Chapter 173
"So that's how it is... So if I had died back then, things would have turned out this way?"
Cecilia's eyes dimmed slightly. She hadn't imagined that her death would lead to something like this — her daughter being cloned, and the deceased Sirin being forcibly dragged back from death.
If it had only been that, Cecilia supposed it would merely be a matter of accepting another daughter. She didn't mind that, or rather, her inability to save Sirin back then had always been her deepest regret.
As for Siegfried's actions afterward, she couldn't really say anything about them either. He was the one who gave the clone Kiana's name, but there were reasons for it — a child only a few years old, not even in the double digits.
To fall from over thirty thousand meters in the air with no protective equipment, head-first, and even take an armor plate to the skull on the way down... even Cecilia couldn't confidently say she would have survived that.
Under those circumstances, Siegfried had followed tradition the best he could. There was nothing to be said about it.
"Oh, you may have misunderstood something," Irene said, patting Cecilia on the shoulder. "I never said Miss Kiana was dead."
"..." Surprise flashed in Cecilia's eyes. "Was she saved while she was still in the air?"
"Ah, no, that didn't happen either." Irene waved her hand. "Just as I said — she really did fall from thirty thousand meters, and her head really did take a severe blow."
"But perhaps through sheer luck and extraordinary natural gifts, she didn't die. She fell into a snowy mountain and was buried in the snow. And the Valkyrie squad at the time was fairly responsible — they found her."
"Then where is she now? On the floating island?" Cecilia's gaze instantly sharpened. If her daughter was alive, then as her mother, she was going to go get her out.
Even if it was a daughter from another world's version of herself, she could still love her.
"She should indeed be on the floating island right now, but it isn't a problem — Otto healed her with Soulium." Irene raised her hand and pinched her fingers together like she was holding something infinitely tiny. "But there are a couple of small side effects."
"The first one is that she lost her memories. You have to understand — after falling head-first from that height, just surviving is already a miracle."
"Just amnesia." Cecilia let out a breath of relief. Amnesia was manageable. Lost memories could be recovered, and who said that amnesia meant the memories were gone forever?
Besides, her old friend should be able to help with that. With her assistance, a mere case of amnesia shouldn't be a problem at all. She wondered what her old friend's current situation was like.
"The other side effect is just that her hair turned golden. When you see her, you'll understand."
"Understood." Cecilia nodded. "So what do we do next? Is there anything you need me to do right now?"
"Right now—" Irene had just started to speak when her physical body, back in reality, heard a distant roar. The sky darkened, and a pillar of purple light erupted in the distance.
Irene projected the scene into the Palace of Consciousness. Everyone looked at the towering purple column blazing far away.
"So it's begun," Nuwa murmured, gazing at the opening Imaginary Singularity and the crackling lightning dancing around it. She understood immediately — Mei had started her awakening.
"What is that?!" Cecilia, who had no context for what was happening, stared at the massive pillar of light in the distance, her expression alarmed. "Is that a Honkai eruption? We need to go handle it!"
"Oh, right — you've never seen this before..." Irene blinked, then quickly understood. "That's right. In your world, Mei probably never had a situation where she needed to forcibly awaken."
In this Cecilia's world, St. Freya had two S-Rank Valkyries watching over it — even though Theresa was always called a C-Rank Valkyrie.
Judah was technically the S-Rank Valkyrie, but that was always said as a joke. The woman genuinely had the skills to back it up — putting aside everything else, taking on Rita was absolutely within her capability.
On top of that, Fu Hua couldn't possibly have infiltrated St. Freya in that timeline either. Theresa had been fed Fenghuang Down by Otto — but Cecilia hadn't been.
Cecilia actually knew Fu Hua. And in that timeline, since things had soured between Otto and Cecilia, there was no way to execute certain operations — after all, he was the one who had taken her daughter away.
According to what Cecilia herself had said, Schicksal at the time only had one S-Rank Valkyrie — Rita. No Durandal. As for Little Durandal, she probably just hadn't awakened yet.
Under those circumstances, Mei hadn't had much of a reason to awaken. And even if she did need to, it probably would have happened through a different method — not like this, where they had to come all the way to Nagazora City again.
