Dragon Kingdom.
"Humans in this world sure have it rough."
Mushoku Kika strolled down the street, a lollipop in hand, idly twirling it between her fingers as she looked at the countless refugees driven here by beastmen from other cities.
In this multiracial world, humans were a mid-to-lower-tier race—nothing more than food or slaves in the eyes of stronger species.
After cleansing the ruling powers of the Kingdom and Empire, they had moved on to the Dragon Kingdom.
The Dragon Queen herself had pleaded for their help—to fend off the beastman invasion.
In the past, the Dragon Kingdom paid tribute to the Theocracy in exchange for secret military aid.
But now, even the Theocracy could barely protect itself. The Sunlight Scripture, one of the Six Scriptures, had been utterly destroyed by Kiana Kaslana and Iron Maiden.
A devout religious nation like the Theocracy found it troublesome—and frankly intolerable—to deal with members of the Honkai squads, who already had their own beliefs.
"By the way, how many of those beastmen did Lady Bronya handle?" Mushoku Kika asked, turning to Aisha beside her.
"About sixty percent," Aisha replied casually as they walked.
To them, the grotesque, man-eating heteromorphs held no trace of pity.
They had manufactured a massive stockpile of high-yield explosives and launched coordinated bombings on the major cities of the beastmen, ogres, and minotaurs.
Disguised Honkai squad members infiltrated these cities carrying the bombs, detonating them at the center—obliterating everything.
Countless cities were wiped off the map, and tens of millions of beastmen, ogres, and minotaurs perished in the ensuing infernos.
Now, their nations had fallen into a state of panic and madness.
The new arrivals, resembling humans and numbering in the dozens, each possessing tremendous power and openly declaring their hatred for the man-eating races, sought to exterminate them all.
Most Honkai squad members were human Stigmata Users themselves. Seeing these revolting, cannibalistic heteromorphs filled them with disgust.
Moreover, after Kiana Kaslana's latest system update, they all received a new feature—a level system.
Killing monsters now granted experience.
The beastmen, ogres, and minotaurs made perfect targets for leveling up.
So the fighting was inevitable.
During her research into soul-related magic, Kiana Kaslana discovered that souls functioned much like experience points—absorbing them from slain beings allowed conversion into personal power.
All living creatures in this world unconsciously absorbed fragments of souls through daily life and combat—gaining new skills, professions, and levels.
Different races had varying efficiencies in absorbing and converting these soul fragments.
Even ordinary farmers gained levels slowly through the faint absorption of ambient soul energy.
On blood-soaked battlefields, soldiers leveled far faster, and when soul energy and negative emotion built up excessively, undead were born.
The stronger the being, the greater its soul—and thus, the more experience its death provided.
For the Honkai squads, Kiana had naturally optimized the absorption and conversion process to the maximum.
Their nanomaterial-based bodies absorbed souls, converting them within this world's framework—granting them recognized races and professions under its system.
"Aisha, Kiana went off to the Elf Country with Iron Maiden. Doesn't that bother you at all?" Mushoku Kika teased.
"Why would it?" Aisha asked, tilting her head in confusion.
"The elves—you do know, right? The women there are all stunningly beautiful." Mushoku Kika grinned mischievously.
"So what?"
"Tch, you're really cold! With how close you two are, I thought maybe you liked her or something." Mushoku Kika smirked, glancing sideways at Aisha's calm profile.
"She's probably surrounded by elves right now, enjoying herself," she teased.
"Don't make baseless assumptions," Aisha said flatly, shooting her a glance before continuing ahead.
Mushoku Kika shrugged as she watched her go.
That wasn't an assumption.
Everyone who'd spent time with Kiana knew what she liked.
And female elves—well, they were all beautiful.
It wasn't hard to imagine—Kiana was surely being charmed by those elven women.
"Aisha, wait up!"
Mushoku Kika jogged to catch up.
After leaving the city, the two arrived at a human village recently destroyed by beastmen.
The ground was soaked in blood and littered with fragments of flesh and bone—there wasn't a single complete corpse left.
Mushoku Kika activated detection-type magic to locate the tracks of the beastmen who had attacked the village.
Before long, she found a small squad of them—tiger-like humanoid beasts walking on two legs.
She assembled a sniper rifle from nanomaterial and aimed downrange, firing several shots in succession.
"Got them?" Aisha asked.
"Not yet. Let the bullets fly for a bit."
Dozens of kilometers away, deep within a forest, a dozen tiger beastmen crouched on thick tree branches.
"They didn't chase us?"
The tiger beastman captain stood and scanned the surroundings.
"What should we do now?" one subordinate asked.
"I'll go check," another volunteered.
"Be careful. If you run into those monsters, flee immediately," the captain warned.
"Yes, sir!" The scout leapt down from the tree and vanished into the shadows.
The captain watched him go, an uneasy feeling growing in his chest.
"Let's move," he ordered the rest.
Weak humans were their food—this world had always followed the law of the strong devouring the weak.
Those monsters slaughtered millions of their kin just to protect prey like humans. It was unforgivable.
Knowing they couldn't win against the so-called monsters, they decided to retaliate by attacking the weaker humans instead.
You kill our people, we'll kill yours! It was their desperate attempt to gain leverage for negotiation.
To the beastmen, those monsters—who were actually members of the Honkai squads—might look human, but they were clearly another species entirely.
Even disguised as beastmen, they couldn't detect the difference without using magic.
Then, the tiger beastman captain suddenly sensed danger—an attack coming from beyond his field of vision.
"Damn it! Scatter!" he roared.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Bullets struck the surrounding beastmen, detonating on impact. The resulting shockwaves shattered nearby trees like twigs.
The captain, prepared in advance, activated his martial art Super Evasion—but with his inhuman dynamic vision, he saw the bullet's trajectory curve midair, continuing toward him.
He realized, horrified, that it was no ordinary projectile—it was a homing attack, akin to guided magic that never missed its mark once the target was locked.
He had no time to think.
Defense Enhancement! Power Surge! Muscle Reinforcement! Skin Hardening! Absolute Defense! he shouted, chaining together every martial art he knew.
The final one, Absolute Defense, hardened his entire body as he braced himself.
BOOM!
The bullet struck him squarely, erupting in a fiery explosion.
Dozens of kilometers away—
"There's still one alive," Mushoku Kika said, a hint of surprise in her voice.
He had taken a direct hit from her magically enhanced explosive round—and survived with only minor injuries.