The night sky above the Atlantic was a profound and magnificent painting.
With minimal light pollution, the Milky Way stretched across the heavens like an illuminated ribbon. Moonlight cascaded onto the gently undulating sea, reflecting the solitary light of the Hyperion, forming a path of broken silver that pointed toward the unknown distance.
Clang-thud!
In the Agony layer of the Superstring Space, within an abandoned modern city, the sound of magazines hitting the ground echoed in Kiana's ears simultaneously with the sound of falling enemies.
The girl's long, straight white hair streaked across the night sky like a meteor. Facing the overwhelming offensive of Catapult-class Honkai Beasts, she tapped her toes lightly on a crane cable.
Expanding a barrier to block the incoming shells, she used the brief interval to leap into the enemy swarm.
Her baseball bat, wrapped in the power of Flamescion, swept across. The monsters' carapaces erupted in blinding sparks under the impact of the Super-Dimension Tremor. Utilizing the momentary stagnation of Time Fracture, she flipped in mid-air, stepping off an unexploded shell.
The goggles of her White Comet battlesuit reflected a cold glint in the airflow.
A while later—
"Is this the last batch?"
Her eyes reflected the corpses of monsters strewn across the field. Confirming that none could rise again, the girl standing atop the ruins of a high tower exhaled a breath of turbid air.
"Moyomo!"
The Cat Cakes following closely behind swarmed up to carry the wreckage away. They were responsible for cutting off useful body parts to serve as research and sales materials for Massive Electric. Doing a good job meant getting head pats from their Creator (Mei), so everyone worked very hard.
"Hehe."
Seeing this, Kiana, who had deactivated her Blaze! Glory! Flame! mode, chuckled lightly. After venting her frustrations and getting familiar with her new equipment, the depression in the girl's heart had eased somewhat.
"Hmm, calculating the time, it should be about done."
She stretched lazily, casually wrote [Is that it? Next time fill in 'Very Easy'!] on the message board, then put away her weapon and stepped toward the teleportation matrix.
It is worth mentioning that the dual pistols the girl used were not the Moon's Guardian gifted by Theresa on behalf of Cecilia & Siegfried, but the silver-white [Hokushin Itto-ryu Modified] tailor-made for her by Mei.
These firearms used a replicated, simplified version of the Stigmata of Thunder as a core and possessed several combat modes for different situations. Their rating was B-Rank, on par with the Raiden Type-II Soulium Battle Suit.
The reason Kiana abandoned Moon's Guardian was obviously not because she forgot her old love after finding a new one.
Returning to her room, the girl first deactivated the outermost layer of her battlesuit, then stripped off the inner lining soaked in sweat from the battle. Barefoot, she stepped into the bathroom.
Warm water from the showerhead wetted her body. Amidst the dim mist and light, Kiana brushed back the long bangs sticking to her forehead, staring blankly at her other self in the mirror.
"Kiana... am I?"
She muttered to herself, her tone indecipherable.
Regarding the fact that she was [Kiana Kaslana], the girl had never thought to deny it from beginning to end.
That was the name her smelly dad gave her, and the name of the daughter who made him incredibly proud by upholding the Kaslana will.
Kiana felt she could achieve that, and she had always been striding in that direction.
The only problem was—
Is this Kiana—me—really the Kiana that Ah-Li wants?
The girl turned off the shower, tied up her loose white hair, turned around, and stepped into the bathtub where bath salts had already been sprinkled.
"Haa..."
The perfect water temperature made her involuntarily let out a moan, but the doubts in her heart increased instead of decreasing.
When Durandal first boarded the ship, Fuli learned from her that this blonde knight-princess, crowned with the title of [Strongest Valkyrie], had lost many of her childhood memories.
That night, he asked Kiana with concern if she had also forgotten something like Durandal.
At that time, Kiana answered him: I haven't lost any memories.
She didn't lie.
In the girl's impression, she really hadn't forgotten anything.
However, all this had a prerequisite: when she first opened her eyes, she was already by a fireplace in Siberia.
At that time, she was eight years old.
And the year was 2007.
For the first two of the four years that followed, Siegfried often left early and returned late, usually drunk and unconscious when he did return.
Even when little Kiana gathered the courage to talk to him, all she got were cold stares and his usual attitude.
Even the names Cecilia and Kiana were only heard by the girl when he roared and muttered in grief after getting drunk.
