"Hello, hello, Ms. Herrscher, do you have any acceptance speech… ah, I mean, any words you'd like to say?"
Elysia didn't show any urgency to fight, as always. While dodging the wind blades that the Herrscher sent her way, she still had time to keep teasing her opponent.
To the Herrscher, this was nothing less than provocation. So, she used the raging winds to appear next to Elysia again and again. But the pink girl who looked rather plump was as agile as a sparrow in battle.
She always used the smallest and most elegant movements to dodge all of the Herrscher's attacks.
Wind blades? She could just side step a little to avoid them, right?
The Herrscher's close combat attacks? Please, your fist and leg techniques are lacking a little bit, okay?
Trying to restrain her with the air currents? Uh… this is a bit troublesome.
So, Ellie raised her hand and fired an arrow towards the wind vortex that the Herrscher had just created. After all, things like tornadoes always had a weak point, like a "wind core." As long as she destroyed it, wouldn't it be over?
The crystal arrow easily broke through the outer layer of the chaotic air currents, but the smile on Ellie's face disappeared--the arrow didn't hit its target. The space within the whirlwind was completely empty. Instead, the crystal arrow was brutally torn apart by the raging air currents, gradually turning into crystal dust and dissipating.
"What!"
With no time to be shocked, Ellie only felt her head darken. It was the wreckage of the fighters that had been captured by the storm. Now, under the control of the Herrscher, the wreckage was coming down on Elysia like rain.
"Really, you're not cute at all like Mikael!"
The ever-present strong air currents tugged at Ellie's feet, making it difficult for her to dodge. So, she could only use her palm to summon a huge crystal flower and use it to bear the attacks from the Herrscher.
"Hmph!"
The wreckage weighing tens of tons crashed into the crystal flower. Cracks that looked like spiderwebs instantly spread across the ground near Ellie's feet. She had to slightly bend her knees to reduce the impact.
Seeing that she was busy dealing with the attacks from overhead, the Herrscher naturally wouldn't miss such a great opportunity. Enveloped by the raging winds, she charged at her like a streak of light.
"Oh my! It's like you're following the path that I had predicted for you, every step of the way!"
Ellie stepped lightly on her toes, a small crystal seed forming. It was quickly captured by the strong air currents, but just as it was about to be pulled into the hurricane, it slammed directly into the Herrscher, who was charging head-on.
"Bang!"
The crystal seed exploded instantly, turning into large amounts of crystal dust. Although a small part of it flew away with the wind, most of it stuck to the Herrscher's body and crystallized, holding her in place.
"What is this thing?"
The Herrscher's self-satisfied smile froze along with the crystallization of her body. And Ellie threw the mountain of airplane wreckage that she had been carrying towards her.
"Get lost!"
Flames burst from the Herrscher's body, tearing apart the wreckage that had flown at her.
But after the last piece of wreckage had been ripped in half by the invisible wind, Elysia's figure also arrived.
She had a long spear made of crystal under her arm. Before the Herrscher could even react, the pink tip of the spear had already taken up her entire vision.
The Herrscher's pupils constricted instinctively. The next moment, the tip of the spear pierced her without any resistance.
"Ah... Ahhhhhhh! You deserve to die!"
A huge storm exploded between the two, flattening the land on the entire Agania Island by several inches. All of the buildings above the surface, including the unmanned turrets, were easily swept away by the storm. The debris that was sent into the air no longer had to worry about where it would land—the maddened Herrscher was randomly flailing her other arm.
Every time she flailed, she would cause a pillar of air that reached the heavens. And those debris were quickly fought over by the different pillars of air. In the end, they were disintegrated by the strong air currents into small pieces that looked like paint flakes that had peeled from a wall.
Ellie was tumbling in the wind, before being slammed to the ground. Crystals formed a cocoon to protect her, and then more layers of crystals grew from the ground, forming layer after layer of rose petals to catch her.
"Has she gone berserk?"
Ellie covered her head and peeked out from the rose petals. In just two or three seconds, she could feel that the wind seemed like it was trying to pull out all of her hair.
"I'm going bald!"
"Elysia, according to the data I got from hacking into Fire Moth's system, the Herrscher's Honkai energy reaction just spiked. Uh… how should I put it, even so, and even if the Herrscher has taken advantage of the environment, according to my assessment, your combat power still has the advantage. If you activate the Flawless Dome, you should be able to easily suppress the Herrscher… Ah, well, maybe it wouldn't be that easy."
Vill-V's voice came through the communication device. Ellie already understood that logic. She gripped Feihua, and a huge crystal arrow formed on the bow. It was aimed directly at the sky.
But in the end, Ellie didn't release the arrow.
"Elysia, the ground beneath Agania Island has been basically hollowed out. Fire Moth's previous command post should be underground. Oh man, I really wonder who was in charge of the battle earlier. Oh, I think her name was Mei? Hmm! According to the satellite imagery, two large sinkholes have appeared on the island. So I take back what I said earlier. If you open the Flawless Dome, you might be able to severely damage or even kill the Herrscher, but that kind of power will cause the entire island to collapse. I doubt any of the people underground will be able to survive."
