I Am Honkai

Crackle… Sizzle…

A thunderous explosion tore through the air. Even amidst the roaring flames and chaos, the deafening sound of lightning was unmistakable.

A massive plasma ball shot toward Kevin, who was crouched low. Enormous sky-blue lightning arcs crackled and hissed as they tore through the atmosphere, brushing past his ears.

Kevin immediately tilted his head to the side. Even though his body contained the DNA of the Emperor-Class Honkai Beast Parvati, the scorching heat generated by the colliding electric arcs still seared his cheek.

Clang!

Reacting decisively, Kevin swung Judgement of Shamash, slashing downward at his feet. The molten seabed beneath him was split open instantly.

The next moment—

Whoosh—!

Just as Kevin dropped into the fissure, he didn't even have time to glance upward. A searingly hot deep-blue plasma ball roared past him, heading straight for Robert, who had already raised his flaming greatsword horizontally to block.

In the blink of an eye, the spot where Kevin had just been standing was obliterated by the plasma ball, leaving a crater over a hundred meters in diameter. Cracks like spiderwebs radiated outward in all directions.

The ball continued for several kilometers before finally detonating with an earth-shaking explosion.

The blinding lightning from the impact created concentric rings of shockwaves, warping the surrounding terrain into jagged, mountainous folds. Fine streams of electricity scattered deep into the seabed, lighting up the depths.

Already riddled with scars, the seabed's structure completely gave way. Countless cooked fish and shrimp carcasses were pulverized into dust by the sheer force of the blast.

"General?"

Robert glanced at the distant figure of Budo rushing toward them and immediately understood. His time for one-on-one combat was over—now was the moment to switch to group tactics and annihilate their opponent.

They were generals of the Empire, not gladiators in an arena. This was war, and there was no rule that required them to fight fair or alone. That had merely been the prelude.

Their primary identities were still soldiers of the Sacred Selene Empire. Respecting an opponent was one thing, but achieving victory was their top priority.

Besides, in the Sacred Selene Empire, the highest honor they could bestow upon an opponent was to unleash their full firepower. If one's strength didn't warrant such treatment, one wouldn't even be worth the effort.

At most, they'd erect a cenotaph or an unmarked grave for you after the battle—a symbolic gesture of respect.

Robert drove Judgement of Shamash into the ground. The symbol of the Herrscher of Flamescion's authority began to glow brilliantly along the sword's hilt.

Boom!

In an instant, the ground for several kilometers around Robert liquefied into molten lava. Orange-red magma bubbled and roiled, expanding outward like a tide.

"Ten o'clock direction, 1,468 meters!" Robert relayed through the communications system embedded in his power armor, his tone sharp and focused.

"Understood."

Having confirmed the coordinates, Budo raised his right hand, channeling his immense strength. Violent arcs of electricity erupted across his entire body.

Crackle! Snap!

The hydraulic pistons of his massive arm guard, Thunder God's Rage: Adramelech, retracted like the mechanism of a piledriver, emitting heavy thump-thump sounds akin to those of an industrial press.

At the same time, Kevin emerged from the molten lava, his charred black coat mostly burned away.

"Thunder Bone!"

Danger!

Kevin's body hesitated for the briefest moment, and in the chaos of battle, such hesitation was fatal.

Budo's low, icy voice was like a breath from the frozen depths of hell, chilling Kevin to the bone.

Before he could react, a blinding flash of lightning tore through the air. Budo's massive, muscle-bound frame descended with a thunderous roar.

It was him—the man named Budo.

From this, Kevin deduced one thing: Raiden Mei had already been defeated.

Budo shifted his body slightly, capitalizing on the moment of delay as Kevin surfaced from the molten sea. With a twist of his wrist and a slight turn of his waist, he brought his enormous armored fist crashing down.

The angle was one Kevin could not escape from.

The arm protected by Budo's meticulously crafted power armor and enhanced with Thunder God's Rage: Adramelech was simply too massive, easily surpassing the size of Kevin's upper body.

Boom!

The iron fist, encased in layers of reinforced armor, collided with Kevin's torso.

Crack.

A bone-chilling sound of fractures rang out. Kevin could feel his body scream in agony.

His mouth opened involuntarily, and blood sprayed from his lips as an overwhelming force tore through him. His internal organs twisted and churned as though they had been thrown into an out-of-control washing machine.

Kevin's once-handsome face contorted in pain. His head snapped back, his legs lifted off the ground, and his body floated upward, pivoting on Budo's massive fist like a feather caught in a gale.

Budo's cold eyes glinted. Within his power armor, the synthetic muscle bundles tightened visibly.

"—Impact!"

With a secondary surge of power, the piston-like mechanisms within Adramelech's arm guard fired.

Boom!

The gray iron prismatic core of Adramelech exploded with a resounding crack, releasing a web of sky-blue lightning that burst outward. The immense force detonated like a cannon firing a shell.

Kevin's entire body was flung backward like a withered leaf caught in a typhoon, propelled through the air like a railgun projectile. Lightning crackled around him as he hurtled toward Robert, blood trailing in his trail.

