A deep crack appeared out of nowhere.
——That was undoubtedly the sign of space being torn apart.
"…But, there is a small problem."
"It seems that I have taken away all the power of the Herrscher from this guy... the power of space." The store manager waved his hand and played with the space crack. He scratched his head and smiled harmlessly. "Since you said so, I think you don't mind."
The smile on Rita's face froze completely, and she felt the urge to swear for the first time in a long time.
Chapter 43: Rita, withered away in dignity!
After seeing with her own eyes the young store manager manipulating the power of space at will, if Rita still didn't understand that she had been fooled by this guy from the very beginning, then she might as well just go find a tofu and kill herself.
But before her reason was consumed by the anger of "being tricked", another thing that was even more horrifying to Rita suddenly extinguished the budding anger.
She widened her eyes somewhat inappropriately and took a step back.
"You, you actually controlled the power of the Herrscher of the Void?"
As Otto's confidant, Rita is one of the few people who knows most of his plans.
In order to use the power of the Herrscher of the Void for his own benefit, Otto conducted experiments for more than ten years, and finally set a trap on the experimental subject K423 that lasted throughout her entire life. He played with people's hearts, and treated his relatives, friends, and enemies as flags to manipulate at will, and finally achieved a little result on K423 with great difficulty.
As one of the people who knew about the plan, Rita knew very well how dangerous the Herrscher was, and had a basic idea of the price one would have to pay to control that inhuman power with a human body.
In Rita's opinion, even Kiana today is still far from being able to fully control the power of the Herrscher of the Void.
The continuous Honkai incidents in Sky City are irrefutable evidence of this.
The reason why Rita is so dedicated to tracking down Kiana, in addition to her sense of responsibility to complete the task, is that in her opinion, being taken back to Destiny is the best option even for Kiana.
Rather than letting Kiana wander alone in Sky City, it would be better to bring her back to Sky City and let her receive treatment in the laboratory.
Only in this way will Kiana have a greater chance of controlling the power of the Herrscher of the Void, and Sky City will no longer be attacked by Honkai because of Kiana's departure.
Yes--
——All of this is based on the premise that "Kiana failed to control the power of the Herrscher."
But now, let alone the question of whether Kiana has controlled the power of the Herrscher, the power of the Herrscher is not even in Kiana at all, but in a young store manager who is a complete stranger to Rita.
Rita was so confused and bewildered that she couldn't even feel the slightest bit of anger at being tricked. Her brain was working too fast and was causing waves of burning pain.
After a long silence, Rita asked subconsciously: "How...how did you do it?"
"This should have nothing to do with you." The store manager put away the smile on his face, "So do you still want this guy?"
"..."
In fact, Rita herself doesn't mind bringing Kiana, who has lost the power of the void, back to the Schicksal headquarters. After all, she has a special relationship with that person. Based on Rita's understanding of that person's character, after learning about her life experience, that person will definitely truly regard Kiana as a family member.
But the problem now is not Rita’s own idea, but... Bishop of Destiny, what should Otto do?
Does the Herrscher of the Void, who has lost her power as a Herrscher, still have any value to Otto?
Rita knew that the answer to this question was most likely no.
Alternatively, Kiana, who has lost her power, can still become an excellent fighter, but for Otto, he would never accept that his long-term plan was completely destroyed by an outsider.
As long as Otto knew that the power of space was taken away by this store manager, he would most likely shift his target from Kiana to this store manager.
Of course, no matter what, this is something that will happen later.
At least in this operation, Rita did not think that she still had a chance to bring the store manager who possessed the power of the sky back to the Sentence headquarters.
Moreover, after knowing that the Herrscher power in Kiana's body had been taken away, another question naturally emerged in Rita's eyes.
Since Kiana has lost the power of the Herrscher of the Sky, then——
——Why do these large and small collapse events keep breaking out in Sky City?
At this point, Rita, who had another problem to solve, began to consider backing out.
She bowed to the store manager again and said modestly, "I'm sorry, Mr. Store Manager, because I don't have a comprehensive understanding of the transaction, the current development of the situation is completely beyond Rita's control. I don't have the authority to decide on this transaction alone, but need to hand it over to my superiors for a final decision. I will visit you as soon as I get a reply. Please wait for a while."
These humble and rigorous words can be said to be flawless.
In terms of the art of communication alone, Rita can be said to have reached the pinnacle.
Any reasonable person would probably accept the other party's proposal based on such impeccable words.
——But unfortunately, the store manager was neither prepared to reason with her nor to simply let her go.
"You visited me first?" He smiled. "This time it was an S-class Valkyrie with 21 team members. Next time, will the entire Immortal Blade come out in full force?"
“……” Rita’s pupils shrank slightly.
