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ArabicHonkai Impact: My Power Grows When Valkyries Fall For Me — Chapter 44
Chapter 44: Honkai Emperor
Within the stark confines of the makeshift shelter, Bronya had been awake for hours.
She simply watched, a silent observer as the morning’s drama unfolded. Her gaze, a pair of emotionless grey lenses, cataloged everything. She watched Kiana curl up in Lucian’s arms like a contented cat, watched Mei murmur to him after waking, and listened as Kiana made one astonishingly bold declaration after another.
She observed the complex play before her, her placid expression a perfect mask for the storm brewing within.
She couldn’t identify the source of the envy that had taken root in her mind. It was an illogical, foreign sensation. In her own understanding, all her emotions, her entire being, should be tethered to Seele and Seele alone. That gentle girl, sleeping peacefully in the Sea of Quanta, was the only existence she cared about, the one person in the universe she was sworn to protect.
So why did she feel a pang of longing, an unfamiliar ache, when she saw the easy intimacy between Kiana, Mei, and Lucian?
Bronya tilted her head, her grey eyes fixed on the broad expanse of Lucian’s back.
This man… he was a complete anomaly.
The way he treated her was always so careful, so gentle, like one would treat a cherished younger sister. It was infuriating.
Despite Bronya’s most calculated efforts to seduce him during their time living together, he had remained utterly unmoved. She had intentionally paraded around in one of his oversized shirts, the hem barely preserving her modesty. She had feigned helplessness in the bathroom, pretending to have forgotten something just to make him pass it to her. She had even appeared at his door late at night, hugging a pillow, and declared her desire to sleep with him.
His reactions were maddeningly bland.
He simply bought her new clothes that fit. He anticipated her needs for her next bath, preparing everything in advance. And after she had “fallen asleep” in his bed, he had silently retreated to the living room couch for the night.
It was as if all her carefully planned actions were nothing more than a little girl’s mischief in his eyes.
For a time, Bronya had even begun to doubt herself. Was her charm insufficient? Or perhaps Lucian simply had no interest in her type?
But that was impossible.
Bronya’s micro-expression analysis was never wrong. Based on his occasionally flustered glances, the subtle flush that crept up the tips of his ears, and the fractional hitch in his respiration whenever she was near, she could be absolutely certain.
He was interested. He was just deliberately, painstakingly, maintaining a distance—a not-too-close, not-too-far buffer that drove her mad.
Bronya did not like this distance.
Her brow furrowed almost imperceptibly as she watched the three of them, now pressed together in a comfortable tangle. Mei and Kiana had simultaneously thrown themselves into Lucian’s arms, leaning against his shoulders and whispering to him.
Bronya’s fingers curled into a tight fist at her side.
Just then, as if sensing the intensity of her stare, Lucian turned his head. Their eyes met for a fleeting moment across the room. He offered her a gentle smile, the kind of tender, indulgent expression one reserved for family.
A brotherly smile.
Bronya’s face remained a mask of indifference as she coolly averted her gaze.
“BOSS,” she announced, her crisp voice slicing through the heated, ambiguous atmosphere that had settled in the corner. “Supplies are estimated to last for five days. The Bronya suggests we promptly search for survival necessities or begin planning an evacuation route.”
The effect was instantaneous. Kiana and Mei both went rigid, instinctively pulling back from Lucian’s embrace as twin blushes bloomed on their cheeks.
Lucian just nodded toward Bronya, his expression turning serious.
“You’re right. We can’t stay here forever…”
…
It was noon in Changkong City, but you wouldn’t know it. The sun was a forgotten memory, completely blotted out by thick, bruised-purple Honkai clouds that cast the world in a perpetual, sickly twilight.
The four of them picked their way through the skeletal remains of the streets. The ubiquitous Death Soldiers, shambling and twitching with unnatural energy, made their progress a slow, arduous crawl.
However, to say their progress was hindered was not entirely accurate. In reality, Lucian was the only one dealing with the undead horde.
Mei had only just recovered her senses and was in no condition to fight. Kiana, armed with nothing but a baseball bat, would be easily injured if she tried to take on a Death Soldier. As for Bronya, deploying Project Bunny would create a deafening racket, attracting every Honkai beast for miles.
Lucian’s method for dispatching the creatures was simple, almost elegant in its brutality. He didn’t need to lift a finger. A flicker of gold in his eye, a focused thought, and the Honkai Energy animating a Death Soldier would be ripped from its host, causing the body to collapse into a pile of inert dust.
The true obstacle was their sheer, overwhelming number. A quick scan of a single street revealed no fewer than thirty of the things wandering aimlessly. By now, the Honkai Energy Lucian had harvested and compressed amounted to a staggering 7HW—enough raw power to manifest two Templar-class Honkai Beasts. He held it all in his hand, condensed into a pulsating, fist-sized crystal of pure energy.
