Signets of Vacuity (1)

In the ruined city of Sapphire, Kiana was seen alone running through the city while eliminating dozens of Honkai Beasts and Zombies that she encountered.

Why is she alone?

It started from how Mei was too strong, she finished off all the Honkai Beasts near them even the Emperor-type Honkai Beasts she could defeat with just a wave of her hand leaving the two of them with no chance to move.

For Bronya she had no problem with this and was even happy because the elimination of Honkai Beasts became faster, after all the faster Mei eradicated these monsters the faster she could take Kouro for a walk to see the sea together.

But it was different for Kiana, as a Kaslana who took an oath to protect the people, she felt uncomfortable just standing by and watching Mei let her do everything.

'Why am I not as strong as Mei-Senpai?'

'Why do I... Don't have Herrscher's strength?'

Perhaps because her negative thoughts that had been bottled up for a long time in her heart suddenly burst out, Kiana immediately shouted hysterically to Mei that she also wanted to eradicate the Honkai Beast.

"I don't want to be a burden! I want to fight too!"

After shouting like that, Kiana immediately ran away without caring about the two of them.

"Kiana-chan!"

"Kiana!"

They both wanted to chase after her but stopped when they saw her shedding tears.

Kiana cried, her long-held emotions suddenly breaking out due to various factors, but the main factor was Sirin who played with Kiana's own emotions.

If this was in the original plot, Kiana might still be cheerful and careless, but now it changed because of Kouro.

In the original plot, Kiana's spirit and determination were forged by the severe problems she faced, culminating when Himeko died because she chose to help her rather than kill her when her body was controlled by Sirin to become the Herrscher of Void.

Kiana then wandered aimlessly for over four months as the world was engulfed in chaos due to the resurrection of the Herrscher of Void which gave rise to countless Honkai Eruptions.

Depression, guilt, fear, all negative emotions arise in Kiana, she is depressed because of Himeko's death, feels guilty because she is the reason Himeko died and the world became chaotic, and she feels fear because she will hurt her friends or fear if her friends look at her in a different way.

All these emotions shaped Kiana's personality to become more mature and more aware of the world.

When the negative emotions peaked and was haunted by Sirin who tried to control her body once again.

Kiana was helped by Fu Hua who was just a consciousness formed from Fenghuang Down feathers to seal Sirin.

But the tipping point for her change was when Himeko's silhouette reminded her of her purpose and determination.

"This imperfect world... I will turn it into our shared dream!"

Those were the words that pushed Kiana to move forward and accept the reality of who she really was.

It was then that Kiana was determined to protect all that was beautiful in this world.

Unfortunately that was not the case for the current Kiana, although her fate was better than the original plot, she became more mature as she realized that she could not be as strong as Mei who was Herrscher.

A feeling of inferiority came over her making her heart covered in fog which Sirin used to manipulate Kiana's emotions into becoming more and more uncontrollable.

*Bang! *

Kiana shot the last zombie she found before gasping for breath due to the fatigue of running, she raised her head to stare at the sky and remembered her actions towards Mei and Bronya which made her gulp down her saliva.

"I shouldn't have yelled like that... " Kiana muttered.

She then found a convenience store that was slightly collapsed due to the Honkai Eruption and subconsciously entered the store because she wanted to rest for a while.

She found some curry-flavored instant noodle cups scattered on the floor and picked them up with an unfocused expression.

"I'll have to apologize to them later... " Kiana was still reminded of her childish actions.

Fortunately the water tap had not been cut off so she could boil water using her heat-generating gun.

Putting down a small pot of cold water, Kiana then heated it up using her gun.

A few minutes later after the water in the pot boiled, she turned off the gun and used the hot water to brew her instant noodle cup.

Smelling the fragrant odor from the cup made Kiana's stomach rumble slightly, she immediately took a sip of the noodles and chewed.

"Just as I expected! There's no better medicine than food!" she said in a happy tone while licking her lips.

Kiana felt a little better after eating five cups of instant noodles, although not full, it was enough to fill her stomach, after all she was now on the battlefield, being too full was not good because it made it difficult to move.

Kiana sat and leaned against the wall while drinking a carton of cold orange juice, her eyes staring ahead unfocused.

She was still a little indecisive about whether or not to apologize to Mei and Bronya...

