"A time-related ability? Truly terrifying," Durandal said gravely.
"Captain, before you say all that, could you lift your foot first? She's really about to be trampled to death," Chen Luo squatted beside Durandal, looking at Sin pinned beneath her foot.
To be fair, Sin was extremely strong.
Chen Luo's chances of winning against her were no more than 20%. After all, time manipulation was a troublesome ability, and most of Chen Luo's current power came from various unconventional skills. Of course, since they hadn't actually fought, it was hard to say for sure.
But no matter how strong Sin was, it depended on who her opponent was.
"Cough..." Sin, with blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, glared fiercely at Chen Luo.
"Huh? Why are you looking at me like that? I wasn't the one who defeated you," Chen Luo said innocently under her gaze.
"Captain, what should we do with her? Kill her outright or sell her?" Chen Luo stood up and asked.
"Hmm?"
"Don't underestimate her just because she lost so quickly. She's a high-level combatant of Anti-Entropy—extremely valuable," Chen Luo explained.
"Take her back to Schicksal," Durandal considered before replying.
"Just kill me!" Sin snarled from beneath Durandal's foot.
"You're alive and well—why seek death?" Chen Luo squatted down again and poked her cheek.
"Then kill her," Durandal nodded solemnly and immediately thrust her lance downward.
"Whoa, Captain! Don't be so hasty!" Chen Luo exclaimed in horror, staring at the lance tip just three centimeters from his hand.
Chen Luo had barely managed to push Sin's head aside after Durandal spoke—otherwise, Sin might have been skewered right then.
Faced with such brutality, Sin temporarily stopped her defiant shouting.
"This isn't haste—it's a considered decision," Durandal said.
"I only have one of these ropes. Her abilities are highly unique, and her escape skills are nearly on par with yours. The moment I lift my foot, she could use her time manipulation to flee at any moment."
"Compared to you, her value is minimal—just another Anti-Entropy executive. It's unlikely Anti-Entropy would pay a high price to ransom her."
"So rather than risk her escaping en route, it's better to eliminate her now." Durandal's reasoning was logical and convincing.
And she wasn't wrong.
"How about this, Captain—hand her over to me. I'll trade you an underdeveloped Pseudo-Herrscher in exchange," Chen Luo suddenly suggested.
"Pseudo-Herrscher?" Durandal frowned.
"Yes, a Pseudo-Herrscher. One still in its incubation period, not fully formed. Aren't you Valkyries tasked with eliminating Honkai beasts and Herrschers? Here's your chance. After all, a grown Pseudo-Herrscher could cause Schicksal significant trouble."
"You might ignore ordinary Honkai beasts since their growth potential is limited. But allowing a Pseudo-Herrscher to keep developing in Nagazora would be unwise."
"...Wait a moment. I need to consult the Overseer," Durandal paused before walking to a corner to tap on her communicator, avoiding a video call for secrecy.
With Durandal gone, Chen Luo took over keeping Sin pinned—though unlike Durandal's merciless stomp, he simply sat on her waist.
"Hey, not bad—your waist is pretty slim," Chen Luo remarked after shifting his weight a couple of times.
"You—!" Sin started to curse until something was shoved into her mouth.
Durandal soon returned.
"The Overseer says she's yours to handle," she informed Chen Luo.
What Durandal didn't mention was that Otto had actually told her to "observe freely."
Compared to some no-name "high-level combatant," Otto cared more about uncovering Chen Luo's motives, logic, and personality—all crucial for future plans.
"Perfect!" Chen Luo grinned and picked up the communicator from Sin's waist.
"Hey, hey—Cocolia, you there?"
"Name your terms," Cocolia's voice came not from the communicator but from ME Corp's PA system.
"Materials. Lots of materials—Honkai beast and zombie parts. As for the price... that depends on how much this daughter of yours is worth," Chen Luo demanded bluntly.
He urgently needed materials for crafting puppets. While random zombies could suffice, scavenging wasn't sustainable—Chen Luo couldn't stay in Nagazora forever.
With Honkai beasts and zombies rarely dropping materials, extortion was his only option.
"What do you need them for?"
"None of your business. Deal or not? If not, your daughter here makes decent material too..." Chen Luo squeezed the arm of the girl beneath him.
Objectively, a premium "human material" like Sin far surpassed ordinary Honkai beast parts.
But Chen Luo wasn't comfortable with human modification, so he'd settle for lesser materials.
Besides, he needed practice with basics first. Jumping straight to advanced materials was beyond him.
"Fine. You may take all materials currently in ME Corp. I'll even grant access to secured vaults. But you must release Sin afterward," Cocolia negotiated via speaker.
"Hold on—that's just cheating! Without you, all ME Corp materials would still be mine anyway," Chen Luo immediately countered.
Cocolia was clearly trying to scam him.
"Without my help, you'd never locate the hidden stashes. Even if you did, I could activate self-destruct protocols to deny you everything," Cocolia stated coldly.
"...Fine. Deal," Chen Luo reluctantly agreed.
His real target was the Honkai reactor—the extortion was just a bonus.
That, and ensuring Durandal learned about the incubating Pseudo-Herrscher.
This Pseudo-Herrscher candidate was slowly being eroded by Honkai energy.
Originally, she would only fully develop as a replacement if Raiden Mei left Nagazora without fully awakening.
But with Chen Luo's interference causing Mei's premature departure, the candidate had begun rapid development.
After nearly two days, she was nearing maturity.
Once fully formed, she'd be beyond Chen Luo's current skills—making now the perfect harvest time.
For Chen Luo, this semi-finished Pseudo-Herrscher was ideal material.