Rita had actually been mentally prepared for the fact that the Immortal Blade had been exposed. After all, before she came here in person, she had already asked her team members to test this area. But even so, she had never expected that the store manager would be able to report the number of people ambushing around accurately, which also meant that all the people ambushing nearby had been exposed.
When did he catch everyone's position... No -!!
The moment she realized something was wrong, Rita forced herself to remain calm and yelled into the microphone: "All units! Report your position immediately!"
There was deathly silence in the headset, and no response.
The only answer came from behind her——
"——It's useless. They have all fallen into a peaceful sleep."
The moment she heard that voice, Rita felt her scalp explode.
Without caring about the movements of the store manager and Kiana, she turned around abruptly and waved her hand, and a huge ice-blue sickle appeared.
Under the bright moonlight, the elegant dancer landed with the crisp sound of her high heels touching the ground. She stood in front of Rita, her burgundy pupils glowing with a ghostly light under her long eyelashes.
The faint light seemed to have magical power. Just by looking directly into the other person's eyes, Rita felt dizzy uncontrollably.
"..." She bit her tongue hard, using the pain to awaken her dizzy consciousness. She stared at the face that looked exactly like her own and said in a deep voice, "Who are you?"
"You came here on your own, but you're asking the owner this question. Isn't that a little inappropriate?" The long-haired dancer smiled. "It seems that we should use a slightly harsher method to punish a bad guest like you. Otherwise, if more people think that we are weak and easy to bully, we won't have a peaceful life."
"What do you think, Mr. Manager?"
Chapter 44: Perception and Empathy
If, in the eyes of most Valkyries, Rita Rossweisse is a humble and warm senior, then in the eyes of the Undying Blade members who worked with her, or the enemies who once stood on the opposite side of her, she is a dangerous and cruel executioner like the god of death.
Cruel, calm, precise, efficient - whether it is a heartfelt compliment or a word of fear, these are the only adjectives that can be used to describe Rita's style of action.
She is very good at using Tianming's unique intelligence system to create an absolute advantage for herself. When the identities of both parties are unequal, this method is often effective. Therefore, most of the time, the outcome of the mission assigned to her has already been determined before it is carried out.
Since becoming a Valkyrie, Rita has rarely suffered failure.
But on the other hand, when Rita encountered an opponent where Tianming's powerful intelligence network was completely ineffective, her overly tough and bold style of action was not far from failure.
This is probably the downside of playing too many games against weak opponents.
Feeling the dizziness that continued to invade her brain, Rita couldn't help but groan inwardly.
She immediately understood why her elite Valkyries were defeated so quietly.
Even though she was an S-class Valkyrie, she almost lost consciousness the moment she faced this ability that directly reached consciousness. It was even more impossible for the members of the Undying Blade to organize an effective resistance to this ability.
She took a deep breath, resisted the dizziness and sent a message for help to the Tianming headquarters. At the same time, she forced herself to remain calm and looked directly at the dancer in front of her: "If Rita's behavior caused you to misunderstand, please forgive me, but please believe that Tianming has no intention of offending you."
"Haha, of course I know you didn't mean to offend us. After all, taking advantage of unequal intelligence and status differences to gain more bargaining chips at the negotiation table is one of my specialties." The elegant dancer chuckled. "In your opinion, this is not an offense, but an advantage that you, as the Valkyrie of Destiny, should have."
"..." These unconcealed words made Rita at a loss for a moment. At the same time, the other party's calm but gentle tone made her feel uncomfortable, as if she was facing an extremely bad mirror.
But she didn't show much dissatisfaction. Instead, she sighed softly and lowered her arms naturally. "Well, as the winner, you certainly have the right to show your superior side in front of the loser. Rita is not the kind of person who can't afford to lose. Since the defeat is already decided, I will not make any more meaningless struggles."
"I just hope you can let go of those innocent people who were controlled by you because of Rita's mistake." She said softly, "They were unable to observe the existence of this cafe. The reason they surrounded you was because of Rita's willful order. If you feel offended by this, Rita is willing to take all the responsibility."
"Willing to take all the responsibilities?" The elegant dancer repeated Rita's words in a slow tone. She pursed her lips and a hint of happiness appeared at the corners of her mouth. "Mr. Manager, did you hear that? She said that herself."
The young store manager was silent for a moment. For some reason, a trace of confusion suddenly flashed in his eyes.
After struggling for a long time, he couldn't help but ask, "Isn't this... a bit too much?"
"?" These completely unexpected words made Rita's expression flash with a hint of obvious confusion, followed by a very bad premonition.
Too much? What is too much?
"I don't think this is excessive." The dancer raised a meaningful smile. "After all, if she hadn't deployed so many spies around, we wouldn't have had to take action outside the cafe. On the other hand, it was because of her decision that we had no choice but to use our power at a certain cost."
Rita's eyes moved.
At some cost? What does that mean?
Was she able to silently and helplessly bring down her men? Was she able to do this only after paying a certain price?
