Free Web NovelChapter 255: It Has Been a Long Time, Grandmaster Jingwei
"What shall our next move be?"
Within the desert-themed Palace, Rita deliberately radiated a chilling aura. She kept the ambient temperature comfortably cool, ensuring the Phantom Thieves wouldn’t be sapped of their stamina and hydration under the scorching, unrelenting sun.
"This is Rita’s first time stepping into a domain like the Metaverse. Whatever you require, I am entirely at your disposal, Lord Ren."
If she wanted to return to the real world, hitching a ride with Ren was her only option. The sharp-witted maid naturally wasn’t going to try any foolish tricks. Unconditionally cooperating with him was her best play.
"Let’s scout the Palace’s layout first," Ren ordered, addressing the sensory specialists of the team. "Hare, Fu Hua, Bronya—I leave the reconnaissance to you."
"I’ll do my best," Fu Hua replied with a solemn nod.
The gray-haired martial artist gently closed her eyes. Ethereal, crimson feathers silently materialized. They drifted in the air around her, pulsing with a soft, rhythmic glow like a heartbeat.
At the same time, Hare and Bronya deployed their own methods to map out the Palace’s topography.
"Biological signatures detected," Fu Hua reported, her brow furrowing slightly before Hare or Bronya could even process their own readings. "Enemies are approaching our position. Roughly forty in number."
"Really? I don’t see anything," Kiana mumbled.
She carefully poked at the crimson feathers floating around Fu Hua. Her pale index finger passed right through the glowing illusions, feeling absolutely nothing.
Retracting her hand, Kiana peered into the distant horizon. She saw zero signs of the enemies Fu Hua mentioned, leaving her looking thoroughly confused.
"Idiot Kiana. Relying on your naked eyes is far too slow," Bronya deadpanned.
She peeled her gaze away from the cascading data streams on her holographic screens.
"Fu Hua’s reconnaissance is accurate. Enemies are closing in on us, though it doesn’t seem like an ambush. They’re likely just Shadow patrollers passing through. Joker, should we avoid them?"
"No, we’ll intercept," Ren decided without a second thought. "Engaging them will give us a good look at the enemy types here, which will help us deduce the Palace Ruler’s underlying cognition."
Aside from gathering intel on the Palace Ruler’s psyche, Ren had another motive. He wanted to use these Shadows as a whetstone to force Kiana into awakening her Persona.
Given her status as the Herrscher of the Void’s vessel, Kiana might theoretically meet the requirements to use the Keys of the Void pistols.
But there was a catch.
While the Keys could function as a Persona summoner, they weren’t like standard Evokers—they were still highly lethal firearms. If Kiana didn’t actually meet the threshold and pulled the trigger on herself, she’d just blow her own brains out.
Because of that risk, Ren had allocated the Keys of the Void to Seele for this operation.
As for Kiana? No shortcuts. She’d have to ignite her own spirit of rebellion and awaken her Persona the old-fashioned way.
"Oh! Oh! Something really is coming!!" Kiana’s blue eyes widened.
Following Fu Hua’s designated direction, a swarm of black dots was rapidly closing the distance, kicking up a massive sandstorm in their wake.
As they drew nearer, Kiana finally made out their true forms.
"Are those... people riding horses?!"
She stared at the mounted bandits dressed in rough burlap, brandishing curved scimitars, and wearing wickedly malicious grins.
"Didn’t you say this was another world? Why are there humans here? And there’s way more of them than us!!"
Kiana was dumbfounded. She thought seven people entering the Metaverse at once was already a crowd. She hadn’t expected to instantly run into a gang that outnumbered them five-to-one.
"They aren’t human. They’re just Shadows wearing a human disguise," Ren explained to the Metaverse rookie.
Then, his tone turned stern.
"You don’t need to feel any psychological burden about taking them out. Kiana. You’re going to defeat them."
"Huh? Me?!"
Kiana blinked vacantly, pointing a finger at herself as if doubting her own ears.
Sure, she was confident in her combat skills. If it were four or five armed thugs, she could take them all down without a scratch.
But this wasn’t four or five—it was forty or fifty! She had to fight forty men and their horses!
And if what Ren said was true, these weren’t ordinary humans, meaning they were far more dangerous than they looked.
For a complete beginner, wasn’t this difficulty spike a little absurd?!
"I-I don’t get it! That’s way too dangerous!"
