Chapter 6: She is Dead, You Can Do Nothing!

Inside the Challenge Space.

Yunduo stood in the center of the space, unaware of what was happening outside, nor of the feelings and discussions Kiana and the others were having about her.

The Challenge Space gave her a few minutes of rest before the second challenge was about to begin.

Against the Herrscher of Domination!

“Whew~”

She let out a long breath. Reality and memories intertwined, creating ripples that reminded her of things that had happened in the past.

The Herrscher of the Void in this space was dead.

But the Herrscher of the Void in reality still existed within Kiana's body.

And with the intensification of the Honkai Energy erosion just now, there were faint signs of her awakening.

She was clearly already exhausted, yet she still liked to meddle in others' business.

Was this her fate?

“Let's get this over with. Start the challenge.”

Yunduo shook off her complex emotions and called out coldly.

As soon as she spoke, the space began to warp violently, accompanied by the sound of pulling threads.

“Welcome to—the Dominion Theater!”

“Challenger: Yunduo!”

“Mission Objective 2: Kill the Herrscher of Domination and save Bronya and Fu Hua.”

“Background Prompt: Bronya and Fu Hua escaped the Endless Corridor created by the Puppets. Fu Hua deceived her way into obtaining the authority of the Herrscher of Sentience and cut the connection between the Puppets and the main body of the Herrscher of Domination, but the abilities of the Herrscher of Sentience have also been mastered by the Herrscher of Domination.”

“Kiana felt the support of her companions and said her final farewell to the deceased her. She has begun the final battle against the Herrscher of Domination. During the battle, Bronya and Fu Hua were abducted by the Herrscher of Domination, their lives hanging by a thread.”

Once the system prompt finished, it was drowned out by the even more distorted sound of pulling.

Creak!

Creak!

Creak!

It sounded like steel wires being forcibly wrenched apart—piercing and unpleasant, making one's skin crawl.

Faint sneers seemed to rise from the deep sea; they were the mockery of various people, laughing at the actors on the theater stage.

Yunduo felt the world spinning, and a profound sense of pain radiated from her brain.

Noise and clamor.

Overwhelming negative emotions, like grasshoppers in a rice field, suddenly burrowed into her heart.

So noisy!

Yunduo couldn't see anything; her vision had been snatched away out of thin air.

Her hearing was amplified step by step, and ugly sounds of frolicking repeatedly bored into her ears.

“Kiana, give up the struggle.”

“We are all failures.”

“Humans are all failures.”

“Hahahahaha~”

A frivolous and arrogantly confident female alto voice traveled through the surrounding world over and over again.

Yunduo's entire world was filled with unknown mockery.

It was as if there was only malice in this world.

Infinite malice!

Accompanied by pairs of puppet hands reaching out from the darkness of the abyss, tightly clutching Yunduo, trying to pull her into the depths of hell.

“Huff... huff...”

Yunduo's breathing grew weaker and weaker; she felt suffocated.

Even now, she couldn't move.

But suddenly.

A beam of firelight illuminated Yunduo's pupils.

It was a giant flaming sword plunged into the ground.

Yunduo squeezed out a bit of strength, gripped the sword tightly, and propped up her weakened body.

Bang!

A sudden, bright light signaled the start of the final battle.

Yunduo opened her eyes and found herself standing in the very center of the theater stage.

At this moment, the audience had become the actors!

And the seats below were filled with Puppets waiting to watch the show.

The Puppets were all identical, their stiff, numb bodies swaying in a distorted manner.

All around Yunduo were dense, silver-white threads, their taut curves reflected by the lights.

Those were the transparent threads used to control the Puppets, manipulating this motley crowd of dolls.

Yunduo looked toward the end of the threads.

At the top of the dazzling incandescent lights, a huge, bizarrely shaped monster was pulling those transparent threads in its hands.

The monster was several stories tall; even a well-trained Valkyrie would subconsciously feel fear just by looking at it.

It wore strange golden gloves, and from its fingertips came the continuous flow of threads.

Its crimson eyes looked down upon this ugly world, with malice radiating from every movement.

The Herrscher of Domination!

The final master of this Dominion Theater.

The Herrscher of Domination could control as many as a thousand people, turning those ordinary people whose lives were going poorly into Puppets in its hands.

Then those Puppets would fall into the abyss, endlessly controlled by resentment, forgetting all light and hope, and using their accumulated spite to take revenge on the world.

If it wasn't killed, eventually everyone in the world would become a puppet in its hands.

“This is the Dominion Theater, the stage of a thousand.

We are the will of a thousand, the despair of a thousand.

Despair will not disappear; we will not disappear.

What created us is—

What destroys everything is—

The malice of humanity itself!”

The Puppets danced under the lights, recounting each person's resentment.

Yunduo paid no attention to these clowns.

But when she saw the two people on the threads, her pupils suddenly contracted.

She forgot she was in the Challenge Space; the memories in her mind overwhelmed her.

“Class Monitor, Bronya.”

She squeezed these two names out of her dry throat.

Bronya and Fu Hua were hanging high in the air, tightly bound by the threads.

Their eyes were closed, and their battered bodies were like two old burlap sacks.

As long as the Herrscher of Domination pulled the threads in its hands, the two would suffer torture.

In the next second, before Yunduo could react, the Herrscher of Domination instantly yanked the threads.

“Ngh... ah!!!”

Bronya was startled awake by the pain and cried out.

Her petite body was losing its vitality, drawing closer and closer to death.

The silver-white threads were stained red with blood, every single one smelling of iron.

As if saying, "You can't do anything."

You can't even save your best friend... Outside the Challenge Space.

Kiana subconsciously looked at Bronya, who had a calm expression.

Mei also stole a glance at Fu Hua.

Watching from the outside was like watching a movie, and the events in the footage hadn't happened in reality yet.

However.

When the characters in a depressing movie become your real self—especially when it's likely something that will happen in the future—no one would feel calm.

Finally, Bronya broke the deadlock; her words, calm as water, carried no emotional fluctuation.

"Idiot Kiana, if you were the one tied up, Bronya wouldn't save you."

"I'm sor— Huh? What? I clearly went to save you! Hmph!"

Kiana had intended to apologize, but she was choked up by Bronya's words.

"According to the background hints, Bronya and I must have entered the Dominion Theater and even obtained the power of the Herrscher of Sentience."

Fu Hua pushed up her glasses and analyzed rationally.

"The Herrscher of Sentience? Why is there another one? Monitor, are you a Herrscher?"

"..."

Fu Hua couldn't refute it because she couldn't guarantee whether her future self would become a Herrscher.

"Kiana, stop talking for a moment and listen to the Monitor's analysis." Mei held back the curious Kiana.

"This scene should be connected to the first challenge, where Kiana defeated the H

errscher of the Void and obtained the Gem of Haste and the Herrscher of the Void's power."

"Furthermore, this space has explicitly stated that'she,' who is vital to Kiana, has died."

"Guess who'she' is?"