
She opened her mouth, tongue tangling.
"I... you... um, of, of course it's..."
Before Kiana could finish answering—
A shrill buzzing suddenly cut through.
A sound only Su Yu could hear.
It didn't pass through his eardrums — it exploded directly from deep within his optic nerves and cerebral cortex.
At the same moment, the specialized terminal in Welt's pocket buzzed at a high frequency.
Both of them froze in the same instant.
Su Yu's field of vision was instantly flooded with blinding blood-red.
Several lines of bolded text slammed straight into his retinas.
[HIGH-RISK ALERT! Due to Final Lesson's open-beta feedback exceeding threshold, the World Barrier is undergoing structural delamination.]
[Spatial Rift countdown: 120 minutes.]
[Quantity: 2]
[Location: Airspace above Arc City International Airport / District 7 abandoned scrap metal recycling plant]
[Main Mission Update: The Sky Falls]
[Objective: Destroy the Honkai energy core, close the Rift.]
[Failure Penalty: The full-scale Honkai invasion timeline moves up to before the countdown reaches zero.]
Su Yu's spine went rigid.
He whipped his head around and met Welt's equally grave stare.
At that same moment, the wide-area Honkai energy detector also picked up the formation of the Spatial Rift.
Twin Rifts.
Without a moment's hesitation, Su Yu answered his phone, pretending the call was from Bronie.
"Everyone." He grabbed the coat draped over his chair. "What? What did you say? There's a problem with the server data? All right, all right, Old Yang and I will be right there!"
It was a flimsy excuse, honestly, but the group was already good and drunk, and the alcohol left them no room to think it through.
Without waiting for anyone to react, Su Yu headed straight for the door.
Welt followed close behind.
"Sorry, but this technical issue really can't wait."
The flush drained instantly from Kiana's face.
She caught sight of the tension in Su Yu's jaw, and the wariness that only ever surfaced when facing a lethal threat snapped back into her at once.
She kicked her chair aside and followed.
"I'm coming too. I'm the CTO."
Kevin set down his soda water, stood, and headed for the door without a word.
The lively game of Truth or Dare came to an abrupt halt amid the sudden turn of events.
Everyone present, except for Eden, assumed it really was just the game servers crashing.
Eden watched the four of them stride quickly out of the room.
She didn't move.
She finished the wine in her glass, rose to her feet, and smoothed out the folds of her long dress.
"Seems our producers really do work themselves hard." Eden turned and gave the still-dazed Elysia, Theresa, and the others a perfect smile. "Never mind. The celebration was about wrapping up anyway. Everyone must be tired — I'll arrange cars to take you all home to rest."
Half an hour later.
The underground parking garage of the Skyward Grand Hotel.
Eden watched Elysia and Griseo climb into the silver armored sedan.
The driver eased the car smoothly out of the garage.
She turned, drawing in a deep breath of the basement's faintly cool air.
The languid, easygoing look that had been on her face vanished at once.
She pulled open the rear door of a nearby black armored SUV and climbed in.
Inside, more than a dozen screens flickered.
"Connect me to the city police department and traffic control center." Eden's voice was flat, calm, without a trace of inflection. "Within fifteen minutes, issue a notice about a major leak hazard in the high-pressure gas pipelines around Arc City International Airport. Cut off all expressways leading to the airport."
"Has the line to Anti-Entropy headquarters been connected yet?"
Anti-Entropy's underground command center.
Su Yu tossed his coat onto the console.
A red dot on the screen blinked at a furious rate.
"The plan is simple."
Su Yu looked at Kiana and Rita, standing before him.
"We split into two teams. I'll take the abandoned recycling plant alone. Kiana, you and Rita head to the airspace above the airport."
Rita and Kiana had both already changed into combat suits developed by Anti-Entropy — their performance was nowhere near a Battlesuit's, but they made up for it in being lightweight, with excellent impact resistance and flexibility.
"Battlesuit development isn't finished yet, so this time you'll have to rely on yourselves once you're inside. The good news is, once you pass through the Rift, you'll regain access to Honkai energy, and your combat power will spike."
