"I didn't expect this..." Li Xuan couldn't help but exclaim as he watched a certain white-haired furball slowly walk off the stage with Mei's support.
No one had expected... that Kiana, despite having some strength but not being favored by many, would be the first to pass the 'Infinite Abyss' trial... Of course, through Kiana's experience, everyone also understood that the 33rd floor was the final one.
"What on earth was Kiana's final move..." Li Xuan rubbed his chin, looking quite curiously at Kiana, who was panting and walking towards him, and muttered to himself.
"Ha... ha..." Kiana, drenched in fragrant sweat with her bangs stuck to her forehead, rolled her eyes at the dazed Li Xuan, took a deep breath, and said with self-satisfaction, "See that, Li Xuan... I'm stronger than you!"
"Oh, are you?..." Li Xuan said, watching Kiana with some indifference. Although Li Xuan didn't show it, he was still amazed in his heart... He was even a bit envious of that meteor-like ultimate technique...
"Ah! You pervert, where are you looking?!" As Li Xuan subconsciously glanced at Kiana's chest, where the contours were clearly visible due to her sweat-drenched clothes, the sharp white-haired furball noticed...
"Ahem... wait! I didn't do it on purpose..." Li Xuan hurriedly tried to defend himself. "...Wait, Mei, don't suddenly take several steps back..."
"Will the next contestant.... Li Xuan... please prepare....." As Li Xuan was anxiously trying to explain himself, a voice spread throughout the entire space via the broadcast...
"Is that so?!..." Li Xuan turned his head to look outside the contestant waiting area. The spectator seats were filled with the cheers of the students, and on the main stage stood the figure of that white-haired loli holding a microphone...
"....." Standing in front of so many people for the first time, Li Xuan stared at the vast sea of people, slightly dazed. As an otaku, he had never participated in many large-scale events in his life... This was his first time standing in front of so many people...
"I'm getting kind of fired up for some reason..." Li Xuan lowered his head and looked at his sweaty palm, unable to help but smile... He lifted his foot and walked out...
"Good luck! Li Xuan~" Mei and Fu Hua, who was standing to the side, said at the same time. After they spoke, they looked at each other and smiled. As for Kiana... she had an expression of wanting to cheer for Li Xuan but being too embarrassed to do so...
"Li Xuan... good luck..." Bronya, with her weak presence, still said to Li Xuan's back with a deadpan expression.
"Of course..." Li Xuan turned around, gave a thumbs-up, and smiled confidently. There was nothing to be afraid of from mere Honkai Zombies and Honkai Beasts... He was, after all, someone who could survive alone in a place like Nagazora City.
"...Looks like I have to get serious." Li Xuan walked slowly to the center of the field, took a deep breath, and extended his right hand, grasping at the void... A longsword, golden all over, appeared in his right hand out of thin air.
"Let's do this... I've got all the time in the world." Li Xuan casually swung the sword in a somewhat clumsy flourish and said a cool line. While muttering to himself, he had already walked into the center of the trial grounds.
"Challenge start!" The cold, electronic female voice echoed throughout the space again.
"Random map generation complete... Grassland of Flowers... Weather: light rain." As the electronic voice fell, the ground beneath Li Xuan's feet began to change rapidly, starting from his feet... Tender green grass appeared out of nowhere, and one after another, plants with blooming white flowers sprouted from the earth...
Light rain began to fall from the somewhat gloomy sky, the raindrops hitting the grass on the ground with a "rustling~" sound...
"Roar!~" A Honkai Zombie appeared out of thin air not far from Li Xuan. Unlike the previous stiff Honkai Zombies, this one charged directly at him.
"...Hmph." The Honkai energy within Li Xuan's body began to circulate. The Honkai energy continuously surged from the depths of his body, and streams of it were absorbed by the red mark on the back of his right hand... and then passed through a special Honkai energy circuit...
"Woosh!~" A faint reddish-gold light emanated from the Xuanyuan Sword. The thin layer of red light had a searing heat that made one dare not look at it directly...
"Sizzle~" Raindrops fell on the blade of the Xuanyuan Sword. The moment they touched the red glow, they made a sizzling sound as they evaporated, turning into a puff of white steam that rose up...
"....." Li Xuan silently and quickly walked towards the Honkai Zombie, raised his longsword, and without a second glance at the Honkai Zombie that was raising its scythe in an attempt to resist... he swung the longsword straight down. The Xuanyuan Sword, with its properties of absolute sharpness and indestructibility, ignored the alloy-like handle of the scythe and instantly cut it in two, as if it were made of paper....
A wound that almost split the Honkai Zombie in half stretched from its left shoulder all the way to its right waist. The wound only bled a little purplish-red blood, and a faint purple Honkai energy light flickered beneath the gash...
