Chaos Gacha Honkai Chapter 4

***

I practiced this gliding trick before. The constructs I craft from shadow are under my control, so I could force my cape into a glider-like shape without much issue, and then force it to become solid but light.

I’ve had three successful sky-jumping outings in the last two months. It’s been fun when I practiced. Made me feel alive, and woke me up better than caffeine.

Here, it was substantially more nerve-wrecking.

At least I was relatively sure I could survive the fall from this height even if something were to go wrong.

My Shadow Armour spell augmented my basic characteristics, all of them. Reaction speed, strength, stamina, even dexterity and balance. The testing Mobius conducted detected just how weird it was on a biological level; it was a direct infusion of my cell with energy and strength they just shouldn’t have. The process only partially made sense biologically, though Mobius was working hard to discover and understand the parts that didn’t make sense to science yet.

Compared to that, my enhanced agility, the one that was a constant trait, was much more straightforward. I was just built differently on a biological level now. Still human, but a human who was seemingly born with perfect traits to have incredible reaction speed and a more dexterous, agile body.

Incidentally, my training over the last two months made me into a very fit guy, which amplified me even further while wearing this armour.

Aside from that, the strength increases from wearing the armour also grew as I practiced with it, and used more and more mana to shape it.

And my reservoir of mana grew with training.

For all intents and purposes, with enough time and training, I already had an in to eventually reaching the late-shounen tier of physical absurdity. Punching a building into rubble could be possible eventually, at this rate.

My strength in Korea and my strength now were incomparable. It would be like comparing a 10-year-old to a fit adult.


Below me, there was a somber scene. Asahikawa was in flames, but only partially. I could see some monsters moving around; a lot of those bastards were actually flying over the buildings, but most didn’t see my dark shape detaching from the transport and instead chose to pursue the retreating VT-9.

Luckily, it is evening now.

I saw bodies littering the streets, crashed cars, and abandoned items. The fires, I assume, were simply the result of people panicking, leaving stoves on, or maybe spillages from car crashes, and the ensuing monster attacks.

I could control my descent by maneuvering my cape, and I tried to float as far into the city as possible.

Alas, I can never get so lucky.

“Knightmare, report,” My earpiece asked. It wasn’t a voice of anyone I knew, probably one of the operators in the command center.

“Currently descending. I’ll try to advance some distance gliding, but the enemy just detected me,” I said, observing the floating Seraph-class beasts flying towards my position from the ground. A few of its bodies soon decided to follow it. “Securing the landing site, hold.”

With that, I dismissed my cape, dodging the first flying monster that was as big as a human torso, and, with a swing of my sword, cleaving it in half.

Creating monomolecular blades was possible with this world’s technology. The issue, however, was durability. They were insanely brittle when made out of any known material. Any known material aside from one recently discovered metal composite.

With durability not being an issue anymore, this sword was a weapon that could cut any known substance, aside from other proto-adamantium pieces.

I summoned the shadows around me as I started to fall, and, after a second of just plummeting, unfolded the cape once more,

That helped me pass just above the other two beasts. Now dismissing the cape again, I finally fell the remaining distance to the ground, bleeding off momentum with a perfectly timed combat roll, exiting it on my foot, and sliding the remaining few meters on concrete, as my armoured boots sparked from the friction with the pavement.

“All right, this is what I trained for,” I reminded myself, observing how some of the zombies nearby started to move with purpose towards me.

The beasts from before also didn’t seem to forget about me.

Seraph-class wasn’t as impressive as it sounded. They were basically Honkai mooks. M.O.T.H. actually had a few in containment for research purposes, and I was allowed to see the recordings of them, as part of my training.

Mobius actually promised to take me to see one next week, it was in a facility in Europe. Shame that won’t be necessary anymore.

They weren't anything too special. Their bodies looked weird, alien, and not in a 'that's a xenomorph' sort of way, but more in a 'who painted Riftborn from Endless Space purple, and why are they attacking geometrically' sort of way.

Unnatural smooth curves, bodies that had fragments levitating away from the main 'torso', and the ability to conjure Honkai energy into blades across their redundant wings to attack. 

They didn't look like 'beasts'. They looked like invaders from another dimension. 

I bet they were exactly that, too.

The zombies moved with aggressive intent. I knew it from training.

Honkai Zombies were physically stronger, faster, and had better reaction speeds than regular humans, and could use primitive tools, but they weren't bulletproof. Which meant a trained soldier could take one down in the field.

Their movements were distorted, lacking in any thought or intelligence, but with a clear hostile purpose, and some of the muscle memory from the human victims. They didn’t stumble as they walked, for instance, and they could sprint.