The young store manager scratched his head and said, "That's logically correct, but it doesn't make sense. After all, the rejection that comes from the world itself can't be transferred, right?"
"And in the end...putting aside this guy's opinion, don't you feel uncomfortable yourself?"
"I just feel that if we don't leave a deep impression on them, maybe after today, there will still be other blind people who will come to provoke us." The dancer slowly walked in front of Rita and looked at her meaningfully. "Are you right?"
"..." Seen through? Feeling the other party's meaningful gaze, Rita's heart tightened, but on the surface she still put on a distressed expression. She smiled bitterly and shook her head, "What are you talking about? Rita has indeed lost most of her fighting ability now, and my men can't pose any threat to you. You should know these two points better than me."
"Is that so?" The dancer raised her eyebrows, suddenly raised her finger and gently tapped Rita's eyebrows.
A faint halo of light instantly spread from Rita's brows to her entire body.
She subconsciously took a step back, her face slightly changed: "...What did you do to me?"
"Can't you feel it yourself?" The dancer with long flowing hair said with a smile, "I just let you empathize with my perception. Now do you feel an indescribable sense of disharmony in your body?"
Rita quickly felt her body carefully.
Sure enough, just as the long-haired "self" said, after her fingertips touched her forehead, a strange sense of disharmony suddenly surged through her body.
It is difficult to describe what that feeling is. It is not painful or itchy, and it does not have any actual impact on the body. But for some reason, after catching that feeling, a slight feeling of vomiting suddenly emerged from the depths of my throat.
Although there was no change in the environment within the field of vision, everything nearby seemed to be completely covered by a layer of sticky and dirty mucous membrane.
Everything made her feel nauseous for no reason, as if this body had suddenly become allergic to everything in this world and could no longer physiologically tolerate anything in this world.
Chapter 45: Rejection of the World
"Is this the feeling of disharmony you mentioned?" Rita asked softly, suppressing the urge to vomit.
"That's what I'm feeling right now." The dancer with long flowing hair said with a smile, "How about it, don't you feel quite uncomfortable?"
8＠＊6｝7＊4５2ｋ5－0＆｝2＆ｖ1妍,"希,中'转."①':群"!：,8:,3;7"!7,;8!,3".8:,5"'3“您言重了。”丽塔勉强地笑了笑，“虽然的确让人感到有些不舒服，不过，倒也没有不好受到难以忍受的地步。”
"I think so. How could an S-rank Valkyrie of destiny be unable to endure even this slight feeling of depression?"
"..."
Rita always felt that this guy was being sarcastic to her, but she had no evidence, and it was not easy for her to refute him casually under the current circumstances, so she could only reveal a somewhat subtle smile as a response to his words.
"Well, since you've been punished, let's forget about this offense for now." With the crisp sound of high heels hitting the ground, the long-haired dancer and Rita passed by each other. "Mr. Manager, do you have any other instructions for this loser?"
The young store manager looked at the charming face that was staring at him with a smile, opened his mouth, wiped his face, and was silent for a moment: "You have already decided, what else can I say."
Halfway through his speech, his eyes wandered for some reason, and he looked very guilty: "Anyway... just don't bother me because of what happened today in the future."
"How could that be? This is a decision that the two of us Rita Rossweisse agreed on." The long-haired dancer turned her head slightly and looked at Rita, who looked unnatural, with an intriguing look. "Are you right? Vice-captain of the Undying Blade?"
Rita's smile was very forced, but she felt relieved: "You are right. As the one who offended you, if I can be forgiven by just understanding the price you paid, it will be something that Rita should be very grateful for."
Although the smile was quite forced, these words came from the heart.
Based on Tianming's usual style of doing things, if some force suddenly ambushed dozens of front-line combat forces near the base, and Tianming discovered them all, then these people would have almost only one fate.
Compared to the tragic result of total annihilation, this cafe only allowed one to empathize with the price the other party had to pay after using their power, which was already very merciful.
Moreover, judging from their appearance, they were not even planning to keep me here, but were planning to let me go...
...Although she couldn't hide what happened tonight for the cafe due to her duties, if possible, it would be best to find a way to ease the relationship between the cafe and Tianming as much as possible.
"If you have nothing else to do, please allow Rita to leave for now." She bowed gently to the three people at the door of the cafe, then slowly retreated.
"Well, go now." The young store manager waved his hands and suddenly reiterated, "Also, this is your own choice, remember this, and don't bother me in the future!"
"If possible, Rita certainly doesn't want to be an enemy of you all."
"That's not what I meant..." The store manager looked a little depressed, "...Forget it, let's just leave it at that."
"...?"
Although she always felt that the manager's attitude was a bit strange, since he was not going to explain it clearly, Rita, who was anxious to confirm the condition of her team members, did not ask further questions.
