Didn't you go to Teyvat to earn money to support me?

Brunhilde realized that her thoughts had wandered too much for a brief moment, so she stopped thinking about the ghost named Mistelin and continued to pull Bonya along as they fled north.

“It looks like there won’t be any rescue for now. Let’s keep running. We’re only a dozen kilometers or so from the center of the battlefield. We should be able to find some people eventually!” Brunhilde looked around. They were at a gas station. He and Bonya had been running along areas without snow. In this frozen wasteland, the only thing left was the highway, which was higher than normal road surface. They hadn’t encountered any villages or towns along the highway. This gas station looked like it had been evacuated long ago; it was quiet and deserted.

"Bubu, how many bullets do you have left?"

"Two magazines, fourteen rounds left." Brunhilde changed to a new magazine and inserted it into the gun handle. "Assuming that it takes two bullets to take down an Assault-class, even if my accuracy is perfect, I can only take down a maximum of seven. Honkai Beasts are silicon-based creatures after all, and their surface defenses require two attacks to break through."

In fact, while the Desert Eagle is incredibly powerful, the first shot usually only manages to shatter the outer shell of the Honkai Beast, and only the second shot can destroy the carbon-based biological structure inside. This requires extremely high marksmanship, but Brunhilde is an excellent marksman. Because her physical abilities are not as good as the Valkyrie's and she does not possess any special abilities, she has worked hard to improve her marksmanship.

Kaslana's gun-fu requires flexibility comparable to breaking all bones, while Brunhilde has been practicing yoga with her teacher since childhood... For Brunhilde, who needs to disguise herself as a flawless beautiful girl, strong flexibility is absolutely necessary.

"Not nearly enough... Let's go! Let's go inside and take a look!" Bonya suddenly grabbed Brunhilde and ran into the gas station! She also grabbed a fire axe from the wall and smashed open the entrance roller shutter door!

Brunhilde was taken aback and followed him inside without thinking. She then saw that inside the building that served as a makeshift convenience store in the gas station, there were rows of display cases. Instead of instant noodles, sausages, or windshield washer fluid, they were filled with firearms that stretched as far as the eye could see! The counter at the entrance had pistols, followed by civilian hunting rifles, rifles, submachine guns... Military pickaxes and folding shovels were piled up against the wall, and there even seemed to be night vision goggles at the very back.

Brunhilde instinctively drew a Colt revolver; it was an old-fashioned design, but its price tag was high. He preferred using a pistol. Although people like Siegfried or Claire could use gun-fu with ease, even wielding a 30-kilogram Gatling gun, Brunhilde didn't have their strength. Most importantly, at least half of their gun-fu involved close-quarters combat with firearms, while Brunhilde... Brunhilde only learned the ranged aspects.

"How is this going?"

“It’s a habit left over from the Soviet Union. We require every city to have a military factory, and gun shops can’t just spring up everywhere. Generally speaking, these gun shops are also responsible for replenishing the firepower of military and police departments in various places, so they are mostly located in gas stations and long-distance service areas. Firstly, it’s convenient for transportation, and secondly, ordinary people need to drive to buy them, so there’s no danger in the city. Also, there’s a shooting range right behind them, so it’s convenient to test the guns,” Bonya explained to him.

Clearly, as a long-time pacifist from Northern Europe, Brunhilde could not understand why a Soviet gas station would sell guns.

“It’s an emergency, don’t worry, Bubu, the government won’t investigate us for stealing from the gun shop,” Bonya reassured her.

Brunhilde checked and, as expected, the gun shops in this area were unlikely to have high-end weapons like the Desert Eagle. He no longer insisted on a pistol; pistol magazines were ultimately a problem, and he was confident that he could hit any gun with ease against Honkai Beasts, whose movements were easy to predict.

He started by mentioning the AK-47 and AKM, the most common rifles in the shop. The two rifles look similar, and although they're fifty years old, their exceptional reliability, considerable power, and accuracy mean they're still widely used and not considered outdated. The gun shop was empty, but it probably had been serviced a few days ago, as it smelled strongly of gun oil. He tried firing a shot at the wall; a deafening roar followed. He steadily controlled the recoil and looked at the wall. A small hole pierced through the concrete, likely crumbling into a large crater behind it. He was satisfied with the gun's power and chose two AKMs to sling over his shoulder.