"That's Mei awakening," Irene explained to Cecilia. "Don't worry — it won't cause any harm. There's nothing that needs to be done. Just wait."
As she spoke, Irene heard a violent explosion erupt from somewhere in the distance, followed by a pillar of fire shooting into the sky. It seemed Kevin had already found the Imaginary Construct and was currently pummeling it — or had already finished.
"Well, that's wrapped up too." Irene looked at the distant pillar of light. "A pity — those two famous landmarks probably won't be appearing around here this time."
"The Crater of Finality and the wormhole?" [Irene] glanced toward Irene. As Irene's Herrscher personality, [Irene] was the only one who understood exactly what she was referring to.
"Yeah~" Irene returned her consciousness to her physical body. Honkai energy thrusters formed beneath her feet, and she took off toward that direction. It was time to regroup. She wondered how things were going on Bronya's end.
If everything went smoothly, she could take everyone to the Realm afterward. She could already imagine Elysia's reaction when she saw this many Herrschers fighting for humanity — the woman would absolutely lose her mind with delight.
Knowing her personality, it would probably be even more than that.
Kiana sat perched atop the Lance of the Void, watching Benares slowly absorbing the surrounding Honkai energy. "How are you feeling, Bella? How much longer?"
"Very soon, Your Majesty." Benares looked up at Kiana. The Honkai energy she had depleted over the years, and the bodily damage that had never been repaired, were swiftly recovering under the intense concentration of Honkai energy flooding into her.
As her body gradually mended, Benares's aura began to swell, steadily approaching the full might of a true Judgment-class Honkai Beast.
Satisfied that everything was in order, Kiana let out a relieved breath. She then turned her head to look at the thunderous rumbling in the distance, and the Honkai energy gushing out from the surrounding space.
"What an enormous amount of Honkai energy."
"Sirin, do you know why there's so much Honkai energy?" Kiana knocked on Sirin's door within the consciousness space. A moment later, Sirin's voice drifted out, mixed with the sounds of a video game.
"Because that's an Imaginary Singularity. If you want, I can teach you how to open one later — it's not too difficult, though yours wouldn't be on quite the same scale."
She was the Herrscher of the Void, after all. Opening one of those things was well within her Authority — it just wouldn't be nearly as large.
"Forget it. I have zero interest in opening one of those. If a whole swarm of Honkai Beasts comes pouring out, guess who has to clean them up?" Kiana wrinkled her nose.
"Then why did you ask?" Sirin's voice carried the distinct tone of someone rolling their eyes. Listening to the constant game sounds in the background, Kiana let out a small sigh. Was this really the Second Herrscher mentioned in all those records she had collected? No matter how she looked at it, she just seemed like a hardcore gamer shut-in.
"What, do you have a complaint about that?" Sirin's voice came again. "I'm gathering inspiration and studying how to develop new applications for my Authority. How could you call that playing?"
"Sure, sure," Kiana said flatly, then let the matter drop. "Hey, where do you think Sister Irene is going to take us — after everyone finishes their own thing?"
"How would I know? Why would you think I'd have any idea?" Sirin seemed to have finally finished her game. "But she's not going to lead us somewhere bad. It's just hard to tell what Irene is actually planning."
Since neither of them had any clue, Kiana was about to pull her attention back to the present — when an unexpected voice suddenly sounded beside her ear.
"Kiana, could you contact Irene for me? I'd like to talk to her about something."
"..." Kiana went still, startled by the familiar voice. "Class Monitor?! Wait — that's not right. How are you inside my head?!"
"I only just came to," Fu Hua's voice remained as composed as ever. "If it's possible, please contact Miss Irene for me. I'm asking you. Could you?"
"This..." Under normal circumstances, Kiana wouldn't have hesitated for a single moment. But considering Fu Hua's current allegiance, she found herself wavering.
Heaven only knew whose side the Class Monitor was truly on right now. And how had her voice ended up echoing inside her own head in the first place — and why was Sirin's game noise playing in the background?
"Just contact her. This one probably has something real to say," Sirin's voice chimed in. "She's down to just a soul at our place — something must have happened to her."
"Call Irene over and we can figure it out together."
