Chapter 33: The Captain is on His Way

After boarding the Helios, it took roughly ten minutes or so to reach the enemy-occupied city.

Jun An watched Helia, who kept glancing at him before pretending to nonchalantly wipe down her crossbow bolts. He asked, "Nervous?"

Helia jumped. "Ah, no, I'm not."

Jun An naturally didn't believe her; her fidgeting had already revealed her thoughts. "Don't worry. Your job isn't to fight. It's just to call Himeko for backup on the Helios if I can't handle it."

Although Jun An was quite confident in his own strength, this was, after all, a world with significantly higher difficulty. Even minor incidents from the original timeline were much tougher here. Being cautious was always the right move.

"What? You're going to fight all of them alone?!"

Helia frowned, sounding anxious. "Captain, I know you're powerful, but that Chameleon was just the weakest of the three! His MANTIS ability isn't even combat-oriented!"

"I secretly scanned them with my equipment! The Honkai energy readings of their leader and second-in-command are several times higher than Chameleon's! They're not even on the same level!"

What kind of Hero vs. Demon Lord power scaling is this?

Jun An couldn't help but complain inwardly. What's next, the weakest goes first, and they just feed themselves to me one by one?

"That's why I told you to call for backup if I can't win."

Jun An shrugged helplessly. "Don't be like Himeko, getting all jumpy. As long as a second Kevin doesn't pop up in this world, I'll be fine."

Of course, this statement was somewhat exaggerated, but Jun An guaranteed his current strength was roughly in Kalpas's tier.

Helia stated earnestly, "Captain, I have absolute faith in your strength. In a one-on-one duel, no one among them could possibly defeat you. But it's one against two, plus over a dozen Stigmata Awakeners."

"...Even the once-mighty Herrscher of Rimestar perished under such a siege!"

Jun An asked, "You participated in the Fifth Great Honkai Eruption too?"

The Herrscher of Rimestar – the dual-core Herrscher born after the Herrscher of Ice devoured the Herrscher of Rock's core. And she wasn't like early-stage Kiana, who possessed two or three cores but couldn't utilize their full power.

Back then, the mere shockwaves from the battle against the Herrscher of Rimestar obliterated the central city of an entire Coral Island and froze a sea area of tens of thousands of square kilometers nearby, nearly creating another Arctic Ocean. The Fourth Divine Key is still working on restoring the environment around Coral Island even now.

"I participated, but don't change the subject!"

Helia insisted, "Captain now, you're not as strong as you used to be, right?"

"My strength is only about ten or twenty percent of what it was... hm, you figured it out?" Jun An thought he could play the pig to eat the tiger for much longer.

"It's easy enough to deduce if you think about it."

Helia was, after all, an A-rank Valkyrie with excellent records and rich experience. The fact that Jun An could so easily call upon Himeko – one of the great heroes, Schicksal's sole Marshal and concurrently the head of the Far East Branch – combined with the sword strike Jun An unleashed earlier, allowed her to quickly connect the dots.

– The person before her was the Hyperion's Captain Jun An, the main tank who once confronted Kevin!

"As a Valkyrie, I deeply admire your deeds! But as a Valkyrie of Schicksal, I cannot stand idly by while you act so recklessly!"

"...Suit yourself."

Jun An couldn't help but sigh. How should I put this... truly a loyal fan of Durandal, just as stubborn and principled as her.

————

————

Inside a large building, a burly man with broad shoulders and a thick waist, covered in scales, with a pair of horns on his head, ravenously chewed on a large leg of meat.

It was lion meat, hunted from the wild. The flesh was extremely tough, quite unpalatable and hard to chew for ordinary people, but it was just right for the man who had become a MANTIS.

"Hey, old man, shouldn't my payment have arrived by now?"

Watching the inhuman figure before him crunching on lion bones as easily as if eating potato chips, the middle-aged, half-graying dark-skinned man standing nearby couldn't help but wipe away sweat.

He forced himself to remain composed. "Kaldeste, our agreement was that I would give you all the gold after you brought Atari before me and forced her to surrender."

Kaldeste – that was the MANTIS's name before him. In their language, it meant 'lion'.

However, Snowdon disliked this particular lion. He was truly as savage and uncontrollable as a wild beast, killing indiscriminately, abducting beautiful women, and not only that, but causing widespread destruction every time they captured a city!

That's all my property!

More importantly, despite causing so much damage, he shamelessly demanded payment sufficient to buy half a small city each time. Snowdon could only scrape funds together from the poor populace, a time-consuming and troublesome process every single time.

He not only had to spend time concocting lies to deceive his soldiers but also justify the military campaign using a localized version of the "Bible" for international purposes. This alone took time, and he was constantly being cursed for it!

Snowdon, as the chief of this nation, knew that dragging things out was disadvantageous. But this Kaldeste fellow wouldn't help him attack the next city unless he received his payment!

This ignorant brute! He clearly knows Schicksal will come for him eventually if this continues, yet he insists on haggling with me over this bit of money!

And he claims to have been educated by World Serpent? He's nothing but an idiot, a fool.