Kiana then remembered the 'beautiful' dreams that always appeared during sleep that made her a little unable to distinguish reality and illusion.

'Dreams... Why are dreams always something beautiful?'

She did not know that in the original plot, instead of using beautiful dreams, Sirin used Kiana's nightmares and painful memories to be able to control her body.

As she was thinking this, she heard the sound of rhythmic footsteps walking towards her, this alerted het so she immediately stood up and held her pair of advanced pistols with a serious expression.

"It's me Kiana. " Fu Hua was seen walking up to her while raising both her hands.

Seeing that it was a familiar person, Kiana let out a sigh of relief before lowering her gun, "So it's you class rep... You took me by surprise. Wait a minute, why are you here?"

"I happened to pass by here and smelled the food, I didn't expect that you still have time to eat. " Fu Hua said while walking over to her.

"...Ahahah! " Kiana could only scratch her neck while laughing in embarrassment.

She didn't notice that for a moment Fu Hua looked at her with complicated emotions before returning to normal.

"By the way... Class rep are you hungry? Want me to serve you a cup of instant noodles? " Kiana said before turning around to pick up the cup of noodles left on the floor.

"No need. "

"Huh? Class rep why are you-" Kiana heard Fu Hua's voice near her ear and before she could finish her sentence, Kiana felt a blow to the back of her neck making her consciousness fade away.

Before passing out, Kiana's eyes turned to look at Fu Hua in confusion before collapsing to the floor unconscious.

Staring at the unconscious Kiana, Fu Hua with a calm expression lifted her glasses with her finger.

"Sorry, Kiana... " She said with a complicated and guilty expression.

She then took a deep breath trying to calm her heart before contacting Otto.

"The target has been captured. "

[ "Good! Then ready the plan to the next round. Use Herrscher's core gem and Honkai's concentration enhancement serum. "] Otto said.

"Understood." Fu Hua then cut off the communication, after which she took off her glasses and threw them on the floor before stepping on them.

She first took off her clothes and activated the God bane Shadow Knight Battlesuit that had been hidden into her underwear.

After that she took out two palm-sized Soulium boxes and a serum filled with dark purple liquid from her pouch.

She opened the Soulium box that contained Herrscher's gem core, the gem of Serenity and the gem of Haste.

She placed them near Kiana's body giving her a high level of Honkai radiation.

And finally, Fu Hua directly injected the serum into Kiana's body from her neck.

After doing so, Fu Hua with a wary expression immediately jumped away looking at Kiana who was still unconscious.

A moment later a strange phenomenon occurred, a wind surged around Kiana's body sucking in large amounts of Honkai energy without stopping.

The phenomenon affected the city of Sapphire making several people such as Mei, Higokumaru, Wendy, and Ayame realize this strange thing and turned to stare at the direction where Kiana and Fu Hua were with serious and worried expressions.

"What is that... "

The remaining Honkai Beasts were seen roaring loudly as if anticipating the birth of something.

Fu Hua raised her hand to shield her face from the strong wind that had the effect of destroying the buildings around.

Kiana's body was seen lifted into the air enveloped by a dazzling ray of light followed by Herrscher gem cores glowing night blue and fire red that spun around her body at high speed.

The two Herrscher cores instantly entered Kiana's body making her enveloped in a bright light, after the light subsided, Kiana's clothes and appearance had changed.

She was wearing a short white and black dress and some dark purple accessories that exposed her smooth white thighs, around her neck she wore some kind of rectangular necklace and was covered in thick fur.

She also wore black stockings connected to her shoes.

'Kiana' then opened her eyes slowly revealing her golden orange eyes with rectangular pupils.

"...I'm finally back. "

Fu Hua looked at her with a very serious expression.

"Sirin!"

Kouro's shadow army hiding in the shadows saw this with a serious expression and wanted to report it to their master!

__

On the other hand.

Kouro who had arrived at his mission location was seen to have landed on top of a tall building with a confused expression.

He looked around, his enhanced senses not finding a single living thing even though he had increased his detection range to hundreds of miles away.

"Strange... This city has long been abandoned, there are no people here. Why did Schicksal give me the mission to stand guard here?" he muttered in confusion.

But right after that, he suddenly tilted his head and then felt a knife streak past his cheek at such a high speed that it created a supersonic impact.

"An assassin?"

