Honkai Impact: My Power Grows When Valkyries Fall For Me — Chapter 96

Chapter 96: Kill Him

Lucian stared at the line of text, his mind going blank for several long seconds.

He read the string of titles again, and a laugh escaped him—not one of joy, but a bitter, weary sound that seemed to ask, ‘What in the world is going on?”My future self… is this outrageous?’

The text on the screen refreshed almost instantly, as if it had been waiting for that very question.

“Outrageous?”

“You’re more than just outrageous.”

“You’re a complete and utter bastard.”

Lucian’s eyelid twitched. He couldn’t stop himself from typing back.

“Are you sure you’re talking about me?”

A new line of text immediately jumped onto the screen.

“What, don’t believe me?”

“Want me to tell you about the good deeds you’ve done?”

Lucian was silent for a moment.

“Tell me.”

“Come see me.”

He froze, staring at the two simple words.

The text on the screen continued its silent assault.

“Those things… can’t be explained in a sentence or two.”

“I’ll tell you face to face.”

A frown creased Lucian’s brow. He fell silent again, his gaze fixed on the screen.

‘Go see her?’

His mind flashed back to the whiteboard in her lab, the dense, frantic handwriting that screamed of an overflowing, suffocating possessiveness. If he went to see her now… what would happen?

He didn’t have an answer, but a cold certainty settled in his gut. If he went, he probably wouldn’t be coming back.

He glanced down at his own wrist, flexing his fingers. His physical strength was that of an ordinary person; he couldn’t even lift the two boxes of documents Rita had brought. If Mobius decided to do something to him, he wouldn’t have a prayer of resisting.

And even if he used his Authority… could he really defeat the Mobius of this era?

Countless thoughts blazed through his mind in an instant.

But the text on the screen kept refreshing, relentless.

“What, don’t you dare?”

“Afraid I’ll eat you?”

The corner of Lucian’s mouth twitched.

“Of course. I don’t want to die.”

The screen was silent for a second.

Then, new text appeared.

“Die?”

“Do you think if I had the ability to come find you, you could have lived so peacefully until now?”

Lucian’s breath hitched.

‘That’s true…’

If Mobius could really reach him, with that pathological possessiveness he’d witnessed, she would never have allowed him to live this quiet life. She would have already dragged him into her cage.

“So…” he spoke, his voice hesitant in the quiet room. “You can’t move freely right now?”

The screen was silent for several long seconds.

Then, a single word jumped out.

“Yes.”

Lucian stared at the word, dumbfounded. This wasn’t the scenario he had imagined at all. He had no idea how Mobius had survived from the Previous Era until now, but if she had, she must be a far cry from the woman he remembered from the Elysian Realm. She would be more paranoid, more unhinged.

If Mobius was truly trapped, then who were the people who had been watching him, recording his every move?

Other members of World Serpent?

Or was it possible that even while imprisoned, Mobius still had the means to control everything from afar?

“Where are you now?” Lucian’s voice sounded exceptionally clear in the stillness.

The screen paused, then new text slowly materialized.

“The Sea of Quanta.”

“It’s so boring in this World Bubble. Hurry up and save me, darling~”

Lucian stared at the line, his expression unreadable. He thought back to the notebook he’d just read. Given that state of utter repression, if Mobius was truly trapped somewhere, she must be dying to get out.

And… dying to get her hands on him.

“Who trapped you?”

“You did.”

Lucian was stunned. “Me?”

“Mhm.”

“It was you who trapped me here.”

He stared at the words on the screen, one eyebrow arching in disbelief. He had trapped Mobius in the Sea of Quanta?

“Why?” he asked.

The screen went dark for several seconds.

Then, a new message popped up.

“Guess?”

The corner of his mouth twitched again. “I’m not guessing.”

“Boring.”

“You weren’t like this before.”

Lucian felt a strange sense of awkwardness wash over him. ‘Before?’The’before’ Mobius spoke of was his future. And while she claimed he’d done some rather… abstract things, from his current perspective, he hadn’t done anything at all.

“Mobius, I’m not the Lucian you’re talking about yet.”

“No, you are him.”

Lucian’s brow furrowed. “I am not him,” he repeated, his voice a little firmer this time.

The text on the screen refreshed quickly. “You are.”

He was silent for a few seconds, then let out a soft sigh. “Alright, even if I am him… I don’t remember you. To me, you’re just a stranger.”