Moreover, since Pseudo-Herrschers weren't truly human, crafting puppets from them wouldn't shake Chen Luo's fragile, stubborn, self-deceptive humanity.
Though the [Bio-Puppetry] branch of puppeteering sounded downright inhumane, Chen Luo wanted to preserve his humanity where possible.
Hence why he wouldn't use the far rarer Sin beneath him as material.
Chen Luo first took out rope from his inventory, meticulously wrapping Sin twenty times until she was thoroughly immobilized. Then he retrieved a remote explosive from Liu Wenxuan's supplies and attached it to her. Only then did he begin exploring ME Corp with Sin in tow.
To be honest, the materials at ME Corp weren't as abundant as Chen Luo had imagined.
Perhaps because Cocolia orchestrated this Honkai eruption, she knew exactly when it would occur and had already moved the most valuable items elsewhere?
Even so, Chen Luo still reaped considerable rewards.
After all, what was precious to Cocolia and Anti-Entropy meant little to Chen Luo.
For instance, the classified data in Anti-Entropy's databases—while invaluable to both Anti-Entropy and Schicksal—were merely ordinary to Chen Luo.
Nevertheless, Chen Luo copied a set of data and shared it with Durandal.
Physical assets could be relocated, but data couldn't be transferred so easily.
This information was supposed to be destroyed afterward, but Cocolia never expected someone bold enough to raid Anti-Entropy's headquarters—ME Corp—amidst Nagazora's third Honkai eruption.
Fortunately, core data required encryption keys. Chen Luo couldn't access them, and Cocolia refused to disclose them. The peripheral data lost were expendable.
Currently, the most valuable item in ME Corp was undoubtedly the high-output Honkai reactor.
Cocolia would never yield this to Chen Luo—nor could he take it even if he wanted to.
Within Anti-Entropy's ME Corp, Chen Luo found surprisingly little human experimentation data. Anti-Entropy rose through advanced technology, so Chen Luo collected numerous high-tech firearms and ammunition instead.
Had this been a Schicksal research facility, it would've been filled with human experimentation records.
Thus, objectively speaking, Anti-Entropy was slightly better than Schicksal—at least in humanitarian terms. This referred to Anti-Entropy's conservative faction. The radicals... were worse than Schicksal. Even disregarding the third eruption, that bastard Cocolia still planned to trigger another Honkai outbreak using the Serenity Gem. Truly inhuman!
Beyond materials, Chen Luo also confiscated all the mechs from ME Corp's hangars—those that didn't dare attack them—storing everything in his inventory.
This left both Durandal and Cocolia (via surveillance) astounded by Chen Luo's spatial storage technology.
"What a pity. Schicksal beat us to it," Cocolia sighed.
Watching Chen Luo ransack ME Corp's valuables via cameras made her gnash her teeth in helpless fury.
With Durandal—Schicksal's current strongest Valkyrie—by his side, sending more mechs would be futile. Moreover, 90% of Nagazora's remaining mechs had already entered Chen Luo's inventory.
But Sin was worth the price.
Not because she came from Cocolia's orphanage, but because she was one of the few elite combatants under Cocolia's command.
Anti-Entropy's mechs and aerial warships were indeed advanced, capable of overwhelming through numbers. But high-level fighters were irreplaceable.
After trussing Sin up like a dumpling with chains and tossing her into an ME Corp basement, Chen Luo and Durandal made their exit.
Chen Luo took these precautions fearing Sin might recklessly attack again if freed—she was certainly capable of such extremes.
As for how the tightly bound Sin would escape? That was Cocolia's problem now.
Mechs were out of the question—Chen Luo had claimed nearly all of Anti-Entropy's mechs in Nagazora. Besides, mechs couldn't perform delicate unbinding operations anyway.
Yet Cocolia never understood why Chen Luo wanted the mechs.
He'd already obtained considerable data. Remotely controlled mechs couldn't be hijacked—what use did he have for them?
Unless Chen Luo possessed hacking skills rivaling Bronya's—which he clearly hadn't demonstrated, struggling even to copy ME Corp's database (ultimately leaving the task to Durandal).
"What did you throw near the Honkai reactor?" Durandal asked after exiting ME Corp.
She'd spotted Chen Luo tossing something near the reactor in a surveillance blind spot, but it happened too quickly for her to identify.
"Who knows?" Chen Luo shrugged.
He couldn't very well admit he'd thrown his Vision inside.
Even now, Chen Luo could feel his Vision's joyful satisfaction radiating from afar.
Whenever he wished, the Vision would instantly return to his inventory.
Such was the privilege of being "bound."
As for damage? If anyone could so much as scratch it, he'd livestream cooking himself in an iron pot!
"Though it's a shame about that little girl's parents."
While looting, Chen Luo had Cocolia check surveillance—footage clearly showed her parents succumbing to Honkai erosion, dying without even turning into zombies. In a way, this was a merciful end.
"Let's go. Time to find that underdeveloped Pseudo-Herrscher. I'm sure Schicksal is curious about it too," Chen Luo said, casting Flight on himself.
"Wait—don't tell me I have to carry you again?" he ventured.
"What do you think?" Durandal side-eyed him.
"..."
While carrying a beautiful girl through the skies sounded romantic, Durandal was deceptively heavy—mainly due to her lance and armor. Worse, she remained utterly oblivious to this fact.
"Fine, climb on," Chen Luo relented.
"..." Seeing his reluctant expression, Durandal instinctively rapped his head with her lance's hilt.
That face makes it seem like I'm begging to be carried.
Who do you think you're looking down on?