Within the Schicksal organization, A-rank Valkyries earned the privilege of "codename" bestowal.
Take the "Snow Wolf Squad" from over a decade back, nearly wiped out—they were all A-rank Valkyries, save for the S-rank Cecilia Schariac. That bunch each had their own monikers. Like: "Frost Swordmaiden" Cheng Lixue, "Solar Prominence" Shigure Kira, "The Baptist" Salome Jokanaan... and so on.
Their codenames tied straight to their fighting styles.
And now, Edelweiss—as an A-rank Valkyrie—was no exception. Her agile, ever-shifting combat flair, paired with masterful ring-blade work, earned her the title: "Spirit Butterfly."
"Heh, anyone clueless might think she wandered off the neighboring Marvel set!"
Deep in the Domination Theater, Ling Ke remotely synced senses with a puppet posted up in the control room, speed-reading Silver Lotus's classified dossiers.
At present, he wasn't sweating a potential rout for those hundred puppets. After all, in Honkai Impact 3rd's canon plot, even with the core crew assembled, it'd taken serious grind to scrap the initial Domination Puppets—back when they hadn't snagged any Herrscher authorities yet.
What was the protagonist squad's lineup? Post-"Dust in the Wind" Fu Hua, "Stygian Nymph" Seele, Kiana with nascent Void Herrscher powers, Bronya inheriting the Herrscher of Reason core...
Excluding the rest, just those four—who among them could a mere A-rank Valkyrie even scratch?
So...
"Files say, among Schicksal's active A-rank Valkyries, Edelweiss ranks mid-pack at best." "Even after the Second Eruption, with over a decade of Valkyrie armor upgrades—including the 'Temporal Fracture' system's rollout—her combat rating still lags miles behind the era's top A-rank: Cheng Lixue."
No question, if she couldn't touch Cheng Lixue, forget scraping by against a fully recovered Fu Hua.
Which is exactly why...
"Damn! Damn it! Damn!"
In a not-so-narrow corridor of the West Asia Branch base, Edelweiss's face twisted in fury as she parried wave after wave of assaults.
Her two B-rank Valkyrie squadmates? Already corpses. No helping it—as noted before, a base-level "Domination Puppet·Anby" matched B-rank Valkyrie might on its own. And now... a hundred of 'em.
Not to mention their infinite revives.
By now, Edelweiss was drenched in sweat. As an A-rank Valkyrie, sure, she could drop one or two "Anbys." But the ordeal left her gut churning.
Take right now, for instance...
Shing!
Mid-dodge, her ring-blades whipped out in a horizontal spin, slicing clean across a short-haired girl's throat. By rights, that should've sent the head airborne.
But the spot on the short-haired girl's neck where the blade bit? It just flared with rainbow light. Then she counter-slashed, trading life for wound without a flinch.
Against this "fellow immortals" berserking, Edelweiss's head throbbed like hell.
"Tch!"
Cursing under her breath, she barely evaded the strike—and held back on pressing the attack. Because more short-haired girls were piling on from all sides. All with the same face, same gear, same weapons...
Edelweiss felt like sticking around much longer would trigger her trypophobia. No—before that, she'd have to worry about surviving.
Evidently, Edelweiss had no clue that Ling Ke—lurking behind the scenes, spectating like a director—was sparing her for the moment. But for her, the one in the thick of it? That wasn't good news at all.
After all, anyone with half a brain knew a simple truth: In the eyes of a fully blackened avenger, death... was a goddamn luxury.
In that instant...
"This is the bug in these 'game character templates'!"
Ling Ke, ringside in the Domination Theater, couldn't help but sigh in awe.
Right now, the puppets swarming Edelweiss hadn't even tried swapping to "Billy." Just sticking to the "Anby" template...
HP mechanics, infinite stamina, indestructible gear. "Anby" packed a slew of "character traits"—those were just three.
The "character switching" mentioned earlier? Another trait.
Per the system's rundown, every game character template came loaded with "character traits," "game skills," and "background talents." Setting the last two aside for now.
These "character traits" were basically game devs' hand-wavy shortcuts to reality, baked into mechanical perks. Like in Zenless Zone Zero, where characters didn't lose limbs mid-fight, snap bones, or bleed out—only when HP hit zero did they drop, instantly out of commission.
That's the "HP mechanics" trait.
"Infinite stamina" and "indestructible gear" were even simpler. No stamina bars, no weapon durability in ZZZ—so as long as you weren't dead, you could brawl till doomsday.
And that's the horde of "monsters" Edelweiss was up against. Treating 'em like humans? Every move was a razor-wire dance.
Truth was, if Ling Ke wasn't using her as a sparring dummy—testing every nook and cranny of the templates—she'd have folded ages ago.
"Hasn't this woman noticed that, aside from the opening blitz that iced her squadmates, most of the puppets have been slacking off the whole time?"
Glance at the scene: straight out of a Hollywood ego-trip flick, all flashy post-prod effects. A swarm of sideline loafers, circling but not striking. Only two or three "Domination Puppet·Anbys" actually in the fray.
Their role? More like insurance—plug any breakout gaps. So, just hanging back.
Of course, Ling Ke had a sadistic streak to it. He'd been ramping the difficulty on Edelweiss, slow and steady. One base "Anby" too much? Make it two. Then three, four...
"Uh, folding at four?" "You're an A-rank Valkyrie, at least?" "Whatever, dragging this out's pointless."
Ling Ke split focus to check other feeds. "Whoa, the other 'guests' are all rounded up!" "Perfect, then..."
He cracked a grin. "Accept my 'invitation,' Miss Edelweiss." "You don't get a say in refusing."
The words had barely left his mouth...
Pfft!
A grotesque sound—like the wet, explosive rupture of blood plasma—echoed into Edelweiss's ears.
She had no idea that, from the moment the fight kicked off, a yellow progress bar—invisible to her—had been steadily filling above her head as she clashed with multiple "Anbys."
This was the special mechanic from the original Zenless Zone Zero game: "Daze." Once that bar filled up, the target would collapse entirely, temporarily losing all ability to act. And any damage taken? Multiplied several times over.
"Anby," with her "Break" trait, had bonuses that accelerated shoving foes into Daze.
Truth be told, if the current "Anby" templates weren't just Lv.1—and if those hundred Domination Puppets had swarmed her all at once—Edelweiss would've been Dazed ages ago.
And right in that instant...
Whoosh! ×2
In the corridor, two fresh "Domination Puppet·Anbys" burst in at blinding speed, swooping low past Edelweiss. She didn't even register it.
The next moment, her body jerked to a halt...
"Huh?"
Her line of sight dropped abruptly. She toppled backward, crashing to the floor.
In her pain-fueled daze, she instinctively looked up, gaze shifting...
In her field of view: two legs, severed clean at the midsection.
"AAAAAHHHHH!!!"
A gut-wrenching scream reverberated through the space. But all around? Only utterly indifferent stares.
Just like how she, once upon a time, had gazed at Ling Ke—curled helpless in his underground cell.