"...target her for capture?"
Although resentful about her loss to Rita, Bronya, on the battlefield, still maintained her excellent qualities of calmness and acuity. She carefully observed the subtle changes in Rita's charming facial expressions. While questioning Rita, she also subtly relayed information to Kiana.
The Herrscher of the Void core buried within Kiana Kaslana's body had already been successfully stolen by Ren Amamiya.
Although this was a secret matter quietly achieved only last night, judging by the fact that Schicksal hadn't come sooner or later, but chose this specific time to recover the experimental subject Kiana, it was clear that Schicksal had already learned about the theft of the Herrscher of the Void core through some means.
Kiana, having lost the Herrscher of the Void core, was merely a useless empty vessel and should logically have no value.
From the perspective of power, although the Kaslana bloodline was strong, it wasn't rare. Moreover, Kiana clearly hadn't awakened the hidden power within her Kaslana bloodline like her father had.
And from the perspective of intellectual value...
"Mei, just hide behind me, don't worry! I'll protect you! Watch me smash these junk robots into a pile of complete junk!!"
An unconcealable excitement spread across Kiana's face. She pulled Raiden Mei behind her for protection, then eagerly raised a baseball bat that she had procured from somewhere, looking entirely ready for action.
Bronya glanced expressionlessly at Kiana, who was completely focused on Raiden Mei and hadn't noticed her earlier reminder. Kiana's face, alight with an expression so obvious that even a fool could tell she was fantasizing about some hero-rescues-damsel-and-wins-her-heart scenario, made Bronya sigh internally.
Evidently, Kiana Kaslana's intellectual value was utterly negligible.
Bronya suddenly felt very weary. The dispirited thought of just giving up on saving Kiana flashed through her mind.
However, Kiana was, after all, Raiden Mei's friend, and she also had close ties with Anti-Entropy. She was even an experimental subject in Schicksal's top-secret project.
Even if only to prevent the enemy's plan from succeeding, Bronya naturally needed to protect Kiana from being captured by Rita.
"Miss Bronya needn't trouble herself with Schicksal's intentions. Considering that Rita let Miss Bronya go once before, I wonder if Miss Bronya could return that favor here? After all, you and Miss Kiana aren't very familiar, are you?"
Rita avoided Bronya's question, merely bringing up Bronya's past defeat when she, under Cocolia's command, was routed by Rita leading the Immortal Blades.
However, avoiding the question was, in itself, an answer. And Bronya wasn't so easily provoked by Rita's taunts as to lose her composure.
"The Bronya will, of course, repay the favor of being let go... but only after I've beaten you down!"
Realizing she couldn't get any more information from Rita, Bronya resolutely raised her hand towards her. The charging glow of her cannons lit up first, followed by the blue-silver mechanical body of Project Bunny slowly materializing from the void, appearing behind Bronya.
"What a cool robot!... Mei, is she your friend?"
Seeing the imposing form of Project Bunny 19C, enhanced by the power of the Herrscher of Reason, manifest behind Bronya, Kiana's mind, previously filled with thoughts of showing off her cool side to Raiden Mei, momentarily blanked.
Compared to Bronya's Project Bunny, Kiana suddenly felt that the ordinary baseball bat in her hand wasn't so appealing anymore.
Worried that Bronya would steal her thunder, Kiana immediately turned her head and asked Raiden Mei, whom she had pulled behind her.
"Yes, Bronya is also a good friend of mine..."
Raiden Mei replied to Kiana somewhat distractedly. Her amethyst-like eyes quickly scanned the entire battlefield, silently memorizing the positions of all the Knight Moonbeam forces, and then rapidly calculated the weak points in their formation.
Rita's target was Kiana. Logically, Raiden Mei should break out with Kiana and head to a safe place far from Rita.
However, judging from the earlier conversation between Bronya and Rita, Bronya had clearly been defeated by Rita once before.
Although Bronya's strength was now several times greater than before due to the amplification from the Herrscher of Reason core fragments, just in case, Raiden Mei was still unwilling to leave Bronya alone on this battlefield to fight Rita by herself.