Just as he was about to leave, he hesitated for a moment, then turned around and took a light machine gun that looked very similar to the AKM with him. It was a Kalashnikov light machine gun, or RPK for short. Since they all used the same ammunition, he wrapped the ammunition belt around his body twice, then picked up a box of ammunition and prepared to walk out the door.

At that moment, he smelled blood.

Before he could turn around, a knife was pressed against his back, and Brunhilde felt a chill run down his spine.

"Who are you? How did you get here across the snowfield?" the person behind asked in a low voice.

Brunhilde looked at Bonya and discerned something from her pale face and wide eyes. Yes, he did discern something; Bonya deliberately widened her beautiful gray eyes, allowing him to roughly discern the figure of the person behind her from the reflection in her pupils.

"Are you injured?" Brunhilde asked with a smile.

“Answer my question, you bastard! The committee couldn’t possibly have realized something was wrong this quickly. Even if they had, those good-for-nothings couldn’t have found me so quickly under the cover of EMP… cough cough… Who are you? Civilians? Or… people from the Tower of Babel?” The man’s blade moved in a little further, his questioning fierce.

"If you were to take Sister Bangya hostage, I might actually be a little worried."

"Hey!" Bonya, who was already feeling anxious, became annoyed upon hearing this. She took a few steps back and muttered under her breath, "You heartless little vampire..."

"A vampire?" The man frowned, still pondering, when Brunhilde took a step back and elbowed him! The man hadn't expected this pretty "high school girl" to be so strong, like a bull, and immediately lost his balance and fell backward!

But just as he was about to fall, a fierce glint flashed in his eyes. Someone with such martial arts skills must not be an ordinary person. He decisively slashed the dagger across Brunhilde's kidney area!

With a hiss, the blade slipped on the surface of his coat, and he fell to the ground in a daze.

Brunhilde turned around, smiling broadly as she scrutinized the man, casually tugging at her pocket. "The second-generation Valkyrie armor costs over a million to make. It can even stop bullets!"

"Valkyrie?" The man quickly caught the key word, his expression changing drastically, becoming extremely angry. "I should have known, with this kind of appearance... you really are chosen ones!"

Being good-looking is a matter of destiny? Your logic is truly... impeccable.

Brunhilde suppressed a urge to retort, "What's wrong with destiny?"

"Gulp, kill me... I never thought I'd still end up in your hands. How laughable... Even at this point, humans are still killing each other!" The man seemed unwilling to explain, instead appearing ready to be slaughtered, quite righteous and awe-inspiring.

Just then, Bonya, who had gone out to check if the Honkai Beasts had arrived, suddenly cried out, "Bunya, come here! There's a crashed plane here!"

Unexpectedly, this remark made the man lose his temper, and he immediately shouted, "What do you mean 'crashed'! Nonsense! Look carefully, it came to an abrupt stop! It can still fly! Don't assume it crashed just because it's smoking!"

Brunhilde looked out the window at the beautiful, silver-gray, sleek, and streamlined machine about twenty meters long, embedded in the snow. Her limited memories from military magazines told her that it was the famous Su-27 fighter jet, one of humanity's strongest queens of the sky.

He turned around and stared at the man: "Are you a pilot?"

Seeing that he couldn't hide it any longer, the man sneered, "It's the ace up his sleeve!"

Chapter 106 What kind of water doesn't flow into what kind of outsider's field?

Brunhilde looked at the man; the bloody smell she had caught earlier had come from him. The man, dressed in a tattered air force uniform, was leaning against the wall, his vest soaked in blood. He was pressing layers of tissues against his waist to prevent blood from seeping out from his belt.

His body was covered in wounds, both inside and out, as if he had just crawled out of a crashed plane. Countless pieces of tempered glass were stuck in his clothes. This type of glass shatters into small fragments when it explodes to ensure safety, but if someone were to be hit hard by these shards, they would be covered in wounds like him, like a hedgehog.

For an ordinary human, such an injury should have caused him to pass out long ago. But Brunhilde could probably guess why he was holding on and refusing to rest: he had crashed his plane, and this place was a hunting ground for Honkai Beasts.

"I am an ace pilot, ace pilot Vladimir Yevdokim Chekov!" The man glared fiercely at Brunhilde, his expression tragic. "You bunch of lunatics who disregarded the lives of three million people in Moscow, you damned British! We shouldn't have helped you during World War II!"

"Do I look like an Englishman?" Brunhilde tilted her head and asked Bonya.

