The entire Hyperion battleship seemed to be holding its breath.
Two warriors faced each other in a moment that stretched into eternity. Yumeji Simulation, an entity that existed solely through lines of code and rigid simulations, stood before Kiana, a being of flesh and blood—yet one who possessed the power to bend reality itself.
They exchanged no words. None were needed.
This was no longer a simple training session, nor just another experiment.
This moment—this battle—was everything.
There was no escape. No backup plan. Only one decisive strike to determine the victor.
Yumeji Simulation's gaze remained cold and steadfast, but deep within, something flickered—a spark, a flame of defiance. He may have been nothing more than a programmed construct meant for combat, but in this moment, he wanted to exist.
("If I'm just an NPC, then at the very least, I must play my role to the end.")
—And so, he moved.
BOOM!
A vortex of flames erupted from his palm, rapidly spreading and engulfing the wind style blade of Xuan Yuan. The silver blade absorbed the intense heat, compressing it within, while releasing countless embers that flickered like falling stars in the night sky.
Then—
FLASH!
The sword ignited, glowing in hues of sunset orange—a radiant light that only appeared in the fleeting moments between day and night. A sign of an ending… or perhaps, a beginning.
Yumeji Simulation lowered his stance, gripping the hilt firmly, positioning his sword at his waist—a defensive stance.
On the other side, Kiana had completed her own preparations.
She did not wield a divine sword.
She did not hold a legendary spear.
What she had—was a simple metal baseball bat.
But in her hands, it was no ordinary weapon.
She infused it with electromagnetic energy, causing the entire bat to be enveloped in a brilliant Honkai-powered glow. A purple-blue radiance surged, like a raging electromagnetic storm trapped within her grasp.
But that alone wasn't enough.
She continued compressing energy, forcing it into every molecule of metal along the bat's surface, layering yet another tier of power onto it.
Zzzzzzt!!
Electric sparks violently scattered. The air around her began to distort, warped by the overwhelming energy saturation. A series of high-pitched "beep-beep" alerts rang out, warning that the power levels had long surpassed the safe limit.
Kiana smirked, spinning the bat once before lowering her stance, resting it on her shoulder, preparing to swing—one final swing capable of obliterating everything.
The battle had reached its climax.
No words were exchanged.
None were necessary.
They simply locked eyes—
—Then both lunged forward!
BOOM!!!
Yumeji Simulation burst forth.
The air around him shattered under the sheer force of his acceleration, creating spiraling heat vortices in his wake. The sword in his grasp burned, a miniature sun aimed straight at his opponent.
Kiana did not hesitate.
She channeled all her strength, swinging the bat in a downward arc.
Electric light flared. The air ionized at an extreme rate, generating streaks of plasma-blue lightning crisscrossing wildly—a storm straight out of hell.
Their weapons clashed.
—And at that moment—
THE WORLD SHATTERED.
KABOOOOOOM!!!
A colossal explosion erupted.
The entire Hyperion battleship trembled violently.
The force of the impact was nothing short of an astronomical phenomenon—like two meteorites colliding at speeds beyond the limits of light.
The heat levels spiked past 3200 Kelvin.
The electromagnetic discharge was so intense that all radio signals within a 2km radius were completely annihilated.
In the command center, Theresa shuddered as she watched the unfolding scene through the monitors.
There was nothing but blinding white light.
Nothing but the deafening roar of destruction, as if the universe itself was collapsing.
At the heart of the explosion—
Two weapons remained locked against each other.
Neither combatant yielded.
Sparks erupted violently, attempting to tear apart reality itself, the space around them distorting so severely that fractures in the fabric of time and space became momentarily visible.
—This was no longer an ordinary battle.
—This was a clash of wills and absolute power.
No one knew who would be the last one standing.
No one knew if anyone would still be standing after this strike.
There was only one undeniable truth:
This collision would decide everything.
****
—BOOOOOMMMMMM!!!
A massive shockwave tore through space, shaking the entire training room as if the world itself was on the verge of collapse.
