A New Epoch That Is approaching
The hunters were now all outside and they waited, except for the one who had the gem. She went straight back to the Hunter's dream while the rest wanted to stretch their old bones.
"You're late," One of them spoke as a spear appeared beside her, the spear's head buried in the soil. The woman grabbed the spear and pulled it out before pointing it at the three valkyries who were now accompanied by a few more valkyries.
The other hunters took on their weapons as their lips slowly curved upwards in a manical manner. The valkyries on the other hand could see the expressions the hunters wore. Excitement, expectation, thrill, and thirst.
"Everyone in formation," Li Sushang shouted and as soon as the orders left her mouth the valkyries began to form a circular formation where the ranged valkyries were in the center while the melees were surrounding them. The valkyries with a longer reach weapon would be behind the ones with short reach, and the range valkyries would support all of them from the center.
"A defensive formation," The female hunter muttered under her breath as she brought her spear back and shifted her entire body forwards while taking a step forwards in the same time and channeling her energy into the spear and the arm she was using to throw the spear.
The spear accelerated faster than a plasma cannon. Durandal took the spear head on and with her lance and her own energy the end of her lance met the head of the spear. The spear was stopped, but a big crater was created in the aftermath.
"As expected from the strongest valkyrie and the sixth divine key for being able to endure the raw power of the attack," The huntress clapped her hands before the spear flew back to her.
"H..how did that spear survive?" Durandal stuttered as she felt the spear resonate after getting into contact with her divine key.
"Like they say. Every weapon needs to have its own failsafe, no?" The woman spoke with a humorous voice as the spear shone brighter in red and the spear completely transformed. The once plain spear looked more intimidating.
"May I introduce you to the counterpart of the sixth divine key. Gungnir. The spear that would never miss its target," The huntress took another stance before she was shot by one of the valkyries only for the shot to be blocked by a cross.
"Th..that's," One of the valkyries knew what that was, but how it got into the possession of the hunters was what they were trying to find out.
"When the Oath of Judah was created we liked it since it made it easier for hunting, so we created as many as we could, the Herrscher didn't quite appear anymore ever since. Probably from severe trauma of being continuously hunted down wherever she descends," One of the hunters chuckled as he had a nostalgic look.
The valkyries were now in a tough spot as they had just heard that the hunter owned a number of copies of Oath of Judah and a divine key that counters Durandal's divine key.
The s ranked valkyries that were on the front lines prepared themselves to clash, but they soon noticed the increase of Honkai energy around them. It was then a familiar forest and moon was slowly taking shape around them.
"I thought I told you all. No fighting," A familiar male voice resounded in the air as the hunters and valkyries were now tense.
"Return back to base. Today we celebrate the return of two of our brothers. Do not make me wait," The voice ended and the forest and moon that was slowly taking shape slowly disappeared.
"That was…."
"Ethelred," Durandal cut Li Sushang off as this was the second time she's seen that power, but this was the first time she's seen it in person, the first time was a recording when he fought the Herrscher of void.
"Apologies for my people's actions that overcomplicated your day. We were here simply for the gem. Think of it as payment for taking two of our brothers into your experiments without consent or our knowledge. Tell Otto that if he wants the gem back… He will need to give us the second divine key," With that final message the domain that he was forming disappeared along with the hunters that were about to attack them.
"Fuck. I thought we were going to war," A valkyrie muttered behind them.
"Don't you feel like the hunters are starting to get too active these days," Another commented which was followed by murmurs of agreement.
"Why do they want the second divine key?" Li Sushang muttered which was only audible for Durandal and Rita who were near her.
"I don't know, but we need to report this to the overseer. Li Sushang you can go first, let me and Rita handle the facility," Durandal told her fellow S rank valkyrie, Li Sushang nodded in confirmation and left the area.
Back in St. Freya inside the school area it could be seen that a battle was taking place between a man with blue hair and Mei.
"Is this the extent of the third Herrscher's power? I was expecting more from you weakling," The man shouted manically as the gravity around them increased, making Mei's body pressed further into the ground.
"Fun time is over, now obediently come with me little girl," The man slowly approached Mei.
"Get away from Mei-senpai!!" Kiana shouted as she punched the man away from Mei.
The man who was pushed back increased the gravity around Kiana, just as Kiana's knees were about to touch the ground her body shun and a new suit that she had never seen before wrapped around her body.
With the new suit Kiana quickly overwhelmed the man with the help of Mei and they managed to defeat the man, but while this was happening under the surface of St.Freya Theresa could be seen clashing against Cocolia and Einstein.
"Please calm yourself Principal Theresa and allow us to show you something," Einstein didn't want a fight, but with Theresa swinging around Oath of Judah at them it was getting hard to stay on the defense.