"That detestable pipsqueak, secretly becoming good friends with Mei without this beautiful girl's permission... Hmph, this lady won't lose to her. I have to step up my game too!"
Beams of light from the cannons shot out consecutively, and the silver-white Paladin-class mechs fell like cut wheat. However, Rita, wearing her Valkyrie battlesuit, Argent Knight: Artemis, moved with incredible agility, dodging Bronya's bombardment. Like a nimble cheetah, she weaved through the battlefield, rapidly closing in on Bronya's position.
Watching Bronya engage in a fierce back-and-forth battle with Rita, Kiana bit her lip in frustration. Knowing she couldn't intervene in that fight, she could only grip her baseball bat tightly and swing forcefully at the silver-white Paladin-class mechs approaching her.
"Heave-ho—"
Clang! Clang!! Clang!!!
Each swing was more powerful than the last. Three consecutive heavy blows from the baseball bat struck the silver-white Paladin's frame.
Relying on her inherited Kaslana brute strength, Kiana successfully performed a miracle of sheer force, bashing the first approaching Paladin into a sparking, useless heap of scrap metal on the ground.
"Don't worry, Mei! I, Kiana Kaslana, will definitely protect you— Wha-wha-what?!"
Raising a hand to wipe the sweat from her brow, Kiana was about to puff out her chest and bask in what she expected to be Raiden Mei's admiring and grateful gaze.
However, she had just turned around when she saw a flash of purple sword light, wreathed in lightning, streak through the air. The four Paladin-class mechs that had been approaching from the rear in a pincer movement instantly froze.
After a long moment, as if only then realizing what had happened, they slid to the ground in two neat halves. The cross-sections of their mechanical bodies were as smooth as mirrors, clearly indicating the sword slash had met no resistance.
"Sorry, Kiana, were you saying something just now? I don't think I heard you."
Raiden Mei flicked the blade of the Seven Thunders of Retribution tachi, which had transformed from her Great Lightning Spiral Ring. A faint, reddish-purple arc of electricity dissipated from the Seven Thunders' blade into the air.
Looking at Kiana's dumbfounded, astonished expression beside her, Raiden Mei couldn't help the smirk that tugged at the corner of her lips.
Before Ren Amamiya had left, he had temporarily entrusted the Great Lightning Spiral Ring to Raiden Mei, its original owner, for safekeeping and use.
And the battle happening now was the perfect opportunity for the Great Lightning Spiral Ring to shine.
Relying on the enhancement from the Great Lightning Spiral Ring, Raiden Mei's own strength had increased significantly. Slicing through four Paladin-class mechs in one go wasn't her limit, but rather the limit of how those mechs were positioned.
"Uh, no-nothing! Mei, your sword is so pretty! Where did you get it?"
Kiana gave an awkward laugh. More sweat beaded on her forehead than when she had been pummeling the Paladins, deeply shocked by the strength Raiden Mei had displayed.
Although she had long known Raiden Mei's swordsmanship was astonishing, apparently even reaching some kind of "no-sword style" mastery [a reference to a high level of swordsmanship where the sword itself is secondary to the skill], Kiana had never imagined Mei's sword skills had reached such a terrifying level that she could annihilate these robots.
From their brief combat encounter, Kiana could roughly judge the strength of those silver-white Paladin-class mechs... they were about equivalent to Knight-class Honkai Beasts, and elite ones at that.
To be able to annihilate four Paladin-class mechs, equivalent to elite Knight-class Honkai Beasts, with a single sword strike, and to look so effortless and composed while doing it...
Kiana swallowed hard. She suddenly realized that perhaps she wasn't the strongest fighter between herself and Raiden Mei?
"Kiana, stay behind me."
"Oh..."
Realizing her hero-rescues-damsel plan had completely fizzled out, Kiana instantly drooped like a frost-bitten eggplant. She obediently stayed behind Raiden Mei, watching wide-eyed as Mei mowed down the Paladin-class fodder mechs that were rapidly approaching them, her heart a turmoil of complex emotions.
