In The Honkai World: Transforming Into An IF-Route Valkyrie

"Alright, I'll go call them up." Raven gave a nod, but paused mid-step and glanced back at Irene. "You're sure you've got this, right?"

"Relax. And if you really can't take my word for it — want me to call your beloved Sovereign Mobius over to supervise in person?" Irene rolled her eyes. Her knowledge of biology had been passed down directly from Mobius. It had made her head spin while she was learning it, but Mobius had genuinely given everything she had in teaching Irene — no holding back, no secrets kept.

Put it this way: Irene's current grasp of biology was thorough enough to walk into any research laboratory and take the director's chair, or even set up her own independent department without breaking a sweat.

Add to that the exceptional talent Irene possessed as the Herrscher of Death — her innate affinity for biological systems, both in raw ability and in the mechanics of life and death — and even within Mobius's own laboratory, Irene was more than qualified to serve as a research assistant.

Well, the kind where Mobius did the thinking and Irene ran the experiments.

Even Mobius herself had been forced to admit it: a Herrscher of Death conducting biological experiments was something else entirely in terms of sheer efficiency.

"Right, yeah — let's not bother with that, then." Raven quickly waved the suggestion away. That's more than enough, no objections here — I'll go gather everyone now.

Seeing how confident Irene was, Raven decided not to press further. She'd only asked again as a safety precaution. And when Irene went ahead and invoked Mobius as her personal guarantor, what was there left to say?

Raven turned and jogged back toward the base. The others followed at a leisurely pace — the surrounding area was still riddled with the aftermath of Kevin and Little Senti's clash, and bringing the children into a warzone-looking stretch of ground was hardly ideal.

Little Senti, meanwhile, was eyeing Irene with a puzzled expression. "Irene, you just mentioned Mobius — how do you know Mobius? Even if you met Su, Mobius wouldn't have been around at the time, would she?"

Sure, Irene might have met Su — but Su, whatever else you said about him, had traveled to this era alongside Little Senti himself. Given how gifted Irene was, it wasn't hard to believe Su had passed his imprint to her.

But how could Irene have possibly met Mobius? Mobius had died in the Previous Era — or at least, she'd vanished back then. No one had ever seen her again, and the Current Era had no trace of her whatsoever.

She had to be dead. Unless... the Elysian Realm? But how would Irene know about the Realm? Kevin had only just resurfaced recently — wait, no, hold on. Su? Was it Su?

"Hmm? What is it, Master? Deep in thought?" Irene looked over at Little Senti, who had drifted into a contemplative silence. "Working through something big?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that — I was just wondering how you came to know Mobius." Little Senti shook his head and turned a curious look on Irene.

"Master, have you forgotten about Miss Pardo?" Irene tapped the side of her head. "For me, getting to know someone isn't exactly difficult. What Master really wants to know, I imagine, is how I received her instruction — am I right?"

"You don't need to tell me — I already know." Little Senti patted his own chest with quiet confidence. "Su told you about the Realm, and Pardo knew about it too, didn't she?"

"Knowing Pardo's luck, she probably just pointed you in the right direction and accidentally led you straight there."

Little Senti spoke the words while nodding to himself, as though entirely convinced by his own reasoning. Irene simply smiled and gave an agreeable nod.

No need to explain everything in too much detail. The priority right now was making sure Little Senti's feelings were properly settled.

Raven moved fast. In no time at all, she came back leading a cluster of small children. Irene walked into the middle of them and reached out to ruffle the hair of Sora, who stood at the front.

Sora enjoyed the head-pat for a moment before tilting his head up to look at the unfamiliar young woman before him. "Miss, are you the one Teacher said could help us?"

"That's me." Irene nodded. She looked out at the circle of children gathered around her, and after asking everyone to step back a little, white light and black mist began to rise from her body, gradually enveloping her from head to toe.

Under the children's wide, hopeful eyes, the black mist and the white glow separated into two distinct currents — and then, all at once, swept open behind her like a pair of wings unfolding.

Her outfit changed as well. At the sight of the wings spreading out behind Irene, the dull emptiness in Sora's eyes flickered into a faint, wondering light. "Is Miss an angel?"

"I am. Right now, I'm your angel." Irene smiled. From the white feathered wings, countless tiny points of white light began to drift downward, settling gently onto the children around her.

The pure Authority of Creation took effect at once, working in a gentle, measured way to coax the Stigmata lying dormant in each child's body — already half-awakened — into full bloom.

