Honkai Impact 3rd: My Days as a Captain in Schicksal

Then, these children grew up to be elderly, taking over the burden of continuing the Colorless Family after the death of the previous generation of managers.

Although this industry had never existed in human history before, they turned it into a business.

……

Her mother was a test subject when the Nexus system was still in the experimental stage. Destiny discovered that the innate holy mark of the colorless family, [Crimson Radiance], had an amazing adaptability to all kinds of ranged weapons, and her mother was also the one among that batch of test subjects who suffered the least loss of life force.

However, the mother's body was already riddled with holes from the experiments, and she could no longer continue, so she retired and returned to her hometown. Thus, both Destiny and the Colorless Clan turned their attention to the then very young Colorless Radiance.

Born with a sacred mark, she inherited the genes of the Valkyrie who is most adapted to the Nexus system.

That's her.

The Nexus system was developed by Schicksal to target Title-level Honkai Beasts, with the aim of launching battleship-level energy at the individual level. The Valkyries serving as launch pads would imbue the technological weapons with the powerful neutralizing ability of the Stigmata through their effects.

In other words, the Valkyries serving as launch pads for the Nexus system are essentially human cannons, forced to endure the excruciating pain of being bombarded by battleship-level energy within their bodies. The disparity in individual capabilities between them and the battleships is compensated for by the Valkyries' vitality.

Colorless Radiant Fire took over her mother's heavy responsibility and became the new Nexus system launch pad, while her life force had already been exhausted in countless experiments and battles.

The colorless radiant fire didn't know when it would die like its mother, its life force exhausted. Its organs would gradually age and their functions would decline, unable to support the body's daily needs. Finally, on a dark morning or under a glorious sunset, it would sit and die in front of that dry landscape garden.

If you don't do what you think of today, you might not have the chance tomorrow.

Life is short, and we should try to make ourselves as comfortable as possible within our limited time.

For her, these were not inspirational warnings, but a fact she had to accept and follow in her footsteps.

She and her mother were not the only two Valkyries of the Colorless Clan. Before them, countless Colorless women had died one after another on the battlefield against the Honkai. Those who were lucky enough to survive returned to the Colorless Clan, becoming offerings to bear the next generation for the Colorless Clan.

Their relationship is actually quite simple: the Colorless Clan sold their children to Destiny, who then drained these children dry, allowing the Colorless Clan to feast on their corpses and suck their blood and pus.

Fate granted the colorless family financial support, allowing this once-powerful clan to maintain its dignity. Their children, living in luxury, learned the ways of the world in the warm classrooms of a private school. Under the tutelage of expensive tutors, they spoke eloquently and wittily, winning admiration and praise. However, without exception, these young talents were met with a series of devastating blows upon entering society, ultimately failing to sustain their former lives.

Their houses were filled with intrigue and quiet solitude; walking from one end of the corridor to the other instilled a sense of unease. Yet, they were also deathly still; the people inside sat with cold, or stiff, expressions, as if they were sitting in prison.

They feasted on pheasant heads and fox finches, their meals served in elaborate feasts, and their daily lives revolved around flowers, birds, wind, and moon; music, dance, and song were commonplace. They sat by the warm fireplace, lamenting the vicissitudes of life, passing on family traditions, and educating future generations on morality, integrity, and propriety. But both the speaker and the listener felt only an incomprehensible emptiness.

Nevertheless, they had ivory chopsticks and jade cups, fine clothes and delicacies, red-carpeted roads and expensive koi ponds in the courtyard. In winter, they could sit by the fireplace and lament the curse their family bore, and occasionally compose a poem in the snow.

Meanwhile, the Valkyries, clad in the name of colorlessness, cleansed the world of calamity from the shadows, dying one by one under the iron hooves of the Honkai Beasts. Some of them rose again in another form, but ultimately, they were pierced through the skull by the weapons of their comrades.

Those ivory chopsticks and jade cups are not theirs, nor are their fine clothes and sumptuous meals, nor are the songs of praise and the red-carpeted roads theirs. But the blood they shed to earn all of this is theirs.

What belongs to them is counting the remaining ammunition after a battle, canned luncheon meat in the cold wind, and the relentless, dusty journey from one place to another. Perhaps they should be grateful that, at least as Valkyries, they have the armor of righteousness, allowing them to wrap themselves up a little tighter before facing death, making the weather seem less cold.

This is the meaning of "colorless." Any girl who carries this surname and flies to the continent of Europe is nothing more than a puppet draped in the banner of righteousness to conceal the emptiness beneath this battle robe.

She didn't know when she finally understood why her mother had scolded her so harshly for wanting to become a Valkyrie, and why she had ultimately let her leave the Colorless Clan and go to Destiny.

It turns out that yelling and scolding was the best the mother could do.

If a person's characteristics can be represented by colors, then the women of colorless families are educated from a young age to erase all their colors.

