Sent flying out of a crack once more, Lin fell straight onto the roof of a building. He stood up unsteadily, gripping the spear. This time, he found the place he fell wasn't a deserted area, but... inside a city.
Why did he fall into a city?
After getting up, Lin looked through the high-rises and saw people below raising their heads and talking in terror about the crack in the sky.
Is this a Bubble Universe?
Just before the crack closed, a spear shot out from it. Lin swung the spear in his hand to knock it away. The figure rushing out of the crack caught the deflected spear. She floated in the air, the cross behind her like unfolded wings, hovering quietly.
Lin held the spear in a reverse grip silently. Yama pulled out a second spear. Without a single unnecessary word, she charged before him again, two spears crossing to pierce Lin head!
Clang!
A piercing, sharp sound of friction came from above the city. People didn't know what was happening; they could only see two blurred figures moving at high speed and colliding between buildings.
Yama caught an opportunity to pierce Lin abdomen with a spear, pushing him through an entire floor of the building. Lin gripped the spear in reverse and kicked Yama in the head!
Swoosh...
But his attack did not hit.
The struck Yama vanished as a phantom. Lin found the spear that had pierced his abdomen was also gone.
Is this... the authority of the Eighth Herrscher?
Immediately after, he was hit heavily from behind. Lin coughed up blood, and his body smashed through the roof, being sent flying into the air.
The Herrscher abilities Yama could control were beyond his imagination. She possessed many Divine Keys Lin had never seen and could use their abilities perfectly. The authority of the Herrscher of Reason became her perfect ability to use the Divine Keys.
Lin flipped and met another spear in the void with his own. He looked at the Yama appearing from thin air, and a Plasma Shadow-Show he had used before manifested in his other hand.
Even for a Herrscher, the things that can be reproduced are limited. Moreover, for a Herrscher of Reason whose total Honkai energy was lower than average—even Lin himself was just borrowing the core to barely use her authority—just the Abyss Flower alone was close to exhausting the Honkai energy in the core.
However, Yama didn't even look at the blade Lin swung. She casually slashed with the spear in her other hand, shattering the Plasma Shadow-Show to bits. She kicked Lin square in the face, sending him into the crack that opened behind him.
...
Splash!
Lin fell into the sea. A gale and torrential rain swept across the boundless ocean. Yama was suspended high in the sky. Like every Herrscher Lin had ever seen, she was cold, heartless, and filled with killing intent.
Except, her strength had already surpassed that of a Herrscher.
Lin had seen this world before—the location where he first experienced an unconscious journey to a parallel world.
Wait... is this Yama world?
"You seem to have treated me as an ordinary Herrscher." Yama reached out her hand, aiming at Lin. In her perspective, Lin was as tiny as a bug she could crush with one hand. She declared coldly, "Then die, human."
Rumble!
A mechanical arm that reached from the sky to the earth rose from the sea beneath her.
When a Herrscher is born, a High-Ranking Honkai beast may be born with her as a familiar. It protects the Herrscher as she completes her awakening and attacks any creature that would harm her.
Crash... A massive amount of seawater flowed from the gaps in the arm like a waterfall. Immediately after, a giant shadow that stirred the entire ocean rose from the water.
Its size far exceeded any Honkai beast Lin had ever seen. Its figure standing in the storm and the ocean was like the Father of the Gods in mythology.
Four arms stirred the seawater, creating waves that covered the sky and the earth. Its crimson single eye even stole away the brilliance of the sun.
This was a mechanical creation.
But it was also the familiar of the Herrscher of Abaddon, Yama. It was the end of this world's civilization, and the result of this world's civilization.
It could easily tear apart continents and part the seas with its arms, just as its name implied—Ouranos, representing the sky.
Sizzle—
Under Yama command, its single eye emitted a crimson light that masked everything in the world. The high heat even caused the seawater to boil and evaporate. It aimed at Lin, the crimson eye growing brighter and brighter, until—
"—"
Sound was stolen away.
The light dimmed.
BOOM————————
The thunderclouds were split in two. The sky went from overcast to cloudless in less than a second.
The ocean was split in half by the beam of light, and a bottomless trench appeared on the seabed. The matter that was once here had been completely sublimated.
Yama stood expressionless on Ouranos's shoulder, watching the seawater rush toward the trench.
What was installed inside Ouranos was a device her world's Mei once wanted to install on a warship that could go to outer space. It could absorb and convert Honkai energy with maximum efficiency and release it with several times the power of a Herrscher.
Yama used the authority of the Herrscher of Reason to improve the device from that warship, called the "Selene," and installed it inside her familiar.
In this deserted world, Ouranos absorbed the Honkai energy on the surface day after day, storing massive amounts of energy in its body and converting it into other doubled energy for Yama to use in the Sea of Quanta.
Even for a Herrscher—no, even for her, she couldn't take Ouranos's full-power attack head-on. Lin, even less so. His fleshly body would be destroyed along with his core.
But Yama knew that guy wasn't dead.
In Yama memories, so long ago she could barely remember, there was someone who once used the authority of the Herrscher of Void to develop a device. Considering the level of technology and the use of Honkai energy at that time, that person was a genius among geniuses. Even for the Second Divine Key born later, Yama felt it might not contain more technical ability than that device.
Lin appeared behind Yama. The spear was like falling lightning, hacking toward the core in Yama body!
Clang!
The chains seemed to have eyes of their own, popping out one by one to form a dense, airtight net that blocked his attack.
Lin decisively tried to press the phase-shift device on his wrist again, but the net opened at that moment. A sharp spear sliced the arm holding the weapon in half vertically. The device on his wrist shattered along with it, and half his throat was sliced open, blood spraying out like a fountain.
Yama took back the spear Lin could no longer hold. She watched coldly as Lin lost all strength in the air and fell downward.