In the ice cave, illuminated as if by daylight, a person-sized ice crystal stood quietly in the center. A stunningly beautiful girl was curled up inside it like a baby...
"Kiana...." Mei silently reached out and gently pinched the soft flesh on Kiana's waist, who hadn't noticed her, smiling as she twisted it a half-turn...
"*Hiss...*" Kiana's expression was very complicated... a layer of mist quickly formed in her azure eyes... She pleaded, "Ah! No! Mei-senpai! It's not like that! I meant this ice crystal is so strange~ Ahaha..."
"Sakura... I only like you....." Having witnessed the tragic end of a certain white-haired furball, Li Xuan broke out in a cold sweat. In a moment of quick-wittedness, he said with deep emotion.
"Oh?~ Is that so..." Yae Sakura was slightly taken aback... Coming from 500 years ago, it was impossible to say such openly mushy words in ancient times. Even her past lover, Kallen, had never said such a thing. Yet, Li Xuan had said it with a straight face for the first time in this ice cave... and it struck the softest spot in Yae Sakura's heart...
"Mm, I like Xuan-kun too..." Yae Sakura paused for a moment, then suddenly broke into a smile, as radiant as a blooming flower.... She hugged Li Xuan from behind and whispered.
Since she had become his Familiar, she would accompany him for life... Protecting someone was actually a very simple thing...
"Things are getting stranger and stranger..." Murata Himeko frowned, looking at the ice crystal not far away and muttering. Why was there a girl in this ice crystal, and why did she seem to have both life fluctuations and Honkai energy fluctuations?! An ordinary person would die if frozen in an ice crystal...
"This feeling... I feel like I've seen her somewhere before?" Theresa had recognized the girl in the ice the moment she saw her face, but in the brief moment she was stunned, she had forgotten again...
It was like when you were about to say something to a friend, but the words were on the tip of your tongue and then suddenly gone...
"Is this moe girl still alive?..." Kiana, holding her dual pistols, struck the ice crystal heavily with the butts of her guns, but it didn't even budge...
"Should we take this block of ice back for research?..." Kiana's eyes lit up as she patted the ice crystal, making a 'slap, slap' sound, and suggested to Murata Himeko.
"Hmm... I guess so..." Himeko glanced at Theresa, who was looking down and saying nothing, and assumed she had no objections. After a moment of thought, she nodded in agreement...
"Alright! Mei, come help me move it! Right... Li Xuan and Bronya, you guys come too..." Kiana said excitedly. Getting a moe girl from a mission, she loved missions like this!
"How are we supposed to move this...." Mei looked at the person-sized ice crystal with a helpless expression... How could they possibly get a block of ice this big out of here?... The entrance is only so big...
"Well... then let's just break the ice and take the moe girl!" Kiana immediately and 'cleverly' suggested. She aimed the 'Guardian of the Moon God' in her right hand at a corner of the ice crystal and pulled the trigger...
"Wait!... I remember who she is! She's from ten years ago..." Theresa finally remembered. Even after ten years, she hadn't completely forgotten the faces of those people...
["Bishop Theresa... would you like an eel rice ball from my hometown?"] In her memory, the girl held a seaweed-wrapped rice ball and waved it in front of her... 'She's a very nice person,' that was her impression of the girl at the time...
"Kiana, don't shoot!...." Theresa had realized how strange this was. How could 'she' from ten years ago be here?! And the Honkai energy... She instinctively sensed a suffocating danger...
"**Bang!**" She was a step too late. Kiana's 'Guardian of the Moon God' had already fired a bullet at the ice crystal... The silver bullet pierced the air and struck the side of the crystal, which, as expected, cracked open...
"Huh? What's wrong, Great-Auntie?..." Kiana looked at Theresa's complicated expression with a bewildered face.
"**Beep beep beep!!~**" An extremely urgent alarm drowned out Theresa's words... Bronya's eyes widened, and her usually emotionless face twitched slightly in shock...
"500HW, 520HW..." Bronya softly read the rapidly changing numbers on the Honkai energy detector in her hand. This was the value of the Honkai energy fluctuation... A fluctuation of 2000HW could only be emitted by a Herrscher with world-ending abilities...
"**Crack!~**" The ice crystal suddenly trembled. Spiderweb-like cracks spread rapidly across the entire crystal like cancer cells... Countless ice chips fell from the person-sized crystal...
"I only shot it once..." Kiana stared dumbfounded as the cracks deepened like a line of dominoes...
"It's too late..." Theresa said with a sigh. She lowered the golden cross from her back and stood it up in front of her like a golden shield...
"**Bang!**" The next moment... the ice crystal exploded like a flashbang... Shards shot out in all directions like bullets. Fortunately, Theresa, at the very front, blocked most of the ice fragments...
"She's floating..." Li Xuan, with his 'Jao Shingan', saw the figure at the center of the explosion and muttered in utter disbelief...
The girl from the ice crystal floated in mid-air, stretching her graceful body. Her long, ice-blue and silver hair swayed gently.
Then... after more than ten years, she opened her light blue eyes once again. But the tenderness and kindness that once shone in them were gone... leaving only cold indifference and bestial nature...
"Shigure..." Only Theresa whispered, as if in remembrance, and as if in regret...
The original owner of that name was one of the Valkyries who, more than ten years ago, went to Siberia to fight the Second Herrscher to protect humanity, ultimately losing her life without even a body left behind. She was the A-Rank Valkyrie from the Far East, 'Shigure Kira', and her title was [Floating Solar Prominence].
(End of Chapter)