"There’s no need to be overly afraid. We’ll be watching from the sidelines," Ren assured her. "If you’re truly in lethal danger, I will obviously step in."
He smoothly pivoted to the core requirement of her training.
"Facing the threat of death to ignite the rebellious will in your heart—that is the secret to awakening your Persona."
Seeing the cold sweat beading on her forehead and her obvious hesitation, Ren delivered the final, merciless push.
"If you don’t use them to awaken your Persona now, your only other option is to solo an Elite Shadow, or even the Palace Ruler itself."
"T-The Palace Ruler?! I’d have to solo the final boss?!"
Kiana’s adorable face twisted in horror.
She must have imagined something truly gruesome, because her "refined lady" facade shattered instantly, revealing her true, battle-idiot nature.
"I get it, Boss! Leave these small fries to the great Kiana! Ahahaha!!"
Laughing with a mix of bravado and sheer panic, she practically scrambled forward to meet the charging horde.
BANG! BANG!
Bullets condensed from pure Honkai energy roared from the muzzles of her dual black pistols.
Even though Ren had explicitly told her these bandits were just Shadows, human habit kicked in. Instead of aiming for the riders, Kiana instinctively fired at the horses beneath them.
The powerful violet rounds tore straight through the beasts.
Before the Shadow horses could even whinny in pain, they collapsed, dissolving into black mist mid-fall.
The mounted bandits violently crashed into the desert sands, only to be immediately trampled to death by the thundering hooves of the horses behind them. They, too, dissolved into black goo.
"Ren was right! These guys definitely aren’t human. Well, that makes this a lot easier!"
Having verified the enemies’ true nature with her own eyes, Kiana settled her nerves.
She adjusted her breathing, fine-tuning her physical condition to its absolute peak. She silently waited for the remaining bandits to charge through the hail of gunfire and reach her.
"Do you need me to guide and assist her from the sidelines?" Fu Hua murmured, stepping closer to Ren. "With Kiana’s current strength, taking them all on alone is still too taxing."
"As long as I use the power of Fenghuang Down, I can manipulate the cognition of those Shadow soldiers to attack Kiana at a level she can manage."
She gestured toward the battlefield.
"I can even make Kiana ignore the inconsistencies, making her genuinely believe she’s in mortal peril while keeping her completely safe. It should be enough to force out her survival potential."
Crimson feathers danced elegantly around Fu Hua. The illusory plumes flickered like floating embers, radiating a phantom warmth that could almost be felt on the skin.
Hearing her proposal, Ren looked at the hovering feathers with deep interest.
Feathers, huh...
The way Fenghuang Down operated sounded awfully similar to a Plume of Dusk.
If he could somehow stuff one of Fu Hua’s feathers into a model gun, Kiana could just press it to her temple and pull the trigger. The simulated trauma of death might just be enough to stimulate her survival instincts and rip her Persona out.
"I’ll leave it to you, then, Fu Hua. Help Kiana awaken," Ren agreed.
If there was a way to safely expedite the awakening process, he wasn’t going to turn it down.
Given the green light, Fu Hua silently shifted her gaze.
A faint, firefly-like luminescence cloaked her body, and a crimson flame—identical to the color of Fenghuang Down—ignited in her placid eyes. She locked her unblinking stare onto the distant battlefield where Kiana was currently fighting.
Suddenly, Kiana felt as though the gods themselves were guiding her.
Her body had never felt so light. Power surged endlessly through her veins. Every bullet she fired claimed a Shadow’s life.
It was as if these fearsome enemies had completely abandoned their defenses, baring their weak points directly to her gunsights for easy executions.
Her slender, athletic frame flipped and vaulted across the battlefield like a nimble cat. Despite the massive stamina drain from her erratic movements, Kiana hadn’t taken a single scratch.
She could feel the immense, crushing pressure of the horde, yet she was dancing flawlessly through it. Her mood soared; her adrenaline spiked.
"Warm-up complete. Miss Fu Hua, you should apply a bit more pressure to Miss Kiana."
Standing with her arms crossed, Rita wore a faint, sly smile.
Judging Kiana’s physical state with the expert eye of an S-Rank Valkyrie, she recognized the girl had hit her peak and playfully suggested dialing up the difficulty.
The crimson aura around Fu Hua flared slightly.
Far away, Kiana—who had just been perfectly in the zone—instantly felt the pressure skyrocket.
