LIGHT NOVEL Chapter 308: Interference with the Honkai Will
The ice-encased urban district had become what it perhaps was always meant to be—a silent tomb.
Within the plaza, covered in shattered ice, the remnants of battle were everywhere. Dim light filtered through the gaps between buildings, illuminating the unconscious Chen Tianwu through the suspended dust and mist.
Anna, impaled by a short sword, lay not far from him, still alive. Blood flowed from the wound in her chest, pooling into a crimson puddle on the ground.
Her consciousness still lingered. Anna weakly gazed at the familiar boy, desperately reaching out, wanting to touch Chen Tianwu's face one last time. Blood stained her fingers, but her palm, pierced by the Herrscher's ice, couldn't grasp anything.
"Chen Tianwu, I'm sorry."
The Herrscher core couldn't be destroyed so easily, but Chen Tianwu's desperate attack had forced the Herrscher of Ice's consciousness into slumber, allowing Anna to clearly pronounce his name again.
Sadly, Chen Tianwu could no longer hear her.
As if sensing the severed connection to the Herrscher's consciousness, the Honkai Will immediately began to interfere with Anna once the disruptive effects of the Staff of the Underworld wore off.
With the escalating encroachment, her memories were gradually being stripped away. Once her memories completely vanished, Anna's existence would be entirely erased, leaving behind only a shell of the Herrscher of Ice, controlled by the Honkai.
Even more tragically, due to the Honkai Will's forceful intervention, Anna, who should have died at Chen Tianwu's hand, couldn't die as a human.
A mere short sword, wielded by Chen Tianwu, wasn't enough to truly harm a Herrscher. Even though he'd managed to put the Herrscher's consciousness to sleep, he lacked the strength to seal the core.
As long as the Herrscher core remained unsealed, the Herrscher would inevitably return, and by then, Anna would be gone.
A massive surge of Honkai energy poured out, repairing her dying body. The Herrscher's aura was returning, but Anna's presence was rapidly fading.
Shattered ice crystals scattered across the ground, dyed crimson by Anna's blood, forming macabre ice flowers. The dim light from above, refracted through the ice, created dreamlike illusions. Anna regretfully closed her eyes, quietly awaiting the end of her consciousness.
After a long while, a faint crunching sound echoed through the silent ruins. A gray-haired youth slowly stepped through the shattered ice, arriving before the two unconscious figures.
Looking down at the slumbering Chen Tianwu, Ren's expression remained neutral. Invisible threads wrapped around the boy, barely maintaining his life signs.
As for Anna, Ren could clearly sense the abnormal Honkai energy within her. As a Herrscher himself, he naturally recognized it as interference from the Honkai Will.
And this was one of his goals in coming to Coral Island.
The battle in the Pacific, meticulously planned by Ren, had allowed him to completely escape the Honkai Will's surveillance, but that didn't mean he wouldn't interact with it again.
His memories from his past life were limited. Even he only knew about Elysia's existence, learning more about her through Otto's Thousand Realms Observation Project. Thus, the specifics of the Honkai Will remained a mystery to him.
One of his objectives in contacting the Herrschers of Ice and Rock was to test the nature of Herrscher consciousness by obstructing the Honkai Will's interference.
As a Herrscher outside the thirteen-Herrscher system, existing within the rules of the Imaginary Tree, Ren's authority was essentially on par with the Honkai Will. As long as he didn't act recklessly, he didn't need to fear its retaliation.
Ren could protect himself, but Kiana remained susceptible to the Honkai's influence. Flamescion was a Herrscher explicitly rebelling against the Honkai, and with Kiana's savior complex, conflict with the Honkai Will was inevitable.
Given Ren's nature, he couldn't allow an unknown threat to loom over Kiana.
Slowly walking to Anna's side, Ren's golden Herrscher eyes lit up once more. The inverted world tree in his iris shimmered as the authority of Dominance manifested as countless golden threads, intertwining to form a cage-like structure around Anna.
He was mimicking the Staff of the Underworld that Chen Tianwu had used, creating a sealing barrier. The power of Dominance was control and usurpation. Though different in principle from the Staff's Imaginary Space interference, it was sufficient for imitation.
Severing the connection between the Herrscher core and Imaginary Space greatly disrupted the Honkai consciousness cluster's link with the Herrscher. Ren seized the opportunity, using his authority to suppress the core's response, forcibly halting its self-repair.
With the core suppressed, the Herrscher's consciousness was naturally affected. Through the perception granted by the Divine Key Taixu Sword God, Ren noticed Anna's consciousness stabilizing.
This confirmed his theory: the Honkai Will's erasure of Anna's memories could be stopped by external forces. In other words, if the Honkai Will ever tried similar tactics against Kiana, Ren could counter them.
The Honkai Will wasn't invincible. It operated under specific principles, rules that Ren had yet to fully grasp.
Having confirmed his hypothesis, Ren added a layer of protection to Anna's consciousness—a temporary shield constructed based on his understanding of the Taixu Sword God and the Divine Key Feather of Deliverance. The effect was weak, only enough to prevent her memories from being erased by the Honkai.
Anna was an excellent Valkyrie born in St. Freya. Even a flawed personality leading to her Herrscher awakening shouldn't condemn her to such a tragic end, controlled by the Honkai.
The golden cage contracted, trapping the Herrscher of Ice. The matter wasn't settled yet; there was no rush to extract her core. This newly born Herrscher posed no threat to Ren, especially with the Herrscher of Rock yet to awaken.
Turning to the unconscious Chen Tianwu, Ren noted the boy wasn't much younger than himself. Unfortunately, he wasn't as lucky.
In fact, Chen Tianwu's Honkai adaptability was far above average. The severe Honkai corruption that necessitated his extensive cybernetic augmentations stemmed from the extreme nature of the Manila eruption.
The Honkai energy levels in that disaster, which claimed millions of lives, were sufficient to birth a Herrscher. Yet, Schicksal detected no such awakening. Though the original story didn't elaborate, Ren suspected Chen Tianwu himself was the intended Herrscher.
The overwhelming Honkai energy surging into Chen Tianwu, even with his high adaptability, was too much for a human to bear. Had he died in that eruption, the Honkai Will likely would have chosen his body, birthing a new Herrscher.
But fate intervened. Anna saved him, preventing the Herrscher's birth.
In Ren's view, high adaptability, massive Honkai energy exposure, and a severely fractured psyche were the perfect ingredients for a Herrscher. The Honkai Will had already set its sights on Chen Tianwu; it was only a matter of time before he was dragged into the Honkai's abyss.
Chen Tianwu's obsession with Anna wasn't inherently wrong, but he shouldn't have acted unilaterally. Ren, aware of this, deliberately provided him with information about Anna being in the Snow Lotus squad.
Even if Chen Tianwu hadn't decided to eliminate the Herrscher prematurely, even if he'd considered Anna's feelings, he wouldn't have ended up in this state.
But since he hadn't seized the chance Ren offered, his fate was sealed.
Ren wasn't a benevolent therapist; he was the Herrscher of a Thousand, adept at exploiting weaknesses.
The more precious the treasure, the more devastating its shattering.
Since Chen Tianwu cared so much for Anna, how despairing would he be upon learning that the Herrscher he'd killed was the very girl he'd been searching for?
Ren was curious.