The distance of a thousand meters vanished in an instant.

Robert's expression remained unchanged. With a slight flick of his wrist, flames erupted violently along the blade of his greatsword. He raised the weapon vertically, slashing downward with a surge of fiery might.

Clang!

"Argh—!"

Blood sprayed from Kevin's mouth, mixed with fragments of his internal organs. Despite being gravely wounded, his breathing harsh and ragged like the bellows of a broken machine, he had not yet lost the ability to fight. His hands still tightly gripped Judgement of Shamash, his arm lifting just in time to block Robert's flaming greatsword.

Boom—!

In the next instant, Kevin was sent flying through the air, crashing deep into the ground like a falling meteor.

Crash!

Molten rock, liquefied from the extreme heat, erupted like a meteor shower, while countless streams of lava splattered in all directions. It wasn't until he carved a trench nearly a kilometer long into the earth that the destruction finally came to a halt.

Kevin's current state could only be described as miserable. His once-silvery hair was now dull and lifeless, his body buried deep in the rock layers. Around him, the molten lava churned in a hellish inferno. The arm holding Judgement of Shamash trembled uncontrollably.

Thud. Thud.

Two heavy footsteps echoed ominously. Kevin forced his head to lift, his vision blurred and tinted red from the blood streaming down his forehead.

Not far away, Budo and Robert stood shoulder to shoulder, their cold, piercing gazes fixed firmly on him.

"Kevin Kaslana, you've lost."

Budo's words were firm, carrying no malice, only the cold finality of a battlefield declaration.

Kevin didn't offer a single word of protest. He had no illusions about the nature of this fight. The war against Honkai was a brutal, life-and-death struggle. And in war, fairness was nothing more than a luxury.

Ambushes, overwhelming force, being outnumbered—these were all part and parcel of the battlefield.

In that moment, Kevin's thoughts wandered. Memories of his youth during the Previous Era resurfaced—Mei, Elysia… everyone.

Ever since his beloved Mei had died, time had come to a standstill for him.

Or rather, in the endless solitude of his imprisonment in the Sea of Quanta, he had revisited those memories over and over again, endlessly replaying the fragments of his past.

He had witnessed miracles beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals and endured the unspeakable sorrow of seeing entire worlds perish. All of it, everything he had ever seen, had forged his resolve into two cold, unfeeling blocks of ice.

A lonely, obsessive soul.

Yes, this was Kevin.

This was Kevin Kaslana—a being defined by isolation, despair, stubbornness, and a single-minded purpose. Beyond the mission he carried, he had nothing left. Nothing at all.

That mission—the responsibility entrusted to him by Mei, by his comrades in the Flame-Chasers, by all the people of the Previous Era.

It was a burden so immense that he dared not let go of it, dared not relax for even a moment, dared not die before the war against Honkai was won.

Had he truly lost?

No.

As long as life remained, his mission would remain.

"I live to destroy Honkai!"

A glint of icy determination flashed in Kevin's sapphire eyes.

Tearing off his tattered coat, his exposed, bloodied flesh began to emit a frigid, bone-chilling aura. Veins bulged beneath his skin, and his wounds started to heal themselves. Within him, a mysterious ice-blue substance coursed through his body, restoring it.

"This guy… he's like a machine," Robert muttered.

At this moment, Robert could no longer sense even the faintest trace of humanity from Kevin.

No emotions, no warmth, no memories—none of the things that should be reflected in the eyes of a living, thinking being.

No matter how much Kevin "powered up," those sky-blue eyes of his remained hollow and devoid of life, as if staring into them would summon a profound emptiness from deep within one's soul.

He was no longer human—perhaps not even alive.

Kevin resembled a machine more than anything else. A machine that existed solely for one purpose, running on pre-programmed directives with no deviation.

If not for the intense emotional reaction Kevin had displayed earlier when wielding Judgement of Shamash, Robert might have genuinely mistaken him for a robot.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Ice began to form, spreading rapidly. The molten lava that had been churning and bubbling around Kevin's body began to cool and solidify at an incredible speed, freezing into jagged rock formations.

Even the air itself seemed to chill, sending a wave of frost that left a thin layer of ice crystals clinging to the exteriors of both Budo's and Robert's power armor.

"A final burst of strength?" Budo muttered, his tone analytical. "If I'm not mistaken, Kevin Kaslana's full power has not yet been restored. His body shows signs of depletion."

As one of the crowning achievements of the Fusion Warrior Project, Kevin had the ability to absorb Honkai energy to recover his stamina and replenish his strength. This much was undeniable, and Budo had observed this trait from the very beginning.

Unfortunately for Kevin, the Honkai energy scattered around World Serpent's headquarters and the surrounding metropolitan area had been generated by the Imperial Army's bombardments.

The weapons used by the Imperial Army were all created using Honkai energy derived from Selene herself.

For Kevin and his kind, this energy was not a source of power—it was a deadly poison, carrying the terrifying corrosive properties of the Herrscher of Finality.

