The headquarters of Helix Industries Corporation consisted of towering buildings with sharp angles, as if challenging the night sky drenched in ionic rain.
From a distance, the building looked like shards of black spears thrust into the sky, already torn apart by war and time. The surface of its towers was layered with adaptive carbon, absorbing light and reflecting manipulated reality images. The city below seemed small and insignificant compared to the giant metal and plasma structure.
On the 77th floor, the most secretive room of Helix Industries Corporation glowed dimly. Large screens emitted a purple-blue light, with numbers and holographic shapes spinning endlessly in a stream of dimensional calculation. The hum of quantum resonance could be faintly heard, like the breath of a thinking machine.
In the center of the room stood a figure in a long, dark coat. His face was not clearly visible behind the dancing screen light, only a pair of dark eyes that seemed capable of piercing the core of anyone's mind nearby.
He was the Overseer—the undisputed leader of Helix. There was no higher name in the global power structure of Helix Industries. He was not just a leader. He was the architect of the new human awakening.
The silence was only broken by the sound of devices vibrating softly, indicating the pulse of the Core of Void, a black sphere floating behind a layer of liquid crystal. That object was no ordinary thing—it was a piece of essence from the Princeps of the Void, a cosmic entity that nearly erased human civilization four decades ago. The Core was still alive. Still breathing. Still waiting.
Each pulse emitted waves of energy that disrupted the structure of reality on a microscopic scale. A woman stood beside the Overseer. Her hair was neatly bunched, transparent glasses hiding her sharp gaze. She was Olivia Bakirtzis, a transdimensional alchemist and the lead scientist of the Imaginary Space project.
Her hands moved quickly over an invisible panel, data was called, fragmented, and then reassembled like pieces of a multidimensional puzzle.
"Still unstable. The ordinary human body we tried injecting with the Core of Void experienced corrosion within minutes," Olivia said while sweeping across the holographic screen. "The Honkai energy channeled from the Imaginary Space dimension is too alien. This human body can't contain it. The DNA structure collapses. Cells start to melt like wax in a vacuum."
"What is the success rate for non-Valkyrie female candidates?" the Overseer asked. His voice was heavy, flat, leaving no room for sympathy.
"Less than two percent. And they all eventually died with their bodies melting like clay hit by the sun," Olivia replied, without diverting her gaze from the screen.
The Overseer let out a thin sigh, as if welcoming this reality not as a failure, but as the next step.
"Acceptable casualties."
Olivia stared at him intently. Her voice sharpened. "I hope you're still human, Overseer. I hope you can still differentiate between desire and obsession."
The Overseer turned slowly, and his gaze was like a black hole that erased sound, light, and logic. His voice was like a soft but absolute whisper of death.
"What we're facing isn't a monster from this world. The Honkai monster is just sleeping. When it wakes up again, there won't be time for empathy."
Olivia fell silent. She knew those words weren't rhetoric. They were a plan. She switched the screen to the next project—a virtual world with transparent energy walls that seemed to float among the fragments of reality.
That world was called Bubble World. An artificial world created five years ago using technology from Divine Power, a small satellite-shaped device capable of piercing the sky and peeking into parallel worlds between the layers of Imaginary Space.
"But we can't just send anyone into Bubble World," Olivia said softly. "The scientists are afraid. The monsters there aren't ordinary Honkai. They have a Quantum pattern. Their consciousness is directly connected to the latent energy of the princeps. I'm very worried because that place is a world very close to the center of Imaginary Space."
The Overseer smiled slightly. A curve on his lips that looked more like a distortion than a smile. "Then we'll send the best. How about sending Charlotte? She's a Rank-S Valkyrie. Her energy is aligned with the Core of Void. If she can survive, it means there's a possibility for humans to live alongside the void."
Olivia was almost disbelieving. Her voice tensed. "You want to marry humanity with chaos."
"No," the Overseer replied, casually,
"I want to recreate humanity... that can defeat the universe."
Olivia stood still. She took a few steps back. She looked at the Core of Void with a horror that couldn't be explained by science, or even words. If it weren't for her love for her work—for the potential knowledge and fundamental change in reality—Olivia wouldn't have stood in that room a second longer.
On the other side of the world, far from the center of experiments and battlefields shrouded in Honkai, a Valkyrie training headquarters stood in the Altaris mountains. The place was hidden behind a layer of fog, surrounded by white bamboo and a river flowing from ancient ice mountains.