Although she had sensed before that Raiden Mei was hiding some unique little secret from her, Kiana had never, ever expected that secret would make Mei so powerful, even leaving her far behind.
Watching Raiden Mei, who wielded lightning to exterminate numerous silver-white Paladins, and even a red Knight Moonbeam, which was clearly an elite enemy, only managed to withstand two more lightning slashes than a regular Paladin before instantly exploding, Kiana couldn't help but let out a dejected sigh. She felt that no matter what happened next, she absolutely wouldn't be surprised anymore.
Visible purplish-red arcs of lightning flickered and danced across Raiden Mei's body. A crimson armored dress materialized around her. The image of the valiant sword-wielding warrior girl instantly made Kiana, who was watching from behind Mei, brighten up.
"Mei is so cool!!... But, Mei in this form looks kinda familiar, like I've seen her somewhere before."
Kiana couldn't help but clench her fists. While cheering for Raiden Mei, she suddenly felt that Mei's current appearance gave her an extremely strong sense of déjà vu. The hazy image in her mind, like frosted glass separating the ambiguous boundary between reality and dreams, gradually became clearer.
As if a dream had manifested into reality, Raiden Mei's current posture was identical to the image Kiana had glimpsed in her dreams these past few days!
However, although the image was identical, Kiana still inexplicably felt that the current Raiden Mei was lacking something, that her overall image wasn't yet complete.
"Persona!!"
Raiden Mei placed her hand on the black oni mask worn on the side of her face. The black oni mask instantly vanished in a flash of purplish-red lightning. Then, a massive shadow was cast from the sky above. Kiana, her expression slightly stiff, tilted her head up and saw a terrifyingly imposing, colossal deep-crimson demonic dragon.
Alright, now nothing was missing.
Like a fogged-up glass being wiped completely clean, Kiana, at this moment, fully recalled the image of Raiden Mei she had seen in her dreams.
...If that dream was all real, then there was no need for her, Kiana, to protect Raiden Mei. That demonic dragon could crush her with a single finger!
Deep down, Kiana had still been fantasizing that although Raiden Mei was strong, she possessed some kind of weakness, and that weakness could only be compensated for by her, Raiden Mei's destined person. She would thus smoothly become the perfect, flawless partner for Raiden Mei.
However, with the thunderous descent of the Persona Kurikara, which easily smashed a large swathe of Paladin-class mechs into shapeless scrap metal with a swing of its dragon claw, the fantasy Kiana had harbored was completely shattered and swept into the trash heap.
"Wha-what's the deal with this red giant dragon, Mei?! Being able to control lightning with a weapon is one thing, but how did you summon this terrifying demonic dragon and order it around like a puppy?! And what the heck is a Persona? How come I've never heard of it?!!"
Kiana clutched her head, a look of world-shattering agony on her face. Her already limited brain capacity seemed to be overloading and burning up from the overwhelming influx of shocking reality.
Being able to manipulate lightning with a tachi—weapons of that caliber, though rare, weren't impossible to obtain. What amazed Kiana more than the weapon itself was Raiden Mei's swordsmanship.
But that deep-crimson demonic dragon, summoned when Raiden Mei shouted "Kurikara," was a different story.
That imposing, deep-crimson demonic dragon was clearly an incredibly powerful, high-tier Honkai Beast, and probably a top-tier one among them. The strongest Honkai Beast Kiana had encountered during her previous global travels didn't even measure up to one of this crimson dragon's toenails. She couldn't even estimate what level of strength this demonic dragon possessed, only that it was powerful beyond her dimension.
Yet this powerful dragon-type Honkai Beast, which would likely require Schicksal to dispatch a large-scale A-rank Valkyrie squad, or even mobilize S-rank Valkyries to subjugate, was now like a docile pet dog, freely commanded by her familiar friend Raiden Mei, executing orders without the slightest hesitation or unwillingness.
This excessively bizarre scene undoubtedly shattered the worldview Kiana had accumulated from past experiences, even making her doubt everything she was seeing.
"Don't be afraid, Kiana. This is the Persona power I awakened as a Persona user. Kurikara won't hurt you."