"Even in the face of death, he still struggles. It seems he's resolved to fight to the bitter end. General, it appears there's no longer any point in negotiation," Robert remarked coldly.

"Indeed. In that case, we must eliminate him completely," Budo replied. As he spoke, the terrifying power within him began to surge. Bolts of lightning as thick as tree trunks crackled and danced across his body.

At first, Budo had somewhat respected Kevin's determination and unwavering resolve. This was the kind of iron will that made a fine soldier.

But Kevin's singular, machine-like obsession—his sole focus on "destroying Honkai" to the exclusion of all else—made him less of a man and more of a mindless automaton.

And such an existence could only meet one end—death.

Boom!

A blurry shadow streaked through the air and closed the distance in an instant. Budo stood before Kevin, his heavy arm guard slicing through the air in a deadly arc, descending like a war axe aimed to end the fight in one fell swoop.

Crack!

Yet all Budo heard was the shattering of ice. His strike had hit nothing but a frozen illusion.

"Hm? Such a drastic increase in physical capabilities… He's pushing his body well beyond its limits. It seems he has no intention of surviving this," Budo muttered as he turned his head.

Kevin had appeared behind Budo, his Judgement of Shamash poised to pierce the latter's back without mercy. But just as Kevin was about to strike, a wave of searing heat surged toward him from behind. Forced to abandon his attack, he leapt backward to avoid the assault.

Retreating without hesitation, Kevin activated the full power of Judgement of Shamash.

Hum—!

Sensing the energy levels of Kevin's weapon climbing exponentially, Budo immediately recognized that this was going to be Kevin's ultimate attack.

"Order: Activate Void Shield defenses around the metropolis. Protect the city and the experimental data the Empire requires. Robert and I will do our best to redirect the attack elsewhere," Budo commanded.

Although their current battlefield was hundreds of kilometers away from the metropolis and positioned above the open ocean, Budo had a strong premonition that the aftereffects of this attack would still reach that far.

The irony wasn't lost on him—this time, the roles were reversed. Kevin had become the destroyer, while the Imperial forces found themselves in the role of protectors.

In Kevin's hands, the hilt of Judgement of Shamash began to glow with a fiery crimson light.

The blade of the greatsword became engulfed in flames, its form undergoing rapid transformation.

Disassembly. Reconstruction. Extension.

The weapon took on a new shape—its guard morphing into an inverted-V structure akin to an intricate gun chamber. The blade lengthened, shining with an intensity like the core of a blazing star.

The sharp contrast between Kevin's frost-covered body and the blazing inferno of Judgement of Shamash created a striking image.

Kevin, infused with the icy power granted by Parvati's DNA, was able to wield this terrifying weapon with relatively little harm to himself—though the energy drain left him increasingly weak.

But the Kaslana bloodline that followed in his footsteps was far less fortunate. Over the course of fifteen centuries, twenty-three warriors of the Kaslana family had perished under Judgement of Shamash's indiscriminate onslaught.

Meanwhile, Robert, standing a distance away, had no such concerns. Unlike the Kaslana family, he was unaffected by the corrosive Honkai energy radiated by the weapon. The energy output of his own blade could be adjusted at will, fueled entirely by his internal Honkai reserves.

Of course, Robert's version of Judgement of Shamash lacked the dual-gun configuration and existed solely as a greatsword. After all, this was a custom-forged weapon crafted by a certain individual.

"Judgement of Shamash—Limit Release!"

With Kevin's roar, waves of blazing fire erupted from the weapon. The sheer intensity of the energy made it thousands of times more destructive than orbital bombardments. The overwhelming heat reached the metropolis hundreds of kilometers away, blanketing it in an oppressive, sweltering atmosphere.

The incoming tsunami, which had reformed after Robert and Kevin paused their clash, evaporated instantly upon approach, reduced to nothing by the incinerating flames.

"Hm? General, aren't you going to attack?"

As Robert prepared to unleash his own blazing pillar of fire to counter Kevin's strike, he noticed that Budo was simply standing there, arms crossed, watching the scene unfold without taking action.

This… General, are you sure this is the right time to sit back and relax?

"There's no need for us to intervene, Robert, because…" Budo replied confidently, lifting his gaze skyward.

"Her Majesty has arrived."

Kevin swung the fully transformed Judgement of Shamash with all his might.

"Extinction!"

The massive flaming blade tore through the air, annihilating all color and matter in its path.

Hum! Hum! Hum!

The ocean beneath them struggled to refill the void left by the fire, but the evaporation rate far outpaced the replenishment. Within less than a second, the overwhelming heat pushed the sea back by tens of kilometers.

The burning light engulfed everything within Budo and Robert's field of vision. An eternal flame erupted from the earth, piercing the clouds and illuminating even outer space.

Despite the firestorm rushing toward them, Budo remained calm.

"Her Majesty will handle it," he said without a hint of doubt.

A voice, faint yet distinctly amused, echoed through the blazing inferno.

"Heh~. You treat this planet like it's your personal plaything, Kevin. But while you may not care for Mother Earth, I certainly do."

"Imaginary Barrier."

Boom—!

The world erupted.

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