The process itself wasn't particularly complicated. It was a matter of reinforcing each child's physical constitution, and helping draw out the Stigmata encoded in their genetic makeup.

At the end of the day, Stigmata sounded mystical, but in practical terms, it was simply what Dr. MEI had written into human genetics. Anything encoded in genes — anything biological — fell within the domain of the Herrscher of Death.

And that knowledge was part of what Irene had studied. If she hadn't had the right tools for the job, she would never have agreed to take it on in the first place — these were children, after all.

If she hadn't been confident, Irene would never have made a move.

As the Authority of Creation awakened the Stigmata, it simultaneously worked a gentle transformation on the children's physical constitutions. It didn't directly boost their Honkai Adaptability or Resistance — but a stronger physical base was always a benefit.

Besides, the fact that these children were capable of awakening Stigmata at all was assurance enough that their Honkai Adaptability and Resistance were already in safe territory. No need for her to do much extra on that front.

Irene closed her eyes, drawing on Taixuan Sword Qi to guide the Honkai energy circulating through her body, carefully observing each child's condition one by one, making certain no mistakes crept in.

Raven watched with undisguised worry as the white particles multiplied around the children, eventually beginning to wrap around them entirely.

Nearby, Kevin watched Irene in thought. If Irene could truly awaken Stigmata without any risk at all — could that be of some use to Project Stigma?

If it could, Kevin would naturally prefer to execute the plan through gentler means. But he wasn't clever like Dr. MEI, who had laid out so many alternative paths. He could only carry out the final plan himself — even if it demanded heavy sacrifice, he would see it done.

Little Senti stood to the side radiating a particular brand of inexplicable confidence. This was his disciple, after all. His disciple couldn't possibly be anything other than impressive — how could she be?

When the light finally faded, every child who had been bathed in the glow was now lying on the ground. Raven immediately rushed forward and scooped one up — only to find, once she did, that their breathing was perfectly steady. They were simply asleep.

She looked up at Irene. "Miss Irene, this is...?"

"Let the children sleep for a bit." Irene dismissed her Herrscher form. "Awakening a Stigmata isn't a comfortable experience. I suppressed their pain receptors, and now they need time to adapt to the enhancements the Stigmata is conferring on their bodies."

"Oh — that's a relief." Raven exhaled. As long as the children were fine. "So there's nothing to worry about now?"

"Not a thing." Irene shook her head, and with a light hop, stepped out of the circle of sleeping children. "They no longer need the high-Honkai-energy environment to sustain them."

"In fact, if any of them ever went to Schicksal, earning a Valkyrie title wouldn't be particularly difficult for anyone in this group."

"Poaching people from our Sovereign right in front of her... is that really a good idea?" Raven gave Irene a look — got a roll of the eyes in return — and then turned to gaze down at the sleeping children. She'd deal with that aside. More pressing question: how was she supposed to move all of these children back inside?

"My end of the deal is settled — I'll be on my way." Irene waved a hand at Raven. Little Senti said another brief goodbye to Kevin, then stepped forward, hauled Irene up, and launched them both into the high sky.

He couldn't wait to see Nuwa, Fuxi, and the others.

"Hey, wait a second! If you just leave like that, how am I supposed to move the children back?" Raven stared after the departing Irene. The least she could have done was help carry them back inside before flying off.

Kevin glanced at Raven, then turned and took to the sky himself. He had other matters to attend to — meeting, for instance, with this era's anti-Honkai organization: Otto.

"And just like that, everyone leaves?" Raven watched them go from both sides, then looked back down at the small bodies scattered across the ground. She heaved a sigh, and started calling for some Titan Mechas to carry them back in.

High above, Little Senti held Irene with one hand while the two of them shot through the upper sky at speed. He had apparently forgotten that Irene could fly perfectly well on her own.

As it happened, though, Irene didn't mind being carried. She was perfectly happy to let Little Senti do the work — too lazy to bother pointing it out. And perhaps Little Senti had forgotten too, or perhaps he simply enjoyed the feeling of ferrying his disciple along, because he never raised the subject either.

Perhaps it was the novelty and sense of responsibility that came with being a first-time Master — but for the entire flight, Little Senti kept regaling Irene with tales excavated from his own memories.

"I'm telling you, the me from back then was just too well-behaved, too well-behaved — always trying to live this pure, desire-free existence." Little Senti rambled on, and at some point dredged up something from the archive of his memories that made him stick out his tongue in mild self-reproach. "And for all that, there were barely any edible vegetables on that mountain."

