Northern Europe, on a snow-covered land.
A convoy bearing the emblem of Schicksal advanced along the highway.
Several heavily armed armored vehicles cleared the way ahead, while more armed troops followed behind, tightly guarding a single truck in the center.
Inside the truck compartment—
Hoo—gudugudu...
"So good—"
A tan-skinned girl gulped down a large mouthful of beer, sitting on the floor and staring blankly at the ceiling.
"Don't drink during missions, Patricia."
Beside her, another Valkyrie with gray hair and gray eyes, dressed in standard Schicksal uniform, rubbed her forehead helplessly.
"What's the big deal? We're almost at the destination anyway~"
Patricia replied carelessly.
"And besides, with the Archbishop's personal Valkyrie here, what could possibly go wrong, Cheng Lixue~"
"..."
The girl called Cheng Lixue nodded slightly.
"Indeed, this mission is simple—just escort the new weapon to the Second Laboratory."
"But what kind of weapon requires three A-rank or higher Valkyries? Even the young lady of the Schariac family came along?"
Not far from them sat a white-haired, blue-eyed girl wearing purple diamond-shaped earrings.
Her black-and-gold combat suit left her shoulders bare, paired with short one-piece pants.
She leaned against a waist-high container sealed with a special alloy—
Cecilia Schariac.
Schicksal's strongest S-rank Valkyrie, and the holy maiden of the Schariac family—one of the organization's Three Houses.
"..."
Cecilia knew the true nature of this mission, but said nothing. She remained silent.
"Ugh..."
Bored, Patricia changed the topic.
"Hey, Cheng Lixue, have you heard of the Starsea Empire?"
"Hm?"
Cheng Lixue tilted her head, thought for a moment, then spoke softly.
"You mean that mysterious organization that kidnapped Schicksal scientists forty years ago?"
The First Eruption had happened only two days ago from Setsuna's perspective aboard the transdimensional ship—but for Earth, forty years had already passed.
To these Valkyries in their teens and twenties, it was something out of history textbooks.
Although Schicksal had done everything to suppress information about the Starsea Empire, many still remembered the massive starships that blotted out the sky that day. Bits and pieces of those stories had spread.
"Yeah, yeah, that's them!!"
Patricia grew excited, chatting animatedly with Cheng Lixue as though discussing an urban legend.
"I asked the Archbishop about it, but he refused to say anything! So there must be some huge secret behind it..."
"They say that back in the 15th century, during Schicksal's eastern expedition, they failed to conquer the Ming Empire because the Starsea Empire ambushed them."
"Even the strongest Valkyrie at the time—Kallen Kaslana—was captured."
To them, that centuries-old history was just amusing gossip.
After all, besides Otto himself, few within Schicksal still knew what really happened back then.
"...Hm?"
At the mention of Kallen's name, Cecilia turned slightly, listening quietly to their discussion.
That woman—Schicksal's strongest Valkyrie from five hundred years ago, the mightiest warrior of the Kaslana family.
Cecilia couldn't help but want to compare herself with that legendary "strongest."
Who was truly superior between them?
Then she shook her head, chuckling softly at her own thoughts.
"Ugh, what am I even thinking?"
That person was a 15th-century relic—someone you could only read about in textbooks.
She'd been abducted more than five hundred years ago, and it wasn't even certain if she was still alive.
"What about Fu Hua? I heard she showed up five hundred years ago, then again forty years ago?"
Patricia suddenly changed the topic again.
"During the First Eruption, someone reportedly saw her in Berlin. They said she wiped out an entire armed battalion with just her sword—crazy, right~"
She drew out the last word teasingly, making Cheng Lixue sigh helplessly.
"Defeating an army alone isn't that rare, right? In that case, that Fu Hua must at least be A-rank strength, no?"
"No, no, no, I think she's S-rank. She's been alive since the Ming dynasty—that's what, several hundred years already?"
The two of them knew little about Fu Hua, chatting idly.
Cecilia stayed silent, lost in thought.
"I mean... the Starsea Empire wouldn't actually try to rob us, right?"
Out of nowhere, Patricia blurted out the question, earning confused looks from both Cheng Lixue and Cecilia.
"Think about it. With this many troops, three A-rank Valkyries, and even the young lady of the Schariac family here—who in the world would dare mess with us?"
"The Archbishop sending this much protection... who exactly is he expecting to attack us?"
Patricia sounded almost convinced by her own logic.
Since Planck and the other Schicksal scientists had been taken, Anti-Entropy never formed.