Soon the door opened and it showed a room, Theresa cautiously entered, but what they did not expect was a man in the room, his sword covered in blood as the test tubes in the room were filled with blood causing the inside of the tube to be invisible.
"Who are you?" All of them asked at the same time, but the man simply turned around and sheathed his sword.
"Greetings principal of St.Freya, leader of Anti Entropy Leiserl Albert Einstein, and Cocolia Anti Entropy enforcer. I am Abbadon, a representative of the hunters," The man greeted them before introducing himself.
The mention of the hunters made all of the people present raise their guards up as they now pointed their weapons towards him.
"I am not looking for a fight, but for a meeting. Is that not what you came here for Leiserl Albert Einstein?" The hunter snapped his fingers and a table alongside four chairs formed in the middle of the room which was soon followed by a tea set on top of the table.
"Please sit down," Abbadon turned around and took a seat on one of the chairs.
"Things just got complicated," Einstein clicked her tongue, but accepted his offer anyways, which was soon followed by Cocolia and Theresa.
"Now do you know what was inside those tubes principal?" Abbadon asked, Theressa of course shook her head and Abbadon placed down a picture of the tubes before he plunged his sword into the test tube.
"If you're wondering why the place isn't a mess it is because of the sword I used. It's a specific sword that ignores solid objects that obstruct the sword from the target," Abbadon explained, but Theressa was more focused on the picture the hunter had shown her.
"What is the purpose of showing me this?" Theressa asked as she looked at the hunter then at the two Anti Entropy leaders.
"Just a nice little chat," The hunter smirked and they all stayed to have a chat.
"A new Epoch is approaching and the fate of the world depends on your decisions today," The hunter clasped his hands and stared at the three before nodding in satisfaction.
The next few days were spent on fixing the damages that were caused because of the battle and Fu Hua dragging Kiana to Singapore for some extra points to save her exam score.
In Singapore they received a mission where it is said that the gem of serenity was located. The reports stated that the ones who were currently in possession of the gem were the hunters, but what they didn't expect was for the gem to be guarded by a man who attacked St.Freya meaning that Anti Entropy was behind this.
This raised some questions, did the hunters sell the gem to Anti Entropy? Did Anti Entropy have something of interest for the hunters?
Otto also had to rack his brain to think of the many reasons why the Gem fell in the hands of Anti Entropy. He had a feeling that there was something fishy going around, but he couldn't exactly tell what, and this frustrated him as more unknown variables were put into the equation.
Meanwhile in London where the second divine key was retrieved Schicksal personnel were reported to fall unconscious when they entered the main room and Valkyrie Durandal was sent to investigate.
"Finally things are getting interesting," A hunter said as he watched the short awakening of the Herrscher of the void, his hand holding a glass of wine, twirling it around before finally taking a sip from the gold glass.
"I can't wait for that to happen," The hunter mused as he watched the half assed Herrscher fight against a former flame chaser.
Meanwhile in London Durandal could be seen facing off against a former flame chaser. Su. Although it was not a physical battle, Durandal still overcome the mental battle against the former flame chaser.
Su, who had a trail of dried blood coming out of his mouth asked.
"Are there still hunters in this era?" Seeing Durandal's nod he chuckled before coughing out some blood.
"Those tenacious bastards are really a piece of work," He muttered, but Durandal wanted to ask him what he knew about the hunters.
"If you're going to ask me what I know about them, what I know is probably also known to you, they are just like that. They keep mostly to themselves," Su knew the look on Durandal's eyes and quickly answered her question before it left her mouth.
"Do you think humanity would be able to stand against the last Herrscher without the hunters?" Durandal asked and Su shook his head.
"No," Su's answer was something Durandal had expected, but still hoped that humanity had a slight chance of surviving alone without their help.
"The hunters have existed long before the previous era. We discovered their existence to have existed twenty thousand years before us.
"In the age when technology didn't exist the hunters had already fought the Honkai. We found some traces of their existence from ruined temples that pictured them as saviors. Graves that were located far beyond civilization. Weapons that had been under sea for millennials," Su continued as Durandal frowned. Just how did they survive for this long.
"But what I found interesting was that they nearly went extinct once, leaving behind only twelve hunters that had to rebuild. This information was never confirmed and only I know about this as I had found a stone tablet that was written in a language long forgotten. But I managed to translate some of it and the event that nearly drove the hunters into extinction was called the blood moon," This was new to Durandal, she thanked Su and waved her hand farewell before leaving the bubble universe they were in.
When Otto heard what Su told Durandal he had a frown before he excused himself leaving Durandal and Rita alone. The two looked at each other before shrugging and went back to the city to eat.