"Cocolia, are you ready to repent?"
Holding a white scythe with its blade hooked around the woman's neck, Elias' tone had lost all warmth. In his golden eyes, there was only cold, ruthless killing intent.
He could no longer tolerate Cocolia's existence. The things this vixen had done had crossed his bottom line entirely. She had harmed the people he held most dear.
Mei, Bronya, Seele—these girls, who Elias considered treasures, had all suffered at the hands of this vile woman.
And not only them.
"Wait, I can—"
"Die."
With a sharp pull, the scythe severed the beautiful head from her body. This time, there was no Gray Serpent to plead on her behalf like a year ago.
"!!!"
Cocolia's eyes widened in shock. The moment Elias appeared, she had sensed her fate was sealed. But she hadn't expected the boy to strike so decisively.
Her death came so swiftly.
So simply, as if her entire life's worth had been denied with a single strike.
"Hah! Hah! I—I'm not dead?!"
The next second, Cocolia gasped, drenched in cold sweat.
She clutched at her neck to confirm her head was still attached. Only after feeling it still in place did she exhale in relief, thinking it had all been a hallucination.
But reality proved otherwise.
Blood dripped from the scythe in Elias' hands, and a faint wound remained on her neck—clear signs that she had indeed just been killed by the White Reaper.
"That expression—yes, that's the one. You must feel fear, Cocolia. You must repent. Don't worry, the pain won't end until your spirit completely collapses."
Elias spoke with merciless coldness.
The pain of death was fleeting. It was far too light a punishment for what she had done.
Elias was someone who believed in fairness.
He wouldn't allow such a disproportionate outcome.
"What... what did you do to me?!"
Cocolia's voice trembled with fury and panic.
"Heh, you'll know soon enough."
Without expression, Elias swung the scythe again.
What followed was a surreal and horrific execution.
Cocolia felt herself die—her heart pierced, her head lopped off, her bones crushed, her entire body split in two.
But every time she came to, she was alive again.
The repeated deaths, the dread of waiting for the next—these were far more terrifying than death itself.
"Even if you call for help, it's useless. No one in this base can stop me. And given your popularity, I doubt anyone's bringing you coffee this late."
Elias flicked the blood from his scythe.
He had already killed Cocolia seven times. But just as she teetered on the edge of death, the power of the Herrscher of Death activated.
It restored her fatal wounds just before consciousness faded. When that wasn't enough, Elias used beginner-level time manipulation to rewind time by a second or two.
For the record, this power was a reward from his second time-travel trial—acquired from Aponia.
Though Aponia often ended up defeated, her natural ability to manipulate time was formidable.
In the main storyline, she might have remained a background figure, but her powers were very real.
"Cocolia, I will fulfill my promise from the past—to kill you a thousand times. So hold on tight."
"No! You can't!"
Cocolia trembled as she spoke.
Just seven deaths had nearly broken her mind. When Elias said she'd die a thousand times, she almost dropped dead from fear alone.
Her instincts told her: at this point, the best outcome would be to die completely. Though she still craved power and clung to life...
The terror Elias instilled was beyond anything she could have imagined. Faced with a choice between life and death—she chose death.
But...
"Heaven and hell aren't mine to choose—but I still have the right to choose death." That's what Elias once said in the Babylon Lab.
Now, he figured he could overturn that line.
"Without my permission, you don't get to die."
With the Herrscher of Death's power, as long as Elias didn't allow it, death was a luxury.
Cocolia bit off her tongue—but in the next second, it healed.
As long as her consciousness lingered, Elias could bring her back. She wasn't missing limbs or fatally wounded—just a small injury.
To the Herrscher of Death, mending a heart wound was no different from healing a scratch.
"No... No! Don't come any closer!"
"Scared now? When you were drafting those inhumane plans, shoving innocent children into test pods, did you ever care about how they felt?"
"I'm sorry! I swear I won't do it again! Please let me go, or kill me quickly!"
"Heh? Apologizing now? Too bad. Apologies are the most useless words in the world. The tragedies you caused already happened. You can't take them back."
The white scythe slammed down on the office desk. Elias stood like a grim judge.
"Everyone who errs must pay for it. If the price is a hand, then it's a hand. If it's a leg, then it's a leg. And if it's a life... then so be it."
"Cocolia, you will pay for every wrong you've committed—with pain and fear. You will repent for your foolish sins."
Elias raised his white scythe again, fury burning in his eyes.
When someone like him got angry, it was terrifying.
Once the flames in his heart were lit, he wouldn't stop until the enemy was ash.
"No more! Kill me! Please just kill me! I was wrong! Please!"
For the first time in her life, Cocolia truly knew fear.
Endless death, endless revival, an infinite loop—brief moments of pain that birthed eternal fear. Her weak will couldn't withstand it.
She had never been a strong-minded person—not a hero, not a mastermind. She didn't deserve to be called great.
Cocolia was just a pathetic clown with ambition far beyond her ability. Everything she did ended in failure—and others always suffered for it.
A hopeless, pitiful wretch.
...
After a while, Elias got tired of swinging his scythe.
So he picked up her own handgun.
He shot her in the heart—then used his Herrscher power to heal it before she lost consciousness. Then shot her again. Over and over.
He kept going until her ammo clip ran dry.
"That's all it took to break you? Only 172 times? Pathetic."
"..."
Elias gave a light kick to the broken woman on the floor.
The woman had completely given up resisting. That alluring body, once the object of so many dreams, now lay in disgrace—trembling, soaked, and broken.
Elias, a man who always kept his word, had promised to kill her a thousand times. He didn't say that lightly.
But with Cocolia in this shattered state, continuing the punishment now would achieve little.
After a moment's thought, Elias dragged her into his own Imaginary Space.