"Alright, I get it." Since Sirin had said so, Kiana stopped hesitating. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her communicator, and was about to call Irene.
The call connected instantly — but Irene's voice didn't come from the communicator. It came from directly behind her.
"My dear Kiana, what did you need me for?"
Kiana turned around to find Irene slowly drifting down from above. "Sister Irene! I have something to tell you — the Class Monitor is inside my head right now."
"Inside your head." The moment Irene heard those words, her eyes lit up, and she let out a quiet breath of relief. Good. This particular detail hadn't changed.
The thing she had worried about most hadn't happened. Fu Hua's consciousness had successfully transferred — no uncontrollable incidents had occurred.
If Fu Hua's consciousness had truly been lost, Irene wouldn't have known where to begin looking. After all, Fu Hua had shed far too much over the years.
"Perfect timing, then." Irene took Kiana by the hand and led her aside to sit down. The green light of the Bodhi imprint flickered in her palm as she brought Kiana into her own mental space.
Kiana opened her eyes inside the consciousness space and immediately followed Irene's lead. Together, they made their way to Sirin's door.
"It really does feel strange every time I come in here," Kiana muttered, staring at the door in front of her. "It's all inside my own head, but I still have to knock just to get in."
And this character was spending her brain's processing power on video games every single day. It was fortunate that Sirin had gotten everything she needed to done — otherwise, with the CPU drain, Kiana's head probably wouldn't have been able to keep up.
"Everyone deserves a little personal space — don't overthink it." Irene smiled and gave a little wave, then reached out and pushed the door open herself.
She took one look at the room — which had clearly been tidied up — before turning her gaze to Sirin.
"You've been losing more and more of your dignity as a Herrscher, haven't you." Irene looked at Sirin, who was dressed in casual loungewear, and laughed. The majestic Queen — long gone, never to return.
Or rather, it seemed like she'd never quite had it to begin with. After getting thoroughly beaten up and then reasoned into cooperation, she had immediately entered full "lazy fish" mode. But to her credit, she wasn't truly a lazy fish.
Her combat ability was still absolutely top-tier, and after being exposed to subcultures and unexpectedly having her imagination cracked wide open, she had become far more fluid and creative in her application of her Authority.
"Hmph! None of your business." Sirin shot Irene a cold look, then turned toward Fu Hua. "This one showed up out of nowhere after we left Schicksal HQ."
"She was pretty weak at the time, so I just... kept an eye on her. If she had faded away, I wouldn't have bothered telling you — would've saved everyone the trouble of worrying."
"But I think you did take care of her a little, didn't you, Sirin." Irene looked at Sirin and smiled. The Sirin of now was more like a tsundere little kitten — sharp-tongued, but genuinely attentive in her actions.
"I absolutely did not look after her," Sirin said, crossing her arms and drifting to Irene's side. "Anyway, if you have something to say, say it fast, then get this person out of my room."
"I'm not used to having other people living in my space."
"Alright, alright, I'll take her to my side in a moment." Irene laughed, then looked up at the quietly waiting Fu Hua. "Master, can you tell me your current situation?"
Through the Bodhi imprint, she could sense clearly just how poor Fu Hua's soul state was right now. It was in quite a dire condition.
"I transferred here by using the Zeroth Rated Power of Fenghuang Down," Fu Hua said, meeting Irene's gaze. "Just as you said, Otto—"
"Alright, Master, you don't need to continue. We all have a rough idea of what happened." Irene patted Fu Hua on the shoulder. "In any case, Master should be considered ready to turn over a new leaf now, right?"
"Perhaps." Fu Hua glanced over at Sirin. During their brief time together — or rather, during the gaming sessions — she had genuinely discovered that Sirin's state was completely different from what she had imagined.
"That's not the main point, Irene," Fu Hua said, turning back to her. "Can you first tell me what's happening outside right now, and what we're currently..."
"Defecting, roughly speaking — just like Anti-Entropy did back in its day," Irene said, waving a hand with complete nonchalance. "That's at least how Schicksal is defining it."
"As for what we're doing right now — it's nothing much, really. Just collecting Herrscher bonds."
"...Pardon?"
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