Having lost her color, she could not establish herself in the colorful human society, because such a place would never accept her; she had only one choice from before she was born.

She knew, she always knew, that she could do nothing. She was merely a clown standing between the Colorless Clan and Destiny, a tribute offered by the Colorless Clan to Destiny. "Colorless" was her only color; she could not possess the color of the Yamabuki flower, the color of the twelve-layered kimono, or even the pure, snow-like white kimono.

The agreement between the Colorless Clan and Destiny is a system, and she... as a pawn existing within this system, even as the strongest queen in chess, cannot do anything to the players.

The servant who had once blurted out that he wanted to see the colorless radiance wearing a twelve-layered kimono again never appeared in the mansion again.

The servant who taught her that damaging the garden was bad behavior never appeared in the house again.

Each generation of patriarchs bears the mission of continuing the colorless family lineage. To this end, they must vigilantly monitor the entire mansion and eliminate all destabilizing factors that could lead to the derailment of education.

So this is the true colorless curse.

————————————————————————————————————

The colorless radiant fire grew weary.

She had originally planned to stay at home a few more days, but now she just wanted to leave as soon as possible. She put on her Destiny uniform, pushed open the door, and wanted to go to the flower field to take one last look at the swing. Although she no longer felt like swinging, she still wanted to see it.

The colorless flame hurried along, heading in the direction it remembered. But as it walked, it lost its way.

The house was so big and the paths were so complicated that she couldn't remember which way led to the back garden.

The colorless flame slowly stopped walking. She seemed to hear people talking, their words filled with excitement.

She couldn't tell who the voice belonged to—whether it was a servant or a member of a noble family—she just wanted to ask for directions to the garden. She stood quietly, hoping to discern where the voice came from, but the quieter she listened, the clearer the conversation became.

"It seems another powerful family from who-knows-where has arrived, wanting to recommend a young girl to the sect leader... That child is only about ten years old, right? Even if she's just doing odd jobs..."

Wu Se Hui Huo's feet were rooted to the spot. She looked in the direction from which the faint sound came, but could only see a wall between her and the chattering group.

"Another prodigy or something, right? There was one before you came, who was recommended by the sect leader to study in Europe..."

The colorless radiance's eyes flickered. She gazed at the deep night sky, then turned back to look at the dark, well-like house. She didn't know which direction to choose at this moment.

"I'm so lucky... By the way, the sect leader just said there's a banquet tomorrow. Time is so tight. We can take the seafood to the fish market early tomorrow morning, but what about the beef? We need to pre-order that. There's no way we'll have time..."

"Leave this to the kitchen, it's none of our business... But I overheard the Second Master saying the other day that the manor's finances are not good, so why are we having a banquet?"

"It's probably because the young lady is back... I heard that young lady has a particularly bad temper and is very strange. Whoever gets assigned to her tomorrow is doomed..."

"But you need money to host a banquet... This month, I can clearly feel that all kinds of expenses are being cut back as much as possible, and the sect leader even fired four people over a trivial matter..."

"Who knows? They have to put on a good show. Maybe they received incense offerings at the funeral a couple of days ago, so they've made some money..."

"How much incense money did they give out with only a few people coming?"

"I heard that the place where Madam works issues..."

The colorless radiant fire froze on the spot, and without a second thought, she understood what had happened.

That cannibalistic feast began without her knowledge.

……

"Shh-"

The door to the main hall was pulled open, and a cool night wind rushed in from behind Wu Se Hui Huo, whipping up her long sleeves and making them dance wildly in the wind.

There weren't many people in the main hall, but they were the powerful figures in the clan who could speak for themselves. The clan leader still sat upright in the center, and although he was very old, he still had the eyes of a lion.

The colorless glow of fire swept its gaze across the main hall, which had become unusually quiet since her intrusion. The exquisitely carved table, the cup made by a master craftsman, and the bamboo painted on the screen that cleverly separated the space of the main hall seemed to be swaying gently in the wind.

The colorless radiant fire had seen these glamorous appearances more than once, but beneath this glamorous surface lay nothing but rotten, foul mud.

They lay on the once vibrant corpses, desperately sucking at the remaining bones and shriveled flesh, wishing they could bury their entire bodies in the stench of decay. Sometimes they would suck out a mouthful of still-dry pus, so delicious that they couldn't wait to throw a grand feast.

The colorless family thus managed to eke out a living for hundreds of years.

The colorless radiant fire's gaze did not linger on the faces of those around her whose names she no longer remembered, but instead swept around the room before landing on the two people kneeling before the sect leader.

The middle-aged man was wearing a sharp suit, his hair was slicked back and neatly combed. The girl kneeling on the ground, however, seemed uncomfortable. She wore light-colored short-sleeved shirts, her young back was ramrod straight, but her head was bowed, wasting the beautiful camellia in her hair.