Such days continued for a long time until one day, when the man was unconscious as usual, little Kiana gathered the courage to go out and fight a Honkai Beast to protect him. The man, who chased after her, cried and hugged the girl, sobbing, "You are the daughter I am proud of, my proud Kiana!"
The Kaslana Gun Kata was only taught starting then. Because Siegfried went missing less than two years after starting to teach her, Kiana had to incorporate a lot of her own understanding into the moves.
In the past, the girl thought this was natural and never doubted her identity.
Even when passing through Shenzhou, and the ripple from the past named [Fuli] persistently chased her to the Far East, she should have maintained this confidence, spent two and a half years of warm life at St. Freya, and fully experienced the trust and beauty between people.
After all, the Fuli of the past was just an ordinary person. Even if Kiana had a good impression of his conduct in her heart, the pride of a transcendent being would have kept her from considering the deeper meaning in the boy's words.
That's how the strong are to the weak. Nagato was willing to listen to Uzumaki Naruto's theories not because he was kind, but because the latter, in Sage Mode, had annihilated his Six Paths of Pain, which he was so proud of.
But no one expected that the rare event of reincarnation would happen to Fuli.
He transformed into an existence that even Kiana had to rely on and look up to. Not only did he have illustrious military achievements, but they also spent day and night together on the same aerospace battleship.
The bond between the two fermented gradually through events and inseparable companionship. The dissonance in Siegfried's past words and deeds constantly surfaced in her mind.
Today, the girl finally realized the root of the problem she was increasingly unwilling to face.
—Am I really the Kiana who made a promise with Ah-Li to become his bride?
[Of course you are!]
"Whoa!!!"
The sudden, overlapping voice frightened the girl into stumbling. Lying on the edge of the tub, she slipped and fell directly into the water, gurgle-gurgle getting a mouthful of bubbles.
"Pfft! Pfft pfft pfft! Who! Who is talking!"
Surfacing, she immediately activated Blaze! Glory! Flame!, weaving gorgeous clothes out of thin air to cover all parts that shouldn't be exposed, preventing the unknown intruder from seeing things they shouldn't see.
What? The voice sounded like a woman's?
So what if it's a woman?
Female perverts must be guarded against too!
As the number one female pervert under heaven who once shouted "I want to drink Mei's Mei-juice!", Kiana knew the nature of these people too well.
But speaking of which, looking at the B-Rank individual armament appearing on her body, and then at the Hokushin Itto-ryu Modified in her hand, Kiana felt that ever since joining Hyperion, divine weapons that used to take wandering for a long time to obtain were popping up every few days.
Before, she spent so much effort just to buy Sosu, but in just a few months, she possessed multiple B-Rank equipments.
[Hmph, how inexperienced.]
The mysterious voice said disdainfully: [That man said something once: Stand users attract each other.]
Simply put, when a person is broke, not a single person around them owns a genuine antique.
When they have ten million in assets, their friends basically all have a few collectibles at home.
When they sit on ten billion dollars, there are even people around them who own private museums.
[In the end, different classes contact different people and things. If you can't see through this and view the sky from the bottom of a well, arrogantly overestimating yourself, you'll only get humiliation and embarrassment in return.]
The owner of the voice concluded. Whether it was Kiana's illusion or not, she felt the person on the other side was gritting their teeth.
The Kaslana intuition was correct.
Didn't the Second Herrscher back then think she was invincible just because she became a Herrscher, precisely because she didn't understand this principle?
As a result, not long after she started running wild, strong individuals popped up one after another like bamboo shoots after rain—Welt Yang, Otto, Fu Hua, Theresa, Cecilia, Siegfried... taking turns beating her up, and in different ways too. It felt like countless civil service exam takers fighting for a few positions: when you finally crossed the single-plank bridge with thousands of troops and got accepted, planning to hold your head high, you took a closer look and realized all your colleagues were civil servants too.
Yes, having said all this, and using the Second Herrscher's wave-particle duality of arrogance and defeat as an example, anyone could guess that the one communicating internally with Kiana right now was none other than our ultimately invincible, giant TM cute Ah-Quan (Sirin)—the Herrscher of the Void, also known as the Queen.
The "Void" (Zhenkong - can also mean 'vacuum' or 'going commando', you know what that mean, use your imagination!) was personally tested by Fuli.
This girl didn't like wearing underwear.
[Come to the mirror.]
She snorted coldly: [That way, you can see this Queen.]
"I won't do it."
Kiana refused bluntly. "Who knows if you need prerequisites like 'eye contact' to activate your abilities."