He planned to resume her punishment once she regained some awareness. Until then, she had no reason to remain in the real world.
Even after her thousand deaths, she would spend the rest of her days imprisoned in Elias' dimension. Letting her walk free would be a disaster—life imprisonment was the only answer.
As for whether the Honkai energy inside would corrupt her into a zombie... Elias honestly didn't care. That was up to her luck.
If she got lucky, she'd survive until he returned to open the space again. He could then inject her with the Honkai serum he'd developed—based on the Schariac Holy Blood and his modified Herrscher powers—and resume her punishment.
If she got unlucky... well, becoming a zombie might be a fitting end for her.
After all, the children she adopted in the Cocolia Orphanage—once shoved into the X-10 experiment pods—mostly ended up either collapsing at the quantum level or turned into zombies from Honkai infection.
And if Elias hadn't crossed over into this world, hundreds of thousands of people in Nagazora City would've become zombies too, all due to Cocolia's manmade Honkai disaster.
...
After finishing off that scheming fox...
Elias returned to Nagazora City.
But instead of heading home, he went straight to Raiden Mei's residence.
What he had to do next was far more important than dealing with Cocolia—it was time to rescue his beloved daughter, Seele Vollerei, trapped deep within the Sea of Quanta.
To do that, he needed a massive amount of Honkai energy from the Herrscher of Thunder. It would serve as fuel to let him safely enter and exit the Sea of Quanta with someone else.
"Sorry to trouble you, Mei."
"It's fine. But... are you sure you can handle this? Herrscher-level Honkai energy isn't something a normal person can withstand."
Mei asked with concern.
"Of course I can. If I were just a normal person, I wouldn't even be qualified to touch you like this."
Elias looked into her eyes tenderly, gently lifting her violet hair and kissing it.
Not long ago, mere minutes of contact—a single hug—had nearly turned Elias into a zombie through Honkai infection.
But now, he was a completely different man.
"Right now, I can handle up to 4500 HW of Honkai energy. I'll be fine."
All he lacked was enough raw energy.
While Elias possessed five incomplete Herrscher powers, he didn't have an actual Herrscher core. That meant he couldn't draw in limitless Honkai energy like normal Herrschers.
Still, his body had evolved enough to contain vast amounts of it.
And on his back—layered together—were three fused stigmata: Kaslana's, Schariac's, and Seele's. This fusion allowed him to easily withstand Herrscher-level energy.
"Alright. Then I'll give you everything I have. Show me what you can do, Elias."
"As you command... my queen, my Mei."
"But you know... just transferring it the boring way won't be any fun. Let's do it with a bit more flair."
"Oh? That sounds delightful."
Elias smiled, watching as the Herrscher of Thunder leaned toward him.
Elias immediately understood her intent. He reached out, wrapped his arm around Mei's slim waist, and brought his lips to hers.
He wasn't the kind of man to panic in moments like this—and he certainly wouldn't allow the girl in front of him to feel ashamed.
The next second, their lips met. Though it seemed like just a transfer of Honkai energy... it was very much a kiss. A real one.
Unlike most first-time lovers who nervously closed their eyes during a kiss, Elias and Mei stared straight into each other's eyes, gazing at their reflections within.
"Was that enough?"
"Of course not."
"Shall we continue?"
"I'd love to."
Elias silently apologized to Seele in his heart. Looked like that girl would need to spend a few more hours—or maybe an entire night—soaking in the Sea of Quanta.
After all, dry wood had already sparked into roaring fire.
Inside Mei, the Gem of Conquest pulsed restlessly, longing to return to Elias. But above even that was the raw emotion of both Queen and girl.
To both Herrscher and maiden Mei, Elias was the one they longed for most.
He was their dearest person, their first hope, their original warmth.
With both personas' love stacking and spiraling, there was no way mere reason could restrain the impulse.
To offer herself.
To conquer him!
To protect him.
To make him hers!
Gentleness and dominance fused into one, pushing their love to two polar extremes.
"!!!" x2
Their figures merged under the roar of thunder and lightning.
That night, Nagazora City was wracked by a mysterious weather anomaly—lightning and thunder roared the entire night.
...
The next morning.
After an entire night of thunderstorms, the skies were unusually clear. Still, many in Nagazora City were running late for school or work, as the booming storm had kept much of the population awake.
Elias, refreshed and energetic, pulled open the curtains.
Then he picked up his device to notify St. Freya Academy that their enrollment date would need to be pushed back by a few days.
Not that he was particularly tired. In fact, he looked radiant.
The same couldn't be said for Herrscher Mei, however.
To put it lightly...
Elias: "My Queen, you're just a tiny bit lacking. Just a bit."
He'd confirmed something important:
His body's strength now far surpassed even that of a Herrscher.
But that wasn't surprising.
Back during his first time-space travel, he'd already become a five-core Herrscher.
Herrschers were typically long-range mages, but the transformation into one alone refined the human body to its extreme.
Arm-wrestling a world champion would be easy. With Honkai power backing him, bare-handedly ripping apart a Gundam or Titan wasn't out of the question.
Then came his second time-space travel.
With a Herrscher body as a base, Elias used the powers of the Herrscher of Death to endlessly evolve his cells. His physical body had been pushed to absurd levels—strong enough to beat high-level Honkai Beasts without even activating his powers.
Agility, strength, endurance—every stat exceeded the norm by at least 50 times.
And when he returned to the original timeline, this fully-evolved ultimate body was retained as a reward.
Last night, Herrscher Mei had become the first to experience it firsthand.
Fortunate... and also not.
"Nngh... morning already? Hisss—!"
Herrscher Mei opened her eyes, but the sharp pain in her lower abdomen made her gasp. The dignity of the queen nearly crumbled right there.
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