Honkai Star Rail: Summoning the Chrysos Heirs — Chapter 70

Chapter 70: Just in Time

The middle-aged captain gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw trembling under the sheer strain of his depleted stamina. His bloodshot eyes locked onto the target ahead, wringing the absolute last drops of energy from his battered body.

“Get out of the way!”

With a guttural roar, a visible shockwave of transparent distortion erupted from his core. The surrounding air compressed under the terrifying repulsive force, shrieking as it blasted toward the black-robed Bishop.

A colossal shadow instantly swallowed his line of sight. One of the massive Abominations, dragging its feet like a walking mountain of rotting flesh, lumbered directly into the path between the captain and the Bishop.

A deafening thud reverberated through the subterranean chamber.

The kinetic blast, packing enough sheer force to pulverize solid rock, slammed into the beast’s chest. It merely slid half a step backward. Aside from two deep trenches gouged into the concrete floor by its heels, the monster remained entirely unscathed.

The captain betrayed no shock. He refused to waste even a fraction of a second staring at the grotesque meat shield.

The very instant the Abomination’s bulk eclipsed the Bishop’s line of sight, he snapped his head back. His gaze cut through the chaotic battlefield, locking eyes with Flash and Mirage behind him. It was a silent, desperate exchange, a flawless tactical understanding forged through countless brushes with death.

Flash’s face was deathly pale, a thin trail of blood leaking from his nostril, yet he offered a microscopic nod. Mirage bit down hard on the tip of his tongue, using the sharp sting of pain to anchor his fading consciousness, and mirrored the gesture.

“Heh. The same parlor trick.”

Standing comfortably behind his Abomination, the Bishop did not even bother to shift his stance. His voice dripped with arrogant contempt.

“Now that I have witnessed your little trick, a straightforward assault like this will never touch me a second time.”

He waved a hand with casual disdain, commanding the towering mountain of flesh to step aside.

But the moment the Abomination shifted its weight, the captain neither retreated nor sought cover.

Ignoring the lesser Abominations that hissed and clawed at his flanks, he stomped his boot into the cracked floor and thrust his right hand toward the Bishop once more. The atmosphere warped as another violent ripple of repulsive force gathered in his palm.

“Are you quite finished?”

Watching the repetitive assault, the Bishop furrowed his brow, a flicker of genuine impatience crossing his turbid eyes. He snapped his fingers, and the giant Abomination obediently lurched back into place, forming an impenetrable wall of meat.

But in that exact fraction of a second, the trap sprang.

A blinding surge of azure light erupted from the empty air directly behind the Bishop. Before the nauseating distortion of torn space could even settle, the captain stepped out of the blue rift. He clutched a glowing spatial scroll in his left hand while his right fist pulled back, borrowing the violent momentum of the teleportation to throw a devastating hook aimed squarely at the back of the Bishop’s skull.

The instant the captain materialized behind him, the Bishop let out a derisive snort. It was as if the cultist had eyes in the back of his head.

The concrete floor exploded. Several thick, dark green vines, writhing like massive pythons, tore out from the earth and lashed around the captain’s limbs with surgical precision.

In the blink of an eye, that heavy, lethal punch froze dead in mid-air. The captain’s entire body was hoisted upward, bound so tightly by the thorny creepers that his joints popped under the pressure.

The expended scroll slipped from his paralyzed fingers, clattering uselessly against the tips of the Bishop’s boots.

Having secured his prey, the Bishop turned around with agonizing slowness. He looked up at the man suspended in the air, drinking in the exaggerated expression of absolute disbelief painted across the captain’s face. A cruel, twisted smile stretched across the Bishop’s lips.

“I already told you. The same trick cannot be used on me twice.”

He reached into the voluminous folds of his black robes and slowly withdrew a jagged, warped ritual sword. The corrupted metal caught the dim light, reflecting the fanatical madness swimming in his cloudy eyes.

“So what if you blocked my vision? Did you honestly believe I couldn’t smell that pathetic, disgusting stench radiating off your skin?”

Before the echo of his taunt could fade, the mocking amusement in the Bishop’s eyes hardened into pure malice. He raised the ritual blade high and drove it mercilessly into the captain’s shoulder.

The sickening sound of metal biting deep into flesh echoed clearly across the room.

Yet, the anticipated scream of agony never came.

The Bishop’s grip on the hilt suddenly stiffened. He stared down at the fresh wound in utter bewilderment. Instead of crimson blood, thick streams of pitch-black liquid oozed from the laceration. The fluid carried the distinct, sharp scent of calligraphy ink, dripping down the grooved blade and pooling rapidly on the floor.

A violent tearing sound abruptly ripped through the air near his boots.

The Bishop’s pupils contracted to pinpricks. He whipped his head around by pure reflex.

Filling his entire field of vision was a massive, scarred fist, expanding at terrifying speed.

This was the real captain.

The kinetic payload of the repulsive force, compressed to its absolute limit, detonated against the Bishop’s forehead without a shred of mercy. The sheer concussive power of the blow instantly compressed the surrounding air into a visible white shockwave.

The Bishop did not even have the breath to grunt before he was launched backward like a fired artillery shell. With a catastrophic crash, his body slammed into the reinforced concrete wall, spiderwebbing the structure and sending a thick cloud of pulverized stone and dust billowing into the air.