Two weapons clashed. Fire and lightning—two forces that seemed similar yet were fundamentally opposed—collided with an intensity beyond limits. The impact sent out an expanding shockwave, sweeping through the surroundings like a primordial storm of energy.
Before Kiana and the simulated Yumeji, reality seemed to distort. The space around the impact cracked like glass, revealing something indescribable—an abyss so deep that even light itself was swallowed and twisted as if it could not exist there.
The pressure from the clash crushed the air, making every molecule in the atmosphere vibrate violently. The entire Hyperion battleship trembled as if a massive meteorite had just struck it. Alarm sirens blared, the gravity stabilization system working at full capacity but still unable to neutralize the overwhelming force of this cataclysmic conflict.
At the center of it all, the two warriors remained locked in struggle, their weapons pressing against each other.
Flames roared—the fiery red-orange blaze of the wind style Xuan Yuan sword howled, seemingly consuming the very space around it. Waves of heat radiated outward, twisting into a fiery vortex that devoured fragments of shattered reality.
Electricity crackled—violet-blue lightning surged along Kiana's baseball bat, hissing like a thousand frenzied serpents. The accumulated electric charge reached a critical level, arcs of energy wildly leaping in all directions, destroying anything they touched.
The simulated Yumeji gritted his teeth, every muscle in his body straining to the absolute limit. His right arm trembled under the weight of the flames, but his gaze remained as sharp as a blade.
He could not step back.
If this was to be his final moment, then he would burn out gloriously with this fire.
Kiana clenched her lips tightly, feeling the pressure of the opposing flames bearing down on her like a mountain. But instead of retreating, she advanced. Inside her, every cell seemed to tremble, the Honkai energy within her surging more fiercely than ever.
She was not allowed to lose. She could not fail when she was only a single step away from victory.
—And then, they exploded.
BOOOOOOOMMMM!!
At that moment, time itself seemed to stretch to its limit.
The training room could no longer endure. The ceiling cracked, concrete walls crumbled, and the floor fractured as if a catastrophic earthquake had just struck.
BAAAAMMMM!!!
The next explosion consumed the entire chamber in a storm of fire and lightning. A massive pillar of light pierced the sky, rising like an uncontrollable tempest of energy.
From the control room, Theresa's mouth hung open in shock. Every screen was completely distorted, flickering uncontrollably with alarm signals blaring repeatedly, indicating energy levels far beyond their limits.
—This was no longer a battle.
—This was a disaster unfolding in the heart of Hyperion.
At the eye of the storm, the simulated Yumeji and Kiana refused to back down.
The ground beneath them collapsed. The air twisted into small tornadoes, howling like furious spirits. The pressure from their clash crushed space itself, creating fractures that stretched into infinity.
Then, in the next instant—
BAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!
One final explosion erupted.
This shockwave expanded in all directions, sweeping away everything within its range. The entire Hyperion battleship shook violently, emergency sirens shrieking, sparks flying from control panels along the walls.
The light from the explosion was so intense that it tore through darkness, overshadowing everything for what felt like an eternity.
—And then, everything fell silent.
No one knew, as the light faded, who would still be standing in the end.
....
At the heart of the cataclysm, where the flaming sword and electrified bat clashed, their combined power reached such extremes that the surrounding space twisted and warped, unable to withstand the sheer pressure of their struggle. Embers and lightning intertwined, bursting into dazzling streaks of light like fireworks exploding across a midnight sky.
Crack.
A dry sound echoed amidst the roaring wind and blazing light. At first, it was a tiny fracture, so subtle that it was barely noticeable. But then, as if provoked by the overwhelming pressure, the crack spread at an alarming rate, running along the length of both weapons like a spiderweb overtaking glass.
And then—
SHATTER!!
A sharp, piercing sound tore through the air. Both Wind style Xuanyuan sword and Kiana's baseball bat shattered simultaneously, their fragments swept into the chaotic energy vortex, reduced to nothing but ash the moment they left the point of impact. Yet even so, neither of them stopped.
No weapons?
Then use fists.
There were no longer swords or baseball bats to fight with, so neither of them hesitated as they lunged at each other.
Every muscle in their bodies tensed like beasts preparing to unleash their final strike.