Now, Schicksal stood as the planet's absolute ruling power—nearly the entire world was directly or indirectly under its control.
In such a state, who would even dare provoke Schicksal?
Bandits? They'd run for their lives the moment they saw the armored convoy.
Other nations? Impossible.
By all reasoning, the level of security for this escort was absurdly high.
"To take on a starship... that would be troublesome..." Cheng Lixue frowned.
"Highly unlikely," Cecilia suddenly spoke.
"This entire experiment has been classified from the start. Aside from the Archbishop and a handful of participants, no one knows about it."
"There's no reason anyone would intercept the convoy... If they do come, we'll simply do our best to fight."
"Oh?"
"Then, young lady, would you handle them yourself?" Patricia teased.
"...If necessary."
As they joked—
Beep—
A sudden, unfamiliar transmission came through.
"Not quite. The Commander's been watching you all along."
"Activate electromagnetic interference. Prepare for orbital drop."
"What?!"
Before they could even react—
Zzzzt—
Every communication link across the convoy was instantly cut off. All radars, navigation, and electronic systems went dead in the same moment.
Boom—
The ground shook violently.
"Who?!"
Their instincts screamed danger. The three Valkyries immediately drew their weapons and leapt out of the truck.
"Ah..."
When they looked up—
A colossal starship loomed overhead, emblazoned with the emblem of the Starsea Empire.
Hundreds of Angeloids descended in formation, their multi-colored high-energy weapons intertwining into a blinding web of light that crushed the entire convoy in seconds.
The technological gap between the two sides was immeasurable.
"No way?! They actually came?!"
Patricia and Cheng Lixue were dumbfounded.
Patricia felt the urge to slap herself for tempting fate.
Clack—
Cecilia drew her lance, adopting a combat stance as she scanned the area, wary of the surrounding battle angels.
Her mind raced to form a strategy.
"There are too many of them, and they're using thermal weapons. Fighting them head-on will be difficult... Where's their commander?"
"How did they know our exact location? Have they been tracking us this whole time? Or is there a leak inside Schicksal..."
"Miss Cecilia, we're going in!" Cheng Lixue shouted, ready to strike.
Whoosh—
A graceful figure landed before the three Valkyries.
Fu Hua examined Cecilia closely and shook her head.
"The holy maiden of the Schariac family?... Yes, I can sense it. Your power does suppress and alter Honkai energy... What a pity, Otto..."
She felt a faint fondness for the gentle, motherly girl—but she had no love for Schicksal or Otto's methods.
"Fu Hua?!"
The three were startled, instantly recognizing the immortal's figure from historical records.
"Would you come with me? The Commander wishes to meet you."
The immortal's tone was calm yet commanding.
"The Commander? You mean the Commander of the Starsea Empire?"
Cecilia's stance stiffened, while Patricia pulled out a Gatling-like heavy weapon and aimed it at Fu Hua.
"No. We're on an escort mission."
"So you're the Shenzhou immortal? Then don't blame us for going three-on-one! Even Kallen reportedly lost to you..."
"Is that so..."
Fu Hua sighed softly.
The next instant—
Clang—
A single sword strike.
A beam of golden light split the heavens as her blade descended.
After her fusion with Chiyou through hyper-augmentation surgery, her power and speed had long since surpassed anything ordinary Valkyries could comprehend.
Boom—
They didn't even have time to react—nor to defend.
In the last moment before consciousness faded, Cecilia saw only a golden greatsword stretching from earth to sky.
Their minds were overwhelmed by a roaring current, and everything went black.
Half an hour later—
"Where... am I?"
Cecilia slowly opened her eyes, still dazed.
She found herself in an entirely unfamiliar place.
A strange ceiling, a strange bed, strange furnishings.
Beside her, an Angeloid glanced at the data displayed on a holographic panel.
"You're awake?"
"Your body's fine, no injuries. Your mind was struck by the Taixuan Eminence, but there's no harm."
"Don't worry. Fu Hua only attacked your consciousness—and she held back. You're perfectly safe."
"???"
Turning her head, Cecilia spotted Cheng Lixue and Patricia lying on nearby beds, equally bewildered.
The three of them managed to sit up, rubbing their temples.
"So... we got captured?"
Cecilia had planned to test her strength against the fabled Shenzhou immortal, but hadn't even survived a single exchange.
"Where is this...?"
"Weren't you just discussing us?" said Nymph, tilting her head. "You were wondering if the Starsea Empire might rob you or something, right?"
"Eh?!"
The three jumped in shock.
They sat upright on the beds, staring wide-eyed at their surroundings.