Huihuo no longer remembered the names of the others sitting around her, but she remembered their eyes. Those gazes were not of appreciation, but of drooling over a piece of succulent fat, which, if placed on the devil's altar, would allow them to enjoy a feast for several more years.

The sect leader waved his hand, his expression unchanged, as if casually dismissing a rash junior: "Huihuo, are you hungry? We are discussing important matters here. I will have someone bring dinner to your room in a little while."

A cold voice rang out, seemingly even more chilling than the biting wind.

"You're eating people, aren't you going to take me with you? Such a fine body, and all I get is a piece of rotten flesh?"

The sect leader's voice was still hoarse, as if his vigor today was just an act: "Huihuo, go back. I know you're not in a good mood today."

"So you can only dismember and devour Mother's body after you've driven me away?"

"Colorless Radiant Flame!" the sect leader roared suddenly, her voice so loud it made her eardrums ache. "Have you lost your mind?!"

The colorless glow of the fire swept across the table before them, across the ornate plates and exquisite dishes. Those weren't delicate Japanese dishes; they were her mother's pension, her mother's life, her mother's remains.

The pink pickled ginger in the small cup stung her eyes. She suddenly remembered the crimson mark on that letter. Others wouldn't understand its meaning, but Wuse Huihuo did. Only a Valkyrie born into the Wuse family would understand.

That was the final, silent roar of a woman from a colorless family who had longed for color, before her death, before she could finally break free from the curse of colorlessness.

That is a red that a colorless woman should not have.

Her mother had never found her color, but in that letter, she told Huihuo that she had found her red.

It was thick blood, a raging fire, cinnabar soaked in colorless water, and a red that was surrounded by colorlessness yet still tried to bloom.

Red is fire, a blazing flame that spreads and is passed down through generations.

It was the color that Mom tried to convey to herself in the last moments of her life.

……

The sect leader's voice softened, as if he were comforting her: "Chunxia is my daughter, and I am also very saddened by what happened to her. Huihuo, I understand how you feel..."

The colorless radiant fire raised its head and strode to the father and daughter kneeling in the center, looking down at the sect leader: "So you're already holding a gleeful banquet just days after her death? You sold her to fate, and now you're not even letting her corpse go?"

The sect leader's expression gradually turned cold. He was willing to give Wuse Huihuo some leniency because she was a descendant of the glorious family. But now Wuse Huihuo was becoming more and more unruly, and his bottom line was being slowly eroded.

The colorless radiant fire ignored the sect leader's expression. She sneered, the white of her uniform reflecting a magnificent light that made people want to avoid her: "The retired Valkyrie received so little aid money. You probably wished she would die sooner, so you could at least get the pension sooner and prolong your life—so once you got it, you couldn't wait to start devouring her?"

The colorless radiant fire's gaze fell upon the seemingly nervous figure standing in front of her.

That fair neck was revealed from the collar, and from the angle of the colorless glowing fire, one could just see the tiny bit of crimson where the snow-white skin met the collar.

With a scream, the colorless radiant fire kicked the girl to the ground, tearing at her clothes in a very undignified and even brutal manner, stepping on her head, and forcefully ripping open her collar to reveal the blood-like pattern on her back.

The girl's father instinctively tried to protect his daughter, but he crashed headfirst into steel. A gigantic floating cannon, larger than a person, had appeared in the main hall at some point, its coils, the function of which was unclear, lighting up layer by layer inside the muzzle.

Like a one-eyed demon from legend, it was staring at the girl's father with its eyes, which were larger than a human head.

The girl was still screaming, but no one present dared to step forward to stop the colorless radiant fire.

She is at the top of the Valkyrie Pyramid; everyone else here is nothing but a joke in her presence.

The colorless flame's fingertips glided across the girl's smooth back. Her meticulously manicured nails, like blades, traced the stigmata flowing with Honkai energy, carving a mark that, though not piercing the skin, was enough to leave a red mark, causing the girl beneath her feet to scream.

It is a natural mark of holiness.

"You think you can just slap on a temporary tattoo and start swindling people? Do you know what happens when you deceive fate?" The colorless radiance glanced sideways, but its foot remained firmly planted on the girl's head, twisting it even harder to prevent her from moving an inch. "Want to become a Valkyrie? You think you're worthy?"

"No...no! This happened naturally!" The girl's father felt the cannon muzzle, which was almost swallowing his head, and the heat wave, like a heating coil, rolled out of the barrel, hitting his face and almost burning his hair.

"Colorless Radiant Flame! Step back!"

The sect leader roared, his withered body seemingly swelling up at that moment. His eyes were bloodshot, and the veins on his neck were almost bursting out of his bark-like skin. His angry shout even silenced the wind.

The entire main hall was like a silent play that had been abruptly stopped; all sounds ceased at that moment.