One did just so, approaching me first, and all alone. 

When my shield impacted its body, the zombie was catapulted away with enough strength to dent the car door inwards. I heard its bones cracking. It didn't get up.

I also didn’t even put all my strength into that. Just a solid hit. 

I didn't have time to contemplate my first kill or the strange pit that formed in my stomach as I saw its broken body. The dread of the situation ignited my adrenaline, and my body defaulted to the training drilled into me. 

A shield and a longsword, an atrocious choice normally, due to the balance of the longsword, but even medium-level Honkai beasts grew so large that using anything one-handed swords was deemed a waste; it would be like picking them with toothpicks. 

The normal firearms were also useless against anything above low-tier Honkai monsters, so our tactical division quickly figured out that taking firearms to the field was pointless for me.

Sure, recoilless rifles and high explosive worked, but carrying around equipment that large and the ammunition for it was simply not doable when I was deployed alone.

Zombies rushed me with makeshift weapons, some with pieces of lamp poasts, tires, bottles, and one even had a brick in hand. 

They were slow. So slow, I couldn't help but feel relieved. My already superhuman reaction time was augmented additionally by the armour made me simply too quick for them. 

I didn't show off, simply cutting off their heads, sometimes accepting the blows with my shield, and trying to keep an eye on the Seraphs circling above.

Not for nothing, it turned out. 

One of the Seraphs suddenly lunged, purple blades of honkai engulfing its tiny wings, as it tried to ambush me from above, and impale me on its bootleg lightsaber. 

Its body met the shield as I redirected it just enough to cut it in half with my blade. 

Felt like cutting through butter. 

One of the zombies hit me in the back, but, as expected, I barely felt it; it felt like a push in the back. I decapitated it next, with a wide swipe as I turned around, clipping two others. 

In less than a minute, I dispatched the remaining enemies. 

Seraphs could fly, but their only means of attack was rushing me, so it was simply a waiting game that wasn't that difficult. 

For a while, I simply stood there, my hands gripping the shield and the sword far too tightly.

I couldn’t believe that that was it.

But it was.

Slowly, I breathed out, speaking, even as I felt how dry my lips were.

"Command, copy," I glanced around, "Landing secured. I got displaced, I need a direction to the nearest hotspot, over."

"Roger that, Knightmare, hold." The man spoke up a second later, "North-east, about nine hundred meters, the Target Beta is the closest."

I never had a problem orienting myself, and some of the training was about that, too. I took out the compass from the compartment on my belt. 

"Acknowledged, thanks. Signing off," My communicator died down, the earpiece was primitive, so the operator likely just muted themselves.

I glanced towards the north-east. 

I kept my sword and shield in my hands, while I could create a sheath for the sword thanks to its guard and attach the shield to my back, having a weapon in hand was simply safer here.

First, I made a step, then another one; this slowly turned into a jog, then a sprint, and finally, as I accelerated enough, I leaped, twisting in the air to give myself more momentum.

I landed on the roof of the building and continued to sprint.

But even as I traveled, I couldn't really get it out of my head. 

The sheer destruction around. 

In my training, they told me what Honkai hotspots of minor and major outbreaks looked like. They even briefed me on what the consequences of an Eruption looked like. 

It's hell. People will be dead and dying, old, young, men and women, I've seen the footage; it was a mandatory part of my training. In my previous life, I visited Lifeleak a couple of times, and the gore I've been shown during my training was on ‘Chinese factory incident’ level of gore and fucked up. 

I hated that part of training, but even back at HQ I understood. Honkai outbreaks happen in populated areas. This is the type of shit I need to be able to stomach. The only way is exposure. 

I thought I'd be able to focus and function normally, thought it wouldn’t bother me. 

But being here, now?

I felt sick. I tried not to look too carefully at the bodies littering the ground, but even so, I've seen the bodies covered in those geometrically perfect fucking lines, with people who looked like they were trying to claw at their own skin.

And the zombies. The way they move, the fact you could still recognize who they were before this outbreak started, all of it is…

Fuck.

It didn’t feel real. I knew it was, I know this world is as real as my last one, but I felt light in my head just thinking about the sheer scale of the tragedy that happened here.

The worst part is that I know I am lucky. If this were a weaker outbreak, or the base had been closer and I'd been deployed sooner, I would've seen those people still alive, begging for help. 

But there is no help. No cure. Just being in this hotspot… meant all of them were dead men and women walking. 

Maybe one in a ten thousand could survive for a time due to heightened innate Honkai resistance, but those people… by now, they would've been killed by zombies or Honkai Beasts.

Whatever survivors remained, if there were any, were likely holed up somewhere, saving them was also impossible, after all, if Honkai Beasts couldn’t find them in a few hours, I likely wouldn’t either.

Even if I did, saving them might just be… No, I don’t even want to think about that.

"HQ," I spoke up, as I ran across rooftops, my armour actually shielding me from the attention of zombies and low-level beasts below as I advanced, as long as I took care to crouch and not make too much sound, the darkness was my friend, I blended into it perfectly, "Give me a rundown on the situation outside."

So they did. 

There weren't enough boots on the ground right now to really create any sort of quarantine, which meant the beasts were flowing out of Asahikawa and devastating the outskirts pretty much unopposed. 

There were first-response units, most of which were actually supposed to be in the city, but none of them were responding anymore. 

The outbreak happened around three hours ago, so by now, the chance of any civilian or a friendly being in the area was… slim. 

I hated how it made me feel relieved. 

At least it united not only my hands, but the hands of my Russian friends up in the sky, who should be circling the area at a safe distance. 

According to the briefing, the cruise missiles had an effective lethal range of about two hundred meters. I might survive with cover and some luck, but the immediate fifty meters around the detonation was a death zone. 

As for the tactical nuke, on account of wanting me to survive, they were going to use a 1kt payload. This meant a 70-meter-wide fireball, inside of which even steel vaporized, heavy damage within 400 meters, where no normal person will ever survive, and moderate damage for up to 800 meters, with people being concussed and out of commission at best. 

Just thinking about it makes me feel a dark, twisted giddiness.

The Honkai fuckers will get exactly what they deserve. 

I paused. 

A few beasts on the ground noticed me after all. 

As expected, the concentration of the enemy forces grew denser as I advanced, and I wasn't exactly that good with stealth. 

"Your funeral, assholes," I snarled, jumping down into the approaching Seraphs. 

That day, it felt like I truly felt hate for the first time in my life. 

***

“Just rest already,” I whispered tiredly, impaling my sword in the head of a zombie who, even lacking legs, was still trying to crawl towards me.

This girl looked thirteen at the oldest. Even as she did, her eyes stared at me emptily, no hostility, no flicker of recognition.

After the last five skirmishes, killing them didn’t even stir anything. I just felt like shit.

“Knightmare, adjust the course,” The voice in my communicator rang out, “The second hotspot moved, it’s is now directly to your west. Two hundred meters, over.”

“I hear you, over,” I reported back, feeling a bit winded.

Okay, like I was taught, one minute break, then I advance.

I took out a small pocket watch and set the timer.

Walking up to a nearby car, I sat on its hood, for a moment letting my shoulder slump as I closed my eyes.

I reached out to my mana as I usually did when I had the time to sit and do nothing and…

Wait.

There is a new string!

I focused on it and…

Combat precognition… no, not quite. Something a bit more, an ability to foresee danger and almost instinctively avoid it. This… this is spider-senses!

Despite myself, I grinned.

“Oh fuck the hell, yes,” I stood up, grinning.

“Knightmare?” The voice in the earpiece asked, and I waved it off reflexively. Then felt like a dumbass as I realized they don’t exactly have a visual on me.

“Never mind HQ.”

I reached out to the string and pulled.

The chaotic infinite vastness I was connected with wasn’t affected in its totality, being its infinite vast and imposing self… but the string pulled a part of it out… and into me.

It felt like being struck by lightning, but instead of physical impact, heat, or pain, I could feel something in me changing.

My body, just for a moment, felt on fire, as if I had a powerful fever.

I wavered in place before snapping in place and exhaling.

Slowly, I glanced around.

It was the same ruined street, and all the corpses of the beasts were gone. Zombie corpses, however? They were still there. It was the same depressing sight.

However, it felt brighter. Not figuratively, literally. Things were the same but… different. As if the world was a little clearer.

I slowly clenched and unclenched my fist, and even just feeling the tension of my muscles… felt more vivid.

What the hell is this about?

I stiffened.

Gunfire. I can hear gunfire. Somewhere very far away. Barely audible.

“HQ, are there any units near my position? Or someone who went dark around here?” I asked, my voice quiet.

I could feel my heart beating; it was deafeningly loud.

Zombies could wield the rifles if they were soldiers before their transformation. But who were they shooting at?

Survivors? Impossible. Surely impossible. Must be something I don’t understand…

“There were multiple…”

Before I realized it, I moved, jumping onto the nearest building, and giving my all into this sprint. This was the pace that would leave me ragged if I kept at it long enough.