[If you want to know the truth about your background, walk over. If not, you can just struggle there alone, you pathetic insect.]
The Queen didn't care about her provocation. Next, she really didn't show herself no matter how the girl called.
Helpless, having her weak point poked, Kiana had to steel herself and go to the mirror. Seeing the reflection of 'herself' in the mirror, she was stunned.
Exquisite collarbones were outlined above a fair chest. Delicate fabric tightly hugged her proud bust, perfectly displaying her curves. The necklace hanging from her neck rested in the alluring valley, inviting infinite reverie.
Cross-shaped crystal hair accessories accentuated the Queen's noble temperament. Skin-tight gloves engraved with purple patterns wrapped her noble hands. The hem of her long skirt extended to her knees, and silk stockings tightly wrapped her plump, long legs exposed outside.
"So beautiful..."
Kiana murmured to herself.
[The praise of a commoner won't interest me in the slightest.]
The white-haired girl in the mirror exuded disdain with every gesture. It was an arrogance born from genuinely believing she was above everything in the world.
Laughable. It was one thing for you guys to call me Ah-Quan when I was locked in the little dark room, but what should I be called now that I'm out?
Snapping back to reality, Kiana retorted unceremoniously, "If I get mocked for praising you, then next time I'll just curse you."
[Whatever. Cursing me is cursing yourself anyway.]
"Then you just called me an insect. Does that mean you were cursing yourself too?"
Gah!
How could Her Majesty the Queen, whose memories consisted solely of destruction and clinging to Fuli, win against Kiana, who bickered with Bronya all day? Her face darkened, and dangerous light bloomed in her molten gold pupils: [Do you not want to know your background anymore?]
"Yes, yes, yes! Honestly, threatening people just because you can't win an argument... only elementary schoolers do that..."
Kiana muttered softly, then put on a harmless posture when the other party's gaze swept over.
The girl acted this way not just because of the background issue. The moment the Queen appeared, the spatial power Kiana usually wielded like an arm suddenly became obscure and stagnant without warning, and the Stigmata of the Void at her collarbone dimmed.
This made her immediately realize the other party had a deep connection with her, and she temporarily put aside the plan to call for help.
[As long as the move works.]
The Queen in the mirror crossed her arms and hummed twice, quite proud that her threat worked. It wasn't in vain that she specially found a loophole to come out.
That's right, there was still some time before the spiritual little dark room was lifted.
The reason the Queen could project a wisp of consciousness was mainly thanks to Fuli penetrating Mei—Fuli's accidental intrusion penetrated a crack in the spiritual seal Mei set up.
Kiana had also awakened the Void Stigmata, which basically satisfied the conditions for resonance and communication.
Of course, achieving this level of communication through the mirror also consumed a lot of the Queen's energy and time.
Since Fuli left, she had been lonely for a long time, so this wasn't really a big deal.
As for her purpose in showing up specifically.
[You guessed right. The person who made the agreement with that man—Fuli—was indeed not you.]
Even though she had suspected it, hearing these words still made Kiana's breath catch. Her vision went black, and her body, losing support, fell towards the ground.
She seemed to hear crows screeching harsh mockery, the frequency of their vocal cords resonating and overlapping with the dripping sound of the showerhead.
The astonishment in the boy's eyes when he looked at her bathed in moonlight, and his resigned admission after his stubbornness was poked through;
The doting when secretly sharing food in the kitchen at midnight, and the seriousness beneath the feigned annoyance when dragged back to the room to tell stories;
The intertwined body heat during training at Mount Taixu, the mixed scents, and the touch of skin they had long grown accustomed to...
Countless images of the two of them together crashed around in her skull, finally collapsing into a continuous buzzing in her ear canal.
In just half a second, countless waves rose and fell in Kiana's mind, finally turning into a monstrous killing intent directed at the Queen.
As long as I kill her.
As long as I kill this sole witness.
Then this secret will never be known by anyone else in the world, right?
Silvery-white bangs covered the girl's eyes. Between the strands of hair, a trace of blood-colored sharpness could be vaguely glimpsed.
[The one who made the agreement with him was me.]
Until the Queen, full of bad taste, threw out the next sentence: [Regarding the body we use now, the memories before the age of eight are with me.]
[It was me, the original owner of the body, who made the agreement with that man. The thing you are worried about is that simple.]
A playful curve appeared on the corner of her mouth, and the Herrscher used a casual tone:
[You and I added together make the true Kiana Kaslana.]
—Spreading a lie that, in her view, no one would ever take the initiative to expose.
...