"Ah!!!"
Edwig was suddenly decapitated... His tragic end left the remaining "guests" frozen in terror.
And Ling Ke... had stepped away from Edwig's chair, spotless.
It was that very distance that accompanied him.
Plop~
His life was gone, and then his body—now headless, now soulless—collapsed to one side.
By pure chance, perhaps.
Edwig's white robe, now stained with blood, lifted slightly as he fell.
And so it became completely evident—he had lost his legs.
In that moment:
"!!!"
The head of the West Asia Branch, seated on the opposite side of Edwig, suddenly went pale.
Then covered his mouth with both hands.
But in the end, he couldn't hold it in—and vomited.
The retching snapped the attention of the three Doctors sitting in the front row.
Deep down, all three knew that curiosity at this moment would definitely kill the cat.
But they couldn't help it... and glanced over, purely on impulse.
Just one glance!
"!!!"
They hadn't heard what Ling Ke whispered to Edwig just before.
That part had clearly been intentional.
Thus, the three doctors and the branch head only remembered one sentence Ling Ke had said aloud moments earlier:
"Thank you, Miss Edwig, for providing the 'ingredients.'"
And then, the sight of Edwina hidden beneath the hem of the dress...
Bleeegh!
They all threw up.
Perhaps they had only eaten a bit of meat earlier, but now... all that came out was stomach acid.
And at that moment...
"Looks like this 'banquet' has come to an early end."
Ling Ke spoke calmly.
"Though some small, well-prepared acts were wasted, I personally wouldn't call it a mistake."
"This has lost all flavor."
And with that, he walked straight toward the auditorium doors.
The four remaining "guests" were vomiting so violently they couldn't even stand.
They could only watch Ling Ke walk away.
Until...
Bang, bang!
As soon as he stepped through the doors, Ling Ke clapped his hands and gave an order.
In the next instant, spatial portals opened one after another inside the auditorium.
Each one linked directly to the underground prison cells of the West Asia Branch.
And in every cell... were brutally abused test subjects.
Some were covered in purple streaks.
Some had body parts replaced with tissue from Honkai Beasts.
Others had grotesque stitch-scars across their abdomens—organs clearly removed.
Nearly all of them had been brought to this facility by force, through the secret channels run by the branch head himself.
And Doctors Antonio, Egas, and Moniz... were no less guilty.
Their sins were no different from those Ling Ke had endured.
In the past, those so-called "higher-ups" played with these "lab rats" like disposable objects.
But it seems they forgot one thing.
Even a rat... can bite.
"Enjoy tonight's carnival!"
Standing at the auditorium entrance, Ling Ke narrowed his eyes with a perfectly courteous smile.
And slowly shut the door.
In that final moment, what he saw through the narrowing gap—
Perhaps it could be summed up in one phrase:
Demon hunter!
The West Asia Branch of Schicksal had over 30,000 permanent staff.
In a single night... not one survived.
At that moment, a Valkyrie unit separate from the Silver Lotus Squadron—codename Red Wings—was returning from a mission.
It coincided with the day Ling Ke became the Legislator of the Era's Domain.
And just as they were boarding the shuttle back to base...
Blood. Everywhere.
Mutilated corpses. Everywhere.
The Red Wing Valkyries were seasoned veterans.
But even they frowned at the sheer scale of the slaughter.
A young new recruit collapsed to her knees in fright...
...and wet her combat uniform.
The squad leader didn't reprimand her.
She boarded the just-landed shuttle... and reported the branch's status directly to Schicksal HQ.
Truthfully, when the base had gone silent hours earlier, she already sensed something was wrong.
And now...
She honestly didn't even want her team to go deeper into the base.
Just the scene at the entrance was overwhelming.
What lay further in? What level of hell?
She was certain everyone in the squad—including herself—would leave traumatized.
More than half an hour later.
Schicksal HQ.
A cluster of floating islands above the Mediterranean Sea, Europe.
"What did you say? The West Asia Branch was destroyed? Everyone with classified information is dead?"
Lauder was stunned as he received Rita's report.
For some time now, Otto Apokalis—the Archbishop of Schicksal—had vanished entirely.
And without his guidance, the most powerful active S-Class Valkyrie, Yolandele, had been forced to take temporary command of the organization.
Only then did she realize just how difficult it was to run a global institution of such scale.
It was not her strength.
If not for Rita's presence, even with her power, she would've caused administrative disasters.
And even with her help... just one day in that seat was more exhausting than fighting Honkai Beasts for a whole month.
A kind of mental fatigue... for which there was no cure.
And at that very moment...
"According to the Red Wing Squadron's report, by the time they returned to base, there were no signs of life inside."
"It was as if... everyone had been massacred."
On one of the floating islands, Rita stood in the same room as Yolandele.
She handed her a tablet.
On screen: security footage from the West Asia Branch.
Bloodied, dismembered corpses.
As Yolandele advanced the footage...
A group of short-haired girls moved through the base like they were slicing through melons and vegetables.
Neither Lauder nor Rita had ever seen those girls before.
And many of them... looked exactly the same—in face, body, and fighting style.
"Clones?"
Rita murmured her suspicion.
"Anti-Entropy's doing, perhaps?"
"I... don't understand either," Lauder frowned.
But they didn't have to wait long.
At a certain point, a young man with black hair and a dark suit—like a dashing deacon—appeared in the footage.
He walked directly toward one of the surveillance cameras, just below shoulder angle.
And said:
"Gui'an. You, who call yourselves 'heroes' fighting against Honkai..."
"Today, a 'villain' is born—one you created with your own hands."
"I shall now perform a piece for you all."
The black-haired youth smiled and spread his arms like a scale:
"Question: Can the beauty you claim to seek overcome the malice in my heart?"
"You'd better stay tuned and find out!"