The Siberian forest was half destroyed in the battle with the 'Second Herrscher' more than a decade ago, but life is something that always grows back from the earth, taking root and sprouting... In just a few years, except for a few places that were too severely destroyed, the trees have grown again on this black land...
Siberia in March is still cold enough to freeze a basin of splashed water. Although the coastal borders of the Divine Land continent are already beginning to warm up with the arrival of spring, it's better to just imagine the warm air reaching Siberia in March... So the current temperature in Siberia is still a few degrees below zero, a weather where dripping water turns to ice...
The usually calm Siberian forest welcomed uninvited guests today. A wobbly airship, as if drunk, glided down from the gray sky...
"Boom!..." The bottom of the small silver combat ship directly crashed into the snow-covered ground. Along the way, ice chips scattered into the air like dust, and countless trees were directly snapped in half...
The roar of the crash and the flying ice chips startled the ptarmigans (similar to wild chickens) sleeping in the snowdrifts in the forest. They jumped out in fright, flapping their wings and flying around chaotically...
Even a squirrel poked its head out of a tree hole, its big, black glass-like eyes observing curiously... The huge commotion made the quiet winter forest noisy. Of course, the snakes and bears were still hibernating, unmoved...
A dilapidated warship lay in the ice and snow, looking somewhat desolate and forlorn... What was even more shocking was the long trench behind the warship's rear...
Perhaps due to the heat generated by friction, the ground in the trench was no longer covered with ice and snow, exposing the black soil that was emitting a faint heat, melting the ice and snow into water that seeped into the black soil. It was not hard to imagine that the land would be lush and green next year...
The silver-cased warship, now blackened, had a malfunction somewhere, sparking and crackling... A golden longsword suddenly pierced through the super-alloy casing of the warship from the inside, quickly cutting a hole large enough for a person to pass through... If the 'Anti-Entropy' R&D personnel saw this scene, they would probably be scared to death...
You know... the warship's casing was not something that could be easily cut open even by a laser...
"Cough cough..." Li Xuan, holding the Xuanyuan Sword and carrying Bronya on his back, struggled out of the breach in the warship, looking disheveled. He gasped for breath on the snow-covered ground, which had holes in it with every step...
"Finally out..." Kiana, who came out after Li Xuan, rubbed the large bump on her head and said with lingering fear, "I thought I was going to die this time..."
"Kiana! Who told you not to fasten your seatbelt during landing!" Mei, who was supporting the limping Kiana, said angrily, twisting Kiana's ear.
"Mei, I was wrong, I was wrong..." Kiana quickly jumped up and down, begging for mercy.
"Hah~ Damn it... I knew that old hag Cocolia had no good intentions!..." Li Xuan gently placed Bronya on the snow, caught his breath, and said resentfully.
"To think she'd... poke a hole in the energy tank..." Li Xuan felt that there was no trust left between people. Cocolia's actions had caused them to run out of energy halfway through their flight and be forced to crash in this godforsaken place...
At that time, all he could think about was escaping from the Anti-Entropy warship... He was still too careless. He thought that by randomly pointing to a warship, Cocolia wouldn't have time to pull any tricks... But now he had still fallen for it... He should have realized something was wrong when Cocolia was so cooperative...
"Caw!~" A startled jay suddenly flapped its wings and flew hastily through the coniferous forest...
Alright... a bird did take a dump... Li Xuan raised his head on the snow and looked at the dark sky. Even with a constitution several times stronger than an ordinary person, he could feel a biting cold coming from all around...
"Where is this place..." Li Xuan looked at the vast white world around him. This place had nothing but white snow... most of the trees in the forest were bare branches... the occasional few coniferous trees with green leaves were also covered with a thick layer of white snow...
"This is... the Siberian forest." A voice answered from behind Li Xuan. Bronya slowly stood up from the snow and looked at the scenery before her, her eyes filled with reminiscence... A few years ago, in order to complete the organization's mission, she had assassinated targets with a sniper rifle in such snowdrifts...
"Sorry... Bronya, it's because of me that Seele turned into a quantum state again..." Li Xuan's eyes were a little complicated. He took a deep breath and said frankly.
"...It's fine." Bronya was silent for a moment, her eyes dimming as she said in a monotonous voice, "What student Li Xuan did was not wrong... Seele was trying to kill us at that time, and you were just acting in self-defense... Legally speaking, it's considered legitimate self-defense."
"..." Li Xuan gave a helpless, bitter smile. His emotional intelligence wasn't in the negatives, so how could he not tell that Bronya was still a little upset...
"I'm sorry, Bronya..." Li Xuan said sincerely. He couldn't make any promises right now, so he could only apologize as much as possible...
"..." Bronya didn't respond to Li Xuan's apology, but instead quietly looked at the forest covered in blood. After a long while, she finally nodded her head lightly...
Bronya, who had the valkyriesystem implanted, was quite reliable in terms of rationality... She also knew that there was no point in talking about these things now. The most important thing was to get through this difficulty first...
"Achoo!~" Kiana, who was wearing thin clothes, couldn't help but sneeze. After all, the temperature had already dropped to a few degrees below zero... even a Valkyrie who was much stronger than an ordinary human couldn't stand it.
"Bronya... how do we find a place to rest?" Mei asked Bronya with some concern, hugging the sniffling Kiana... Anyone who knew Bronya knew that Bronya possessed more knowledge than everyone present combined... after all, no one was like Bronya, who came with a built-in supercomputer...
"The warship is fine..." Bronya pointed at the smoking, dilapidated warship that looked like it could explode at any moment and said faintly.
"..." Everyone followed Bronya's finger and looked at the warship, then fell silent. Li Xuan said with some helplessness, "But the warship is in this state now... isn't it a bit dangerous..." He turned his head and took another look... hmm, sparks flying everywhere, no problem!
"I have a way..." Bronya said confidently, "The reason the airship is in this state is because..."
"You forgot to turn off the power switch..." This is equivalent to a computer crashing. You can turn off the power... and then restart it!
"..." The atmosphere became a little awkward...
...........................
In the dead of night in Siberia, the cold seemed to seep into the warship from every pore. Although turning off the power prevented any accidents with the warship... it also meant that the interior of the warship was no longer warm, and the temperature was still frighteningly low...
Fortunately, Mei found a few thick leather coats in the warship's storage room that could barely serve as blankets. The large hole that Li Xuan had torn in the warship's surface was also temporarily blocked with various odds and ends...
Kiana and Bronya, holding their leather coats, leaned against Mei's body and fell into a deep sleep. As a boy, Li Xuan naturally couldn't squeeze together with three girls for warmth, so he could only pitifully roll to the side and curl up to sleep...
"..." Perhaps because it was a bit cold, Li Xuan, who was halfway through his sleep, suddenly woke up and looked out the window... Even in a place like Siberia... the night sky still had a round moon hanging high, and the stars were even brighter than at St. Freya High School...
"Sigh~..." He didn't know what he was sighing about. He turned over and continued to sleep... Life is helpless, but it must go on...
In the dark forest of Siberia at night, pairs of purplish-red eyes lit up. Under the hazy moonlight... if Li Xuan and the others were here... it wouldn't be hard to recognize these strange animals with wolf-like appearances and bony exoskeletons covering their bodies... they were the creatures infected by the Honkai and turned into—'Honkai Beasts'.
(End of this chapter)