Honkai Impact 3: Deadwood

"Kiana, are you okay?" The captain did not look back, but asked the girl behind him with concern.

"Captain...? I-I'm fine..."

Kiana, who had just reacted, raised her head and noticed the cut on the captain's shoulder, and her voice immediately became anxious: "Captain! You are not injured, are you!? Shoulder, shoulder! Could it be elsewhere? !?"

Before she finished speaking, Kiana wanted to step forward to confirm the captain's injury, but the captain shook the sword in his hand to indicate that he was fine.

After all, there is almost absolute protection from the "Key to Space", so unless it is a specific situation, the captain himself will not be harmed in any way. The reason why the coat was scratched a little was just because it was not within the necessary protection range of the "Key to Space", and the scratch was actually just an accidental injury caused by the airflow when the clothes were fluttering when he was swinging his sword to defend. So it really is nothing to the captain.

If you really want to blame it, maybe you have to blame yourself for coming up with this trick in the first place...

"But then again, is this what it feels like to be hit by this move... It seems that I understand a little bit how the enemies I met back then felt."

The captain smiled helplessly, and Kiana was relieved when she saw this. However, the captain's act of sacrificing his life to protect Kiana only made Sirin in the distance feel even more angry. And all of this, Kiana, who had been paying attention to Xilin's movements, noticed it.

"Is she...angry? Is it because she didn't succeed? But...I always feel that something is wrong."

Kiana felt a little inconsistent. She could feel that Sirin's unhappy eyes at this moment were not on the captain, but on herself who was being protected by the captain. Although she could understand it, she just felt that something was wrong. .

She didn't know how to describe it. Just like a girl's unique intuition, she felt that Sirin's dissatisfaction with her was not just because the attack just failed, or... the point was not at all.

The captain did not notice this like Kiana did, but he was always alert to Sirin's possible attack at any time. He actually saw it when Kiana interrupted Sirin's sneak attack just now.

Since his Valkyrie has been secretly guarding him, as the captain, he naturally has to do his best to protect Kiana from any harm.

With this thought in mind, the captain stepped forward again and faced off against the puppet at a short distance.

"Hmph, if you don't change your mind, do you really think you can defeat yourself?" Xilin mocked.

The captain did not speak immediately. He lowered his body and took a stance. He spread his feet forward and backward. He raised the sword and placed it horizontally at the height of his shoulder. He pulled the sword back as far as possible while touching the fingertips of his left hand lightly. The blade of the sword slowly stroked towards the tip of the sword. Finally, the slightly slender left hand naturally hovered beside the tip of the sword, and the dark tip of the sword was pointed at the puppet in the distance.

"I'm a little angry too, Siren. I'll show you the next move to end this farce."

"..." Sirin stopped taunting her. Apparently, she sensed the pressure caused by the captain's words. He was not joking.

"Pretend to be me, hurt my important Valkyrie, and most importantly... for your own purposes, deceive a girl's emotions and sincerity, are you ready to pay the price? Impostor!"

"..."

The puppet didn't respond. It just retrieved the stolen memory of the captain's experience and thought about the best way to fight against this man.

It seems that this is undoubtedly the starting movement of the "Absolute Sword Style", which is the blow that just penetrated him easily.

Among the "Sword Styles", the most concentrated single-target destructive power and a killing sword that can absolutely penetrate any defense and protection - the "Absolute Sword Style". Indeed, rather than looking for a chance of victory in a high-speed offensive and defensive battle again, it is better to put all your understanding of combat skills on the line and use one of the strongest sword skills that "Zhi" has mastered for thousands of years to decide this battle. The battle is won or lost.

However, as the "doppelgänger" of the captain who was born from the same memory, he certainly knew that the captain... no, knew what "Zhi" was thinking. The "Absolute Sword Style" was just a carefully designed deception.

The other party's real purpose is to induce him to use the same trick.

After all, once the "Absolute Sword Style" is issued, it is absolutely impossible to use other sword moves to resolve it, so if you don't want to have a transparent hole in your body, you can only use the same move and use all your strength in the confrontation with the "Key of God" power. Consume this sword. But in contrast, during the process of concentrating all the power to activate the "Absolute Sword Style", the "Key of God" cannot simultaneously distribute its energy to protect the user as usual. In other words, a fatal defense gap will be created.

And if you do this, you will completely fall into the trap set by the opponent. The moment both parties activate the "Absolute Sword Style" at the same time, if it is "Zhi", he will definitely change his moves at that moment. , and killed himself before he could successfully thrust out the sword.

Yes, this is right, this should be the tactic that "Zhi" will really use, the tactic that only he can do.

"..."

Therefore, the puppet pretended not to know, and without hesitation pointed the tip of the sword at the captain in the distance, and completed the "Absolute Sword Style" with the same posture. He decided to use the trick and use "Zhi"'s own thoughts to borrow it. This opportunity blows it away.

As several white-purple "Honkai energy square circles" appeared out of thin air, surrounding the sword-holding arms of both parties, the sword bodies of the two "God Keys" were covered in soft purple light.

In the blink of an eye, the cold snow in Kiana and Sirin's eyes disappeared, replaced by a huge lake as clear as a mirror.

"..."

When she saw the scene in front of her, bad memories came to Xilin's mind, making her frown.

It wasn't because she was hit by this move in the consciousness space last time and failed, nor was it just because she had just witnessed this invincible sword again. The scene in front of her also suddenly reminded her of sixteen years ago, when she was above the moon and throwing those giant stone pillars towards the earth, the bright light blade that suddenly came from the earth's atmosphere and spanned hundreds of thousands of kilometers in length.

It was a terrifying sword that she could not understand at all, and even to this day... she still remembers it fresh.

On the other side, Kiana, who was behind the captain, discovered something unusual on this "lake" that she had seen once.

She discovered that only the half of the lake where the captain was standing truly reflected the soft white clouds and blue sky above the lake. Whenever she moved, there would be circles of ripples under her feet that slowly spread out around her. His appearance was also clearly reflected in the water, which made Kiana feel very calm.

But as the ripples expanded and looked into the distance, the lake surface where the puppet was located was very clear, but nothing was reflected. Whether it was white clouds, the sky... or the puppet's own reflection, there was nothing but one. Completely still water.

So Kiana immediately understood why she saw such a scene when the captain launched this move. Because the picture shown here is none other than Zhi's "heart". It is the most authentic display of this gentle and powerful person's own mental scene without concealment.

And how can these counterfeit things, which have no self-awareness and only rely on Zhi's memory to act, show everything that is the same as Zhi?