“...Knightamre, what’s wrong? You are moving in the opposite direction to the target!”

…if there were any survivors in this hell, I would do my absolute best to save them.

I wanted to be a hero, right? Not just a hero, a Superhero. All those powers, all this training… this is what it was always for!

“There is gunfire, close. I will investigate and go back on course, over.” I said, out of breath.

Ignoring the communicator, I jumped from one roof to another and finally saw it.

An office building, the main entrance of which had collapsed. Seemingly with something explosive. Someone was shooting from the window at the two Chariot-level beasts and zombies that were trying to breach in.

There wasn’t even a thought in my head to consider my options.

I don’t think I’ve ever moved into combat the way I did at that moment.

There was no hesitation, no thought at all beyond how to reach and kill the closest zombie. A thrusting attack in the back, rotating my grip and tearing the blade out, only to cut horizontally, bisecting this zombie, and the three closest ones.

They started to react, but what followed was me being far too quick for them.

I run past and across, hacking, slashing, thrusting, and bushing with my shield, approaching the first Chariot that had enough intelligence to turn towards me, and raise its stumpy, yet massive frontal appendage.

“Muaaagh!”

The first Honkai Beast to make a sound. It was akin to a roar but… muted, as if coming from underwater.

Firmly planting my legs on the ground even as I moved, I approached it, sliding across the ground, raising the shield, and bracing myself.

The impact must have been powerful. I could visibly see the shockwave spreading across the air in a cone around me, and I heard a boom.

But me? I just felt a strong push. Captain’s shield was amazing like that, a mix of adamantium and vibranium, it blended the characteristics of both. Pure vibranium had an almost supernatural quality of absorbing kinetic energy and just… dissipating it into nothing. Bypassing the conservation of energy.

The vibranium in this shield wasn’t quite as pure, and the effect was much weaker. Instead of almost completely killing the kinetic energy, it just bled it out, weakening it by about seventy percent, according to Mobius.

If I blocked this attack with anything else, it would’ve sent me flying, shield or no shield.

My blade flashed in the air in an arc, cutting off its ‘arm’. Again, there was almost no resistance, like cutting butter with a knife.

I grinned, seeing it recoil.

“Fucking die.” I changed my grip on the shield and struck him with its sharp side, right into its tiny, stupid head.

Danger!

I jumped back, and the place where I just stood was flattened by the second Chariot.

I laughed.

It was a broken, almost hysterical sound.

This was my greatest weakness before; according to my instructors, I had no experience in a fight, so my awareness in battle was terrible, especially against multiple opponents.

But tough shit, you peanut brain, my spider-senses are now ready to tingle any time!

I lowered my shield and the sword, cracking my neck.

Expectedly, both beasts rushed towards me.

This was so simple now. Side-step the swipe of the first, thrust into its center of mass, cut it in two, jump up and over the second, and as I descend, dissect it vertically in two little chariots.

Now for zombies…

Ending them was a matter of swiping my sword enough times.

When I was done, I swiped the blood off with a sharp swing and glanced towards the window above.

A redhead woman was there, with a sizable rifle pointed right at my head. As our eyes met, even though I was looking at her through the shadow helmet, she froze.

Wait, this rifle… isn’t that our field agents' standard issue?

No, she is dressed like a civvie.

“You M.O.T.H.?” I asked anyway, seeing her recoil.

“N-no,” She sounded beyond exhausted and terrified out of her mind.

“She isn’t, but I am,” Another female voice said, from somewhere within the building.

In a moment, I was already past one of the broken windows, earning the startled yelp of the redhead.

Inside… well, this was an office. Quite a few dead zombie bodies are neatly stacked in the corner. Dead M.O.T.H. operatives, too.

However, the knockout-pretty redhead wasn’t the only one who gasped as I appeared inside. And I couldn’t help but notice a pistol pointed right at me.

“Relax, I am Knightmare, Special Operative, M.O.T.H,” I said to the woman lying on a small stack of paper and crumpled blankets.

She looked terrible. Her legs were missing, so was her right arm; only one shaking hand with a standard-issue pistol pointed at me.

“Never… heard of you,” She said, her arm was trembling.

“You probably aren’t cleared to,” I said, glancing around.

There was the redhead, this… lieutenant, judging by the shoulder pads, and a little girl.

My mood, which already wasn’t great, lowered further.

“I am a normal human beneath this armour, but I can’t take my helmet off to prove it. My Honkai resistance is terrible.” I told them both, as I pressed the sword to my belt, and carefully materialized the sheath around it. “Is it just three of you?”

“The three of us are the only ones left.” The woman said, lowering her pistol.

