"Hmm…"
"Previous Era, the ones we've already listed, they're all there. Then, the Current Era…"
"Cecilia? Kiana… Durandal, Anna, Raiden Mei, Bronya, Seele…"
Now.
Kiana was in her room.
Leaning against the headboard, knees drawn up, she held a notebook, constantly writing and sketching.
"For the world of Teyvat, if we go by nation…"
"Lisa, Jean, Eula, Noelle…"
"Ganyu, Ningguang, Keqing… Raiden Makoto, Raiden Ei… Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, Nilou…"
"And then, Focalors, Furina… Mauvika, Citlali…"
She tapped her chin lightly with the pen.
Then continued writing.
"Over in the Star Rail world, the Xianzhou Alliance, the Interastral Peace Corporation, Jarilo-VI, Herta Space Station…"
"Got it! It's better not to rank them, just list them in a certain order."
"Or maybe just do it by world, split it into several parts?"
It wasn't like Kiana created this to actually start fan wars or anything.
She just wanted to show off a little, to officially stake her claim first.
But doing it this way…
Even for a simple introduction, split into several parts without needing excessive detail, the character artwork for each girl definitely still had to be done properly.
When you have new technology, you use it.
Maybe it wouldn't be as flashy as Eden's this time.
But at the very least, they should have Live2D animation, have voice lines, able to capture their essence, make them feel like they're right there in front of you.
Anyway, it was no big deal.
She could edit and revise, or whatever. No problem.
Whenever it was ready, that's when she'd start preparing to release it.
Honestly.
The early stages of the Honkai outbreaks didn't have that tight of a rhythm.
It was really in the later stages that things got increasingly intense, with the intervals between events becoming shorter and shorter.
A lot of the information about the Previous Era's Honkai was fragmented.
Not very detailed.
But Kiana knew that in the Current Era, you could say it went from the 4th Herrscher to the advent of the Finality all within a single year.
That was just downright ridiculous.
If the game itself hadn't said it, players might not have even realized that the story they'd been following for seven years only spanned a single year in-game.
Just thinking about nearly ten Herrschers popping up over the course of one year.
It was downright despair-inducing.
But still.
At least it wasn't like the Zero Era in GGZ, where you got over seventy Herrschers dumped on you at once.
Now that would be a real nightmare.
Kiana thought to herself, if she discovered a future possibility indicating she'd come into contact with GGZ.
Would she even want to preserve that possibility?
After all, you could call that a real Pandora's Box. Once opened, who the hell knows what would happen.
The main thing was, she herself didn't know just how strong she could become in the future.
Even stuff like being able to create Aeons, or establish the rules of the Sea of Quanta and the Imaginary Tree, was just her own speculation.
There were hints of it, and she hoped it was true.
She wanted to anchor that possibility, make it real.
But just like with the other girls being Aeons, wishful thinking far outweighed reality. At least for now, it was still very hard to confirm.
However, the further into the future she anchored herself, and the stronger her future self became.
The faster her present self would naturally grow.
To put it vividly, it was like initially, it was just her future self as the Herrscher of Finality pulling her present self along. But gradually, bit by bit, it could become her future self as an Aeon, or even as the master of the Sea and Tree, pulling her present self forward.
The strength of the pull was completely different.
The feedback would also be much more intense.
And the more accurate the anchored future was, the more pronounced the effect of dragging her present self up at a frenzied pace would become.
Kiana could even use this to get a sense of how things were in the future.
But, that wasn't the main point.
Why bring up the yet-to-arrive Fourth Honkai Eruption?
Simple.
People were starting to ask.
After all, it had been over half a year since the Third Honkai Eruption.
The Sky Screen hadn't appeared again.
And the Fourth Honkai Eruption was also taking its sweet time showing up.
It was precisely because there was no movement that it made people even more anxious.
Was something strange about to happen?
However, Kiana genuinely didn't know where the Fourth Honkai Eruption would be. The original work didn't say.
If it was the Current Era, she did know: it was in New Zealand. You could even check if there was a girl named Wendy there.
If there was.
Chances were, it was her.
"She would be the Fourth Herrscher?" Dr. Mei raised an eyebrow. She was here on an official commission.
"Don't know."
Kiana said frankly, "I just think it's possible it's her."
Because the Previous and Current Eras didn't necessarily correspond perfectly, and the names might not be the same either.
So Kiana wasn't going to state it as an absolute certainty.
But if they could find a girl like that in New Zealand, a sort of 'Green Seele' equivalent.
Then ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it really might be her.
Anyway, organizations like MOTH and the various countries… if they had nothing better to do.
Giving them a target would keep them busy.
It'd also stop them from having too much free time, coming up with some half-baked idea, and then causing a bunch of ridiculous trouble.
But when it came to preparations for fighting the Honkai…
Every country, every organization, had its own views and its own reasons.
The handling of the Third Honkai Eruption was undoubtedly a success.
Not only were losses minimized, there were practically no casualties. In fact, if you calculated it all, the costs of relocating civilians, along with various supplies for their livelihood and combat equipment, even converted into funds—while seeming huge—actually turned out to be much smaller than the damage a full-blown Honkai eruption would have caused. It unexpectedly saved a lot.
After all, deaths, resettlement, post-disaster reconstruction, compensation, etc., etc… all needed to be considered.
Even quantified properly.
It was still a net gain.
Therefore, many people still believed they should continue the successful approach of the Third Honkai Eruption. As long as they could find out the location of the next Eruption ahead of time, evacuate as many people as possible, even just a little in advance.
Their main strategy was to play hide-and-seek with the Honkai.
Make it waste its ultimate.
But others argued that each evacuation, each deployment, whether it was troop movement, arrangements, transportation, or logistics, was incredibly arduous work. The margin for error wasn't as high as they thought.
Besides, Kiana might not predict it accurately every time, right? What if there was one mistake? What then?
You move away, but couldn't the Honkai just choose a different place?
It didn't change location this time, but what about next time?
Frankly, that was a very valid point.
Predicting the arrival of a major Honkai Eruption? Kiana could still do that.
As the time for a major Eruption approached, she would indeed get a feeling.
But the appearance of the Herrscher of Heavenly Punishment proved that the Honkai wouldn't necessarily play by the rules. It might just give you a 'surprise.'
Yet, evacuation was akin to going all-in.
But wasn't not evacuating also a gamble?
Knowing full well that a major Eruption was highly likely to occur, and still stubbornly refusing to leave… no one would be that stupid, right?
When faced with two evils, you choose the lesser. If you don't want to move, others still will. So how do you handle that?
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T/N: Kiana's greed for women is the typa greed they talk about in the bible, but its so in character of the actual Kiana
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T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
20+ advanced chaps on my patreon.
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.