Yumeji Mimic, with his fists scorched by heat, leaped up, ready to deliver a downward punch.
Kiana, with her arms trembling from the electricity crackling around them, clenched her hand tightly, spun to gain momentum from her jump, and swung her fist like a heavy hammer.
Both fists—one burned and seared, the other twitching and smoking from electric shock—collided in mid-air, just centimeters apart. If Yumeji had the advantage in reach, then Kiana had reflexes.
She tilted her head at the last second, dodging the oncoming punch traveling at extreme speed, letting it graze past her lips, leaving behind a fiery red cut like the mark of flames. But she didn't let the opportunity slip away—her other hand shot forward, grabbing onto Yumeji's collar.
Crackle!
A precise, controlled electric jolt coursed into Yumeji's body, making his muscles involuntarily contract for a split second.
One instant—just a fraction of time—but that was all Kiana needed.
Using the electric current as a pivot, she twisted in mid-air and kicked off, propelling herself backward. But it wasn't over yet. In the blink of an eye, she used Hyoui-Ryoku to create traction in thin air, and as her acceleration spiked, the force of her steps produced a dry sonic boom.
Crackle!
This time, there was no escape.
Amidst the fiery embers and rampaging bolts of lightning, Kiana shot forward like a cannonball, her fist descending from above, piercing through the blinding light, aiming straight for Yumeji Mimic's face.
BAM!!
No dramatic send-offs. No exaggerated cinematic effects. No one was sent flying hundreds of meters like in typical supernatural battles.
It was simply a punch—one so powerful that it dragged Yumeji's entire body along with it.
His figure was driven straight into the ground like a meteor in freefall, slamming into the floor with a deep, resonant crash, sending up a massive plume of dust. The light from the previous explosion had yet to fade, but at its very center, there was now a gaping crater—the remnants of a fierce and relentless battle.
***
Everything afterward felt unbearably heavy.
A strange sensation clung to Yumeji Mimic. It wasn't searing pain. It wasn't overwhelming fear.
It was drowning.
He felt as though he couldn't breathe.
There was no water. No currents. No vast ocean engulfing him. Yet his lungs still contracted as if being submerged.
Air—or what he once thought was air—had suddenly turned thick, dense, and frigid. It seeped into his flesh, into every digital cell, tightening around his throat, creeping deep inside him, preventing even a single breath.
He was drowning.
But where was the water?
There was only the empty trial chamber, where Kiana stood amidst the dim light, her blue eyes still flickering with the echoes of battle. He looked at her—then down at his own trembling hands.
They weren't shaking from fear.
But from understanding.
He had always known this moment would come. From the instant he first spoke, from the moment he raised his sword against Kiana, he had understood: When this battle ended, he would disappear.
Like a ripple swallowed by the infinite ocean. Like fragile seafoam breaking apart, dissolving into the tide.
And yet, the sensation was still too real.
The suffocation.
The silent panic crawling beneath his skin, invisible but undeniable.
It felt as if every part of him was being pulled away, dragged into a bottomless abyss where no light could reach. Down there, everything blurred, every memory of who he was slipping further and further away.
The thoughts were distorted, the lines of code became fragmented, and the pieces of him gradually dissolved into the void.
He wanted to raise his hand, to cling to something, to break through the surface of this nonexistent water—but he knew well that it was useless. He was merely a simulation, a simple NPC, a piece of data that had reached its expiration.
No one would save him.
No one would bother holding on to a tool that had lost its value.
But…
It was okay.
How ironic.
Shouldn't he be panicking more?
Shouldn't he be filled with rage, screaming, "I wasn't born to be trampled on and used for entertainment!!"?
Shouldn't he be desperately clinging to the hope of survival?
But no—the only thing he felt was a strange sense of peace.
Kiana had grown so much stronger.
Truly, so much stronger.
He looked at her—the foolish girl who had defeated him—and couldn't help but laugh. Of course, only in his mind, because even the act of laughing was beyond his ability now.
If this was the reason for his creation… if this was his role… then perhaps, in this brief existence, he had never fulfilled it better than now.
