"What are you doing?"
By the riverside of a village, Li Chengcai led his men to stop a group of villagers from drowning a woman in a pig cage.
"County Lord, this woman had an affair with Zhang San. According to our village's custom, she must be drowned in a pig cage," the leading old man said to Li Chengcai.
"Your custom? Heh, this is now Lord Man Sui's world. Everything must be done according to our laws. You rabble dare to kill deliberately? Arrest them all."
Li Chengcai sneered as he looked at the villagers.
Hearing his words, a few villagers immediately became furious. "What do you mean by that? This woman broke the virtue of chastity, and you won't let us punish her?"
"Yeah!" others chimed in.
Beside him, Iron Catcher whispered, "Lord Li, we usually don't interfere in such matters."
Li Chengcai glanced at him disdainfully. "So, they can just ignore the laws of our nation? Who is the village chief here?"
"I am," said the old man standing at the front of the villagers. He stepped forward and bowed. "Lord Li, this is a matter of our village. It's been handled this way since ancient times. I don't see which law of the dynasty it violates."
"You've committed the crime of intentional injury or even murder. All involved, take them away."
Without wasting more words, Li Chengcai waved his hand. Iron Catcher and the constables exchanged glances, then drew their blades and surrounded the villagers.
Iron Catcher actually admired this new official of the empire. He was knowledgeable, well-educated, neither greedy nor lustful, diligent in his duties, and even redistributed land to the people—a rare good official indeed.
"County Lord, we won't drown her anymore! We won't!" the village chief pleaded in panic.
"Too late. Take them all away."
Li Chengcai knew that such matters must be dealt with severely to deter these unruly peasants. He had checked the Man Sui Empire's past laws on how such cases were handled.
Seeing that some villagers still wanted to resist, he raised his automatic rifle. "You may resist, if you wish to make new laws—but only if you can defeat me and the power behind me."
"Resist arrest, and I'll kill you right now."
"Even if you kill all of us here, it won't matter."
Upon hearing that, the few villagers who had thought of fighting back hesitated and stopped.
They had heard of this Lord Li—a man who served the Immortal Emperor himself. Even if killed, he could use his underworld connections to resurrect again.
In this world's assessment system, these civil servants had already died more than once or twice. Each time, they would be resurrected, air-dropped in full combat gear, sometimes even carrying built-in self-detonation bombs.
Even highly skilled assassins couldn't escape dying together with them.
Their firearms were bound by biometric authorization, so there was no worry of the locals stealing and using them.
Moreover, they could even request other weapons—railguns, missiles, and so on.
On the way back, Iron Catcher asked, "Lord Li, are you really going to punish all these people?"
"Of course."
Li Chengcai gave him a sidelong glance.
Those were all achievements for him, after all!
"Why do you ask?"
"N-nothing, Lord Li. But aren't you managing a bit too much?"
"This is called being responsible. I don't intend to lose my iron rice bowl by idling around. Back in our place, there's nothing to do most of the year—it's boring to death."
"But honestly, your people here really are infuriating. Now I finally understand why Lord Man Sui used to execute people and confiscate property so often."
"By the way, how are those child-sellers, brothels, and gambling dens being handled?"
"The poor people who sold their children have been handed over to the Church of Revelation as per your orders. The brothels and casinos have all been shut down."
"Good."
Li Chengcai wasn't worried that Iron Catcher might disobey orders or act halfheartedly. When he governed a city, both within and around it, the system would always predict incidents in advance and generate missions for him to resolve.
This event was one of them.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have come to such a small village in the first place.
From this, it wasn't hard to see—whatever happened across the land, the higher authorities already knew beforehand.
Next came the issue of temples. He knew that gods and Buddhas truly existed in this world. Though there were some in his own world as well, they were far fewer and much weaker than here.
The Chosen Ones were killing gods and destroying Buddhas.
He felt little reverence toward the gods and Buddhas of this world—they were merely a group of special lifeforms confined to a planet.
It wasn't like he hadn't seen such things before.
Compared to ordinary humans, a Chosen One at the level of a Stigmata User could single-handedly face an entire army. At the level of a Pseudo-Herrscher, they were already semi-divine beings capable of toppling a great nation. Once they reached the level of a Complete Herrscher, they stood as the gods of civilization itself.
It was said that the final exam for a Chosen One aspiring to become a Complete Herrscher was to single-handedly conquer an entire planetary civilization in simulation.
...
At the Honkai Base—
Kiana Kaslana had just finished reading Journey to the West from this world and suddenly had an idea.
Why not raise a Qitian Dasheng of her own for fun?
After all, she was bored.
The protagonist could be chosen from a parallel world—perhaps a K-423 as the destined one.
Durandal as Erlang Shen, Rita as the Howling Celestial Dog.
It seemed like it could be quite interesting.
"Mom, what are you thinking about?"
Sirin sat in Kiana Kaslana's lap, tilting her head curiously.
Kiana Kaslana stroked her small head. "I was thinking about Journey to the West."
"That ancient novel?"
"Mm."
In worlds without gods or Buddhas, Journey to the West was merely an ancient novel written by humans. But in this world, where gods and Buddhas truly existed, its content was no longer fiction.
"You've probably seen your own destiny, haven't you? How does it feel? Isn't it somewhat similar to Sun Wukong's?" Kiana Kaslana smiled.
"Not really. I hate that kind of ending."
On Mars and Venus of the Honkai world, Bronya had once conducted experiments observing other Imaginary Trees beyond their own—different from the Cosmic Juggernaut's observation of parallel world bubbles. They had observed worlds from entirely separate Imaginary Trees.
From those worlds with nearly identical fates, they had seen their original destinies.
Sirin rejected the Honkai humans' theory that different consciousnesses were mere extensions of the same self. If she had retained her memories from the beginning and still chosen that path, perhaps she could accept it.
But without those memories—and with Otto's deliberate manipulations—
She had come to reject K-423, seeing her merely as a new persona created by humans through prolonged brainwashing and conditioning, meant to seize her divine authority.
"Then, do you want to try creating a different ending?"
"Can I? How would I do that?"
Sirin's eyes sparkled brightly, filled with curiosity and excitement.