"Nothing but greens and the like — and those fat crimson kites, but you couldn't eat those."

As he spoke, Little Senti turned the memories over in his mind. He recalled that Taixuan Mountain had originally housed only a single crimson kite — kept there, in truth, simply to add a little color and life for the people living on the mountain.

But with a top-tier MANTIS on Taixuan Mountain, two individuals who had undergone metamorphic factor surgery in Nuwa and Fuxi, and the sheer concentration of Honkai energy from all those research facilities — they had inadvertently turned one of their hens into a Honkai Beast.

The transformation hadn't been complete, though. The creature had kept its gentle disposition. The original crimson kite hadn't lived especially long — but the small kites it had given rise to afterward had genuinely taken root on Taixuan Mountain and thrived there.

They'd been both a pastime and something of a local feature. Back in the days of the Taixuan Sword Sect, catching them had occasionally served as training — though naturally, for the people on that mountain, catching a bird was more of a casual amusement than any real challenge.

They were, at the end of the day, just small animals that had been exposed to Honkai energy, adapted to it, and developed a measure of intelligence — formidable enough to bully ordinary people, but no real threat to the community of superhumans that called Taixuan home.

For the Taixuan Sword Sect, the little crimson kites were playmates at best. That said, it would be wrong to call them entirely without fighting ability.

The kites naturally moved in flocks, and thanks to the Honkai energy in their systems, they were genuinely smart — smart enough to actually pick up weapons and beat people with them.

And provoke one, and you'd effectively provoked the whole flock. Those chubby birds, armed with makeshift weapons, had been something like a local gang — the Taixuan Blade Brotherhood, so to speak — and had genuinely intimidated a number of the villages in the surrounding area.

They had eventually become the divine birds those villages made offerings to.

That really does appeal to me, Little Senti thought, rubbing his chin with satisfaction. Once we get back to Taixuan Mountain, I'll see if I can find a bold one to take under my wing.

But even as his thoughts ran wild, Little Senti didn't forget to check in on his disciple. Taking on a new follower was one thing — the disciple already in hand deserved more attention, naturally.

"Whatever the case, don't go learning from me — or rather, the me from back then. Be good to yourself, in every way. If there's something good to eat, eat it. If there's something fun to do, do it."

"Don't wait until you look back and find that all your memories are nothing but an endless stretch of mountain forest. Or worse — wait until you're already dead, and only then realize there's something you might have missed. By then, there's no going back."

"Master speaks wisely." Irene nodded without argument. She wasn't about to develop a taste for that kind of food anyway — and she knew how to cook, so how would she ever let herself sink to eating like that?

Still, she didn't forget to give the Fu Hua in the back of her mind a gentle nudge: [On that note, Master — I've always been a little curious: you didn't actually spend your time on Taixuan Mountain subsisting on nothing but preserved vegetables, did you?]

[Some of the details are hazy now, but conditions on the mountain were harsh — there wasn't much to work with.] Fu Hua answered from within Irene's mind. [And my thoughts at the time were... quiet. There wasn't much I desired. So food only needed to be enough to fill me up.]

[To think you treated yourself that way after we left...] Fuxi joined the conversation at that point, a trace of exasperation in her voice. [You weren't even that bad when we were still there, you know.]

Back then, harsh as conditions had been, Fu Hua had still gone out occasionally to pick a fight with some wild beast, so there had been meat to eat. And with their collective knowledge, they'd even managed to work out how to get their hands on salt.

Life hadn't been entirely flavorless. Fuxi hadn't expected that once they were gone, Fu Hua's existence would take such a sharp plunge — all the way down to living off pickled vegetables.

[I truly don't know how you endured it, Master.] Irene's consciousness settled back into herself. [Thousands of years, living on nothing but salted greens.]

[...I'm sorry. I've disappointed you all.]

Seeing that the topic seemed to have taken a turn for the worse, Irene changed the subject: [Anyway, Master — once we reach Taixuan Mountain, you'll need to find a moment to meet with Little Senti properly.]

[Let's wait a little longer.] Fu Hua gave a small shake of her head. [The timing isn't right just yet. We can revisit it once we've arrived at Taixuan Mountain. Although, speaking of Taixuan Mountain...]

Into Fu Hua's mind drifted the image of a small, stout figure — always perched on that round ball, always murmuring on about something or other.

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