The city scenery at night was magnificent.
Lights were the protagonists of this long night.
On the streets, all sorts of neon signs emitted a dazzling brilliance, like seven-colored ribbons displaying the splendor of civilization.
Sitting in the arcade, Kiana looked up, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and checked the time.
"Ah Li, won't spending so much time playing with me affect your experiments?"
The girl, who vaguely remembered that Li Zihan had two massive experiments waiting for him, twisted her slender neck and looked towards the boy beside her, asking.
After she saw Li Zihan being called away by a Valkyrie, she had felt disappointed for a while and had planned to just eat her fill and go back.
But to her surprise, Li Zihan had suddenly rushed back a short while later.
He had stood up the Valkyrie who came looking for him and the people at the lab, staying behind to continue playing with her.
And so, they played games well into the night.
It could be said that this willful and wanton guy, all for the sake of a date, had postponed a pile of important matters for several hours.
He was truly headstrong.
To do something like this, just for a date.
A faint blush appeared on the pretty face of the girl who had thought she would be heading back alone.
"Those things aren't actually that important."
The boy, who had been playing games with Kiana until evening, showed no signs of anxiety on his face.
He gazed at the girl's joyous smile, and a small smile bloomed on his own lips as well.
"Did you have fun today?"
Rita was right. As long as he paid attention to the details and showed a girl he cared, the girl being cared for would be very happy.
"It was so-so, I guess."
The girl, who had actually loved how they spent the afternoon, put on an "it was just okay" expression.
"Sorry, but I don't have much time to keep playing with you right now. Next time I have the chance, I'll take you to an even better arcade."
The boy, who could clearly see the joy on the girl's face, nudged his chin and said.
Next time, we'll eat together, go shopping, and play games again?
A little bit of anticipation began to rise in Miss Kiana's heart.
"So, are you heading back now?"
The girl, who quite liked this feeling, stood up and stretched lazily.
"If it were a bit earlier, I probably would."
Noticing how late it was, the boy took out his phone and contacted the Schicksal agency stationed in Nagazora City to arrange for Kiana's lodging for the night and her transportation back to St. Freya tomorrow.
Afterward, he extended a hand to Kiana.
"Let me take you to the Schicksal office first and get you settled in."
"Get a good rest tonight. We can push back the rush to return to the Far East Branch until tomorrow."
Kiana stared at the hand extended before her, stunned for a moment.
"I'll lead the way," Li Zihan replied simply.
Kiana placed her hand on his.
She didn't know if it was her imagination, but she felt that Li Zihan's hand seemed a little warmer than she remembered.
This guy is finally starting to act a bit like a proper spare tire.
A small smile appeared on the lips of the girl who remembered that a certain someone had once claimed to be her backup.
========Break Line========
By the time Li Zihan had settled Kiana in, nearly an hour had passed.
Li Zihan stood in front of the Schicksal office.
Then, a maid with ash-gold, shoulder-length hair entered his field of vision.
It was Rita, who had been following him the whole time.
"It seems your relationship with Sirin is quite good."
The maid, who reported directly to the Schicksal Overseer, chuckled lightly, as if she had discovered something incredibly interesting.
"You know about the Sirin Project?" Li Zihan asked, raising an eyebrow.
The Sirin Project, also potentially known as the K-Project, was a preliminary plan prepared by Otto after the Second Honkai War to create a controllable Herrscher of Death.
All test subjects were clones created from the DNA of the real Kiana Kaslana and the Herrscher Sirin.
The first 422 test subjects only possessed vital signs but no consciousness and were discarded.
Test subject K423 was also meant to be just another result.
However, at that moment, Otto implanted the Second Herrscher's Core, which carried Sirin's consciousness, into the body of test subject 423, who was little more than a doll.
Eighteen hours later, the test subject gained consciousness.
"The Sirin Project is indeed classified, but it is not top secret."
The maid, who was essentially Otto's white glove for handling matters not meant to see the light of day and thus knew a great deal, chuckled lightly and walked to the boy's side.
"But speaking of which, you truly are an incredible person."
"Incredible? Am I?"
The boy, who had far too many incredible things about him, reached up and scratched his cheek, a troubled look on his face.
This kind of behavior was commonly known as being completely shameless.
Rita nodded very seriously, her vibrant red lips parting slightly as she gave her assessment.
"To still pursue the one known as 'Kiana' even after knowing she is the extremely dangerous Second Herrscher."
"That alone is already quite incredible."
The maid, who had seen the candidate list for the second batch of the so-called Artificial Herrscher Project, stared at the man who was inextricably entangled with the word "Herrscher," her tone filled with a hint of amazement.
"And yet, you seem to intend to give the Gems of Serenity and Conquest to two girls you are very close with, allowing them to become Herrschers."
"It's normal for a boy to be interested in different girls, but in your case…"
Here, Rita paused.
Juggling several relationships at once was already a dangerous game.
But this guy was planning to pursue the Second Herrscher while simultaneously turning the other girls around him into Herrschers…
"Could it be… that you have a Herrscher fetish?"
Rita looked at the boy who she found very much to her liking and asked him in all seriousness.
Judging by his current course of action, if he ever crashed and burned in the future, the scene would be absolutely explosive.
That's because there's almost no one on the Hyperion who isn't a Herrscher! the boy, who was at heart a perverted captain, thought to himself upon hearing Rita's words.
It's not that I have a thing for Herrschers, it's just that the girls I like all happen to have Herrscher potential.
"The Honkai consciousness and I are both just old perverts," Li Zihan said, giving a seemingly nonsensical answer to Rita's question.
The Honkai consciousness is an old pervert?
For a rare moment, Miss Rita was a little bewildered.
"Alright, let's not get sidetracked with that stuff."
The boy, who wasn't actually that afraid of a future kitchen knife crisis, shrugged his shoulders and said.
He had already reserved the core of the Key of Revelation, the Void Archives.
As a repository of the Previous Era's technology, the Void Archives contained the knowledge of all the Divine Keys except for Jizo Mitama.
Its core was, in essence, the Core of the Herrscher of Reason. It could use its knowledge of the Divine Keys to simulate the authorities of all the Previous Era Herrschers, with the exception of the Herrscher of Erosion and the Herrscher of Finality.
It was, without a doubt, the strongest Divine Key.
Once he implanted it into his body and successfully mastered its power, he would instantly become a fully realized Herrscher of Reason.
The boy, who was planning to use Jizo Mitama's Overload Mode in the near future to extract the core of the Void Archives and implant it into his own body, was in a very cheerful mood.
With that, what was there to fear from a few kitchen knives?
"Alright, it's time to go."
The boy, who still had a pile of experiments to deal with, smiled brightly.