Chapter 7: The Pufferfish and the Paramecium

The white-and-black dragon roared, its massive wings whipping up hurricane-force winds as it attacked the battleship Hyperion. Valkyries could faintly be seen battling Honkai Beasts on the deck.

Yet neither the dragon nor the Valkyries aboard the Hyperion paid heed to the battle below. Their attention remained fixed on the heavens above, where the true battle for victory would be decided.

In the dim, frigid imaginary space, the Queen of the Void gazed down with her supremely noble golden eyes at the crimson figure below, her expression darkening.

The most intense flames blazed around her, their terrifying heat threatening even her.

Her eyes, though the same brilliant gold, held no trace of nobility. Instead, they radiated a fierce, heroic spirit, concealing a warm tenderness deep within.

"Kiana," the Crimson Knight murmured softly, dragging the raging flames behind him, "when you awaken, everything will have changed. You'll find this world is no longer beautiful. Those ordinary days we cherished will be lost forever."

In an instant, the surging inferno incinerated the incoming Subspace Spears.

"But never give up! Never, ever give up!"

Even the Herrscher of the Void, perched high upon her lofty throne, couldn't suppress a flicker of panic at the sight.

"Don't get carried away!" she snapped.

With a sweep of her left hand, wreathed in swirling, violently unstable Honkai energy, a dark purple cube enveloped in bleak, obsidian Imaginary Power descended from the void!

She was a Herrscher! The Herrscher of the Void! And a transmigrator!

How could she possibly lose?!

Yet the blazing intensity radiating from the Crimson Knight only grew stronger.

The warrior in crimson was burning every fiber of her being as fuel, cleaving through obstacles with the Godslayer Greatsword. Even if it meant being battered and burned to ash, she would not falter.

"Kiana! Lift your head! Keep moving forward!!!"

A ferocious maelstrom of flames coiled around the imposing Great Sword. Honkai energy erupted from the blade, transforming into two pairs of wings that scorched the heavens, as if the entire world were ablaze.

"Go and reshape this flawed story into the ending you desire!"

These were her final words, the last lesson a teacher could impart to her student.

No!

Don't go!!

Teacher Himeko!!!

Within the Herrscher of the Void, another consciousness watched helplessly as the crimson figure descended from the heavens, wings blazing with radiant light. Grief and desperation flooded her heart.

Damn it! Herrscher of the Void! Sirin! Bai Qi! Stop this madness!!!

The young girl desperately struggled for control of her body against the Herrscher's might, but she was utterly powerless.

She had many identities: Subject K423, the original vessel for the Herrscher of the Void; Kiana Kaslana, Siegfried's daughter.

And a name no one else knew: Bai Qi.

Yes, Kiana was a transmigrator!

In other words, Sirin was a transmigrator!

However, something seemed to have gone wrong during her transmigration. Her soul remained intact, but the memories it carried had been damaged.

If we compare a person's soul to a compact disc, then memories are the data recorded onto it.

A severely scratched disc will cause glitches and skipping when played on a DVD player.

Bai Qi retained all twenty-five years of his memories, while Sirin's scattered fragments amounted to roughly seven or eight years.

Even that was a significant amount!

How many ordinary people can clearly recall events from their early childhood?

Bai Qi's situation was similar to Fu Hua's, except that his memories had been eroded by the barriers of space-time, while hers had been sacrificed to fuel the Fenghuang Down.

Notably, neither Kiana nor Sirin retained any memories of the Honkai 3rd game.

Bai Qi had only discovered the game at the age of twenty-one. Even though he had played it for four years, he certainly hadn't spent every waking hour immersed in it.

Bai Qi barely had a few hours a week to play the game, and even then, he spent more time watching fan-made videos on Bilibili.

The memory loss was completely random; Sirin could only vaguely recall a few scenes from the fan videos.

When Bai Qi transmigrated, Sirin had just been imprisoned in the Tower of Babylon, enduring agonizing Honkai energy experiments. How could she possibly sort through her chaotic memories in such a state?