The captain landed heavily on his boots, his chest heaving as he dragged ragged breaths into his burning lungs. He stared into the settling dust cloud, a flash of genuine shock piercing his hardened demeanor.

Logically, a full-power kinetic strike of that magnitude should have popped a normal Ability User’s head like an overripe melon. It should not have merely sent him flying.

‘He survived?’

Alarm bells shrieked in the captain’s mind. He did not hesitate for a singular heartbeat. Channeling the last of his strength into his legs, he launched himself toward the cratered wall like a loosed arrow, desperate to press the advantage and cave the bastard’s skull in for good.

But the moment his boot left the ground, a bone-deep, paralyzing cold swept in from his blind spot.

There was no whistling wind, no shift in the air, no warning whatsoever. A pitch-black scythe blade materialized from the empty void and drove itself cleanly through the captain’s right shoulder.

Hot blood sprayed across the rubble.

The captain stared at the dark metal protruding from his collarbone, his pupils shrinking in horror. Before the searing agony could even register in his brain, the earth violently ruptured beneath him. A tidal wave of thorny vines erupted from the cracked foundation, swarming over him like a nest of enraged vipers and binding him into a suffocating cocoon.

“Captain!”

Mirage’s raw, despairing scream tore through the cavernous room.

The captain strained his neck against the crushing vines, his heart plummeting as he looked across the battlefield. Flash and Mirage were pinned to the bloody floor beneath the crushing weight of the Abominations. Their limbs were bent at grotesque, unnatural angles, discarded in the dirt like broken ragdolls.

A wet, rattling cough echoed from the crater.

As the dust slowly thinned, the black-robed figure swayed on his feet and dragged himself upright. The Bishop’s current state was nothing short of nightmarish. His neck was bent at a sickening angle, his head lolling loosely against his shoulder. A horrifying depression caved in the entire upper half of his skull, exposing jagged splinters of white bone through the torn scalp as thick, blackish-red fluid cascaded down his face.

Any normal human would have died instantly from the sheer trauma.

But the Bishop did not fall. He simply raised a trembling hand to his chin and, with a wet, sickening crunch, violently snapped his broken neck back into alignment.

He took a stiff, jerky step forward, then another, closing the distance to the suspended captain. His cloudy eyes were now entirely consumed by a bottomless, rabid frenzy, locking onto his prey with venomous hatred.

“I did not expect it… I truly did not expect it…”

The Bishop’s voice was a mangled, wet rasp, grating like rusted iron hinges.

“You miserable insects… you actually managed to hide one last trick up your sleeves.”

He reached up, his pale fingers tracing the edge of the catastrophic crater in his skull, and a distorted, euphoric grin stretched his bloody lips.

“However… what a pity. My flesh has long since achieved perfect harmony with the Abominations. I have ascended to the body of a demigod. Pathetic mortal strikes of this caliber can never kill me.”

He retrieved his fallen ritual sword, the jagged tip swaying dangerously close to the captain’s eyes, catching the dim light.

“You have thoroughly angered me.”

The Bishop leaned down, his gruesome, ruined face hovering mere inches from the captain’s nose. The rancid stench of rotting blood poured from his mouth with every breath.

“I will peel the skin from your flesh bit by bit. I will grind your bones to dust inch by inch. I will ensure you savor an eternity of torment in the darkest abyss.”

He raised the blade high, plunging it downward to gouge out the captain’s left eye.

“Go to hell!”

Right at the absolute precipice of death, a deafening, cataclysmic roar obliterated the silence.

The entire third subterranean level convulsed violently, raining dust and shattered concrete from the ceiling. The massive, reinforced alloy doors at the far end of the laboratory, along with the load-bearing walls surrounding them, were instantly vaporized into flying shrapnel by an apocalyptic force.

“Now what!”

The Bishop flinched, his hand jerking from the shockwave. The tip of his ritual blade deviated by a fraction of an inch, merely slicing a shallow cut across the captain’s cheekbone. He whipped his ruined head toward the source of the blast, roaring in blind fury.

Through the billowing clouds of pulverized stone and smoke, a silhouette emerged.

A young man draped in pristine white-gold robes stepped casually through the smoldering ruins, resting a massive greatsword wreathed in blinding, golden flames upon his shoulder. He walked with an unhurried, measured grace, his boots crushing the shattered alloy beneath his feet with sharp, rhythmic crunches.

Amidst this subterranean hellscape of blood, rot, and despair, the youth looked entirely alien, like a sovereign deity who had merely taken a wrong turn into the underworld.

The young man came to a halt, his serene gaze sweeping over the carnage. He noted Flash and Mirage bleeding out on the floor with their shattered limbs, then shifted his attention to the captain suspended in the suffocating thorny vines. Finally, his eyes settled on the grotesque, mangled form of the Bishop.

The youth furrowed his brow slightly, as if the sheer ugliness of the scene offended his sensibilities.

“It seems I have arrived a bit late,” the young man murmured, a trace of genuine apology softening his tone.

He then lowered the blazing greatsword, leveling the fiery tip directly at the Bishop’s chest. In an instant, his gentle demeanor vanished, replaced by an overwhelming, suffocating killing intent.

“However… at least I made it in time.”