"Tch! Why do you care about them? If you ask me, we should just kill everyone from Fire Moth while we're at it!"
Mobius interrupted in an extremely irresponsible manner.
"Also, Elysia, are you sure that there are no signs of Mikael around? According to the coordinates, he should be there. Did he get killed by the Herrscher?"
Mobius thought that given the Weak Herrscher's combat power, that was actually quite possible... Just kidding.
"How about you keep the Herrscher busy for a while longer? When the Second Divine Key is fully charged, we'll be able to send Sakura to your side as well."
"Tch! This is the Divine Key that you made with half of my funds? Two hours is enough to end the battle several times over!"
"It's better than your fusion soldier project that hasn't even started yet!"
"Hmph! My own surgery was a great success!"
"But you tortured over ten thousand lab rats for a month, and none of them survived!"
Ellie directly turned off the communication. Vill-V and Mobius, those two, were both unreliable when it came to commanding a battle. She was in no mood to listen to them argue.
Using the rose petals as cover, she closed her eyes and began to think about how to break the situation.
"If I want to break through, I need to know the Herrscher's power--what is her power? Wind? No, there's always a scientific explanation!"
"Anyway, I need to stop all of these pillars of air first. It's too disadvantageous to fight the Herrscher this way!"
The disconnected communication was quickly forcibly reconnected by Vill-V. She finally brought her useful information:
"Elysia, I just checked the Fire Moth's real-time logs. That Mei made a guess that the Herrscher's power was about fluids... ah, it looks like those people from Fire Moth discovered that I hacked into their system, so I'm going to hang up now!"
Ignoring the huge amount of useless chattering that had come before, Ellie held on to the key word—fluid.
It was a term that she had heard Mikael talk about before.
Wait, what were fluids again?
Ah, whatever they were, fluids, fluids, they were like water, which could flow, right!
Then she just had to freeze it like she would freeze water... Freeze it?
That inspiration flashed through her mind. Before she could think any further, a sharp, piercing sound rang out from above. When Ellie looked up, she saw the Chasing Flames Three, was tumbling just like she had been previously…
Uh?
That ship was huge!
That's right. The Chasing Flames Three was using its powerful anti-gravity engines and high-strength hull to avoid being torn to pieces by the strong air currents, like a normal fighter, but its power output simply wasn't enough to escape the grasp of the air currents.
Before, it had only been floating in the air like a leaf that couldn't land, which could be said to have achieved a delicate balance.
But as the Fourth Herrscher went berserk, the number of air pillars suddenly increased from four to more than twenty. As a result, all of the fluids in the air were now chaotic. The Chasing Flames Three's delicate balance was easily shattered. It began to tumble uncontrollably toward the ground.
"Crap! That's the Herrscher's direction!"
Ellie had only just peeked out halfway before the strong wind pushed her back. It was then that she realized that the sturdy crystal petals were already covered in cracks.
The Chasing Flames Three's anti-gravity engine ports were still spewing out searing flames, but that tiny bit of power was so insignificant in the face of the air currents that the Herrscher had constructed. The ship was just going to crash straight into the ground.
Given the Chasing Flames Three's weight, if it crashed on the ground like this, it would be hard to say whether or not anyone would survive in the underground rooms below the island.
But the place that the ship was heading towards had someone… the Herrscher!
Himeko had tied herself to the seat from the very beginning. The g-force of the tumbling ship made her face flushed, her muscles tense, and her nosebleed reached her chest. Carol, who was next to her, had already passed out. The other members were also mostly in the same state.
But Himeko was still conscious. Her trembling hand opened the ship's weapon system.
"Tch… I'm always in such a mess every single time…"
Her vision switched from bright to dark, then from dark to bright again. She spent a long time… but considering the speed that the ship was tumbling, it probably wasn't really that long.
In short, her fingers had groped onto the main cannon's fire button.
"I don't know if this shot will be able to kill the Herrscher… But we... and Mei on the island, probably won't survive either…"
But she didn't hesitate at all. She forced her eyes open, and the moment the scenery outside the porthole changed from the sky to the ground, she forcefully pressed the main cannon's fire button.
At the same time, the Herrscher on the ground opened her good right eye. The shattering of her other eyeball had affected her vision. But as long as you weren't blind, you could see the giant object that was crashing down towards her.
"Get lost!"
She swung her hand, and the hurricane she caused sent the Chasing Flames Three flying away. By accident, that shot that Himeko had intended to hit her flew towards the heavens.
Then, the Chasing Flames Three began to tumble along the path that it had come from.
Through the porthole, Himeko vaguely saw the world outside being tinged pink.
"Ellie?"
Large hands made of crystals materialized along the Chasing Flames Three's tumbling path, trying to catch it, but shattered upon contact. The barrier on the Chasing Flames Three actually proved its hardness instead.
But the tumbling eventually stopped, but not as a crash, it didn't bring any sense of impact...
With a sigh of relief, Himeko's battered consciousness began to fade. Her head tilted back, and she felt a pain at the back of her head, as if she had hit a steel plate.
"Hua?"
Before the darkness completely engulfed her vision, she finally saw that figure that had suddenly appeared beside the cockpit.
"You finally came… Mikael…"