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Chapter 254 – The Moment the Curtain Rises
🕑 Added 2025-08-16 15:00:16 +0000 UTCThe Taixuan Sword Qi was a peerless technique created by Red Kite Immortal Fu Hua of in Shenzhou.
Its ultimate form, the Taixuan Sword God, was the strongest expression of this art.
At her peak, Fu Hua once severed the link between the Second Herrscher and the Honkai Will with a single strike—a super move of the highest order.
For someone without talent, even a lifetime of training might not be enough to master such a technique.
The fact that tuna Kiana had managed to grasp even a fragment of its divine essence in such a short time was already like having a cheat code enabled.
But compared to someone truly playing with cheats… there was still a gap.
With the Alpha Stigma Eyes as his “plug-in,” and further aided by the Herrscher of Reason’s power, Nagami was able to replicate the technique after watching Fu Hua perform it only a few times.
Of course, without thorough research, the strength of his version couldn’t match the original.
But against a newly-born “pufferfish” of a Herrscher?
Nagami couldn’t help but feel like he was bullying a child.
Cradling the purple-haired girl asleep in his arms, Nagami’s eyes glowed with a rotating hexagram of pure violet light.
Around Sirin, countless hexagram arrays shimmered into existence.
Moments later—faster than it had ever been in past attempts the power of the Herrscher of the Void surged from Nagami’s palm.
Sirin’s body dissolved into countless golden-orange motes of light, drifting and gathering around the Core of the Void floating in his hand, before being drawn into it like a rising tide.
Nagami’s body also scattered into shimmering blue particles, wrapping around the core.
Light shifted, reshaping, until it formed a familiar figure.
A purple, off-shoulder dress took shape, long immaculate violet hair cascading down to her ankles with slightly curled tips, a feathered pink-violet ornament resting on her head.
Her slender legs were wrapped in purple bandages, pale as snow and strikingly alluring, while her feet stepped gracefully into low-heeled shoes trimmed in pink and violet.
“From this moment on, I’m the Second Herrscher!”
Hands on her hips and chin lifted proudly, the purple-haired girl puffed herself up like an overinflated pufferfish.
After nodding at her own reflection in the air, Nagami turned his gaze behind him.
There, the enormous body of a newly-born Judgment-class Honkai Beast had already appeared—Sirin’s companion, Benares.
The dragon hesitated, caught between wanting to draw close to its “master” and the instinct to attack the “enemy.”
At this point, Benares hadn’t yet been granted human-level intelligence.
Judgment-class beasts weren’t unintelligent, but its birth was still too recent for clarity of thought.
Right now, it looked rather… dopey.
Still, when Nagami adjusted his energy signature to perfectly match Sirin’s former frequency, Benares made its choice.
With a mighty flap of its wings, it descended before him and lowered its head in submission and affection.
“Good girl.” Nagami murmured, reaching out to stroke the massive head—several times larger than his entire body.
Then he glanced toward the entrance.
“Theresa’s here… time to show off some acting skills again!”
He commanded Benares to withdraw for now, then reshaped the tragic scene from moments earlier.
Turning his back to the entrance, he made his figure appear lonely, broken, and full of despair.
After a brief pause, he pulled out a game console from the imaginary space and resumed the stage he’d left off on.
————————————————————————
“Thank you, Mother-in-law.”
Taking the cup of black tea Cecilia offered, C.C sat upright on the sofa, elegant and composed. Her long legs, wrapped in black stockings, were pressed neatly together.
With a warm, sunlit smile that radiated grace without a trace of rudeness, she looked dazzling.
“N-no… don’t mention it…” Cecilia’s lips twitched involuntarily.
Being called mother-in-law felt strange enough—but if the one calling you that was a stunning beauty, it added a whole new layer of absurdity.
“Um… I still don’t know your name.”
“Oh my, I almost forgot to introduce myself to my dear mother-in-law.” C.C took a delicate sip of tea before setting the cup back on the low table, her tone carrying a hint of apology. “You may call me C.C… or Nagami, either works.”
“C.C… Nagami…” Cecilia searched her mind for any trace of those names, of course finding nothing.
Watching little Kiana scamper off to fetch her favorite snacks to share with their guest, she sighed helplessly. “I’ll call you Nagami then.”
At least compared to “C.C,” a string of random English letters, Nagami sounded like a proper name.
