Chapter 597 - 597: Turned Into Gacha?! - 597

Firefly in Honkai Impact 3rd Arc: Begin

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"Sam, this mission is to bring back the Herrscher of the Void. I'm assigning Raven to work with you. If any irreparable complications arise, you are authorized to eliminate the target."

Standing on the balcony as a breeze brushed past, the metallic, synthesized voice of a man still seemed to echo in her ears.

The girl stood inside the apartment, gazing out at the cityscape.

She had long, silver-gray hair, the tips tipped with a vibrant emerald green that seemed to imbue it with life.

Her eyes were a unique, dual-toned gradient—blue on the left and purple on the right—resembling a fusion of the deep ocean and a sunset, shifting in color depending on how the light caught them.

Right now, however, those eyes held a mix of heartache and weariness.

She hadn't expected her identity card this time to link her to World Serpent.

According to the memories provided by the identity card, she had been lost in the Sea of Quanta when Kevin found her.

After a brief skirmish and a conversation, Kevin had softened his stance and pointed the way to Earth for Firefly.

He could have returned to Earth with her, but whether it was because his previous confrontation with Su made him want to give humanity more time to find new possibilities, or because he wanted to keep the Sea of Quanta as his "observation deck"—allowing him to watch the multiverse through world bubbles and hunt for new clues to counter the Honkai—he chose not to return.

Under Kevin's guidance, upon her arrival on Earth, Firefly was quickly found by Gray Serpent and brought into World Serpent, where she began operating as one of their agents.

It seemed he wanted to leave a sense of anticipation and discovery for her. Although she was an agent, she had never undertaken the trials of the Elysian Realm—and the reason was simple.

It wasn't because of Entropy Loss Syndrome. Amber had indeed kept a trace of the condition to stay true to the settings, but it was truly just a trace.

Even if she spent three or four days active in the field using her own body, she only needed to rest in the Sam armor for two days to recover.

It wasn't because she couldn't enter the dreamscape, either, since the Elysian Realm wasn't technically a dream, but rather digitized consciousness.

The only reason she hadn't entered the Elysian Realm was that she lacked a deep understanding and perception of the current civilization, and Kevin felt the timing wasn't right.

Project Stigma executed by World Serpent was a fail-safe for civilization—a plan Kevin loathed but felt forced to carry out.

If there was anyone he hoped might stop the project, he himself was certainly one of the most likely candidates.

Therefore, even though he had recruited Firefly into World Serpent, it didn't mean he wanted her to immediately understand, empathize with, and then dive headlong into Project Stigma.

He wanted her to understand the world first, then make her own judgment.

Whether she ended up opposing or supporting Project Stigma, he would have no complaints.

He felt a certain curiosity toward this girl who, like himself, had lost her home and companions and now had nowhere to return. He wanted to see what choice she would eventually make.

That was the memory provided by the identity card, but the actual timeline in which she had arrived was the period when St. Freya had risen up in rebellion and Kiana Kaslana had gone missing.

Great, forget about building bonds with the main cast; I've practically become a villain...

With a silent sigh, Firefly composed herself.

Although she was indeed a member of World Serpent now, she hadn't been with them for long. Gray Serpent seemed to have received specific instructions from Kevin, as he almost never gave her missions involving the organization's core.

Her work, aside from extermination missions, was always just more extermination—cleaning up Honkai beasts.

Though they called her an agent, she was more of a mercenary than Raven, and she had almost no deep insight into World Serpent.

This mission was the first one that wasn't purely about extermination—though it did have an extermination clause tagged onto the end...

Just then, a series of persistent beeps rang out. Recognizing the source, Firefly took one last look at the scenery below, retreated into the room, and picked up her communicator from the bed.

"This is Raven."

A somewhat lazy female voice drifted from the other side.

Before Firefly could respond, she continued: "There's another little problem that requires your attention."

"...Are the recent Honkai energy leaks caused by World Serpent?" Firefly didn't agree immediately, her tone carrying a suspicion that bordered on certainty.

"Even if I said no, you wouldn't believe me, would you?"

The voice was silent for a moment, then let out a soft laugh: "Don't worry about things that don't concern you, Sam. Unless you can get Gray Serpent to spill the beans, I can't say anything more. If you don't want to go, I'll call someone else."

"...No, I'll go."

Firefly was confident in her own efficiency. Rather than letting someone else handle it, it was better that she do it herself—at least she could ensure the disaster was resolved quickly.

As for the fact that she tended to leave a bigger mess behind than the others—well, that was beside the point.

The successive Honkai energy leaks had forced the city into a state of high alert, with power and water outages occurring in some areas from time to time. These were the windows of opportunity in which Firefly needed to operate.

Without hesitation, the girl took out her Sam transformation device.

It was a piece of silver-white metal with a design resembling insect wings, with emerald green energy veins coursing across their surface. As she activated it, the four wings unfurled, releasing a torrent of burning flames that engulfed her entire body.

Within moments, the flames coalesced into a larger, humanoid shape. When they dissipated, a silver-gray mecha, roughly two meters and thirty centimeters tall, stood in its place.

Stepping onto the balcony, Sam leaped high into the air toward the strong energy signature displayed on the mecha's HUD.

Something... is different this time.

Looking at the energy data before her, Firefly reached that conclusion easily. The fluctuations in Honkai energy were highly unstable and significantly higher in magnitude than usual.

Others might attribute this solely to the number of Honkai beasts, but both Firefly and World Serpent knew what was really going on.

World Serpent knew Kiana had been active in Arc City for the past few days, which was why they had called Firefly in. Sam's sensors were precise enough to isolate individual signatures—one of which was stronger than any Honkai Emperor she had dealt with before—so she could read the situation clearly.

So, this wasn't just a simple cleanup mission; was she supposed to take down Kiana, too?

Realizing this, the seeds of a double agent began to sprout in Firefly's heart.

And when she arrived at the scene from the rooftops, the sight before her confirmed it.

"Haa!"

A massive yellow claw descended from the sky, easily crushing a Chariot-class Honkai beast.

Moments later, several golden lances of the Void pierced the air, pinning a group of Templar-class Honkai beasts firmly to the ground. After a few futile struggles, everything around them fell silent.

Before Firefly could even descend to say anything, the white-haired girl, whose stance had become unsteady, collapsed to the ground.

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T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL