I've already said this isn't a life simulator!

The Honkai energy bomb is indeed very powerful, but not enough; it can only severely injure the opponent.

Perhaps if they had used a more powerful rocket, they might have succeeded—(laughs)

But unfortunately, there is no if.

The violent explosion seemed to have enraged it, causing it to move towards the shore and the defensive line at an even faster pace. The broken horn trembled violently, a prelude to its next attack.

Perhaps the worst is yet to come...

As Xi Wang watched Gabriel rapidly approaching, she couldn't help but think—who told them to retreat in a straight line? Now they were stuck between Gabriel and the defensive line, and she even had the feeling that Gabriel was coming for them.

And then, at this very moment.

call out--

A sharp, piercing sound of arrows cutting through the air, a pink streak of light falling upon it, followed by the sound of gunfire, the swift attack delivering the final blow to Gabriel.

Woo————

Before Gabriel died, it let out a horn-like cry that sounded like a lament or a regret, as if it was struggling in its death throes and wanted to bring one last Honkai Beast tide to humanity before it died.

But... nothing happened.

[Gabriel], the campaign was successful.

"........."

Xi Wang stared silently at Gabriel's lifeless body—strangely enough, at the very end he clearly felt the emotions of regret and relief that Gabriel was conveying to him, which left him feeling bewildered.

However, none of that matters anymore—Xi Wang looked at the aircraft not far away, a slight smile playing on her lips.

The next task was simple: just clear out the remaining Honkai Beasts. Although it was unclear why Gabriel's last horn call did not increase the number of Honkai Beasts, it still relieved the soldiers still on the front line.

And Xi Wang and the others were welcomed by that reassuring girl.

"Hey~ Did you miss me~?"

Alicia smiled brightly and greeted everyone.

Chapter Eighteen: The Heroes You Yearn For Are Now Few Remaining

The battle to subdue the Fourth Herrscher has completely ended. The accompanying Honkai Beasts and the "Gabriel" that appeared along with them have also been defeated. The Honkai Beast tide has been gradually cleared up. Now, the members of the Firemoth can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

[As is customary, you held a celebration, and while celebrating the victory, everyone also offered their blessings and hopes for Kevin's official appointment as "First Squad Leader"—although everyone knew that the reason Kevin took on this position was not something to celebrate, everyone now needed a good party to forget the tension and fear of the battlefield.]

[It's worth mentioning that everyone got to see you embarrassed again because Sakura and Alicia both invited you to dance, which brought a smile to everyone's faces—many people think this scene will probably become a regular feature at future balls.]

Of course, after a day of revelry, it's time to return to one's duties and summarize the battle that just passed. As you gather information from various sources, you gradually learn the true situation of the Fourth Herrscher subjugation campaign.

Due to the massive storm, countless teams were unable to approach the area where the Fourth Herrscher was located, and many even lost contact within the storm. Subsequently, the higher-ups decided to use weapons to bypass the storm from near-Earth orbit and directly attack the Fourth Herrscher.

[This method worked. Although it failed to injure the opponent and even angered them, the Fourth Herrscher did stop expanding the storm's range and walked out of the storm, intending to directly cause trouble for the Flame Chaser forces—this was the third day that you and Sakura were trapped on the island.]

After all the surrounding troops were wiped out by the Fourth Herrscher, she began to maintain small storms as she moved across the land, destroying several cities in succession. Along the way, Kevin's First Squad and several other squads were responsible for restraining her, trying to create opportunities for Alicia to kill her. Kevin also rescued a boy named Kosmo along the way, who is now a new recruit of the Firemoth and is undergoing training.

[After that, the Fourth Herrscher began to snipe and hold off the teams one by one, forcing all the squads to fight back. It ended with "Kevin single-handedly breaking in and annihilating the Fourth Herrscher, while the rest of the soldiers were forced to sacrifice themselves to hold off the Fourth Herrscher."]

Where was Alicia, who should have been there at this time? She had been ordered to assist and protect the evacuation of residents from several cities.

[Although this is something Alicia shouldn't be responsible for, and the order specifically mentions "protection," it's hard to say whether the "protection" in this order actually refers to a resident or someone else.]