Just as he infused the final wisp of power into the crystal, a jarring electronic chime echoed in the silence. His phone was ringing.
“Hm?”
Lucian raised an eyebrow, pulling the device from his pocket. The screen glowed with a familiar, almost childish contact name: teriri.
Theresa.
The fact that her call could even get through meant the ambient Honkai radiation in their current location was surprisingly thin, not dense enough to block the signal.
“Hello, Principal Theresa?” he answered, his voice calm.
“Lucian! Thank goodness! How are you? Communications are finally restored!” Theresa’s voice burst from the speaker, laced with an undisguised urgency. “What’s your current location? Are you safe?”
Lucian held the phone to his ear, his gaze sweeping over the dead-silent streets and the dense clusters of Death Soldiers still shambling in the distance. “Temporarily safe. We’re in the commercial district near St. Freya Academy.”
“Commercial district…” Theresa paused. In the background, he could hear the faint, frantic beeping of control panels. “Listen carefully. We’re detecting abnormal fluctuations in the Honkai energy readings in Changkong City. It’s likely a Templar-class threat or higher, and its signature is very close to St. Freya.”
“Evacuate to the east, immediately. The Hyperion will be arriving in eastern Changkong City shortly. I’m sending you the coordinates now.”
Theresa was still speaking, but her words were drowned out as the very ground beneath Lucian’s feet began to tremble violently.
He looked up.
In the distance, at the far end of the commercial street, smoke and dust billowed into the sky from the half-collapsed shell of a department store. A behemoth was slowly, deliberately, rising from the ruins.
It was a Honkai Beast, easily over three meters in length, with a heavily armored, rounded body. Four massive, blade-like carapaces floated around its form, humming with a lethal energy.
It was a Honkai Emperor—a terrifyingly large one.
“Principal Theresa,” Lucian said, his voice dropping low. “I’m afraid it’s already too late.”
The line went silent for a heartbeat.
“…Is it near you?”
“To be precise,” Lucian murmured, his eyes locked on the Honkai Emperor as it stretched its newly formed body, “it’s right in front of me.”
“Damn it…” Theresa’s breath hitched audibly over the receiver, her words tumbling out in a rush. “Stay hidden! The Hyperion will proceed to your location for support at maximum speed! focus on your own safety, Lucian, do not engage it!”
“Understood.”
Lucian hung up, stuffing the phone back into his pocket. His gaze never left the colossal beast, which was now fully acclimated to its body and beginning to radiate an aura of pure, indiscriminate menace.
“This big, huh… dealing with this is going to take some effort,” he murmured to himself, though his tone held no trace of fear.
“BOSS, let’s find a place to hide,” Bronya’s voice came from behind him, logical and steady.
But Lucian, his eyes still fixed on the fortress-like Honkai Emperor in the distance, simply shook his head.
“Bronya,” he said, a strange, quiet confidence in his voice. “I am very strong now.”
As he spoke, he tossed the small, dark sphere in his hand into the air. The ultra-high-purity Honkai Energy crystal hovered before him, and at his silent command, it began to shift and warp, elongating into the shape of an arrow. Its entire body flowed with an inner light, a liquid-like, dark purple luminescence that was both beautiful and terrifying.
“Let’s use this to say hello.”
With his words, a bow of pure, dark purple energy coalesced in his hands. He gripped it in his left hand, his right reaching out to rest on the nock of the floating Honkai arrow.
The moment his fingers made contact, the flowing light within the arrow shaft blazed to life, becoming incandescent. The very air around it seemed to shimmer and distort, warped by the sheer concentration of Honkai energy.
Lucian’s eyes narrowed. The complex golden pattern in his right eye burned brighter as he drew upon his Authority. His arm drew back slowly, a bowstring of pure energy tightening without a sound, the arrow’s tip aimed unerringly at the Honkai Emperor hundreds of meters away.
The wind on the ruined street seemed to die. The air grew thick and heavy, charged with the evident threat of immense power.
“Lucian…?” Kiana whispered, her voice barely audible. She, Mei, and Bronya could only stare, their eyes wide as they watched him. They watched the arrow in his hand, a thing that pulsed with an aura of absolute destruction. They could all feel it—any living thing could feel it—this strike would be apocalyptic.
Lucian drew the bow to its absolute limit, dense Honkai energy flowing like a river through his hands.
And then, he let it go.
A soundless scream tore through the fabric of the world. The arrow became a bolt of falling purple lightning, a searing violet streak that crossed the distance in an instant and plunged straight through the Honkai Emperor’s massive body.
For a split second, there was silence.
Then, a blazing, incandescent explosion of pure energy blossomed outwards, engulfing the Honkai Emperor’s form completely. A violent, roiling storm of purple light submerged its body, swallowing it whole.