The building combined the grandeur of Japanese structures from the Edo era, the silence of Chinese monasteries, and advanced plasma technology panels from the Helix era.
However, that morning, the silence was broken.
"Aww... Lily! That hurts! My ear might tear!" Rina Kobayashi, a Rank C Valkyrie, cried out while grimacing as her ear was pinched by her senior.
"If you still have time to play games, it means you haven't trained hard enough!" Lily Graham, a Rank A Valkyrie, snapped. She was a renowned warrior and the heir to the rare technique of the legendary Jian Chen.
"Time was the store clerk said the game wasn't released yet, but it turned out it was already available on the Helix Store... I just got the region wrong! Come on, Lily, I was just playing for a bit, to cool down my brain!" Rina struggled. "Streamers can also become Valkyries, right?!" she added proudly.
Lily raised an eyebrow. "Streamers can also become ghosts if they're careless in the middle of battle. Do you think Pureborn and Beastborn monsters will give you time to open loot boxes?"
Although Lily's tone was sharp, her eyes held affection. She looked at Rina—her cousin and the only family she had left. The careless girl grew up with her under the guidance of the same teacher, Jian Chen.
Jian Chen was not a stranger among warriors, Valkyries, and even high-ranking military officials of Anti-Solaris. For over twenty years, the man had been the backbone of training for anyone who wanted to survive the horrors of Honkai. He was once just an orphan who lived in the northern ruins, but over time, he became a true sword artist. He once tamed a Pureborn Draco-Kinetic type monster with a single slash of his plasma blade.
But what made Jian Chen legendary wasn't his strength, but his ability to shape other people's souls into steel. For Lily, Jian Chen was everything. After her parents died in a strainling invasion in her village, Jian Chen saved her and raised her like his own child. Lily grew up with rebellious blood and unshakable determination, but Jian Chen taught her: not how strong you can attack, but how deeply you know your opponent's wounds.
For Rina—who was entrusted to her since childhood after her parents disappeared in a border conflict—Jian Chen was a pillar of life. With the same affection, he taught the girl how to wield a sword... and how to grasp her own life. Now, Jian Chen's two best students stood facing each other in the training arena. The air around them vibrated with the protective energy field. The sky was cloudy, as if holding its breath to witness what would happen.
Lily raised the Dragon God Sword, a longsword given by Jian Chen only to students he considered to have overcome their wounds. The core of the sword shone with a purple-blue light, an Ether-Core embedded in the transparent metal blade like a living crystal. Rina grasped her training sword. Her breathing was heavy, her hands trembling, but her eyes were sharp. Always looking at Lily.
"I won't lose this time, Lily!" Rina said loudly.
"Hmph," Lily flicked her hair. "You said that last week too... before I pinned your left arm and you ended up hugging me while crying."
"Damn you!" Rina attacked without warning. The clash of metal and wood thundered.
Lily blocked the first attack, spun her body, and counterattacked with precision. Her movements were like the wind: fast, silent, deadly.
The Shadow Dragon Art technique, one of the seven secret techniques only taught by Jian Chen to his chosen students. Rina almost lost her footing, but she didn't give up. She attacked again and again—combining her inherited techniques with her own wild instincts.
They spun, danced, clashed in breath and strength. In the midst of the clash... there was an inexplicable pull. Something deeper than just competitive spirit. Something that could only grow from loss, longing, and a feeling... that hadn't been named yet.
"If you really want to be like me," Lily said in the middle of the duel, her breathing heavy, "then be prepared to lose everything. Even... the person you love the most."
Rina was taken aback, but she kept attacking. The clanging of swords echoed.
"If you had to choose between the world... or me?"
"I—" Rina stopped.
Lily moved quickly, and in one clean motion, she pinned her sword at Rina's neck. Their breaths almost touched. Their eyes locked, as if time stopped between their unsteady heartbeats.
"I don't want you to choose... But this world sometimes doesn't give you a choice."
There was a silent pause. The light in Rina's eyes trembled. "If that happens... I'll fight for both. The world... and you."
Lily froze. Then she slowly lowered her sword. A faint smile appeared on her face. "That's a stupid answer," she said. But there was no more scolding. No more teasing. Just a warm silence.
The sky above Altaris began to change color. In a place higher than air and sound, the Divine Power tower began to reopen its observation windows. Something out there was moving. Time had passed. And the fate of the world would soon be tested by hands that no longer knew the boundaries between reality and emptiness.