"Cheche."
"I'm heading out first."
Lu Xing stood up from the head of the Variant Chariot-class.
To be honest, if someone had handed him an oversized, wide-brimmed bowl and poured him half a bottle of sake, he would have perfectly embodied the archetype of a "Big Sis" gang leader.
"G-Goodbye."
The Chariot-class's massive body remained perfectly still.
Its translated voice, however, sounded somewhat stuttered—"Cheche" was apparently unaccustomed to communicating with other Honkai Beasts via telepathy.
When Lu Xing heard the "Again..." part of "Goodbye" (再见 - zàijiàn, where 再 can mean "again"), he initially thought "Cheche" was preparing to fight him again.
Compared to its subordinates, Lu Xing's combat strength was clearly superior and better able to satisfy its battlelust.
The Lv.51 Chariot-class, possessing a triple affix, was exceedingly powerful.
The battles between it and Lu Xing, even if merely simple sparring sessions, provided far more experience than life-and-death struggles against other opponents.
Truth be told.
At his current stage, even if Lu Xing went all out, he was absolutely no match for "Cheche":
[Frost's Lament] dealt only half damage to Honkai Beasts, which meant that during combat, Lu Xing could only rely on the [Plasma Lance] to launch attacks.
With his current attack power, even using [Dash] and [Power Strike] simultaneously, he could barely manage to gouge a dent into the Chariot-class's hide.
[Ballista] and [Honkai Lance Projection] couldn't even polish its armor.
Without using [Frost's Lament], Lu Xing had yet to master any kind of "elemental" skill, and [Power Strike], being purely physical damage...
...would be reflected by the Chariot-class's unique high-tier ability, "Thorns."
[Physical Reflection: When taking pure physical damage, reflects 2x that damage to the damage source.]
As for the skills unleashed by the Chariot-class...
Although Lu Xing held a firm advantage in speed, even being grazed by the aftershocks of its abilities was definitely an unpleasant experience.
The mission progress on the Honkai Beast side was nearly complete.
Lu Xing didn't linger with "Cheche"—he was concerned that its fighting spirit, which had just been somewhat quelled after their recent bout, might flare up again from watching other battles.
"Again..."
"?"
"Come play together again."
Lu Xing leaped down from the skyscraper-like body of the Chariot-class, and just as it finished its farewell, it added another sentence.
"...If you have time."
————
Lu Xing departed from the "arena."
He also dismissed his Knight-class subordinates—their numbers having dwindled to less than fifty, they were free to do whatever they pleased.
Honkai Beasts had their respective territorial divisions.
However, this was merely a habitual behavior stemming from their attachment to a leader—they would follow and guard the vicinity of a [Legion Leader]. It was only because the current three leaders were all [Variant] types that they had been assigned separate territories to avoid conflict.
Although the Knight-class occupied the smallest area, given their current numbers, it could be described as vast—Lu Xing roughly "measured" the area of this underground space; it likely didn't exceed 100 square kilometers.
The data wasn't entirely accurate.
But considering it was measured solely by foot, having a figure at all was quite impressive.
Lu Xing arrived near a Honkai Fissure—not the colossal one where the Ice Emperor resided, which pierced straight into the clouds, but one of the smaller fissures, no more than 10 meters in length, that appeared in various locations throughout the underground space.
The existence of these fissures wasn't independent.
If one had to use an analogy... if the large fissure was likened to a hole smashed in glass (representing space) by a baseball, then these smaller fissures were like fragments of glass that had broken off further along inconspicuous cracks, shattering elsewhere.
It was something like that.
There weren't many such small fissures, and they were mostly occupied by powerful Honkai Beasts—although the Honkai energy concentration in the entire underground space was high, the level of enjoyment from staying near a fissure was far beyond what other areas could offer.
Lu Xing was uninjured.
His internal Honkai energy reserves had long since reached overflowing levels—the horns on his forehead were already shining brilliantly, like LED lights.
He was currently... examining the random mission he had acquired not long ago:
————
Mission: Being Clamped
Reward: Constitution +1, Item [Knight Lance] (crossed out) [Plasma Lance] Grade +1.
————
This was a random mission obtained after leveling up.
Its style maintained a high degree of consistency with the previous two—its idiosyncratic nature hadn't changed in the slightest despite the system's bug fixes.
It was as if it were actively goading, "Hurry up and roast me."
And from the description, it was clear.
This mission was, as always, deceptively simple.
Random missions themselves lacked detailed hints, but from the "Being Stepped On" mission that had yielded the [Knight Lance], Lu Xing had already gleaned quite a few clues.
To put it simply.
Lu Xing felt that random missions were, in essence, testing his X.P.
If the main story missions were "inviting" him to advance unswervingly down the path of cold-bloodedness.
Then random missions were like using X.P. to stimulate imaginative recollections of beautiful past experiences, thereby leashing the desires that yearned to run wild within his heart.
Lu Xing couldn't quite tell if it was merely an illusion.
In any case, every time a random mission was triggered, this feeling would linger in his mind, refusing to dissipate.
Fortunately, Lu Xing's heart was resilient enough.
Right now...
Enjoying the present moment was what mattered most!
"Thump! Thump!"
His right hand clenched into a fist.
Lu Xing lightly tapped his own chest twice.
The solid texture, the unyielding feedback, the heavy sound—all three unequivocally demonstrated the reliability of his frontal armor.
Human infantry weapons.
They couldn't even polish his breastplate.
Even if a 50-ton main battle tank fired an "armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot" round, whether it could penetrate was an unknown—and even if it could breach his defense, it would require a fire control system with precision high enough to lock onto Lu Xing.
Regarding the evocative word "clamp," Lu Xing had many ideas—considering this barren wasteland contained only Honkai Beasts and not a single usable item, the feasible options were instantly compressed to a mere two.
Currently.
The first option had become an extravagant hope... Lu Xing felt a slight pang of regret. If he had brought the girl who had become his Servant into this place, perhaps things would have become simpler.
But then, on second thought.
He wasn't sure if "Pseudo-Deadmen" actually needed to eat to survive. What if they couldn't live just by "swallowing clouds and exhaling mist" like Honkai Beasts... it seemed there wasn't much to regret after all.
"Wheeeew—!"
A sharp, long whistle echoed.
He still had a long way to go before mastering speech, but as a substitute for "roaring," the trained Lu Xing could already produce a rather decent whistle.
Lu Xing's Honkai energy was embedded in the spreading sound.
In less than half a minute.
One of the Magic Knights, its hooves clopping crisply, swiftly approached its leader.
————