Honkai Star Rail: I Played the Villain, Now the Heroines Want Revenge — Chapter 179

Chapter 179: The Collapse of the Immortal Boat

The metallic shriek of a war horn cut through the omnipresent smoke, a signal of pure violence.

“All units—charge!” General Yueyu’s voice, strained and digitized, crackled through the comms of every warrior, a final command in a battle that already felt lost.

The world was a graveyard of giants. Beneath their feet, the shattered, jade-like ruins of the Xianzhou Fanghu were slick with blood and oil. The air, thick with the smell of ozone and burnt metal, was a chaotic canvas of tracer fire and desperate shouts.

Orion’s knuckles were white as he gripped the hilt of his scavenged Cloud Knight blade. Beside him, Saran was a coiled spring of pure rage. Her silver fox ears were pinned flat, her green eyes already rimmed with a dangerous, blood-red glow.

“It’s finally here…” she snarled, her voice a low growl that was barely human. She hefted the massive, crude battle-axe in her hands. “Borisin mongrels… I’ve come to collect my debt!”

The war began.

The first wave surged over the wreckage. An endless tide of Abominations of Abundance, their flesh twisted into howling mockeries of life, charged alongside heavily armed Borisin shock troops. High above, blotting out the stars, the colossal shadow of the “Jidu Mirage” mothership birthed swarms of smaller warships, reinforcing the assault.

“Saran, look out!” Orion roared, his blade flashing as he bisected an Abomination that lunged at her flank. The creature dissolved into black ash.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” she shrieked, her reply less a statement and more a battle cry. Her battle-axe became a crimson whirlwind, a storm of blood and gore. She wasn’t just fighting; she was butchering, cleaving limbs and shattering armor with a ferocity that bordered on madness.

High above, a small, agile star-skiff dove through the storm of enemy fire. Neergul, her face pale but determined, skillfully strafed the ground, her cannons tearing a path through the dense enemy lines, trying to create a pocket of safety for them.

But there were still too many. The Jidu Mirage seemed to be an endless wellspring of death, birthing more fiends, more ships. The ground trembled with their advance.

“Jiang Li, report the situation! Now!” Orion yelled into his comms, parrying a Borisin blade.

Static crackled, followed by his sister’s panicked voice, punctuated by the sound of explosions. “Too many casualties! Brother, the front line pressure is too great! They’re… they’re breaking through the perimeter! The field hospital is about to collapse! We’re out of medical supplies! You must be careful!”

The thought of Jiang Li in danger sent a cold spike of fear through him, but it was quickly replaced by a hotter rage.

Beside him, Saran was changing. The blood aura around her grew heavier, and her eyes began to glow with an ominous, pulsing crimson.

“Saran! Are you alright? Calm down!” Orion shouted, recognizing the signs.

“I… I’m fine!” she shrieked, backhanding a giant, two-headed fiend with enough force to send it flying in two pieces. “I CAN STILL KILL! KILL THEM ALL!”

Her movements grew frantic, sloppy, losing all semblance of order. She was lost, leaving only pure, indiscriminate destructive intent.

Her crimson gaze swept the battlefield, no longer distinguishing friend from foe. It locked onto a Cloud Knight who was fighting just meters away from Orion.

Her Moon Madness had flared up.

[Inorin’s Note: Moon Madness is a specific racial trait of Saran’s, a berserker state that grants immense power at the cost of sanity, as established in previous chapters.]

“Saran! Stop!” Orion lunged forward, just as her axe descended toward the unsuspecting ally.

He brought his blade up, parrying the blow. The resulting clang was deafening. The sheer, inhuman force of the impact vibrated up his arm, making it go numb to the shoulder.

“GET LOST!” she snarled, her moves growing more vicious, her eyes vacant. She no longer recognized him. She was swinging with clear intent to kill.

Orion dodged another wild, overhead swing. He saw his opening. She was all rage, no technique. He couldn’t kill her. He had to subdue her.

As her axe swung wide, he sheathed his blade, took a single step inside her guard, and channeled all his strength into a single, precise strike to the back of her neck.

