At this moment on the deck of the 'Schicksal' ship, everyone's gaze, except for Muyue who had been grievously wounded by Himeko and couldn't get up, shifted to the box in front of Himeko...
"The five-star Honkai weapon [Fairy Bow.Silven]...." Himeko gently picked up the pair of dual pistols placed neatly inside the box. The guns, with a base of black and khaki, were tinged with a faint green glow... like a tender sprout representing life, growing from the parched earth...
"Here, Kiana, for you..." Although Himeko was briefly captivated by the new weapon's appearance, as a greatsword user, she had no love for guns. She casually tossed the dual pistols and the instruction manual to Kiana, who was standing there blankly...
"Whoa, be careful, Himeko!..." Kiana, who fumbled to catch her new weapon, held the dual pistols in her hands, drooling, and complained to the nonchalant Murata Himeko.
"Wow, so that's how it is..." Kiana, studying the instruction manual, would occasionally let out sounds of sudden understanding... However, most of the time, she wore a pleading expression as she asked Bronya next to her for help... Uh, there were a few obscure characters in the manual that she didn't recognize...
"......" Himeko walked to the second box. This was the weapon Theresa had prepared for Mei... Although it wasn't as advanced as Kiana's weapon, it was still a decent one...
"Pssh!~" Himeko quickly opened the second box. The casing still opened to the sides... revealing the weapon within... It was a tachi...
"The four-star Honkai weapon [Miao Dao: Raikou]... A weapon developed by the Saint 7308 Research Institute. Honkai energy flows within the blade's body, and by injecting Honkai energy, it can unleash special attacks..." Himeko picked up the instruction manual and read it softly. Inside the box was a tachi with an ordinary appearance, except the hilt was shaped like a winding bolt of lightning, and the blade was a purple edge, like that of a laser blade... Something seemed to be continuously circulating within the blade, which was forged from an unknown material, emitting a faint purple light...
"Mei, take it..." Himeko waved her hand, signaling for Mei to take it herself... She walked straight to the last box...
"Hmph, old friend, I'll have to trouble you again this time..." Himeko opened the box decisively and took out her exclusive weapon from inside... [Sunfire Greatsword]... The nearly two-meter-long blade barely fit in the box...
The ultra-heavy sword, composed of crimson red and metallic silver, felt as heavy as the earth itself... Himeko casually propped the greatsword in her hand on the ground, and the blade collided with the deck... The deck actually dented slightly...
"Everyone, quickly get used to your new equipment. We'll be preparing to dive as soon as the Honkai energy is detected!" Himeko shouldered the greatsword in her hand and said as a reminder.
"Oh oh!~" Kiana, holding her new guns, aimed at the sparkling sea outside the ship and pulled the trigger. A bullet glowing with green light instantly shot out from the muzzle, kicking up a wave on the sea surface...
"Wait, Himeko..." Li Xuan spoke up. "What about my equipment?..." He was on this mission with Kiana and the others, and he saw everyone getting new gear, but his turn never came... It couldn't be that he didn't have any, right?
"Oh, you, Li Xuan..." Himeko, carrying her heavy sword, turned to Li Xuan and said with a smile, delivering words that made him despair... "You don't have any. Principal Theresa said that student Li Xuan does not require equipment..."
"..." Li Xuan's expression was utterly gloomy, as if he had been broken... What kind of joke was this? If he didn't have any equipment... uh... it seemed like it wouldn't actually be a huge problem...
"As a Stigmata wielder... your Valkyrie... ahem, that is to say, your armor, hasn't been forged yet..." Himeko clutched her forehead with a headache and added.
Generally, Valkyrie armor was used by girls, and the research department at St. Freya High School had always designed it based on female figures... Even if girls' bodies were different, it only required minor adjustments... However, what gave everyone a headache was forging 'Valkyrie' armor for Li Xuan. The research department had absolutely no data on male muscle, body type, and the like!
After all, no one had expected... that the Honkai, which had always favored women, would create a male Stigmata wielder. According to common sense, men generally couldn't withstand Honkai energy, and it was impossible for a Stigmata wielder to appear...
However... once they considered that the [Honkai] itself was something that defied common sense, everyone felt there was nothing they couldn't accept... So the research department could only obediently start from scratch, using Li Xuan's physical data to create the 'armor'... but the progress was touching, to say the least...
"Anyway, don't you still have that Xuanyuan outfit on you? Just make do with it..." Himeko said, patting Li Xuan's shoulder with the expression of a senior encouraging a junior.
"..." Li Xuan stared blankly as Himeko walked away nonchalantly... He felt that he might just lose his life on this mission...
The May sea breeze carried a hint of scorching heat; summer was coming soon... The morning sea breeze felt warm on Li Xuan, but his heart at this moment was ice-cold...
The ship continued to sail on the sea, the Honkai energy detector at its bottom continuously ruling out areas of the sea as possible locations for 'Jiuyou'... until the detector, which had been repeatedly scanning, suddenly let out a piercing screech...
"Major Himeko, we found it!!" Second Lieutenant Mu Jin rushed into the cabin's rest area and shouted excitedly at Murata Himeko, who was resting with her eyes closed. "We've detected a place on the seabed that's emitting Honkai energy..."
"Oh, finally found it?" Himeko, who let out a lazy yawn, revealed a breathtakingly beautiful smile. She reached out and picked up the Sunfire Greatsword beside her.
"Hey, hey, everyone assemble... time to get to work!" Himeko tapped the small communicator by her ear and said loudly.
By the time everyone had put on their diving suits and gathered on the bow deck... the ship had already dropped anchor and stopped.
"Sakura, Yaoye... don't worry! When I get back, we'll go sightseeing in Guangzhou together! There's lots of delicious food, too!" Li Xuan, dressed in a black, form-fitting diving suit, patted Yae Sakura's and Yaoye's heads and said comfortingly.
"Mhm, big brother... I also want to eat custard buns!" Yaoye hugged Li Xuan's arm and said loudly. Recently, she had fallen in love with the special buns of the Divine Land...
"I'll make delicious onigiri and wait for Xuan-kun's triumphant return..." Yae Sakura, with a smile on her face, reached out and gently smoothed Li Xuan's slightly messy hair, her eyes filled with a faint affection.
"Mhm! Of course!" Li Xuan gave a thumbs-up and said with a hearty laugh. He put the diving helmet beside him on his head... and finally waved to Yae Sakura and the others... completely unaware that he had just raised a flag.
'By the way... where did that guy Muyue go?' Li Xuan looked around. It seemed he had been missing for an hour...
"Alright, let's all go..." Himeko, who emerged from a corner clapping her hands as if she had just dealt with a fly, said with a stern face. Fully geared up, Himeko was the first to jump into the sea...
In a dark corner, a young man in a diving suit lay unconscious, face down on the floor... His little finger twitched slightly...
..........................
Meanwhile... on the vast sea, a comical-looking big yellow duck floated on the surface...
Inside the rubber duck-like 'boat' sat a petite girl with a fierce expression and androgynous features...
"Damn it..." The girl angrily slammed her fist on the 'cabin' in front of her... Just then, the communicator before her lit up with a red light...
The big yellow duck, which had been trailing far behind the 'Schicksal' ship, suddenly began to accelerate... Its direction was squarely towards the ship that Himeko and the others had just left...
The longsword next to the girl's seat, which looked as if it were forged from twisted thorns, glinted with a black edge... As the big yellow duck sped up, it began to slowly disappear...
(End of this chapter)