Compared to personally rushing into battle, summoning the Persona Kurikara for large-scale crowd control was indeed much easier. Raiden Mei even had the leisure to turn around, look at Kiana, and explain things to the conflicted and shocked girl.
Kiana's complete ignorance of the Persona system didn't surprise Raiden Mei.
After all, even Kiana's father, Siegfried, and the Anti-Entropy Sovereign, Welt Yang, only had a partial understanding of Persona powers. It was perfectly normal for Kiana not to know about Persona-related matters.
"Persona user? What's that? Ugh, my head feels itchy, and I feel a little nauseous... That nasty woman with the scythe over there, is she some kind of Persona user too? How come I don't see her summoning weird stuff to fight with like you and Mei?"
Perhaps from absorbing too much information at once, Kiana felt her head itching and even a bit dizzy and nauseous.
She cast her gaze towards Rita, who had distanced herself from Bronya, and then noticed with some surprise that Rita had, at some point, put on the black gas mask she carried around her slender white neck.
"Kiana, behind you!!"
Raiden Mei had been keeping an eye on Kiana's situation, so she immediately noticed the anomaly appearing behind Kiana.
A Jet-black bladed beast with emerald-green sharp claws, like a cunning hound lying in ambush, or like a thunderbolt tearing through the night sky, shot out at high speed from behind a pile of Paladin wreckage, rushing straight for Kiana.
Raiden Mei violently swung the purple tachi in her hand, intending to use the Seven Thunders of Retribution to unleash a sword light to intercept the bladed beast's vicious attack on Kiana.
However, after her wrist swung down, the purplish-red lightning that erupted from the Seven Thunders only traveled half the distance before listlessly dissipating into the air.
"...What?!"
After the sword slash, Raiden Mei instantly felt the stagnation and emptiness of power within her body. Her body, somewhat weak, sank to one knee on the ground. Even her Persona Kurikara was noticeably weakened, its demeanor becoming much more listless.
It was somewhat similar to the feeling of being hit by the Elysion Pedion barrier last night, yet also different.
The restraining power of the Elysion Pedion barrier merely nullified the Honkai energy within her body, rendering it completely inert and unusable.
But now, although the Honkai energy in Raiden Mei's body had also fallen into a similar inert state, a more obvious characteristic was that her Honkai energy was continuously disappearing at an extremely rapid rate, as if it were being completely disintegrated by something!
"Is it poison gas?... Damn it, Kiana!!"
Seeing the Carbon-Based Hunter knock Kiana to the ground and imprison her within the cockpit of a red Knight Moonbeam, preparing to take Kiana away just like that, a look of anxiety finally appeared on Raiden Mei's face.
She struggled against the weakness in her body, using the Seven Thunders of Retribution tachi to support herself as she barely stood up. A golden glow gradually brightened within her purple pupils.
"Phew—the plan is proceeding smoothly."
Rita, controlling the Argent Knight: Artemis battlesuit's bound autonomous tracking weapon, the Carbon-Based Hunter, successfully neutralized and captured Kiana. She let out a slight sigh of relief, then ordered the red Knight Moonbeam holding Kiana to mix into the remaining group of mechs, concealing its presence.
The strength of the Persona user Raiden Mei was something Rita absolutely did not want to mess with.
Fortunately, although Raiden Mei was powerful, she seemed to be a PVE specialist, with almost no PVP experience. Fighting unintelligent Imaginary constructs was naturally no problem, but when encountering a scheming, wicked woman like her, she was prone to tripping up in unexpected ways.
Bronya, as an assassin, had plenty of experience fighting people, and her strength had recently approached that of an S-rank Valkyrie. But unfortunately, Rita was still a cut above.
Due to the urgency and being screwed over by Otto into undertaking this extremely dangerous recovery mission, Rita had no intention of saving Otto any money.
Purely out of a retaliatory mindset to drain Otto's resources, she used extremely resource-intensive quantum transmission technology to continuously transfer idle Paladin-class mechs from Schicksal HQ.