[Clearly, some guys were worried about their own lives, so they sent Alicia, who was most capable of fighting the Herrscher, to protect their retreat, completely disregarding whether the soldiers still on the battlefield would lose their chance to kill the Herrscher due to the lack of Alicia's support. Anyway, there would always be soldiers—you, who are familiar with those guys' thinking, quickly understood the reason.]

[It could be said that the first squad, along with several other squads, was considered "abandoned" at the time. However, they did not expect that there would be a guy like Kevin among them who braved the storm to defeat the Fourth Herrscher and survive.]

Now, they are touting Kevin's strength and "generously" appointing him as the "first squad leader," as if Kevin were some great hero.

Ah...yes, a hero who needs to undergo psychological treatment every now and then.

Having learned the whole story, you silently put down your pen, then, as always, tore the paper and the next page off together, burned it to ashes, and then ate it with candy.

"Today's dosage is 36 pills, a reduced amount, which is good—that's what you're thinking."

After that, life seemed to return to calm, but the pace quickened.

[First and foremost, there's the internal activity within Moth of Fire. Given the performance of Honkai energy weapons in the "Gabriel Extermination Campaign," Moth of Fire decided to accelerate its research, resulting in the Research Department receiving a large sum of research funding.]

However, Honkai energy weapons also have a problem—when releasing energy, the Honkai energy becomes active, which in turn erodes the weapon's frame, eventually causing the weapon to go out of control and leak Honkai energy. There's not much that can be done about this; a breakthrough in materials is necessary.

This requires a new character to appear, namely the "genius" who was "captured" by Alicia and constantly causes trouble for Moth of Fire, but Moth of Fire can't contain her—Vilvie.

[You also met Alicia through her guidance. It has to be said that she is indeed a very eccentric and willful person, giving people the feeling that she is not easy to get along with... but you don't care about this.]

More importantly, Velvet is a specially hired engineer for the Flame Chaser. She designed and built many things in the Flame Chaser. Although she can seem willful, she is very measured when it comes to matters of principle.

Soon, thanks to the efforts of Velvet and many researchers, the Fire Moth made breakthroughs in weapon materials, weapon structure, and weapon diversification—it would have been even better if Velvet hadn't crammed so many strange designs into the design drafts.

[As an aside, those soldiers who died on the battlefield due to the instability of tested weapons did not receive proper compensation, but only the minimum death benefit. This made Hen depressed for a long time, and most of the surviving veterans were also depressed—you can only say that they were the kind of people they were.]

Thanks to the efforts of countless people, the soldiers' weapons have been rapidly upgraded, making them more adept at fighting the Honkai. Although people still come and go, the overall casualty figures have indeed decreased significantly.

But... it's not all good news either; some problems left over from before may suddenly surface.

[For example, Gabriel clearly sounded the horn for the sixth time before he died, so why did nothing happen in the end? — "Perhaps he ran out of power," someone optimistically said.]

However, the truth is not so simple. Gabriel's call did have an effect, but the danger that followed was hidden in the deep sea. At some point, hordes of terrifying Honkai Beasts would emerge from the sea and bring the terror of the "Honkai Beast Tide" to humanity once again.

Now, the moth drawn to the flame must confront just the tip of the iceberg of this danger.

After their equipment and personnel were updated and replenished, Moth Chaser discovered that the Honkai energy concentration in the near-shore area was somewhat abnormal, and Honkai attacks were also starting to occur frequently in the coastal area, which alerted many people.

[As expected, within a very short period of time, several exceptionally powerful Honkai Beasts appeared in the coastal area, making the warriors, whose equipment had been upgraded, once again feel the difficulty of fighting the Honkai by relying on sheer numbers.]

The entire ocean, and even the coastal areas of the continent, began to become dangerous. In order to prevent the true information about the collapse from being exposed to the public, the Fire Moths went to great lengths to block the news, and the warriors were exhausted from fighting on various battlefields.

[What's worse, among these terrifying Honkai Beasts, there was even a "monster" that defied everyone's understanding, to the point that the Firemoth had to be given a separate "level" to highlight its power... no, that's not right, it should be to highlight its "incomprehensible" and indescribable abilities, a power that once made people question the common sense of the world.]