"If you're not British, then you're some other kind of person! You're definitely not Slavic!" Vladimir roared. "Just wait! You'll pay the price! That dragon is absolutely beyond your control. Even nuclear weapons might not be able to deal with it. It will wipe you all out one by one sooner or later! It will pay for my homeland's destruction!"

Brunhilde hesitated for a moment. That dragon... did it refer to the Judgment-class Honkai Beast named Bellenas?

"Did that dragon shoot you down?"

"Even the Su-27 can't fight it, so what can you use to deal with it? Ask the Americans to lend you that legendary F-22? Or the F-35 that only exists in blueprints? But I can tell you, that dragon cannot be dealt with by fighter jets with current technology! You have unleashed a demon that can shake the entire human civilization!"

"Okay, okay, I got it, buddy, don't get so worked up," Brunhilde asked. "Let's get down to business, what happened at the Tower of Babel?"

"Do I need to explain what happened to you?" Vladimir said sarcastically.

"Actually, I really doubt why you're so sure that I'm in cahoots with Destiny... What has Destiny done to you? Forgive my bluntness, but if Destiny is targeting you, you won't live to see me."

"This is a military restricted area! You can't normally drive here from the highway. You don't have army insignia or even a military personnel, yet you can come here... And with that appearance, there's absolutely no doubt about it!" Vladimir coughed twice and sneered, his face full of mocking expressions that said, "Isn't it obvious at a glance? You still want to lie to me?" and "I've never seen such a group of beautiful girls of this caliber except for Destiny."

"I am not a girl."

"Hahaha."

"..."

“As for targeting…” Vladimir continued coughing, then spat out the blood, “you, and this group of bio-monsters, weren’t you sent to silence me? This inhumane research—I don’t know if the committee reached some kind of agreement with you—but even I wouldn’t condone it. Creating these monsters is a threat to all of humanity! If all of humanity knew, they would all besiege you! Ha…maybe the Soviet Union really has changed, actually allowing this kind of research on our land…but before being a Soviet citizen, I am first and foremost a human being! I will never yield to a terrorist organization like yours!”

He became even more impassioned, and then coughed up even more blood.

"Bonya, keep an eye on him. Don't let him get so excited that he dies." Brunhilde called out, then thought for a moment and waved her away. "Never mind, Bonya, you should keep an eye on him. If he suddenly tries to kidnap you, it'll be troublesome. Let him vomit for a while. If he dies, he dies."

Vladimir looked at him strangely, while Brunhilde fell into deep thought.

Vladimir had clearly misunderstood him, but he was indeed one of Schicksal's men. Bellenas's strength was astonishing; he could even take down a flight squadron, suggesting he was incredibly fast, otherwise he wouldn't have said something like nuclear weapons probably couldn't handle it.

Currently, Bellenas has not yet begun to fulfill its duty as a Honkai Beast to massacre the city of Moscow, and it is highly likely that it has been intercepted by the Valkyrie forces of Schicksal.

Cecilia was so confident in her ability to handle Judgment-class Honkai Beasts that she rarely made mistakes in assessing their strength. It's worth noting that Brunhilde wasn't entirely ignorant of the superhuman side of combat power. After the First Honkai Impact, the North American branch rebelled, and their leader, the First Herrscher, had indeed clashed with Cecilia. Even the First Herrscher, as powerful as she was, gave this saintly woman a wide berth… To put it bluntly, Judgment-class Honkai Beasts were ranked below Herrschers.

Schicksal's confidence in Cecilia was not without reason; she was the most talented saintess in Schicksal's history. Even Theresa, who was strong, was only an S-rank Valkyrie because that was the upper limit for Valkyries. But compared to Cecilia, Theresa was not much different from an average A-rank Valkyrie.

But Bellenas is still causing trouble, even though Cecilia set off twelve hours ago.

Brunhilde didn't doubt Cecilia's ability to defeat the dragon, but... Cecilia's invincibility was merely invincible in combat power. Brunhilde knew very well that a saintess who was invincible, kind, pure, and whose achievements threatened the ruler... in most works, such a character would often be betrayed by those around her when she encountered danger! External enemies could no longer threaten Cecilia; the only thing that could truly threaten Cecilia was the collusion of traitors from within and without.

Fortunately, Brunhilde was always trying to educate Cecilia, often telling her famous quotes, such as "The world is neither black nor white, but a delicate gray," "We all have bottom lines, but you, Lydia, sometimes have to cross your own," "The maintenance of power must be done at any cost," "What defines you is not your power, but how you use it," "The powerful and bloodshed are always inseparable," and "You are not anyone's puppet," etc.