The body of a Honkai Zombie that had evolved from an ordinary one to a Guardian Honkai Zombie was almost completely crystallized with Honkai energy inside... It was no longer a human creature...
"Just a single Honkai Zombie..." Li Xuan looked coldly at the twitching Honkai Zombie at his feet, his heart completely unmoved... He had no idea how many Honkai Zombies he had killed back in Nagazora City. The first time he killed one, he was so disgusted he threw up... But ah... for the sake of survival, after doing this kind of thing many times... he gradually got used to it.
Sometimes they say that human adaptability is stronger than that of a cockroach... and that's not just talk...
"....Let's continue..." Li Xuan watched as the Honkai Zombie at his feet struggled for a few seconds before suddenly exploding into fragments of data... He tightly gripped the Xuanyuan Sword in his hand and looked ahead... Two more Honkai Zombies appeared out of thin air....
Li Xuan took a deep breath, lowered his right hand holding the longsword, and following the description in the 'Hokushin Itto-ryu' sword manual he had obtained, he placed the Xuanyuan Sword at his waist, bent his body, and charged towards the two Honkai Zombies...
"Shadow Speed Slash!" The moment Li Xuan got close to the Honkai Zombies, following the description from the book in his memory, he forcefully swung the longsword in an upward slash, launching both Honkai Zombies into the air.... Then, a spark of 'Vermilion Bird Flame' flashed on the Xuanyuan Sword, and the spark suddenly erupted into a prairie fire-like flame that followed the swing of the longsword, circling around...
"Plop!~" Two disfigured corpses fell from mid-air and landed on the damp grass...
"It truly is a killing art... Hokushin Itto-ryu..." Li Xuan panted slightly, looked at the corpses at his feet, and said with some emotion... He was just testing the effect of going all out... From the results, it seemed that after learning 'Hokushin Itto-ryu', he was much stronger than when he was just hacking randomly...
'I should conserve some energy...' Having achieved his goal, Li Xuan stopped using his Honkai energy... After all, using the power of the 'Four Symbols' Stigmata had consumed a lot of Honkai energy in just that one move...
"My goal is the 33rd floor... I don't want to lose to that idiot Kiana..." Li Xuan muttered. He could already foresee that if he did worse than Kiana... he would definitely be teased by her for a whole month!
However, what Li Xuan didn't know was that... inside the golden 'Xuanyuan Sword', among several clusters of light shimmering with different colors, a red cluster of light had quietly grown a little larger....
At the same time... thousands of St. Freya High School students witnessed Li Xuan's battle through live broadcast or the transparent walls on site....
"Why does the longsword in Li Xuan's hand... look like the Xuanyuan Sword?!" Below the stage, Fu Hua watched Li Xuan wielding the golden longsword and couldn't help but frown... As a native of the Divine Land, she had seen descriptions of the 'Xuanyuan Sword' in her family's book collection... and that description seemed somewhat similar to the longsword in Li Xuan's hands...
"Is it a coincidence?..." Fu Hua said softly, her tone laced with uncertainty... After all, the Xuanyuan Sword was a divine object said to have been given to the people of the Divine Land by ancient immortals. It couldn't possibly be in the hands of a student, right?
.......................
Meanwhile.... thousands of miles away from St. Freya High School, on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia....
"Beep beep beep!~" A woman wearing a uniform engraved with the 'Schicksal' emblem stood in front of a ruin with a GPS-like device in her hand, her expression grave...
"Captain, this is the place..." A relatively young-looking girl standing next to the woman said seriously. "Based on the traces left in the ruins, this place used to be an Anti-Entropy laboratory..."
"Captain... should we notify the Russian Branch to come and investigate this place?" the girl suggested. After all, they weren't combat-proficient Valkyries, but rather members who were more inclined towards research.
"Ahem... no need..." The woman took out a ladies' cigarette, held it between her lips, and said with a hint of slyness, "Our team is from the Far East Branch... For something like a Honkai reaction appearing, of course we should contact the Far East Branch..."
"Uh... is that allowed..." The girl tilted her head, looking a little surprised.
"Huiyin, you... you're still too naive..." The woman chuckled, reached out and pinched the girl's cheek, and said, "Alright... I'll report to the Far East Branch's commander... Lord 'Theresa Apocalypse' right now."
A deep blue 3D virtual screen appeared in front of the woman, and she began to quickly compose her report...
On the sunlit beach, the sand reflected a golden glow... The calm surface of the sea shimmered with light... And beneath this sea... in the dark depths of the ocean floor, a faint Honkai energy reaction was being emitted.
(End of this chapter)