Nightfall.
Kaito peeked his head out from the kitchen, heart still pounding. He was definitely taking that day off tomorrow; it seemed his sister's mental state had taken a serious hit. He needed to get her to a hospital.
Once he was certain Elysia was asleep, Kaito thought it over and decided to lock his bedroom door from the inside before donning his headset once again.
"Musou-style hack-and-slash, start!"
Since he was taking the day off anyway, he wouldn't be getting any performance points for "information gathering" at work. Might as well squeeze in one more run before bed!
"This strange dream again..."
Elysia's eyes were hollow as she trudged through the ruined streets. The scent of gunpowder mixed with the metallic tang of blood, and beneath the skeletal remains of skyscrapers, severed limbs were faintly visible.
Her steps grew increasingly heavy. It seemed that even her superhuman physical constitution couldn't stave off the psychological toll.
"Survivor! There's a survivor here!"
A faint glimmer of light appeared on the horizon. Elysia stood frozen in the middle of the street like a soul-less doll until the urgent shouts of soldiers drifted from the distance.
"Be careful! If it's a Dead Substance, we're in trouble!"
Elysia slowly turned her head, her gaze vacant. Several rifle barrels were pointed warily in her direction.
"Captain, she looks like a living human... but her clothes are too clean. She doesn't look like someone who just escaped that kind of disaster."
"Little girl! Can you hear us?"
A soldier pressed against the edge of some ruins, shouting loudly from about ten meters away.
Elysia nodded. These must be Fire Moth soldiers; she recognized the uniforms from the lingering impressions of her previous dreams.
She forced a smile. "My name is..."
BAM—!
Under everyone's watchful gaze, the girl who had been standing still just a moment ago was suddenly sent flying backward like a broken kite, slamming violently into a nearby pile of rubble!
"Enemy attack!"
Kaito was reloading his gun—though the action was purely for flair. Based on his experience, when a boss stands perfectly still, it usually means they are entering their second phase, and the process is usually uninterruptible.
"What are they babbling about? If this budget studio can't afford voice actors, couldn't they at least use AI? Spouting a bunch of gibberish—what's the difference between that and lying to yourself?"
Cannon fire erupted as Kaito expertly cleared out the boss's guards. The experience points scattered throughout the city filled his exponentially growing XP bar once more, though he found his automatic pickup radius a bit too small.
[Please choose your upgrade path]
Artillery Support 3 → 4
Attack Speed 3 → 4
Hive Mind 0 → 1
"What the hell is 'Hive Mind'?"
Kaito chose it instinctively. A new sub-module immediately appeared on his clean interface.
"Oh, interesting. So I can summon mobs to fight for me, huh?"
At Level 11, he had a whopping 1100 HW of energy, and his range was enough to cover the entire city.
With a snap of his fingers, the previously empty city became lively. Honkai Beasts and Dead Substances swarmed the ruined metropolis, helping him scavenge and hunt down smaller enemies. To Kaito's pleasant surprise, these mobs could absorb experience points for him and could be left to their own devices.
"Now we're talking. I was wondering why there wasn't an 'Experience Magnet' trait."
Survivor: Kaito Level: 11 Skills: Replication Reconstruction, Artillery Support 3, Hive Mind Attributes: Attack Speed 3, Skill Frequency 2
Every gun barrel merged together. The moment the cooldown for Artillery Support ended, a pitch-black radiance briefly stripped away all surrounding light.
No attribute cards dropped. It looked like the boss was indeed invincible during the transformation—or the game had just given her a ridiculously long health bar.
"Let's see how the transformation animation looks."
The debris-strewn, cratered ground was rapidly reshaped. Kaito slid across the terrain on his jet-skates, arriving at the dust-covered crater.
The boss who had sniped him with a single arrow earlier was now sitting in the pit, looking disheveled and covered in grime, her will to fight seemingly low.
"...Is she in a 'Guard Break' stun?"
Kaito raised his gun, roughly aiming for the mouth on her blurred face. He spoke in a mocking tone.
"You're already dead!"
He tilted his chin up. The boss, who was supposed to be stunned, also lifted her head. Though her face was unclear, her flawless pink eyes caused Kaito to daze for a split second.
Those eyes are actually pretty nice, he noted.
He pulled the trigger.
However, the expected gunshot never came. The bullet exploded inside the chamber as a hand—soiled with dust but still pale and delicate—clamped down firmly on the barrel!
The ultimate Desert Eagle, reconstructed and upgraded countless times, was crushed like a piece of paper.
Kaito: "..."
I can accept that a single evolved skill might not kill a boss, but you can't treat my final-tier upgrade like a minor scratch!
"You... deserve to die!"
A tragic voice, distorted by electronic static, rang out. Kaito didn't have time to criticize the designer's laziness, because the boss—with her stats clearly maxed out—landed a punch that sent his already meager health bar plummeting to the bottom.
If he hadn't used his mimicry to create the highest-tenacity synthetic spider silk currently available, Kaito figured he would have been turned into a red mist instantly.
"Moron designer. The stat inflation is off the charts."
Fortunately, to keep things fun, Kaito had dialed his pain settings to the minimum. He dragged one hand across the ground, his silk-lined gloves absorbing the impact on his arm. Sensing the momentum was right, he performed a back-leap and activated hover mode, successfully dodging the boss's follow-up attack.
"I might not be eighteen anymore, but my reflexes haven't slowed down that much."
He extended his hand. Countless steel plates composed of nanomachines rapidly assembled into a fortress. Even though the boss could punch through a large portion of it, the constantly reforming nanobots would instantly fill the gaps.
Kaito used his abilities to heal his wounds, casually swapping out his mangled flesh for mechanical parts.
"No wonder the mobs don't drop health packs; they made this rogue-like way too complicated."
Facing the "turtle shell" in front of her, Elysia let out a long breath. Her flawless eyes began to glow as she condensed the Honkai energy created by the Herrscher of Reason into a single point.
"Even though I know it's a dream, I really can't just stand by and do nothing."
"Morning glow at sunrise, stars falling from the sky!"
If you love hiding in your shell so much, then go to hell along with it and atone to these lost souls!
"Enuma Elish—Star of Creation!"
While the pink-haired boss was still charging her attack, the ultimate spear of spinning physics suddenly burst forth from the shell. The spiral spear, with irresistible force, tore through the flood of energy and instantly impaled the girl's body!
Flesh was ruthlessly ground away, and internal organs were torn apart—despite the blurring filter, Kaito could still see the shocking level of destruction.
The spear's momentum didn't falter, carrying the boss through the air and slamming her into a tilting skyscraper in the distance. The building collapsed instantly in a cloud of dust.
Kaito huffed. Though the game's database was crap, the basic laws of physics were still implemented. There was nothing a high-speed, self-regenerating drill-spear couldn't pierce.
"Is it time for Phase 2 now?"
Listening to the boss's mournful cries in the distance, Kaito didn't stay idle.
Countless machines materialized out of thin air, even gradually taking on the appearance of flesh. A chaotic, bloody aura spread out, yet the wings sprouting from his back remained as holy as ever, scattering glowing feathers in all directions.
"Ultimate Skill: Longinus Spear!"
But then!
Space froze. Higher-dimensional, high-mass energy crushed the reality of the game world. Thick, viscous Imaginary Energy poured through the cracks, surrounded by nearly 10,000 HW of Honkai energy.
Kaito watched the girl stagger to her feet amidst the distant dust. He could only manage one thought in his head: Trash designer!
"Is this really a boss that's supposed to appear in Phase 1?!"