His hand chopped down on the nerve cluster at the base of her skull.

Saran’s body went limp, the berserker rage vanishing in an instant. She collapsed forward, a dead weight in his arms.

“Take her to the rear! Quickly!” Orion roared at two approaching logistics Cloud Knights, who stared at the scene with fearful eyes.

He shoved the unconscious Saran into their arms. As they dragged her away, he turned back to the bloody storm. He was alone.

He drew his blade again.

“Mystic Eyes… full open.”

The world drained of color. The chaotic battlefield transformed into a stark, black-and-white net of intricate lines. Every enemy, every bullet, every piece of flying shrapnel was covered in these fragile, beautiful lines of death.

The overwhelming sensory input was agonizing, like needles being driven into his brain, but he embraced it. He charged into the enemy formation.

He was no longer just fighting. He was performing a surgery of annihilation. His blade didn’t cut flesh; it traced the lines.

An Abomination lunged, and his sword lightly grazed a line on its claw. The creature didn’t just stop; it fell apart, its very existence severed. A Borisin fired an energy bolt; he cut the line on the bolt itself, and it dissipated into nothingness. He moved through the enemy formation like a phantom, a whisper of death.

But the pain grew stronger. The cost of perceiving ‘The End’ of so many things at once was too much. His vision began to blur, the headache threatening to split his skull open.

Gritting his teeth, Orion closed his Mystic Eyes. The world flooded back with color, sound, and the overwhelming stench of death. The fight wasn’t over.

Now, the real battle began.

A fiend’s claw tore open his shoulder. Orion ignored the pain as the [Abundance’s Blessing] activated, the wound steaming and knitting itself back together. He backhanded his sword, severing the creature’s head.

A Borisin’s bone blade pierced his abdomen, sinking deep. Instead of retreating, Orion roared, pulling the Borisin onto the blade, using the impalement to drive his own sword straight into its heart.

He was fast, he was strong, he was healing… but he was not invincible. He was ultimately overwhelmed.

Hundreds of fiends surrounded him, a living tide of claws and fangs. They piled onto him, their weight dragging him down. He felt his bones snap, his flesh being torn, only for it to rapidly heal and be torn anew. He was pinned firmly in place, buried under a mountain of his own regenerating flesh and the bodies of his enemies.

“…Brother!” Neergul’s anxious voice crackled through the comms. “My sensors show your vitals are critical! I’m coming to support you! Hold on!”

“Wait… don’t come over! It’s a trap!” Orion roared, his voice muffled by the pile of bodies. “The firepower here is too dense! Stay back, Neergul! That’s an order!”

There was a half-second of static. “No!” Her voice was no longer that of a shy girl, but a resolute warrior. “I must come! You, Jiang Li, Saran… you’re my family! I don’t want to see you get hurt again! I won’t lose you!”

A small, agile warship broke away from its formation, plunging resolutely towards his position amidst the overwhelming gunfire. Lasers and flak scorched its hull, but it didn’t waver.

It was Neergul.

Her cannons blazed, a strafing run that vaporized the mountain of fiends piled on top of him. You crawled out of the pile of mangled flesh, covered in blood, your body steaming as it finished regenerating. You looked up, a surge of relief washing over you.

And then you saw it.

A heavy Borisin beast ship, lurking in the upper atmosphere, had swiveled its main cannon. A dull red targeting laser locked onto Neergul’s fragile skiff.

“NEERGUL! EVADE! NOW!”

Your warning was cut short.

A thick, blinding energy cannon shot from the beast ship. The beam hit Neergul’s warship dead center.

There was no scream. No last words.

There was only a brilliant, silent flower of destruction that bloomed in the void. Fire exploded before your eyes, and that warship, along with the girl inside who always shyly called your name… in an instant, turned into countless fragments scattering across the cold, indifferent void.

“Neergul—!!!”

A raw, broken scream tore from your throat. You watched with wide, unblinking eyes as the small, burning fragments of her ship began to rain down.

Your mind was blank.

She… died.

Not even a complete corpse left behind.