Schicksal's current quantum transmission technology could only be applied to non-living matter. Rashly performing quantum transmission on living beings could easily lead to the teleported subject ending up in pieces... meaning one piece in the Eastern Hemisphere, and another in the Western Hemisphere.
If it were just Rita herself, the only strategy she could think of in a short time was to use quantum transmission to transfer groups of mechs to assist her in battle.
Fortunately, Otto also knew the difficulty and danger of this mission. He very generously accepted Rita's resource-draining actions and even proactively gave Rita his trump card, originally custom-made for the Herrscher of the Void.
The Spear of Destiny.
A final weapon concocted from HSN-B46 serum and Shania Stigmata holy blood in a special ratio, capable of rapidly expelling Honkai energy from a target's body. Even a fully-powered Herrscher struck by the Spear of Destiny would fall into a state of complete, grievous injury and powerlessness.
Otto had temporarily modified the Spear of Destiny into a gaseous form.
Rita, by always maintaining an upwind position and directing the mech groups to create airflow, had surreptitiously leaked the Spear of Destiny gas towards Raiden Mei and the others.
Having put on a gas mask beforehand and applied a special ointment to her entire skin to prevent absorption of the gas, Rita, who was unaffected by the Spear of Destiny gas, became the sole victor on the field.
Her scythe, Aphrodite [Gene Reaper], possessed the function of configuring targeted neurotoxins based on the enemy's gene sequence.
Although Rita hadn't managed to attack Kiana with the scythe, Kiana's gene sequence data was no secret to Schicksal. Rita herself could even easily find Kiana's genetic samples to concoct a neurotoxin.
With a neurotoxin specifically targeting Kiana's gene sequence and the Honkai-specialized Spear of Destiny gas, Rita dared to pat her chest and guarantee that Kiana, imprisoned in the mech cockpit, was completely incapacitated, with no strength left to struggle or resist.
As time passed, the power drain from Persona Kurikara became increasingly severe.
Project Bunny 19C, thanks to being a mechanical construct, though its combat ability had slightly decreased, still retained the capacity to continue fighting, floating behind the fallen Bronya and constantly making harassing attacks on Rita.
"Apologies, Miss Bronya, Rita doesn't have any more time to play with you. Until next time~~~"
Sheathing Aphrodite, Rita's voice, tinged with a smile, came from beneath her gas mask, sounding somewhat muffled.
The mission to recover K-423 was accomplished. Next, she just needed to transport K-423 to Schicksal HQ. While Anti-Entropy hadn't fully reacted, it was time to make a decisive retreat.
"Don't even think about escaping... Hmph, do you think you can get away?"
Raiden Mei's expression towards Rita had initially been full of sorrow and anger. However, as her purple pupils were completely replaced by a golden brilliance, transforming her eyes into a golden hue, Raiden Mei's pretty face took on an air of lofty arrogance, like a noble Queen of Thunder.
She sneered mockingly at Rita, who was attempting to leave.
"From the very beginning, your scheme, all of your schemes, were already seen through!!"
A playful arc tugged at Shadow Mei's lips. New Honkai energy surged forth from within her body. Although still continuously leaking due to the Spear of Destiny gas, she had impressively managed to restore her body's ability to move.
Gazing at Shadow Mei's golden eyes, which openly displayed mockery and playfulness, Rita, who had thought victory was in her grasp, felt her heart lurch. An extremely ominous premonition instantly enveloped her entire being.
Space rippled in a visible manner.
A purple portal, as splendid and mesmerizing as a starry sky, unfurled in the void like a scroll, solidifying in an instant.
Step, step...
Steady and forceful footsteps echoed quietly from beyond the purple portal.
Slightly fluffy and messy black hair, a bird-shaped white mask, a winged-style black trench coat—the figure of the person emerging from the other side of the star gate clearly entered Rita's vision, causing her breath to catch.
"Mr. Ren... Amamiya..."
Softly calling out the person's name, the smile beneath Rita's gas mask became incredibly stiff. Her heart sank abruptly. Ultimately, she was forced to confront the enemy she least wanted to face.
"Rita Rossweisse. So, you really aren't just an ordinary maid."