Outside the porthole stretched blue skies and clouds. Looking down, they saw a vast sea of white cloud beneath them.
Around them stood a gray-haired girl in uniform, a short twin-tailed loli, and several Angeloids.
They were checking data on instruments, seemingly scanning their bodies, nodding occasionally in approval.
"Wait, you're the Starsea Empire?! The same ones who kidnapped Kallen five hundred years ago, abducted Schicksal scientists forty years ago, and were somehow involved in the First Eruption?!"
Patricia's eyes widened with disbelief.
She noticed that the insignia on the starship matched the one she had seen in records exactly.
"?"
"The first two things, sure, we'll own up to," Nymph said, puffing out her cheeks, "but what's the First Eruption got to do with us?! Don't go rewriting history, geez!"
"How exactly does Schicksal record past events these days?!" she protested.
"???"
The three Valkyries were stunned that the little loli so casually admitted to those incidents.
"So that means... just like Schicksal's records say, a lot of things on Earth were actually your doing? The Dead Sea Scrolls—you left those behind? And it's true they describe a way to convert Honkai energy into ordinary energy?"
"Who exactly are you people? Where are you from? Is the Honkai really connected to you? Why did you appear so quickly during the First Eruption?!"
"The Herrscher from that time—some scholars in Schicksal say you took her away! Others claim the Honkai itself was your Empire's conspiracy to destroy Earth..."
Patricia fired off questions one after another like an overly curious child.
Their understanding of the Starsea Empire was limited to scattered legends.
A mysterious extraterrestrial civilization—an all-purpose explanation for every unsolved mystery.
For centuries, whenever something incomprehensible happened, people simply blamed it on the Starsea Empire.
"Ah yes, yes, exactly—"
The gray-haired girl nodded solemnly.
"Yup, we caused the dinosaur extinction, built the Easter Island statues, dropped the Loch Ness Monster in the lake, and had someone steal your instant noodle seasoning packet last week."
"Now come on, let's go meet the Commander~~."
...
"..."
"Not quite what you imagined?"
Cecilia whispered to Cheng Lixue and Patricia as they followed the Angeloids through the corridor.
Judging by strength, Fu Hua could've flattened them in one strike—she held an overwhelming advantage.
Yet their captors were surprisingly kind, treating them not as prisoners, but as guests.
The three curiously examined the starship's interior.
"What a massive ship... Schicksal could never build something like this."
"No wonder the Archbishop's been pushing so hard for space development... looks like we've still got a long way to go."
As they crossed a long bridge inside the ship, Cecilia glanced downward—and gasped softly.
The starship's scale was staggering, like a floating city in the sky—stretching endlessly beyond sight.
The spacecraft and satellites Schicksal had launched recently were like ants compared to this colossal vessel.
The weapon modules and turrets on its armed wings were unlike anything they had ever seen before.
"Just where did these people come from...?"
They were still murmuring among themselves when—
Click—
"Please, come in, everyone."
"The Commander is waiting for you."
The Angeloid led them to the top of the starship's command bridge.
Clack—
As the door slid open, Cecilia stepped into the command tower.
Beneath a vast holographic dome lay a sleek, futuristic command center. Transparent panoramic walls surrounded them, making it feel as though they were walking among the clouds themselves.
A man turned from his seat, smiling as he looked at them.
"Cecilia, Cheng Lixue... welcome."
"I am the Commander of the Starsea Empire. I suppose you've at least heard of us before?"
"Ah!!!"
The three Valkyries froze, their pupils dilating in shock.
Their eyes lingered on Setsuna for a moment—young, handsome, exuding a calm confidence and natural authority.
Then their gazes drifted past him—and Cecilia's mind went blank.
Beside Setsuna stood several unfamiliar girls—shipgirls, Gudako, and others she didn't recognize. Fu Hua she had met earlier.
But one girl—white-haired, blue-eyed, her hair tied in a braided ponytail—Cecilia would never mistake her.
In Schicksal's archives, countless legends surrounded her name.
Five centuries ago, Schicksal's strongest Valkyrie. The ace of the eastern expedition. The mightiest warrior of the Kaslana family. Wielder of the Eleventh Divine Key...
The one the Archbishop had yearned for centuries to find—even vowing to cross the stars if necessary to retrieve her.
Kallen Kaslana.
That ancient heroine from five hundred years ago was now standing casually beside Setsuna, twirling a strand of hair as she curiously studied them.
"Kallen?"
"You... you're the legendary Kallen Kaslana?!!"
Cecilia instinctively took a step forward, eager to approach her.