Kouro's eyes moved to look at the surrounding buildings, he could not find the origin where the knife had shot towards him.

The person who threw the knife was truly skilled and could even hide his presence from Kouro's senses.

Kouro didn't think much, since there were no people around, he immediately used dominator touch's ability and [Void]'s authority to destroy the buildings around.

*BOOM! *

With a rumbling sound, the buildings shattered into stone.

Under the thick mist of dust, Kouro landed on the ground and looked around with a serious expression.

["Master let us protect you!"] Hei Xuan said to him from within his shadow.

Kouro paid no heed to her words and stared at someone who walked up to him slowly behind the thick dust smoke.

His eyes immediately widened when he found out who it was.

"...Grandpa...?! "

Behind the dust, Ashborn stared at Kouro with his clothes fluttering.

"How is that possible? Why are you here?! No, wait... Don't tell me!? "

Staring at that red shirt, white mask and familiar aura.... Kouro was sure that the person in front of him was Ashborn! But why is he here?

Kouro realized something and looked at Ashborn with widened eyes, he saw the resurrection of the Herrscher of Void after sharing his senses with one of his shadow warriors in the city of Sapphire.

"Grandfather... You're siding with Schicksal, no, you're siding with Otto?! "

Ashborn stared at Kouro silently not answering the question, his deep eyes seemed to contain complicated emotions for a moment before returning to normal, a memory flashed through his mind.

"Sagaki... I leave the rest to you. "

As the memory flashed, he removed his white mask revealing his true face.

"You... No way... Father?"

This time Kouro was really surprised, after all from what he knew his father did not have such a strong aura now, moreover... He had no reason to side with Otto!

'What the hell is going on? Where is Ashborn? Don't tell me that Tenji's grandfather is also father...' his mind was blankly filled with question after question.

*Swosh! *

A knife shot towards his face before being caught by Beru from within his shadow and instantly crushed the knife.

*Crack! *

Kouro blinked and regained consciousness before putting on a serious expression looking at Sagaki before him.

"Father... I have a lot of questions for you… but I don't want to fight you, I have something more important to do. "

Kouro floated and wanted to create a portal using [Void]'s authority before hearing Sagaki say to him.

"You can't run away. " Sagaki took out some kind of tarot-like card that suddenly shone brightly.

Kouro who was floating in the air suddenly fell to the ground.

"Wha-"

[Under unknown power the ability [Dominator's Touch] is temporarily unusable]

[Under unknown power the ability of [Power Strike] is temporarily unusable]

[Under unknown power the [Sprint] ability is temporarily unusable]

Kouro looked at the red system notification, telling him that all his active and passive abilities except his Job ability were temporarily unusable.

'No way! Shouldn't the [Unknown] ability make me immune to bad effects?!'

He then opened his status interface and was shocked that the [Unknown] ability had also been sealed away from use, his SP significantly reduced back immediately.

Kouro's eyes immediately bulged, his mind feeling blank for a moment.

"Do you understand now? You have to fight me first if you want to save her. " Sagaki said calmly.

"...Why are you doing this dad!" Kouro shouted with an angry expression to Sagaki.

"...I'll tell you if you can defeat me."

Kouro immediately furrowed his brows and gritted his teeth before saying.

"...Alright, I got it... I'll defeat you!"

His body was instantly covered in light, a halo appeared above his head, his clothes instantly changed.

Kouro immediately used his [Herrscher of Salvation] form to fight Sagaki.

Staring at Kouro who had entered his Herrscher form, Sagaki held the Signet of Vacuity with both fingers.

"Show me... How strong you are now. "

The Signet of Vacuity seemed to glow before turning into a kind of dust enveloping Sagaki.

His hair seemed to suddenly turn white like snow, his clothes also changed into a white robe with black stripes and his eyes were strangely covered by a black eye patch.

His clothes and the blindfold looked rather blurry as if it was an illusion.

"...I didn't expect, I can only use 5% of it. Well... it doesn't matter as an experiment. " He muttered after looking at him appearance.

After that he looked down at his hand that was originally holding the Signet of Vacuity had changed to holding a katana sword that was still in its sheath.

Kouro looked at him with a serious expression, Sagaki's aura was suddenly like an ocean of unknown depth.

Seeing this made his intuition scream at him to go all out against Sagaki!