Although he didn't know if Cecilia had listened to him, Cecilia usually pulled him into the house to stop him from nagging, called Theresa along, and used physical means to shut him up and make sure he couldn't get out of bed.

"Don't take it to heart, you're just at a disadvantage." "I didn't say you could leave."

Cecilia occasionally quotes famous people.

As he was pondering, Bonya gently tugged at his clothes. He turned his head and saw a pair of gray eyes filled with anxiety. Then Bonya pulled him to the window. Only then did he notice that in the short time it had taken to exchange a few words, the Honkai Beasts that had been chasing them had converged, and more than twenty of them slowly surrounded the gas station from the south.

They were already exhausted; if they continued to escape, they would eventually run out of energy, and the only difference would be that they would die in different places.

"What are you afraid of? Isn't this your pet?" Vladimir leaned against the wall and slumped to the ground, coldly demanding.

"Fool! Even if I created these monsters, I wouldn't release them in the open! If even one escapes, wouldn't it give other countries an opportunity to blame fate?" Brunhilde shouted. "They're after me, killing anyone who comes near. Think carefully, what kind of biological weapon could this be?"

Vladimir hesitated for a few seconds. Having encountered the dragon first, and then these small Honkai Beasts, he naturally assumed that Schicksal was raising some kind of inhumane biological weapon. But Brunhilde's words did make sense. What kind of biological weapon was it, one that indiscriminately slaughtered humans...? The primary duty of a weapon is to obey orders, but it was clear that the dragon and these Honkai Beasts were acting without any rationality.

The crisis is now erupting in Siberia, but what good will it do for Destiny? Simply destroying the surface... what use is that to Destiny? How is that any different from dropping a nuclear bomb without any reason?

"You didn't deny that you are a chosen one."

“The Destiny organization has a lot of people, with over a million extraordinary individuals alone. That's enough to start a country in some places. No organization that can achieve this level of unity can have everyone working together.” Brunhilde picked up the ammunition box again, pushed open the door, and a biting cold wind blew into the shop. “My girlfriend is right here in the middle of the battlefield, trying to prevent this disaster from threatening ordinary people. I don’t have time to explain anything to you.”

The rushing-class Honkai Beasts are the fastest, but to guide the larger Honkai Beasts behind them, they haven't immediately reached their opponents, remaining more than two hundred meters apart. These Honkai Beasts are pure white, with bodies resembling ceramic or resin, like evolved animals, or perhaps species that don't exist in nature at all. They emit low growls as they move, but their evolved appearance lacks vocal organs, or rather, they have no facial features; it's unclear where their vision and hearing come from. The only visible feature they retain is their mouths, which, after specialization, can open to enormous sizes, their sharp, fleshy teeth testifying to their cannibalistic desires.

Honkai Beasts do not need to absorb energy or eat; they hunt humans simply because they are Honkai, true enemies of civilization.

“Three tank-class Honkai Beasts, but luckily none of the knight-class ones,” Brunhilde suddenly said. “The truly powerful Honkai Beast hordes are probably all in the central battlefield; these are just some minions who happened to run into us.”

"You want to go to the central battlefield... Babel Tower?" Vladimir asked.

“There is a solution to this disaster, and it probably won’t require so many deaths. I originally planned to settle Sister Bonya before going.” Brunhilde nodded. “But the disaster struck too quickly. I can’t go through divine intervention. My girlfriend has already warned me that no one will let me leave… I have to do it myself.”

"Are you really a man?"

"I'm too lazy to answer this kind of question anymore."

“Then it seems you’re a useless man, ruled by a strong woman, even when your woman goes to the battlefield, you can only stay in the back.” Vladimir laughed hoarsely. “You really aren’t a man of Siberia. A man of Siberia will never be subservient to a woman!”

"There's nothing wrong with giving in to your beloved girl; it's a kind of fun in life, and there's nothing shameful about it."

"And this one?" Vladimir turned to look at the slightly embarrassed gray-haired young woman, his smile widening. "This beautiful lady looks at you with complete admiration. What is your relationship with her? Hmm? Miss, could you answer that this is your handsome and young husband?"

Why use such a disgusting and chilling phrase as "beautiful and youthful" to describe a man!

Brunhilde interrupted Bonya's instinctive reply, saying coldly, "She's my girlfriend too, is there a problem?"

"So you're going to take this pregnant girlfriend... and go find another girlfriend who's powerful, influential, and even able to control you?"