His back ached, his body was bruised, every fiber of his being contracted from the sheer force of the impact. The irony was that, despite being just a simulated data entity, he could feel pain as vividly as any real person. He could feel the weight of his breath, the growing blur in his vision. Like a real human. Like a warrior stepping out of a long battle—exhausted, but content.
His role ended here.
No tragedy. No regrets.
Kiana had won. And Yumeji Simulation—a mere NPC created for her trial—had completed his mission.
A little wistfulness? Perhaps.
But it didn't matter.
The next time Kiana returned to this room, another Yumeji Simulation would be waiting for her. Another Yumeji, but not him.
He wanted to say something. A tease, a farewell, or simply a word of gratitude. But there was no time left.
The last fragments of his data shattered, like droplets of water swept away by the wind.
Yumeji Simulation closed his eyes.
He was sinking.
****
Or at least, that was how it should have ended.
He should have disappeared.
Everything should have been over.
When he opened his eyes again, the first thing he should have felt was the infinite emptiness—the void where every trace of him had been erased, where not a single notion of an existence named "Yumeji Simulation" remained.
But no.
What he saw when he opened his eyes was not a vast void or an eternal void.
It was still the ruined testing room, the remains of the long battle between him and Kiana.
His breath was still there.
His hands could still feel the warmth of the surface where he lay.
And, most importantly—he was still "conscious".
Why?
Shouldn't he have been erased by the server after he had fulfilled his role? Was he stuck between the boundary of existence and nothingness, becoming an obsolete remnant? Or had something—or someone—decided to pull him back from the brink of annihilation?
A series of questions rushed in like a storm, sweeping away all the scattered thoughts in his head. Uncertainty, doubt, confusion… Everything swirled like a giant vortex, drowning him in a vague, hopeless state.
He barely noticed his current situation—he was lying with his back against something. No, not something.
It was someone's back.
"Huh?"
He tilted his head slightly, his gaze sweeping over the dust still floating in the air. And then he saw it—long white hair, shining a faint silver under the cold light of the room.
There was only one person here with that hair.
"Huh, huh?"
Immediately, a sarcastic voice rang out from in front of him:
"What's this? Don't tell me I beat you to a pulp."
That voice.
High-pitched, confident, filled with a hint of mockery.
It was definitely Kiana's voice.
"H-how?" He struggled to move his lips, still unable to believe what was happening.
"Ha! How? You're really asking me that?"
She raised her eyebrows, her blue-gray eyes flashing with amusement and annoyance.
"That troublesome, brain-wrenching matter, don't ask this young lady. If you want to know, ask that person up there."
"Who are you calling 'that person up there', Kiana?"
Another voice cut in—clearer, more serious, but unable to hide the gentleness hidden behind each syllable.
Theresa.
She was sitting in the control room, her sharp eyes following every movement in the room.
"I've backed up your data."
A simple sentence, not long-winded, not flowery. But to the simulated Yumeji, it carried an unbelievable weight.
He still existed, just because of that simple decision?
But why?
What value does a simulation like you have? You're just a data file, a tool that can be used and then thrown away. Why would they bother keeping you?
"Why?"
He asked, but Theresa remained silent.
The one who answered was Kiana.
"Ha! You're asking such a stupid question again, you damn sadist?"
She crossed her arms, raising her eyebrows at him as if he had just asked something so obvious that it wasn't worth questioning.
"Why? How much trouble do you think you've caused me!?"
She gritted her teeth, pointing her finger at his forehead.
"You owe me a debt! In the past 8 rounds, I've only won once against you, and the rest of the time you've beaten me to a pulp. When I get my money back from you, I won't let you die in peace!"
The simulation Yumeji was slightly stunned.
Then he started to tremble.
Not because of fear.
But because he was trying to hold back his laughter.
"What are you laughing at!?"
Kiana glared at him, her eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.
"No~ It's nothing!! He he he~~"
Yumeji replied in a light tone, imitating him, while thinking to herself:
(My lady is a typical Tsundere.)
"Aaahhh!! Seriously! You and that real bastard who's in the hospital right now are exactly the same!"