Bai Qi's adult mindset, combined with the malice he had suffered on Earth and the pain he endured in the Tower of Babylon, intensified the Second Honkai Eruption.

The Herrscher of the Void persona, formed under the influence of the Honkai Consciousness, embodied all of Bai Qi's hatred and disgust for the world.

Sirin, with her adult intellect, wielded her powers in ways the illiterate version of Sirin could never have imagined. The Second Honkai Eruption became a true civilization-level crisis!

Bai Qi's Sirin, possessing six herrsher Cores, had the power to annihilate civilizations.

Yet she still failed.

There were two reasons.

First, the Herrscher persona was a concentrated pool of negativity that severely impaired her rationality and judgment.

Second, Sirin hesitated at the final moment, all because of Saint Cecilia.

After the Second Honkai Eruption, Otto initiated the Sirin Project, birthing the Kiana persona from Sirin's hopes. This new identity inherited the last vestiges of Bai Qi's kindness toward the world.

This division of positive and negative traits led to a separation of memories. Consequently, the already scarce memories of their time on Earth were split evenly between Sirin, the Herrscher of the Void, and Kiana.

Sirin received the negative memories, while Kiana received the positive ones.

Kiana still remembered being called Bai Qi, her rigidly traditional Shenzhou-style father, and the vague impression that she had once been, or at least should have been, a boy.

This last point was the root cause of Kiana's unconventional romantic preferences.

Although her concept of gender had long since eroded, and she had even forgotten what her male form looked like, the essence of her former masculine self remained deeply rooted in her soul. This prevented her from developing romantic feelings for men, while she delighted in cuddling with beautiful young girls.

In other respects, Kiana's personality mirrored the game's narrative, as her experiences closely followed its plot. This resulted in a character quite similar to the original Kiana Kaslana.

The warm and tranquil life at St. Freya Academy had allowed Kiana to rediscover the long-lost warmth of home, but fate would not halt its relentless march for her sake.

Sirin had awakened!

Unlike the game's storyline, even as the Herrscher destined to annihilate civilizations, Sirin's true essence remained that of Bai Qi. She would never harm Kiana, the other half of the soul from which she had been born.

For Kiana was Sirin, and she was Bai Qi.

Thus, Sirin didn't resort to the game's method of shattering Kiana's spirit through nightmarish dreams and collapsing her personality. Instead, she awakened directly by absorbing vast quantities of Honkai energy.

During this process, Sirin only directly confronted Kiana when absolutely necessary. Upon fully awakening, she suppressed Kiana's consciousness deep within their shared soul, plunging her into a profound slumber.

Perhaps exhausted from her battle with the Crimson Knight, or perhaps moved by Teacher Himeko's words brimming with both tenderness and resolve, Kiana stirred awake at the climax of the "Final Lesson."

She saw Teacher Himeko, her flame-wreathed sword named after Surtur raised high, swooping down upon her!

"Get back here!"

The magnificent broadsword transformed into a blazing radiance that seemed to consume the heavens, its roaring flames reminding Sirin of her former Flame-Chasing Sword.

Kiana's awakening forced Sirin to divide her focus, struggling to maintain control over her body, leaving an opening for the Crimson Knight to exploit.

Yet the Godslayer Sword ultimately missed the Herrscher of the Void's temple lock, piercing the earth instead. Under the Teacher's control, the cataclysmic power to incinerate all creation was utterly restrained, confined to a space no larger than a fist. It merely shattered the ground beneath their feet before vanishing into the depths of imaginary space.

The Herrscher of the Void's golden eyes narrowed sharply as the God-Slaying Spear plunged into her body.

In exchange, the Teacher, who had sacrificed her life to impart this final lesson to her student, had already burned away everything she possessed.

She plummeted downward, toward the bottomless abyss of imaginary space.

"Nooooo!"

Tears streamed from Kiana's restored azure eyes as she watched helplessly as her Teacher fell into the imaginary space, her soul convulsing with indescribable anguish.

In that instant...

The world quietly froze.

Time itself stood still, suspended for eternity.

Kiana's perspective began to rise. After an imperceptible process, a vibrant nebula filled her vision.