Watching "Azure Empyrea" continue pulling all kinds of ridiculous stunts without the slightest pressure, Hua, who stood atop the high wall, felt embarrassed.
After all, Vill-V was currently playing her alter ego. When Hua resumed the role of Azure Empyrea in the future, how was she supposed to face these videos?
What if members of the Taixu Gang suddenly approached her with expectant expressions and said, "Great Immortal, please perform 'that' for us!"
Would she really have to perform those unbearably cringe-inducing stunts?
Like biting a lighter? Or "fuck, leave, ignore"?
That would be far too humiliating, even more embarrassing than wearing women's clothing to fight in the dojo.
Fortunately, Vill-V finally had enough fun. Or rather, she realized that the duration of her Herrscher Transformation state was running out.
Her earlier stunt performance had not been mere horseplay. She had been creating time for gravitational potential energy to accumulate.
"All right, you've had enough fun too, haven't you? It's time to send you on your way."
She elegantly raised her index finger and snapped it crisply in the air.
Staring into Vill-V's unfathomable crimson eyes with their doubled pupils, Madam Ma felt a chill of fear.
She had already exhausted every trump card she possessed, yet she still believed the Vill-V before her was merely an illusion. Hysterically, she tried to find some way to attack the real Vill-V.
"Where is your true body?!" Madam Ma screamed wildly. "This one has to be fake!"
She even began indiscriminately attacking the trusted followers around her.
Her followers scattered in terror, afraid of being accidentally struck by the crazed shaman.
The next second,
Madam Ma and her trusted followers suddenly felt an incomparably powerful centrifugal force.
One after another, they were ripped from the ground and hurled into the sky, breaking through layer after layer of urban smog until they went shoulder to shoulder with the sun.
Gravity naturally fell within the scope of the Reverse Momentum Conservation Protocol as well.
They were sent flying into the sky by the gravitational potential energy the Reverse Momentum Conservation Protocol had just accumulated.
Due to the characteristics of the Reverse Momentum Conservation Protocol, the antigravity field would act upon those who had used the gravity guns.
Driven by that antigravitational potential energy, they would continue accelerating away from Earth.
They had brought this upon themselves.
Naturally, Madam Ma, who had fired her gravity gun at full rated power, bore the brunt of it.
She shot into the sky like a rocket, quickly becoming a point of light and turning into a star above.
Vill-V raised a hand and gazed into the distance, unable to resist softly exclaiming, "Wow, at that speed, she'll definitely break through the atmosphere. Madam Ma can finally practice astrology now, because she has turned into a shooting star herself."
Looking around the scene, only one resident had not been carried into the sky by the backlash from a gravity gun.
It was Granny Tao...
She had not fired at Vill-V earlier, so no gravitational potential energy had been reflected back onto her.
When she saw Hua, Reporter Tan, and the surviving Ghostfire Syndicate bikers all turn their gazes toward her, she paid them no heed. Instead, she wore an expression of release. "Children, you did well."
"I truly let evil cloud my mind and blind my eyes. I caused the deaths of so many children."
"I've wronged all of you, and I've wronged my precious grandson even more."
"But I must see my precious grandson. World Zero, I'm coming."
Before the Taixu Gang members behind her could fire to stop her, Granny Tao shot herself in the head.
The gravity gun's full power instantly acted upon her body.
The old woman's bones had already grown brittle with age, and a series of sharp cracks erupted throughout her body.
She collapsed to the ground and lay there quietly, never moving again. Time seemed to freeze at that moment.
The color drained from her face, and her tightly furrowed brow gradually relaxed. She looked so peaceful and serene.
In her final moments, the old woman wore a smile. The yellowed photograph Granny Tao had kept close to protect fluttered to the ground like a withered leaf. The smiling face in the picture became stained with blood, turning into a tearful visage.
Hua looked at Granny Tao on the ground, sorrow welling within her heart.
Hua reached out, but in the end, her hand never touched the old woman's already cold body.