The screen was quiet again.

Then, new text appeared.

“There is only one Lucian in this world, and that’s you, right here, right now.”

“Alright, this is getting boring.”

“Hurry up and save me, darling. I’ll repay you properly~”

The text on the screen froze.

A moment later, the television emitted a soft click and the screen went completely black.

The room plunged back into silence.

Lucian sat on the sofa, staring at the dark, reflective surface of the TV, his lips pressed into a thin line. He could almost picture the expression on Mobius’s face as she typed that last sentence. It would be that signature half-smile, a mocking glint in her eyes promising untold danger.

‘Repay him?’ He highly doubted it would be anything good.

At least, not for him.

——————

At the same time, deep within the Sea of Quanta.

In a certain World Bubble, a lone shard of land floated in the abyss. It was no larger than a small, severed island, adrift in the void. Around it stretched an endless expanse of gray-white mist, occasionally pierced by flickering points of light like dying stars.

In the center of the island stood a building.

It was a school—a perfectly ordinary school. A white classroom building, a red running track on the playground, and a few nameless trees lined up neatly in front. Sunlight poured down from the eternally unchanging ‘sun’ in the sky of the World Bubble, bathing the playground and the building’s outer walls in a sterile, constant light.

Everything was normal. So normal it was as if someone had deliberately copied a scene from memory and pasted it here, whole and untouched.

Mobius was in a room on the third floor, a space furnished like a bedroom. She was currently slouched in a chair, her legs crossed, her entire body sinking into its soft backrest. The hem of her white lab coat hung down, offering a tantalizing glimpse of a slender waist. Her generous chest strained against the fabric of her shirt as she stared at a screen before her, the corner of her lips curled into a pleased, predatory arc.

“Hmm… leaving Gray Serpent behind really was the right decision…”

The sunlight outside the window was forever bright, so bright it was almost dazzling. The image on the screen was frozen on Lucian’s thoughtful face. Mobius reached out, her fingertip gently tracing the line of his cheek on the monitor. A cold, sterile sensation met her touch, but she didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Soon…” she murmured, her voice exceptionally clear in the quiet room. A nearly pathological obsession flickered in the depths of her green, serpentine eyes.

Just then, the door behind her was suddenly pushed open.

Mobius’s fingertip paused, but she didn’t turn around.

“Gray Serpent, didn’t I tell you not to disturb me?” Her voice was lazy, laced with a distinct note of displeasure.

Silence hung at the doorway for a second before a man’s voice answered.

“Mobius. You found him.”

Her finger froze completely. She still didn’t turn, but the languid quality of her voice sharpened into something else entirely.

“Kevin. I remember telling you not to appear before me.”

The person at the door ignored her statement. Footsteps sounded from behind her, unhurried, each soft tread on the floor deliberate and measured.

Mobius kept her gaze fixed on the screen, on Lucian’s frozen, contemplative face.

“After all these years, you haven’t changed a bit,” she said softly, a hint of something that might have been helplessness in her tone.

“You, on the other hand, have changed quite a bit,” the man’s voice finally responded. It carried a faint, detached quality, as if the world and everything in it was of no concern to him.

Mobius let out a soft laugh. It was a light sound, yet it carried an indescribable weight of mockery. She finally turned her head to look toward the doorway.

A tall, slender figure stood there.

He had short, silver-white hair and ice-blue eyes, his handsome face a mask of frost.

Kevin Kaslana.

The former strongest warrior of the Flame-Chasers, now the sovereign of World Serpent.

“Kevin,” Mobius purred, her lips curling into that familiar, mocking smile. “Did you finally crawl out of your freezer?”

Kevin didn’t respond to her taunt. He just stood there, his ice-blue eyes looking past the ambient light of the room to fall upon the screen behind her.

On it, Lucian’s face was frozen in time.

A face that was identical to someone from a long-lost memory.

“It’s him,” Kevin’s voice was very soft, yet it carried a tremor so faint it was almost undetectable.

Mobius watched him, a complex emotion flashing through her eyes. “You remember quite clearly.”

Kevin didn’t answer. He simply stared at the screen, silent for several long seconds.

Then he spoke.

“Where is he?”

Mobius tilted her head, a dangerous glint igniting in her serpentine eyes.

“What do you want to do?”

Kevin finally looked at her, his ice-blue eyes as calm and still as a frozen lake.

“Kill him.”