Su Yu looked into Kiana's mismatched eyes. "You two, keep an eye on each other. Don't go trading blows head-on." He glanced at Rita again.
"Especially you, Rita — you don't have a Kaslana's physical toughness, so don't charge out front. But keep an eye on Kiana for me too. Don't let her go charging around like a headless fly."
"Understood, Master Su Yu. I'll take good care of Lady Kiana."
Rita gave a small bow, the curve of her smile flawless as ever.
Kiana shot her a glare and muttered something to the effect of, "who're you calling a headless fly."
Kevin's brow furrowed slightly. "You're going to the recycling plant alone? You don't even have armor. Maybe I should come with you."
Su Yu shook his head. "Kevin, your first-stage Genetic Lock might be stable now, but until we're inside the Rift, nobody knows what kind of monsters are waiting in there."
"I have partial Herrscher of the Void Authority — if worst comes to worst, I can tear the Rift open and get out any time. But if I have to bring another person along, the load on me doubles."
"Understood." Kevin nodded, without adding anything like "are you trying to play the lone hero" — he was a Kaslana, not a fool.
Though, granted, "Kaslana" and "fool" were often more or less interchangeable.
"But in exchange, keeping order out here is on you and Uncle Siegfried. Everyone sticks to their own job."
Su Yu held out his fist.
Kevin glanced at him. "Come back alive."
"Don't worry. I'm the Supreme Commander now — I value my life way too much."
Su Yu bumped fists with him, and the two shared a grin.
With no further words wasted, Su Yu gave the order to move out.
A quarter of an hour later.
Arc City International Airport.
The once brightly-lit, bustling departure hall was now in chaos.
Sharp alarm blares echoed through the hall, red rotating warning lights strobing across the panicked faces of the crowd.
Every flight information board flashed a glaring "CANCELLED."
Police in riot gear were stringing up cordon lines, repeating over loudspeakers again and again: "Gas leak hazard, please evacuate in an orderly manner."
The glass doors at the security checkpoint had been locked down, and furious passengers were shoving against the staff.
Out on the runway, the emptiness was unnerving.
Massive searchlights swept across the pitch-black tarmac.
Not a single plane was moving.
Kiana and Rita stood beneath the guide light tower at the end of the runway.
The night wind whipped Kiana's white hair into disarray. The battle scythe in Rita's hands gleamed cold under the fringe of the searchlight.
A heavy, oppressive tension hung in the air.
It was the gravitational distortion that came just before Honkai energy tore through the fabric of reality.
The sound of Bronie's keyboard clattering came through their earpieces.
"I'm watching. The wide-area detector's response curve is almost vertical — the Rift's about to fully form three hundred meters above your heads."
Just then, a piercing shriek suddenly burst through the earpiece.
"Damn it! Weren't all flight routes supposed to be shut down completely!" Bronie's voice jumped an octave. "At this angle and speed, that thing is going to slam straight into the Spatial Rift above your heads!"
"What thing?" Kiana tightened her grip on her twin pistols.
"An aircraft that's not registered anywhere at all!" Bronie's typing came thick and fast as rain. "Wait. The radar return wavelength is off — it's a stealth fighter! Such advanced optical camouflage and radar-absorbent coating! If that detector hadn't just been upgraded, I never would've spotted it!"
Su Yu's voice cut in from another channel, carrying an obvious rush of wind noise — he was already on his way to the recycling plant.
"Bronie, can you force your way into their comms channel and get them to change course?"
Bronie didn't answer right away.
A few seconds later, a thunderclap tore across the sky, loud enough to rupture eardrums.
It was the physical shockwave of space itself being ripped apart.
A powerful electromagnetic pulse swept across the entire airport.
"No good! The interference is too—"
Bronie's voice cut off abruptly.
Only harsh white noise remained on the comm channel.
Kiana looked up.
The night sky looked like a black curtain being wrenched apart by a pair of invisible giant hands.
Purple-black light poured down out of the Rift, bathing the once-dark runway in a ghastly pale glow.
Under that eerie light, the silhouette of a small fighter jet emerged — pitch black all over, nearly one with the night itself.
