"Ah~!"
On the shore where the waves rolled.
A young girl with light brown "cat ears" covered her yawning mouth with her left hand, her long leopard tail swaying unconsciously.
"Can, how did I even end up here?"
"Meow~?"
A large, light brown cat wearing a small crown and hugging a bag full of treasures responded lazily to its master.
More than a month had passed since the surgery was completed.
Pardofelis, the "chivalrous merchant" from Twilight Street, had become a member of the Flame-Chasers by a strange twist of fate. Even more strangely, she had successfully fused with Honkai Beast genes and become a Fusion Warrior through surgery.
At the same time.
She was also the weakest Fusion Warrior (self-proclaimed). Pardofelis was extremely skilled at running away and never fought with others. After joining the Flame-Chasers, she skipped basically every mission she could and decisively slacked off on the ones she couldn't.
The free time she had was all spent doing business:
The number of people in the Flame-Chasers that Pardofelis could call "boss" was by no means small. For this reason, Pardofelis had even set many goals for herself that she would never have dared to imagine before.
In the past.
Her goals were at most "collect all patterns of coins" or "collect all types of canned food," but now...
They had become things like "collect all of Sister Eden's gems."
This was Pardofelis.
A member of the Fusion Warriors, a "coward" who valued her life first and money second, yet ultimately walked the path to that "round, bright, dead moon"—the future last seat of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers: the Flame-Chaser who bore the name of "Reverie."
"Splash."
A wave broke on the surface of the sea. This excellent fishing spot often had big ones bite the bait.
"Oh! A fish is on the hook!"
But for now.
Pardofelis was hiding on a deserted island with Can (her cat), avoiding the gradually intensifying situation back at the Flame-Chasers' base.
And then—
"Whoa! What great strength!"
Because of the Honkai, many of the fish in the ocean had been eroded by Honkai energy. Although they hadn't turned into Honkai Beasts, their strength and speed had increased significantly—and they had also become much fatter.
An ordinary person might not dare to eat them.
But for Pardo, this wasn't a big problem.
The problem Pardo faced now was... even with her greatly increased strength after becoming a Fusion Warrior, she couldn't pull in the big fish that had taken the bait!
One must know.
The fishing rod and line Pardo was currently using.
The materials were all purloined from Vill-V. Paired with her own strength, let alone an ordinary fish, she should have been able to easily pull up even a great shark!
"I don't believe this!"
Can pulled hard on her tail from behind her.
Just as the girl was preparing to "burst" with power and pull the food from under the sea up in one go—
"SNAP!"
The flying fishing line left a deep gash on the cliffside.
"Thump!"
Pardo and Can were both sent flying back more than twenty meters.
"No way?"
Looking at the broken fishing line before her...
Pardo was well aware of the quality of the line in her hand. According to Sister Vill-V, this thing was tough enough to easily slice through the shell of any lower-tier Honkai Beast.
If even this could snap—
"BOOM!!!"
A huge wave crashed against the shore of the deserted island!
A black and gold Honkai Beast with eight pairs of pincers leaped out of the sea, landing heavily in front of Pardofelis.
That's right.
The newcomer was none other than the Great Crab!
As the first mission given by the Emperor after his promotion, the Great Crab showed no dissatisfaction at all with the weakness of its opponent. If it could bully the weak, the Great Crab would absolutely not fight a strong enemy. Even if the two sides were evenly matched, it would rather choose a tactical advance to bide its time.
"Clack!"
The obsidian-like giant pincers made a crisp opening and closing sound.
Although it couldn't understand the reason for "that command" in the Emperor's mission, the Great Crab would absolutely carry it out without reservation—
Perhaps it wouldn't be as fulfilling, but at least...
"BOOM!!!"
A giant pincer slammed into the ground, creating a deep hole nearly half a meter in diameter. Shattered rock and fine sand shot out towards the surroundings like projectiles!
...it could have a lot of fun!
"BOOM!!!"
Amidst a huge explosion, the bodies of the Divine Keys and the experiment squad members were thrown far away along with the city ruins.
"Hah."
"Hah."
Overly heavy breathing masked the sound of sweat dripping onto the sand.
Although she had dodged the fatal blow, it was meaningless. The current situation, for her, was merely a continuation of her desperate struggle.
This was the Australian continent.
Unlike "outsiders" like Pardo, this nearly annihilated team was one of the "Super-Metamorphosis Experiment" squads, reorganized from the surviving "non-Fusion Warrior" members of the Flame-Chasers.
They had all been injected with the MM agent and equipped with mass-produced Tenth Divine Keys.
The Super-Metamorphosis Experiment aimed to activate the meta-morph factors in the MM agent through a life-or-death crisis, allowing them to resonate with the Tenth Divine Key and "advance" into Fusion Warriors. This method could save the tedious surgical process, reducing all costs to a simple matter of "lives," mass-producing Fusion Warriors in the most efficient way.
However.
The success rate of the Super-Metamorphosis Experiment was far from being as high as imagined.
If their Honkai energy adaptability had been sufficient, then these soldiers would have undergone the Fusion Warrior surgery long before the experiment. It was precisely because of this in-between situation that they needed to take a gamble with the Super-Metamorphosis Experiment.
The reality was very cruel.
The experiment squad had encountered the newly born Emperor-class Honkai Beast "Ganesha" on the Australian continent. No one knew if the encounter with an Emperor-class Honkai Beast had been planned in advance; the mission they had received was to "test the Tenth Divine Key." The terrifyingly strong Ganesha was not something ordinary people could fight against, and the Tenth Divine Key was completely ineffective.
[Converging Light Ray].
With just this one simple energy cannon attack, all 11 squad members, except for Hua, had their souls returned to the heavens.
"Crack."
"Crack."
Hua could only watch helplessly at the scene before her:
Ganesha was "licking up" the corpses and Divine Keys on the ground.
As a newly born Emperor-class Honkai Beast, Ganesha's intelligence was not high, but it could distinguish what was more delicious. The Tenth Divine Keys, made from Herrscher cores (albeit only at the level of pseudo-Herrscher cores), and the Honkai energy mixed in the MM agent along with Honkai Beast factors, were all quite delicious food for Ganesha.