Kaldeste looked at Snowdon, whose eyes held ill will towards him, and simply assumed he was being stingy with his money again; he always acted like this when payment was due. "We've never failed, you know. We just sent Chameleon to grab some woman; he'll probably be back tomorrow. You have to pay sooner or later, right?"

"You know I can't resist you. So if you take the money and run, there's nothing I can do."

Snowdon was thankful that Kaldeste had at least learned the concept of contractual spirit from Gray Serpent. He stated, "I need to see the person before I feel assured."

"Fine, fine. Dealing with a miser like you, I guess I have to be cautious too."

Kaldeste swallowed the last of the bone. "Right, where's Anthony? Did she go out looking for people again?"

"Y-yes."

Hearing the woman Anthony's name, even Snowdon, the chief, felt a chill run down his spine. "Although I've warned you many times, I hope you control your subordinate properly! Don't let her touch my children!"

"Kaldeste, just for once, manage your subordinate! That woman carries a host of diseases! I don't want my sons to be unable to have descendants in the future!"

MANTISes were different from ordinary people; their physical constitutions were on another level entirely. Furthermore, Anthony played rough, without regard for consequences. Some children didn't even survive long enough for the venereal diseases to manifest!

Snowdon couldn't care less how many boys or girls she killed; he only prayed that woman wouldn't target him or his offspring.

Kaldeste only cared about eating beasts, getting money, and filling his stomach. But that woman was genuinely lethal, and more importantly, she had the power to act without fearing repercussions!

"If my children and I don't survive, then you won't get a single cent either!"

"So many demands."

Kaldeste frowned, then looked towards the living room entrance. "Anthony, you heard that, right?"

"Heard it, heard it. He already hid his sons away long ago; I can't find them anyway."

A white woman in revealing clothing yawned dismissively, her tail drooping listlessly behind her. "Been playing for several days now. Hurry up and clean those rooms over there. It's getting hot lately; it'll be trouble if things start to stink. I'm a bit tired. Wake me up for the victory banquet tonight."

"I understand."

Facing Anthony, Snowdon didn't dare say much more, fearing she might turn her attention towards him.

Snowdon walked out, leaving the place they used for their pleasures.

But he couldn't stop muttering under his breath, "These lawless bastards... once Schicksal arrives, you'll all die horribly!"

Only after closing the door did Snowdon spit contemptuously. Now, the important thing was how to distance himself from these people.

He wasn't like this group of frogs in a well, fresh out of the laboratory. He had seen Schicksal's propaganda, witnessed with his own eyes the massive warships capable of covering ten, even dozens of football fields. He had also visited the sites where Kevin had battled Durandal and Jun An.

— A stretch of desert melted into liquid, then solidified into glass, only to be shattered into pieces and covered by a thick layer of snow, becoming an ice field.

From that moment on, opposing Schicksal was undoubtedly a path to death!

His rise from an ordinary local to a chief in just a few short years, followed by territorial expansion, wasn't achieved through brute force alone.

He took out a light blue syringe with a cold smirk. It was a Honkai Energy neutralizing serum sold to him by a black market merchant named Raven. It could temporarily turn a Valkyrie into an ordinary person and was a deadly poison to MANTISes, whose bodies were infused with Honkai energy down to their very bones and marrow.

However, this serum only affected Valkyries and MANTISes. To ordinary people with little Honkai energy, it was equivalent to a harmless beverage.

Of course, this amount wasn't nearly enough to deal with Schicksal's hundreds of Valkyries, let alone figuring out how to make all of Schicksal's personnel ingest it.

But it was perfect for dealing with these fools from the Lion Mercenary Group!

Just mix it into their drinks during the victory banquet, and their entire mercenary group would be finished!

Then, hand them over to Schicksal. Schicksal, which only concerned itself with Honkai-related matters, could be placated. He might even be able to cooperate with them, logically annexing a few more countries in the process.

If luck was on his side, perhaps he could even piece together the scattered nations of Africa like that emperor in Shenzhou and achieve lasting fame in history!

One World Serpent remnant, two World Serpent MANTIS test subjects, plus a dozen or so minor test subjects – this price should be enough for Schicksal to turn a blind eye to his own actions.

After all, as experts in Honkai research, Schicksal surely understood their value better than he did!

Just as he was about to order someone to clean up the rooms Anthony had soiled and, incidentally, drug the Lion Mercenary Group members, a dull thud interrupted his thoughts.

Thump!

A figure flew backward and embedded itself into the wall. Snowdon's first thought was that someone from the Lion Mercenary Group was rampaging again. Going crazy and killing people elsewhere is one thing, but do they have to mess up this place too?

Don't they know I cleaned this place up for my own rest?!

Snowdon was about to angrily reprimand the Lion Mercenary Group members, telling them to take their madness elsewhere, when he got a clear look. He realized the person embedded in the wall, eyes rolled back, looked very familiar...

— That's one of Kaldeste's Stigmata Awakener subordinates!

Snowdon looked towards the source of the commotion. He saw a red-haired boy and a white-haired girl.

Jun An tossed aside the Stigmata Awakener he was holding. "Hi! You must be Chief Snowdon, right?"