---o---
Cult Master Luo Hao was down for the count.
And Fu the Brawny was the one who did it.
"I had originally intended to wait until after completing the God-Slaying ritual before facing Cult Master Luo Hao," Fu Hua explained, recounting her experience while sipping the tea Miss Ana had brought her. Her strength had yet to return to its peak, and after being dropped off and clashing with Luo Hao, she hadn't managed to gain the upper hand.
"But no matter how I looked, I couldn't find the Heretical God you all mentioned."
"Then, during my travels, I ran into some of her cultists. They reported my location, and I found myself being hunted by the cult. I had no choice but to fight Cult Master Luo Hao once more."
Shenzhou's Flatboard, her Honkai energy reserves almost completely depleted, requested some Honkai energy crystals. She activated the unique Super Transformation Gene of a Super Soldier and took a deep breath.
She was badly injured.
Luo Hao's martial talent was extraordinarily high. Without using the Edge of Taixu, Fu Hua, not yet at her peak, was incapable of defeating her unscathed.
"The battle was perilous. In the end, I was left with only a tenth of my strength and no means to continue the fight. I had no choice but to flee Shenzhou in a hurry."
The words, carrying a sense of humiliation and describing a rather pathetic retreat, came from the mouth of the Guardian of Shenzhou from another world.
"So, let me get this straight," the young man began, his expression a little strange as he looked at the disheveled High Immortal. "After being hunted by the cult with nowhere to turn, you just turned around, beat their leader senseless, and then successfully dragged her half-dead body all the way to Tokyo?"
To be cornered and hunted by a demonic cult, only to beat up their leader out of desperation and then kidnap her to a foreign country…
As expected of Shenzhou's Flatboard, she easily achieves what we cannot.
Wait, I could do that too, Li Zihan thought aimlessly.
He then casually activated Fire-Thief and swiped the Cult Master's Authority, [A Millet Dream].
[A Millet Dream] was the Authority Cult Master Luo Hao had usurped after defeating the Roman god of harvest and abundance, Saturnus.
—It was a Feng Shui power that could rapidly advance the civilization and technology of the surrounding people.
As long as the wielder of this Authority was present, the nearby markets would prosper, the land would yield bountiful harvests, the economy and commerce would flourish, the city's inhabitants would become fortunate, and public order would stabilize.
In essence, it was an Authority that functioned as a cheat-level ultimate aura in a strategy game. If you tied Luo Hao to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, you could probably mass-produce Einsteins.
Unfortunately, the owner of this Authority, Luo Hao, detested modern technology and chose to live in the deep mountains. Thus, the only effect this power ever produced was making the trees on Mount Lu grow a bit more lushly.
For Li Zihan, whose strongest power was essentially the Herrscher of Reason, this Authority was naturally very useful.
After all—
He had already completed his "archaeological survey" of the previous era's technology in the Honkai world by taking out the Void Archives, which should have been alive and kicking in A Post-Honkai Odyssey.
If scientists didn't develop new technology, what the hell was he supposed to analyze to acquire new powers?
"More or less."
Completely oblivious to how strange her story sounded, Shenzhou's Flatboard nodded, causing the expressions of the girls around her to turn peculiar.
"Thank you for your help this time."
The fifty-thousand-year-old girl, who had indeed been severely injured in her brawl with the Cult Master, drained a large number of Honkai energy crystals. She took a deep breath and cupped her fist in gratitude towards the young man who carried a large supply of them.
Without a Honkai energy resupply, her wounds would have been very difficult to heal.
"There's no need to thank me," the young man, his eyes now a distinct gold, said with a casual wave of his hand.
"We're friends, aren't we?"
Fu Hua, who had no real memory of Li Zihan, froze.
For some reason, that sentence felt familiar.
"Have we… met somewhere before?"
Strangely moved by this young man calling her a friend, Fu Hua looked at him with her deep blue eyes, her unique features easy to recognize, and asked hesitantly.
"We met in a game, Fu Hua 3rd," the young man replied with perfect seriousness, recalling how in Bug Impact 3rd, countless Captains would shout "High Immortal is awesome!" every day.
What… is that?
Miss Hua, who occasionally played mobile games in her spare time, was stunned. She had only played… what the hell was that?
"It's a game I plan to develop," the young man, who had been an assassin in his past life, spouted nonsense with a straight face. "I feel that you bear a strong resemblance to a character in the game I designed. Because of that, seeing you feels like meeting an old friend, hence why I call you one."
It was a ridiculous explanation.
But Miss Fu Hua couldn't be bothered to dig deeper.
It was common sense not to probe too deeply into an ally's background.
"By the way, now that you've defeated Cult Master Luo Hao, do you still want to try slaying a Heretical God?" Li Zihan asked the Super Soldier, who had just recovered from her weakened state.
He had leads on the Sage Ape King and the divine king Melqart, possessed the Hera Stone Pillar that could chain-summon an earth mother goddess and a hero of steel, and held the divine artifact to summon Athena.
Counting Rama, who was still slacking off in outer space with his three subordinate gods, and Leviathan, demoted to a Divine Ancestor, rampaging in America…
If he wanted to, even without unleashing his own divinity to attract gods to descend, he could awaken nine Heretical Gods and the strongest 'Steel' who was completely unaffected by madness, all within a single day. He could easily summon a double-digit number of Heretical Gods.
And he didn't have that many girls around him who needed the God-Slayer buff.
Therefore, he could easily spare one Heretical God for the tragic Fu 'African Chieftain' Hua.
"If it's possible, I would like to complete the God-Slaying ritual," said Fu Hua, who would help Kevin and Su establish their colony but would never leave Shenzhou once it was done.
Shenzhou… needed her protection.
Even though the ancient parts of her memory had become hazy, the immortal, who was still fulfilling her promise, recalled the completely unreasonable power the Cult Master had used.
If I could obtain that same power…
Even without the help of Kevin, Su, and Otto, she could protect Shenzhou.
"I will help you."
The words, which seemed to echo from somewhere in her past, resonated in Fu Hua's ears.
Who was that?
For some reason, Fu Hua's heart felt a little lost.
Now is not the time to think about such trivial matters.
The immortal, unable to recall her past, sighed internally. She then looked at the young man and asked about the matter at hand.
"You know where to find a Heretical God?"
Compared to pondering some baseless sense of familiarity, increasing her strength to protect Shenzhou was more important.
"Of course," the young man, who no longer needed to slay Gods of Steel himself, replied with a faint smile.
---o---
Author's Note:
PS: I have a rough idea now.
The next volume can probably have both romance and fighting.