"Uh... legendary?"
Kallen scratched her cheek, puzzled by the strange phrasing.
"You're the hero of the eastern campaign—the one who gave everything for Schicksal, only to be betrayed by the Starsea Empire's ambush..."
"Most believed you died back then. The Archbishop refused to accept it. A few years ago, he canonized you as a saint, swearing to rescue you no matter the cost..."
Cecilia spoke haltingly, overwhelmed by the surreal sight before her.
A figure once confined to history books—now standing right in front of her.
"You were abducted by the Starsea Empire for five hundred years?! What happened?!"
"Uh... it's been that long?"
Kallen's expression grew awkward. From her perspective, she'd only been in the Starsea Empire for a few years.
"And it wasn't an ambush. I just... kinda lost to Tohru."
She sighed, realizing it was due to the distortion of time travel.
The temporal dissonance was complete—while the transdimensional ship had traveled only a few days, five hundred years had passed on Earth.
To Cecilia, Cheng Lixue, and everyone else on the planet, Kallen was literally an ancient relic.
"So... you all see me as some kind of ancient granny now?"
Kallen muttered dryly.
"An antique! An antique! Go on, show them how old you are!" Senti teased, poking Fu Hua's arm.
The immortal rolled her eyes and said nothing.
"May I ask... what exactly is going on?"
It took quite some time for Cecilia to collect her thoughts after that earth-shattering revelation.
Her gaze turned toward Setsuna, confusion and awe mixed in her eyes.
"Well... it's a long story," he replied with a faint smile.
...
"Ababa..."
Two whole hours later, Cecilia, Cheng Lixue, and Patricia finally began to process everything.
Like every native who first arrived in the Starsea Empire—they were completely dumbfounded.
For people born in the late 20th century, starships, artificial intelligence, and Angeloids were still within the boundaries of imagination—and even the concept of another universe was barely understandable.
But traveling from the past into the future? That was completely beyond comprehension.
"This world... its timeline originally belonged to the 15th century? You came from the past?!"
"So you—you're actually from our era, and we're the people of your future?!"
Cecilia looked at Setsuna, Kallen, and Fu Hua in utter disbelief.
"You could put it that way."
"Oh, but in higher-dimensional terms, the concepts of past and future aren't so rigid," Setsuna explained with a smile. "Time is simply a coordinate you can move through freely."
"In higher-dimensional space, time has more than one direction—just like how three-dimensional space has length, width, and height."
"Ah..."
Cecilia and Cheng Lixue scratched their heads.
Their brains itched from trying to comprehend it.
At that moment, Planck, Edison, Einstein, and several other Honkai scientists entered, studying Cecilia with keen interest.
"Oh, so you're the true 'Herrscher Slayer'? The one capable of purifying Honkai energy through your Saint Blood? Fascinating... the research potential is immense."
"Nice to meet you. Would you be willing to assist in some of our experiments?"
"Eh?"
Cecilia froze.
She recognized these faces too—people who should have existed only in old records.
"You're... the scientists who were taken away forty years ago..."
"Forty years? Really? We've barely had a few meals here," Edison said, exchanging a look with Einstein before correcting her.
"Oh, right—for you it's been that long. Sorry, time travel tends to mess up one's sense of chronology. Guess relativity needs an upgrade."
"But no, we weren't kidnapped—we came willingly."
"..."
After listening to the Honkai scientists' lengthy explanations about faster-than-light travel, hyperdimensional starship, and technologies capable of traversing past, future, and alternate worlds, Cecilia was left utterly dizzy.
She finally understood one thing:
These lunatic scientists had defected voluntarily—drawn in by the Starsea Empire's technology. Schicksal's official records were... not exactly accurate.
"And what about you?" Cecilia turned toward Kallen.
"Why are you here?"
"Schicksal and Archbishop Otto have searched for you for five hundred years. The Kaslana family also cares deeply about your fate..."
"Well..." Kallen tugged lightly on her braided hair.
"Ah... I just don't agree with how Schicksal does things. Honestly, I think it's much nicer over here."
"How about you stay for a while too? Later, you can come visit the Starsea Empire with us—it's really wonderful there."
Her tone was sincere.
From her time in the eastern expedition to her journey through time itself, Kallen had seen too much of Schicksal's cruelty and deceit—their willingness to sacrifice anything for power.
A world full of war, conspiracy, blood, and injustice couldn't compare at all to the near-heavenly cities of the Starsea Empire.
"Eh?"
Cecilia and the others froze in unison.
"Saint Kallen... defected too?!"
—
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