While the appearance and characteristics of "Honkai" can refresh people's worldview, at least there are clues to follow. However, its power only leaves people feeling bewildered and helpless, and has even led many scholars who study Honkai to overturn their previous theories.

If it weren't for the Moth Chaser's entire squad fighting to the death at the last moment, the world might have been destroyed because of it.

That was the first Honkai Beast recognized as "End-of-Day Class"—"Great Free Heaven"

Because these powerful Honkai Beasts either come from the sea or appear in coastal areas, some members of the Firemoth faction speculate that this might be related to Gabriel's final horn call. Unfortunately, there is no concrete evidence, but the Firemoth faction still raised Gabriel's danger level to second only to Shiva.

After a period of time, almost all coastal areas were designated as danger zones, with nearshore waters being considered high-risk and offshore waters being completely off-limits. The entire world suffered varying degrees of impact as a result.

But all of this stopped after you defeated a Honkai Beast codenamed "Vrona".

No one knows why, after the enormous, whale-like Honkai Beast was killed, no more Honkai Beasts appeared in the coastal and near-shore areas, and the Honkai energy concentration dropped sharply, returning the area to a safe zone.

No one knows why "Vorona" didn't resist when they were fighting it, allowing them to kill it.

These things are all strange, but overall they are good things. Although the open sea is still a restricted area, and even more dangerous than before, people at sea will not be attacked by Honkai Beasts as long as they are at a distance where they can clearly see the land... Although it is strange, this is the result observed by the Fire Moth.

This incident also served as a wake-up call for the higher-ups at Moth Chaser. Many plans that had been abandoned or suspended due to their excessive danger were brought back to the agenda, and Dr. Mei, who had proposed numerous plans, gained considerable influence as a result.

Days passed, time flowed by, and the warriors of the Flame Moths traversed the crumbling battlefields. Countless lives were lost, and countless others joined. And so... you welcomed the "Fifth Herrscher."

----------

"pat-"

The crisp, familiar sound was Xi Wang opening the candy box; clearly, he was eating candy again.

"It's rare that you didn't travel with Sakura this time."

Hen said with a smile from the side.

"She's been assigned to another task, you know that."

"Yes... the Honkai attacks are happening more and more frequently..."

Hen sighed, then said half-jokingly.

"And I guess you wouldn't want her to participate in this mission, right?"

He seemed to be trying to lighten the mood, but he clearly chose the wrong person.

"...With Sakura's and my skills, we can both survive."

In other words, he didn't actually object to Sakura participating in this mission, but Sakura was genuinely assigned another mission, which is why she didn't come.

"...Ha, I really don't understand you guys."

Clearly, Hen was speechless at Xi Wang's words and could only sigh, attributing everything to "the two being very confident in their own strength."

"Sigh... But don't think I'm being long-winded. Although I do feel like I've become a bit more talkative since I got married, you know..."

Hen shrugged.

"I have no one else to talk to here."

“You can talk to him.”

Xi Wang glanced at the boy following behind Hen. He was thin and didn't look like a soldier, but she could sense his strong and positive will... only that will was being tested at the moment.

"Kosmo? What? Aren't you leaving? Or are you scared out of your wits?"

Hen patted the boy on the shoulder and spoke in a relaxed tone.

"You're really unlucky, you've only been in the team for a few days and you've already run into this kind of mission... I'll definitely have to report this to the higher-ups when I get back."

"...Captain, is what you're saying true? This squad's purpose... is just to send them to their deaths?"

The boy named Kosmo seemed somewhat incredulous.

"You could say that, since there are always people who feel that, when necessary, it is meaningful to die."

"I know, but you're going to your death alone..."

"Clap!"

A crisp and loud sound rang out; it was the sound of Xi Wang forcefully closing the candy box.

"Although I consider myself to have some skill in concealing my presence, isn't it a bit too much for you to simply ignore me like this?"

Xi Wang spoke softly, interrupting the boy's somewhat melancholy mood.

"Hahahaha... That's right, Kosmo, you see, I'm not alone."

Hen laughed loudly and patted the boy's shoulder hard again.

"But... this is what you call your 'duties'?"

Hearing Hen's signature laugh—a laugh he used to make when teasing others—Kosmo wondered.