A spear thrust she would have easily dodged suddenly morphed into a sweeping strike, the heavy wooden shaft slamming brutally into her side.
Her lithe body was sent flying, forcing her to violently twist mid-air just to land back on her feet.
"Ow, that hurt... Dammit, why did they suddenly get so much stronger?!"
Landing in a crouch on the desert floor, Kiana rubbed her aching ribs and sucked in a sharp breath.
Thanks to the temporary Ranger battlesuit the three doctors had cobbled together, nothing was broken, but it still hurt like hell.
Soon, a frantic Kiana realized the bandits’ power spike wasn’t her imagination.
The remaining twenty-odd Shadows were coordinating with terrifying efficiency, acting as a single hive-mind. Even their individual physical strength had dramatically increased.
Minor cuts and bruises began accumulating on Kiana’s pale skin as she was thoroughly suppressed.
"The power of Fenghuang Down... It can physically enhance the strength of Shadows, alongside manipulating their cognition?" Ren noted, slightly surprised.
He could tell the bandits weren’t just using hidden reserves; they were being actively buffed by Fu Hua’s Divine Key. Without that enhancement, they never could have pushed Kiana into such a miserable corner.
"It merely removes the biological limiters that prevent living creatures from utilizing one hundred percent of their strength, applying a minor physical enhancement," Fu Hua corrected, shaking her head.
"It is far inferior to the absolute authority of Jizo Mitama."
Fenghuang Down was ultimately the Key of Sentience. She could only enhance the physical body through psychological overrides.
For entities without rapid regeneration, removing these limiters was essentially burning their life force—trading HP for raw stats. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
In terms of both safety and raw output, Fenghuang Down paled in comparison to the Key of Corruption, Jizo Mitama, which Ren possessed.
"To think the Shadows guarding this Palace would manifest as bandits..." Bronya mused, watching Kiana get chased around the dunes. The corners of her lips twitched into a small smirk.
"I wonder what kind of image the Palace Ruler has. Are they a Bandit King? Or perhaps a tyrant ruling over these thugs from the shadows?"
"Joker. Massive energy spike detected," Hare suddenly interrupted.
Having spent the entire time pinpointing the Palace’s Will Seeds, her voice was sharp with warning.
"An entity suspected to be the Palace Ruler is approaching our coordinates at extreme speed."
Ren immediately shot a glance at Fu Hua.
Fu Hua’s sensory capabilities were objectively superior to Hare’s. Plus, Hare was busy scanning for Will Seeds, while Fu Hua was merely observing Kiana. There was absolutely no reason Hare should have sensed an approaching enemy before Fu Hua did.
But when Ren looked at her usually stoic face, he saw blatant, undisguised shock.
Fu Hua’s crimson-tinged eyes were locked onto the eastern sky, her delicate brows knitted tightly together.
Why didn’t she warn us...?
Before Ren could ask, the aura rocketing in from the eastern horizon finally entered his own sensory range.
The moment he felt it—an aggressive, razor-sharp intent that made no attempt to hide its blinding edge, like an unsheathed divine blade—he understood exactly why Fu Hua had been stunned into silence.
A sword beam as brilliant as molten gold tore through the sky, crashing into the desert like a meteor.
BOOM!
The impact carved a massive crater into the earth, throwing up a towering wall of sand and debris.
Hare simply waved her arm, summoning a gale that violently dispersed the suffocating dust storm, forcefully unveiling the figure hidden within.
A gigantic, golden divine sword stood impaled in the earth, its massive blade buried deep in the desert sands.
A crimson jewel was embedded in its hilt, and ancient, unadorned gray runes lined the metal, radiating a primordial, austere, and overwhelming aura.
A petite foot clad in a black cloth boot rested lightly but firmly on the hilt of the giant golden sword.
Tracing the line of her toned calves upward, the figure was a girl dressed in a flowing white traditional dress, draped in an apricot-yellow overcoat.
Her chest was notably, almost distractingly prominent. Her delicate, lovely face still carried the faint traces of youthful innocence, and her long brown hair was tied into a high ponytail with a simple yellow ribbon.
She stood perched upon the blade, a bright smile gracing her lips as she looked down at the interlopers.
Or, more accurately, she was looking directly at the silent martial artist standing next to Ren.
"It has been a long time... Grandmaster Jingwei."
