Phew. Finally done with that.
After tossing the last Honkai beast’s corpse aside, Black Seele jumped down from the mountain of bodies. The moment she noticed Bronya’s eyelids twitch slightly, she immediately handed control of the body back to White Seele.
Just as she’d expected, Bronya woke up not long after. The first thing she saw was Seele’s concerned face, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the towering pile of Honkai beasts.
“Seele… you must have worked hard.”
Seele reached out and gently placed Bronya’s head back onto her lap:
“Mm… actually… all of these Honkai beasts were taken out by the other me.”
“The other Seele only did that because of you, Seele. So Bronya wasn’t wrong. And of course… thank you to the other Seele as well.”
Gazing at the distant light barrier that had grown noticeably thinner but still faintly shimmered, Bronya’s heart sank. But soon enough, she found herself letting go of that heaviness.
“Did something come to mind, Sister Bronya?”
“Seele, you must have known back when you were with World Serpent—the one that ultimately destroyed the Previous Civilization was the Herrscher of the End. That means, even without us, the Previous Civilization managed to defeat the Herrscher of Binding while still having enough strength left to fight the Herrscher of the End. And now… we’re probably just one step away.”
No sooner had Bronya finished speaking than a streak of purple flashed across the distant sky. Where it landed, a crystalline wedge of amber swiftly sprouted and began absorbing the energy within the barrier at an alarming rate.
“Both made of Honkai energy, but this crystalline wedge dissipates far more slowly. Elysia… it seems you’ve got some pretty impressive secrets of your own as well.”
“Is that so? A cute and beautiful girl is bound to have a few little secrets, you know. Mei, if you start grilling me about it right now, I’d be heartbroken~”
Mei didn’t pursue the topic further, because cracks had begun to appear on both the crystalline wedge and the surface of the Binding Barrier.
“Kevin, get ready.”
Crack, crack… BOOM!
The very moment the crystalline wedge shattered, the entire Binding Barrier erupted into violent upheaval. Kevin and Elysia leaped from the transport ship, one after the other.
“Judgment of Shamash, unsheathe!”
The instant the Binding Barrier vanished, scorching flames swept across the land. The Herrscher of Binding didn’t even have time to process what was happening before its entire body was reduced to ashes.
By then, Hua, already pushed to her absolute limit, was about to activate the first rated output of Fenghuang Down—burning all her memories for one final stand—when a massive purple crystalline flower descended from the heavens. Its petals gradually enveloped her body, and between their gaps, a blaze could be seen falling from the sky—a fire that seemed capable of burning away even this deathly silence itself.
“Hua, you did it. We’ve already lost so many. And now… everything will be worth it.”
Those were the last words she heard before losing consciousness.
In the distance, Seele and Bronya bore witness to the fall of the curtain on this battle. Then, the scenery around them began to collapse. When their vision returned, they found that their connection with Einstein had been restored.
Though the two of them made it back to the real world safe and sound, their hearts were still a tangled mess of emotions.
They had known the Herrscher of Binding’s abilities and how to counter them, yet their impact on the entire affair had been next to nothing. They could feel that every single person in Fire Moth was a living, breathing soul—yet when those lives slipped away right before their eyes, they could do nothing but watch until the very end.
That sense of powerlessness—that, more than anything else, was probably the greatest lesson the two of them, especially Bronya, took away from all of this.