“Can you tell me what really happened? And… how did you travel through time? What’s the Honkai like in the future?”
Cecilia pressed her hand to her forehead as if suddenly realizing she was asking too much, guilt flashing across her face. “I… I might be overstepping. If it troubles you, just tell me what you think I should know.”
“It doesn’t trouble me at all.”
C.C thought to herself, as expected of my mother-in-law.
That gentle, kind, approachable aura—no one could possibly resist it.
Truly worthy of the title of “Saint.”
“Big sis, have some candy~”
Little Kiana tore open the wrapper with care and held the sweet up to C.C’s lips with her tiny fingers.
C.C’s only thought in that moment was—
‘The Kaslana family’s genes are absolutely unbeatable.’
C.C took the snack little Kiana fed her and gently ruffled the girl’s hair.
“So delicious. Kiana, could you get another one for big sis?”
“Mhm! But you have to stay here and be good, okay? Don’t run off, I’ll bring it back to you!”
Overjoyed, little Kiana immediately dashed off toward her room.
Watching her tiny figure run off, C.C’s expression gradually shifted into solemn seriousness.
“Mother-in-law… I came here for you.”
“For me?” Cecilia tilted her head in confusion.
“That’s right. If history were to unfold as it should, right about now the Second Eruption has broken out in Siberia—the birth of the second Herrscher, the Herrscher of the Void.
In the battle against her…..well, let’s call it a battle—you fell victim to Otto’s schemes. You perished alongside the Second Herrscher.”
“The Second Eruption…? A Herrscher?!”
Cecilia’s eyes flew wide open.
As an S-rank Valkyrie of Schicksal, she had spent nearly all her life at the frontlines against the Honkai before becoming pregnant with Kiana.
She understood all too well the weight of those words.
“No… Siegfried!”
“Not allowed, Mother-in-law.” C.C stopped her just as she was about to pull out her communicator. “If unexpected factors disrupt the past, my journey here will lose its meaning. But don’t worry—Siegfried will survive in the future.”
Cecilia froze, her desperate concern instantly melting into bitter resignation.
“So I die in the end. And since I can’t change that, there’s no harm in letting me know my own future?”
“That’s exactly why I came. At the moment of your death, I will take your soul. When I return to the future, I’ll bring you back.”
C.C spread her arms to catch little Kiana as she came running back, then pinched the child’s chubby cheeks with a soft smile.
“This is the promise I made to Kiana in the future—to revive her mother. That is you.”
Only two years old, Kiana couldn’t understand a single word of what the pretty big sister was saying to her mom.
After listening for a while, her eyes glazed over in confusion.
She shook her head and started peeling the wrapper off a candy, offering it up to the green-haired beauty instead.
“This kind of thing…”
Cecilia’s heart wavered.
Romantic stories about lovers defying time itself to save each other’s family… she had only ever read about them in sci-fi love novels.
And yet, here it was, playing out right in front of her.
So it was true—Nagami and Kiana’s bond in the future must be incredibly deep.
For her daughter’s sake, Nagami was willing to go this far.
‘Kiana must be so happy… Even if… even if they’re both girls… it doesn’t matter…’
“Then why approach me now? Are you here to take my soul already?”
“No.” C.C’s long green hair swayed as golden light flickered in her eyes.
A faint smile curved across her lips. “For certain reasons, I plan to turn the Second Eruption into nothing but a joke. To do that, I’ll reveal the truth to those involved—and then, before I leave, I’ll erase or alter their memories.”
Cecilia was stunned once again by her words.
Then, suddenly, another realization struck her.
This girl could traverse time.
She could rewrite human memory. And hidden beneath her calm exterior was a power that could not be ignored.
“…Just who are you really?”
That affectionate form of address showed her approval.
Someone who could do this much for her daughter’s sake—how could she not acknowledge them as family?
Her only lingering worry was for her granddaughter’s future.
Fully understanding the core of Cecilia’s question, C.C let shimmering blue particles gather around her.
In a flash, her ordinary outfit was replaced with black-and-blue Herrscher armaments.
“The leader of the organization Fire Moth. The First Herrscher. The Herrscher of Reason.”
“…”
“Oh, and one more thing—our entire organization is composed of Herrschers. We already have seven. We are the very first line of defense against the Honkai.”
“???”
Cecilia swore—even when she heard Nagami had traveled from the future, she hadn’t been nearly as shocked as she was now.
