Several days had passed since Yae Sakura's departure. Li Xuan continued his busy life, running around every day to collect food and Honkai Crystals. The food in the city was becoming scarcer. He didn't know if there were other survivors, but several times when he went to more distant shops, he found that all the edible items had been taken. Moreover, a lot of food, even vacuum-packed, was starting to grow moldy.
BOOM! A five-meter-tall, dog-like Honkai Beast crashed to the ground, creating a large crater in the concrete.
Phew. Li Xuan stood proudly on the body of the dead Honkai Beast and let out a sigh of relief, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. In his right hand, he tightly gripped a silver firearm—the Rifled Flintlock.
The Rifled Flintlock now looked different from when he first summoned it. Its bright silver body was adorned with more exquisite blue and purple patterns, and a faint silver glow emanated from it, making it look quite extraordinary. This was because Li Xuan had been constantly spending Honkai Crystals over the past few days to enhance it. The Honkai Crystals, consumed by the gun, seemed to be assimilated into another gentle yet powerful force and absorbed by the weapon.
He had upgraded the Rifled Flintlock to its maximum level, greatly increasing its power and ammo capacity. Paired with his divine equipment, the Xuanyuan Festive Garb, he could barely manage to take on a small Honkai Beast by himself.
I still need to get stronger, Li Xuan thought. He extracted the Honkai energy from the beast beneath him, turning it into Crystals, then jumped off the corpse and disappeared into an alley.
"Let's do this." After breakfast on this day, Li Xuan didn't go out to 'socialize' with Honkai Zombies (i.e., mutually inflict harm). He sat in his base, his face filled with excitement and anticipation as he looked at the items laid out before him: the Gate of Vows and a small mountain of Honkai Crystals.
"May the gods protect me." Li Xuan clasped his hands together and prayed to the heavens, fervently hoping that some deity would bless him with good luck and that he wouldn't be unlucky again. Each vow cost 280 Crystals. If he only pulled useless items like women's underwear, he'd lose his own pants. At the very least, even if he pulled underwear, please let it be men's. He really couldn't bring himself to use women's underwear.
"Here we go." Li Xuan stretched out his hands, which he had washed more than ten times. He quickly placed the Crystals into the Gate of Vows. For this session, he had prepared enough Honkai Crystals for ten pulls, most of which were obtained with Yae Sakura's help.
As the Gate of Vows continuously consumed the Crystals, it began to glow faintly again. Just like before, a blue light suddenly appeared, forcing him to close his eyes. After the light dissipated, a sword had appeared. Li Xuan picked it up, and information flowed from the blade—'Yamamoto Night Shadow Katana'. After checking its abilities, he unhesitatingly threw it into his ring as a backup weapon.
Li Xuan continued to place Crystals, but the Gate of Vows only ever produced a blue light, and the weapons it yielded were not very strong. Soon, he was on his ninth pull. The items from the first eight pulls were all tossed into his ring. It couldn't be helped; they were all junk, with nothing worth using. For example, a katana, an FN2000R, an MK2A1 Grenade, a C90 submachine gun, a Colt Python, a Praetorian MS-F1 battle axe. He was even unlucky enough to pull a pair of lace panties and a ribbon garter. Of course, these small garments were still useless to Li Xuan. After a very careful 'inspection,' he threw them into his ring.
Li Xuan took a deep breath and began his ninth vow. The Gate of Vows quickly consumed the Crystals, and then something different happened. A purple light, which Li Xuan had never seen before, emanated from the gate. The purple light didn't form a heaven-piercing pillar like the golden light, but it still illuminated the entire house.
Meanwhile, a thousand meters away from Li Xuan, three young girls stood on a street littered with the Honkai Zombies they had just defeated.
"Huh? Strange," the silver-haired girl, Kiana Kaslana, said with some surprise as she looked at the strange Honkai energy fluctuation that suddenly appeared on her phone.
"What is it, Kiana?" the black-haired girl, Raiden Mei, asked, panting.
"A strange Honkai energy fluctuation just appeared again at the same place where the golden pillar of light was," Kiana said, staring at her phone as the fluctuation suddenly appeared and then quickly vanished.
"Mei-senpai, let's go check it out," Kiana said, her eyes darting around as she grabbed Raiden Mei and started acting cute.
"Bronya can locate it with satellite positioning," Bronya Zaychik, who usually contradicted Kiana, was also curious this time and sided with her.
"Alright, alright! Kiana, stop shaking me, I'm getting dizzy." Raiden Mei quickly stopped Kiana and agreed helplessly, clutching her forehead.
"Oh! Oh! Let's go!" Kiana was instantly full of energy, waving her arms and shouting loudly.
Unfortunately, they were immediately surrounded by Honkai Zombies attracted by the noise.
"Kiana! You idiot!" Raiden Mei's annoyed voice came from within the group of Honkai Zombies. "...Sorry," came Kiana's sheepish apology.
On the other side, Li Xuan picked up the item from the Gate of Vows—it was an exquisite emblem. As soon as his hand touched it, a piece of information flowed into him. 'Knight Never Dies by Bare Hands,' a five-star emblem. When worn, the user's unarmed attack power increases by 12,000%, and the attack power of V-Type weapons increases by 20%.
(End of Chapter)