For a brief moment, I considered her.

“Your name and rank, please,” I asked simply.

She hesitated for a brief moment.

“Itsuna, Lieutenant. AH1803.”

I nodded sharply at that.

“HQ, I have three survivors here. One of them is ours, Itsuna, AH1803. Two civilians,” I glanced at the red-headed woman, “One doesn’t show any signs of Honkai contamination. Need instructions, over.”

“Knightmare, received. Stand by.” He probably heard most of it and was clearing things up already.

“You have contact with command?” Itsuna asked weakly. “We weren’t issued satellite phones when we were brought here.”

“You were the first response,” I explain, approaching her and squatting.

I was only taught first aid and… fuck, she looked bad. The blood loss effect alone from amputating all three limbs could be somewhat mitigated by the combat stims M.O.T.H. operatives used, but… she was so pale. And her stumps, even if tornequet-ed, were still bleeding.

She… probably won’t make it, would she?

“Fuck,” I slowly exhaled, closing my eyes for a moment to compose myself. “You… were first response,” I repeated, “I am the strike force.”

Slowly, I turned to the other figure.

I didn’t want to look.

The girl, who was crying and whimpering quietly, she was lying nearby.

She wasn’t any older than nine. She was whispering something in Japanese.

I don’t think she saw me. There was no reaction as I stepped closer and squatted right next to her.

I could see lines across the girl's body.

“She…” I turned around sharply, towards the one who spoke up; it was the red-haired woman. She approached me from behind, and I never noticed.

…makes sense, she wasn’t a danger, so my spider-senses were silent.

“...she went blind an hour ago. Her name is Naru. She said she was in pain at first. Started crying, then screaming and…. and it only got worse.” The woman sounded heartbroken but also just… tired. Exhausted even.

I was silent for a long moment, just not finding any words.

The girl was there, writhing on a blanket specifically and carefully laid down for her, her school uniform dress all messed up, her fists were clenched so tight they were oozing blood.

But it was her face that got to me the most. Pure agony, tears and snot, and not even screams, just… silent, broken whimpers.

The only medical knowledge I had was the first aid… and also my understanding of your average, normal, non-honkai beasts. There were many things in common between humans and smarter animals, psychologically.
And this knowledge and innate understanding told me just how broken she was. I knew it instinctively, in depth, if this was an animal, it would never recover from living through something like this.

But she wasn’t a fucking animal. And… there is no living through this.

“Is there anything you can do?”

The redhead asked, for a brief moment, making me freeze.

I cast my senses towards where I had the strings… nothing. Nothing at all.

Aside from that…

“There is…” I paused before clenching my teeth, “There is no saving from this.” I turned my head slightly towards the woman behind me. “This is the late stage of the Honkai sickness.”

“This… this can’t be right.” The woman denied, shaking her head stubbornly. “Me and Naru were together the whole time, since… since we escaped the school. I am fine, am I not?!”

“I told you, Himeko,” The lieutenant whispered, “There is no cure. If you don’t shoot her, she will just experience more pain before dying.”

This Himeko, I could see her biting her lip, preparing to argue…

“Knightmare, we marked the location of the survivors. Evac will pick them up in ten minutes.” I woodenly stood up. Judging by the redhead’s face, in the silence of the room, she actually heard my earpiece too.

Suddenly, another familiar voice spoke up.

“Lab Rat, stop wasting time. You aren’t there to baby survivors. If you complete the mission a minute earlier, you will save more people than you can realistically find in the city.” Mobius said, her voice, as usual, unconcerned and blasé.

“...fuck you,” I said quietly, shaking my head, turning towards the survivors. “I will try and attract as many beasts to me as I can on my way out. You three, just hold out for the next ten minutes.” I begged.

Himeko nodded resolutely.

“I will protect them.”

Judging by how she is dressed, and what she said… she was a school teacher, huh?

The lieutenant barked out a laugh at that.

“She really would…” The woman whispered, staring at the ceiling. “That one… is a firestorm…”

…I didn’t have any medical supplies to share. No combat stims, nothing. Because in an area as saturated with Honkai as here, if something actually punctured my armour and reached flesh? I am as good as dead anyway. No point carrying around unnecessary weight, I was told.

“I am sorry I can’t do more,” I said quietly, as I headed towards the window. “If you see rockets falling, don’t look directly at them. You will go blind.”

This was my last advice before I took off, jumping on the road beneath, and starting up my mad rush across the streets.

---
Author’s Notes: Okay, gents, this isn’t a cliffhanger; I am writing what happens next right now. I just wanted to post that, seeing that this is practically a complete piece while I work.