Kiana scratched her head in frustration.
"You two are both nuisances that are surrounding this young lady's good life!! A nuisance that I can't clean up! It really pisses me off!!"
A relationship that was troublesome but that I couldn't bear to cut off.
Although it was troublesome and annoying, it also had a weight in her heart, enough that she couldn't carelessly throw it away like trash.
Annoying but not rejecting.
Annoying but not blameworthy.
Hateful but not worth throwing away.
Troublesome but seemingly important.
Like an indispensable part of daily life—no matter how bad, annoying, or annoying, it had such a weight that it was harder to completely cut off than a love affair.
People called that relationship...
Friendship.
*****
Among the most annoying things in the world, there must be a guy who grins like the world was created just for him to make fun of. And the simulated Yumeji—true to his nature—was performing a perfect performance of that genre.
Having been knocked flat on the ground by Kiana, who had suddenly stood up without mercy, simulated Yumeji took the opportunity to lie down with his arms spread out.
He then began to mumble in a discontented manner, emphasizing his extreme suffering in a manner that couldn't be more slapped.
It seemed that knowing that he wouldn't disappear had caused simulated Yumeji to revert back to the annoying personality he had originally set up.
Alas, just a few minutes ago, he had been immersed in a nihilistic existence, accepting his end like someone who had lived too long with a fear of water and was trapped in an invisible ocean. Yet now, his tragic demeanor had evaporated completely, revealing his true face: A mocking, sadistic, spiteful, muddy, and—living man.
"Oh? My lady, where are you going?"
Yumeji simulated a smirk, his hands still spread out on the ground as if he were waiting for an angel to come and pull him up (though everyone knew that if there really was an angel, that angel would beat him up first).
"The trial isn't over yet."
"Huh?"
Kiana—the girl who had defeated him, now thinking of leaving to go back to the dormitory, not to mention whether she was sleepy or not, her stomach was growling—she was walking when she paused slightly at that statement.
Theresa, who never missed an opportunity to poke fun at others, quickly interjected:
"That's right, Kiana. You have eight opponents to train with, after Yumeji, there are still seven more."
However, Yumeji mimicked—still in the posture of someone who had just been thrown out onto the street—and grinned broadly as she corrected Theresa:
"No, principal. There's only one left."
Theresa frowned and replied:
"What the hell are you talking about? It should be seven."
"No, just one." He shook his head, his face showing a strange excitement.
"There's only Last Boss left."
Theresa was slightly startled. And it seemed like she realized something.
She quickly checked the list of opponents in the control room, and when she saw that it was unusually empty, her face paled.
"Did I…?!"
Seeing Theresa's reaction, Yumeji simulated a slight shrug, her mouth still holding the same hateful grin.
"Yes, you got it right, Principal. I defeated them all."
"…When?"
"When? It was when I gave Kiana a break after each Round."
"…Why did you do that?"
"Why?" Yumeji simulated a wink, just like a villain in a B-movie.
"Maybe it's because of my fun-loving and selfish nature. The one who should take care of Kiana (totally beat her up) should be me, right~ But it's a bit sad, the last person is really troublesome, and I'm not capable enough to defeat him. Besides, he also has a very special relationship with that troublesome lady, so I let it go."
Kiana, who had been buzzing in her head because she didn't understand what the hell was going on, turned her head slightly when she saw the trapdoor behind her slowly open.
A figure quietly walked out from the darkness.
That person was tall with a sturdy body, white hair lazily tied behind his head.
A man with blue eyes exactly like Kiana.
Yumeji laughed in imitation, just like a narrator who had just introduced a great play.
"Rejoice, my lady~ Because the person you are facing is the Last Boss of this trial…"
The figure gradually stepped into the light.
Yumeji continued, with an unconcealable delight:
"That person is the head of the Kaslana household and my lady's father… Siegfried Kaslana."
Kiana opened her eyes wide.
The man standing before her now—
Is her father.
Is the Last Boss.
Is the most formidable opponent she will face in this trial.
The person standing opposite Kiana now, is Siegfried Kaslana.
Or more accurately… his simulation.