"Granny Tao..."
Hua had not forgiven Tao for trying to abduct her and Vill-V, but that did not conflict with the sympathy Hua felt for what she had suffered.
After all, they had met only by chance, and Granny Tao had still shown them hospitality as their host by serving tea to Hua and Vill-V. (At this point, Hua still had not realized that Granny Tao had drugged her.)
"I hope her longing can reach her grandson."
Then Hua turned to Reporter Tan beside her and asked somewhat sorrowfully, "Could everyone on this street truly be an accomplice of those villains?"
Only Reporter Tan, a resident of this place, could answer that question. Hua hoped to hear him deny it.
Yet the reality was that Reporter Tan silently shook his head. He understood the cruelty of this world, but he did not want the still-young Hua to bear the crushing weight of that reality.
After all, the girl before him appeared to be only fifteen or sixteen years old. The responsibilities of the adult world should not yet be placed upon the shoulders of a minor.
Only when the young were filled with hope could the future possess hope. Yet everything Reporter Tan had witnessed now held nothing but despair.
Some things were better left unsaid.
Reporter Tan raised his head and looked out.
This was a city shrouded in darkness, a city that had forgotten sunlight. Like its gray sky, it had lost all vitality and struggled in despair.
The pungent stench of coal smoke filled the air. Factory chimneys spewed rolling clouds of black smoke that spread across the pale-gray sky.
The spires of the surrounding high-rises disappeared into dense clouds, and beneath the gloomy firmament, the city seemed especially oppressive.
A gust of wind swept past, lifting the garbage and dust from the ground along with Granny Tao's photograph and carrying them into the distance.
A fierce red sun could barely be seen, smothered by thick clouds until only a darkened ring of dying twilight remained.
Dusk was approaching. Darkness would soon envelop this lifeless city.
"Will the light truly appear again? Only if everyone joins together will it be possible..."
A bolt of lightning flashed through the dark clouds, like the last spark of life within this deathly silent city.
Reporter Tan's eyes suddenly brightened.
"No, it definitely can. Humanity's history and future can be changed through powerful conviction. I firmly believe that. That is also why I will never give up."
Reporter Tan gripped his camera tightly. His camera was also a vessel for light.
He raised it and aimed it directly at the proudly standing Azure Empyrea, his eyes filled with reverence and anticipation.
As long as one persisted, change would eventually come. Had his own waiting not finally brought her to him?
He had to show this light to more people and awaken the hope within their hearts.
And at that moment, Reporter Tan's light,
"Azure Empyrea" Vill-V, was considering what to do with Landro, who lay on the ground.
Vill-V had already more or less guessed his identity.
Landro was no ordinary person. He was an experimental subject from the MANTIS Project, and his craving for Hua's blood confirmed it.
Judging by his composition, it might still be too early to call Landro a MANTIS. For now, he could only be considered a clinical experimental subject.
His Meta-Morph factors had not yet awakened. The Honkai Beast genes within him were not those of an Emperor-class Honkai Beast either. They resembled some kind of artificial Honkai genes instead.
His so-called "bloodsucking" was meant to replenish and maintain the stability of the "human" portion of his genes, thereby suppressing the Honkai Beast portion.
Landro's desire for Hua's blood was only natural. His sense of taste was already approaching that of a Honkai Beast.
Ordinary food would taste bland and flavorless to him, but he would possess an intense craving for anything with a strong affinity for Honkai energy.
Hua was one of the exceedingly rare suitable candidates for the MANTIS Project and the future Flame-Chaser bearing the Signet of Vicissitude.
Compared to ordinary humans, Hua's body naturally possessed an extremely high affinity for Honkai energy.
To Landro, her blood was a sumptuous delicacy.
That alone proved Landro's body was already shifting toward MANTIS genetics.
Moreover, his identity was not limited to being a MANTIS...
He was also a pawn Mobius had thrown over to probe Vill-V.