It was pulling desperate evasive maneuvers, its engines spitting brilliant blue exhaust flames, but the immense pull from deep within the Rift had already caught it completely.
The jet's fuselage bucked violently, spinning as it was drawn into the purple abyss.
"Looks like," Rita said, switching her battle scythe to her right hand and looking up at the wound in the sky, "from here on, we'll have to rely on our own judgment, Lady Kiana."
"Right."
Kiana gave her wrist a flick, spinning both pistols on her fingertips before settling them into a steady grip.
"Guess the mission list just got one more line item — going in for a rescue."
"That beat-up plane's painted pitch black — whoever's sitting inside definitely isn't just some ordinary person."
"First, smash every weird-looking Honkai Beast in there to pieces. Then drag that mystery person out of the plane and give them a good talking-to — that's the plan!"
Kiana glanced down at the flat runway beneath her feet.
"There's just one problem, though — neither of us has wings. How are we supposed to fly three hundred meters up into that Rift?"
Rita surveyed the open terrain around them — no launch point in sight, and honestly, jumping free of gravity to reach three hundred meters up was more than a little unrealistic.
"Easy."
Before Rita could even register what "easy" meant, she felt someone grab the back of her collar.
An absurdly, unreasonably massive pulling force yanked at the back of her neck.
"Relax, I'm just borrowing Su Yu's Star of Eden for a second."
As a dark-red sphere warped gravity around her, Rita felt her whole body go weightless — the next instant, she was completely free of gravity's grip.
Before she could get a sound out, she'd already been swung up into midair.
Kiana held Rita up with one hand, knees bending slightly.
The asphalt beneath her feet cracked under the strain.
"Little maid, this might feel a bit weightless coming up — bear with it, okay?"
Before she'd even finished speaking, Kiana's waist and arms surged with force together.
BOOM!
The ground exploded into a shallow crater.
Rita shot upward like a cannonball fired from a barrel, straight toward the purple Rift in the sky.
Wind roared past Rita's ears, tousling her impeccably neat short hair.
She flipped her body in midair, righting her posture.
"Every bit as reckless as always, Lady Kiana."
The maid, suspended in midair, sighed and tightened her grip on her battle scythe, bracing for the spatial impact of crossing through the Rift.
Still, this kind of brute-force, straightforward method really was extremely efficient.
Back on the runway,
Kiana tilted her head back, watching Rita's figure vanish into the light of the Rift.
She dusted off her hands and let out a long breath.
Honestly, she'd wanted to do that for a while now.
Not just to pay back that infuriating S-rank Valkyrie for "fishbombing" her back during the Valkyrie ranking exam at St. Freya Academy.
It was also because this woman had been beating Su Yu black and blue every night lately.
Kiana let out a whistle.
She walked over to the guide light tower, where a black metal case sat waiting.
She opened it and pulled out a somewhat exaggerated-looking personal flame propulsion unit, strapping it expertly onto her back.
She pressed the activation switch.
The thruster spat out two scorching pillars of flame, its tremendous thrust launching her straight up into the sky, hurtling toward the purple Rift.
The instant she passed through the Rift, that familiar aura of Honkai energy wrapped around her completely.
Kiana shut off the thruster midair and landed steadily on a massive floating slab of rock.
The space here was completely warped — below looked like an inverted city, while above stretched an endless void.
Rita was standing a few paces away, faint purple sparks of Honkai energy still crackling along her scythe blade — clearly she'd already dispatched a scattering of stray Zombies in passing.
Rita turned and watched Kiana undoing the rocket thruster on her back.
Her face, which had held its perfect smile the whole time, finally showed an unmistakable stiffness.
"Lady Kiana." The corner of Rita's mouth twitched, her gaze fixed on the still-smoking thruster. "What is this..."
If there was a thruster the whole time, why had Kiana thrown her up here by hand?
Kiana tossed the thruster aside and laughed, flashing a mouthful of white teeth, a flicker of unmistakable mischief in her eyes.
"Oops! I totally forgot this thing was even sitting there on the ground!"
She raised a hand and gave a little wave beside her ear.
"My bad, little maid!"
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