"Sakura!" Elysia shouted without turning her head.
"Understood." Sakura's reply was crisp and clean, without a trace of a trailing sound.
It seemed as though her body moved even before her words left her mouth, melting into the ubiquitous shadows.
The dome behind Elysia dissipated, revealing the shallow pit of the Fuller District littered with the fragmented corpses of Honkai beasts.
Holding her bow, she leaped onto the top of a high-rise building.
She drew back her bowstring, and shot three giant arrows toward Vishnu's back.
From her perspective, Vishnu's position rippled like a suddenly flipped sheet of paper.
In the blink of an eye, it was facing Elysia, its blue tentacles whipping out from its abdomen, effortlessly swallowing the three arrows.
"Honkai energy readings have jumped to 950 HW," Michael's calm voice came through the comms.
"Got it." Elysia twitched her lips.
Overflowing pink crystals enveloping her bow, dyeing her fair cheeks the same color.
The next moment, arrows rained down like a storm.
Vishnu's tentacles became excited.
Under such a dense barrage of arrows, these numerous, thread-like, and chaotic tentacles didn't need any aiming at all.
They just needed to wave gently in the air to grab bundles of arrows and devour them all.
"Honkai energy readings have risen to 1200 HW. Elysia, Vishnu's ability seems to be devouring. You..."
"I know, I know. You don't have to remind me, Kevin."
Indeed, there was no need for reminders. Vishnu's size had already grown to over sixty meters tall within just a few minutes, two or three times its original size.
At this point, its energy levels and size were still similar to Śeṣa's, but judging by the abilities Vishnu had displayed so far, if it continued to devour...
"Aren't we going to stop Elysia?" Kevin glanced at Mei, then at Michael.
Elysia's current, almost blind attack method and frequency could, in a sense, be seen as "feeding" Vishnu.
"She's doing the right thing," Michael said, resting his chin on his hand.
"Our current understanding of Vishnu's abilities is limited to its growth through devouring external objects – but does this ability have a limit? Where do the devoured objects go? There's so much more information we don't know. Besides, it's better to have Elysia control its devouring rate, keeping its Honkai energy readings within a manageable range, rather than letting Vishnu devour freely."
Kevin scratched his head. He suddenly remembered Michael's abrupt question earlier and brought it up again: "So, Michael, what exactly did you mean by the sense of familiarity you feel with Vishnu?"
Michael rubbed the stubble on his chin. "Hmm... the Sea of Quanta. Does that ring a bell?"
Kevin naturally remembered the Sea of Quanta, but he still didn't understand. What connection could there possibly be between the Sea of Quanta and Vishnu?
"Michael, did you discover something using your spatial powers?"
Michael shook his head at Mei. It wasn't his spatial powers, but the vague memory that Kosma, who had fused with Vishnu's factor, had possessed Quantum attributes after his corruption.
"Vishnu is charging towards Elysia."
"So that's it, huh? After feeding it for so long, it wants more?"
Was the Honkai beast's roar out of anger from being constantly attacked, or was it, as Elysia suggested, that after being fed so much, Vishnu now saw her as a highly efficient and massive source of energy and wanted to devour her?
It didn't matter. Elysia chuckled as she watched Vishnu charge towards her, the gust of wind from its charge making her hair fly almost parallel to the ground. But she didn't dodge or evade, only smiled faintly, watching as the distance between her and Vishnu rapidly closed.
Her clenched teeth made a crisp sound. Then, Vishnu, which had been charging towards her aggressively, suddenly stopped.
No, it hadn't stopped, but the space itself had frozen.
Countless flashes of snow-white blade light flickered across Vishnu's body. Then, it, and the space around it, shattered like glass, or like a photo cleanly and randomly sliced by a utility knife, beginning to disintegrate.
"Ah... it's over already? That was a little too easy, wasn't it?" Elysia flipped her hair, sighing triumphantly.
"Don't let your guard down," Sakura suddenly appeared beside Elysia.
Despite saying that, she secretly breathed a sigh of relief when the space in front of them disintegrated along with Vishnu's massive body.
"It's taken care of." This time, she could say it with certainty.
"Wait, Elysia, Sakura, the Honkai energy readings haven't disappeared... be careful!"
With Michael's warning shout, Sakura instinctively used her space-freezing ability again. But this time, before she could inflict any damage, she felt a surge of danger and pulled Elysia towards a nearby building, leaping away.
The building they had just been standing on was instantly pulverized by a burst of azure energy. And the shattered debris wasn't wasted – tentacles followed the burst of energy, sweeping up even the rising dust, pulling everything back.
"How... how is that possible?"
Elysia and Sakura looked in the direction the tentacles had retreated. It was Vishnu, the completely unharmed Vishnu. Aside from the blue light on its body being slightly dimmer, appearing a bit grayish-white, it was no different from before. It was standing exactly where it had been before charging at Elysia, as if it had been standing there all along, never having moved...
Was it... another Vishnu?
Or had it reversed time?
But how could that be possible?
Was it a mental attack?
Elysia and Sakura exchanged glances. It shouldn't be. A mental attack might be able to deceive them, who were present on the battlefield, but it couldn't deceive Michael and the others, who were perceiving the battle through the combat recorder...
It shouldn't be possible.
But clearly, Michael and Mei didn't immediately realize the problem either...
"Elysia, Sakura, engage it for now. Don't let it devour too much."
"Michael, that's a tall order!"
Michael also knew that it was unrealistic, but they undoubtedly needed more time to analyze Vishnu's abilities.
Especially for him – "Impossible. The background lore only mentioned devouring... but maybe, maybe its other abilities are insignificant compared to its infinite devouring ability..."
Lost in his thoughts, Michael felt a gaze fixated on him. He looked up to see Mei's eyes briefly meet his. As if understanding something, he asked, "Mei, can you analyze what just happened with that ability?"
"No," Mei unexpectedly shook her head.
She pushed up her glasses, carefully choosing her words. "Michael, have you read Dr. Mobius's paper on quantum mechanics from when she was younger?"
"Huh?" Michael frowned, not understanding why Mei was bringing up something so unrelated at a time .
But then he felt a little embarrassed – as a warrior, or rather, as a normal person, who would have the time to read such profound physics papers? Even Michael, with his Herrscher of Reason powers, which required him to have a corresponding understanding of the objects he constructed, didn't need to force himself to read such complex literature.
So, Michael indeed...
"I have read it. It was when Mobius was just starting to gain recognition in academia, younger than you were when you attended the academic seminar in Ruruye. It was her first, and only, paper on quantum mechanics. She..."
The more Michael spoke, the more he stammered, his face flushing slightly.
A hint of amusement flickered across Mei's face as she watched him hesitate about whether or not to temporarily close the battlefield comms with Elysia.
Only Kevin was still standing there, bewildered. "Michael, you actually read that kind of paper... wait, don't tell me it's because it was Mobius's pap—Mmmmph!"
A clump of Imaginary Space crystals promptly sealed his mouth.