I said you are all war criminals

How would I know that kind of thing?

"Let us use this duel to put an end to our past friendship. No matter where the future leads, I hope you and I can find our own skies, even if that sky no longer bears our shared shadows."

Isn't it too long and official? It also sounds a bit like a graduation speech at a class reunion.

"As expected, Ryo-senpai is the best at singing Song to Sword, both as a bassist and a swordsman."

You said this before the fight?

"We all don't think this world is real. We all think that other people are just NPCs. It's just that the seniors use sex to numb themselves, and I just want to experience the world through killing and spreading martial arts."

Hongxia would probably feel weird when she heard that.

"Looking down at the same scenery as me, how does it feel to be on the verge of martial arts? Does it make you feel refreshed too, Senior Liang?"

Oh... feeling a little bit?

"Looking down at the same scenery as me, how does it feel to be on the verge of the pinnacle of martial arts? Does it make Senior Liang feel refreshed as well?" Bai Ye muttered to himself.

After reciting it several times, he scratched his messy hair vigorously, "No, no, it's too childish, it doesn't sound like something Kita would say at all..."

He fretfully deleted the sentence on the simulator, his mind racing with various lines, unable to find the right one. Opening with a flashback? No, too cliché. Provocative? No, that would make Kita seem superficial. Expounding on a philosophy? Even worse, that would make the entire boss battle seem like a boring philosophical debate.

"Ahhhh! This is so annoying!" Bai Ye couldn't help but hold his head and wail, "Why is it so difficult to design a line?"

Game developers, I apologize for thinking the game lines were just random... Bai Ye apologized in his heart, and then decided to calm down and change his mind.

Rather than dwelling on the lines themselves, think about the overall mood of the scene.

He imagined the dark sky, as if shrouded in a thick layer of smoke, through which no sunlight could penetrate. The city had long since been reduced to ruins, its broken walls crumbling in the cold wind, a testament to the cruelty of war. The air was filled with the pungent smell of gunpowder, mixed with the stench of blood and decay, a sickening odor.

...Isn’t it a bit strange?

Hakuno was completely unaware.

Constructing scenes, like writing lines, is something that requires artistic accomplishment.

And he had none of that.

"It doesn't feel right... maybe I need to change..."

"Get another one."

“Next time the design will definitely be reliable!”

Chapter 21 Opening Animation

Snowy.

Snowflake Xiaoxiao.

Liang, wearing Hongxia, did not fly in the sky, but walked step by step.

After several modifications, Hong Xia is now about two meters and four meters tall in sword and armor form, with slender limbs, and her appearance is more like a futuristic combat uniform than Japanese armor.

The silver armor stepped into the snow, then pulled its legs up again. Each step left a deep footprint, leaving a clear path in the snow.

Just looking at this scene, one would feel that this is a secluded corner in the snow-capped mountains, the wilderness in the wilderness.

But this is not the wilderness, nor is it the snowy mountains.

This is Washington.

Twenty-five years ago, the first Kanesada, piloted by Kita, unleashed a merciless violence here. In just half a day, she ravaged the city to its limits, forcing the United States to deploy troops against the "one-horse" enemy, ultimately threatening to launch a nuclear attack.

It wasn't that battle that filled the city with radioactive snowflakes, though.

In the subsequent world wars, Washington was considered the most likely place where Kitao was hiding. Nuclear powers dropped all their nuclear bombs on this place, covering the city, which had already been shattered by Kitao, with a thick layer of radioactive snow.

...But that was a long, long time ago.

Nowadays, war has gone far away from here, and only the seemingly endless radioactive snow falls from the sky, bringing eternal cold.

Liang looked down at his feet stepping on the snow. Every step Hong Xia took was like stepping on soft sand, without making any sound.

She raised her head again, gazing into the distance. The sky remained gray, obscured by a thick layer of radiation clouds, obscuring no sunlight. The outline of the city loomed in the snowstorm, its walls shattered and rubbled, leaving no trace of life.

It is hard to imagine that this was once one of the most prosperous cities in the world.

Liang continued walking forward, each step akin to treading on the fragments of history. She saw the crumbled Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial covered in ice and snow, the White House, its walls now in ruins... These buildings, once symbols of power and glory, had now turned to dust, silently testifying to the cruelty of war.

Finally, she came to the National Mall in Washington, where there was a cherry tree in bloom.

Under the scattered cherry blossoms, Kita Ikuyo was not wearing armor, but just sitting on the ground, fishing in the snow with a fishing rod.

Behind her, behind the cherry tree, the first Kanesada stood quietly like a dark horse, in standby mode, without saying a word.

After a slight hesitation, Liang walked over.

"Take off your clothes, Nijiya, and let me talk to Kita."

"...Liang, the radiation level is still very high. If you go out, you will die immediately." Hong Xia rejected Liang's request.

"Not right away, maybe a day or two at least."

Liang ordered in a strong tone, which was rare for him. "Take off your armor and let me talk to Kita."

Hongxia resisted with silence.

So in the end, even when he was next to Kita, Liang was still inside Hongxia's body, hidden inside the sword helmet.

Liang could only look at Kita through the display screen.

Kita was concentrating on fishing.

Her fishing rod was dangling over a hole in the snow, and her line was lowered into it.

...What kind of fish can be caught in this place?

Ryo was about to ask this, but heard Kita speak first.

"You've come all this way, but I don't think you're here to reminisce about the past with me."

Kita pulled up his fishing rod, hauled a seemingly ordinary fish from the radioactive snow, and flung it behind him. The fish was impaled on a branch of a cherry tree, shedding a stream of blood.

Kita stood up and dusted off his knees.

She was wearing the school uniform from thirty-three years ago, but it didn't look out of place at all - after all, unlike Ryo who had become an old grandmother, Kita still looked like a girl, just like she did thirty-three years ago.

"...You're getting younger and younger, Kita."

Liang felt a little emotional.

"Because I'm still a minor."

Kita turned around and gently stroked Kanesada's metallic mane.

As someone who was almost fifty, she seemed a little shameless in saying this. However, Kita immediately began to explain the reason.

"I've told you before, I'm not human, but a descendant of the Golden God. By the Golden God's age, I'm not even a child, only an infant... Senior Liang, our lifespans differ. Even if you forge a blade and transform into a sword armor like Hong Xia, your lifespan is but a fleeting moment compared to mine."

The red-haired girl gently stroked the side of her mount's face.

She had her back to Liang and Hongxia.

So, looking at Kita's back, Liang couldn't help but speak.

"...If that's the case, why are you staying here? And why do you want to fight me?"

She remembered what Hakuno said.

Those words seemed to have been spoken decades ago, yet also seemed to have been spoken just overnight.

"You just want to fight, right? You want to see if I'm willing to fight you," Liang said pointedly. "If you don't fight, you can't confirm that the other party is an enemy. Only by establishing this hostile relationship can you feel at ease... You have a typical mental illness."

You cannot confirm your own existence without relying on others.

It is impossible to believe that the world really exists based on your own words.

"You are not a golden god, but just a pathetic human who can't survive without others."

Kita didn't say anything.

Ryo could hear the whistling of the wind and snow, as well as the heavy breathing coming from the first generation Kanesada's nostrils on the monitor.

But the only voice I couldn't hear was Kita's.

It was as if the previous conversation was just Ryo's hallucination, Kita didn't say a word from beginning to end.

The silence made Ryo uneasy.

"Kita!"

Liang's voice echoed in the wind and snow, but was soon drowned out by the louder sound of the wind.

Kita still didn't answer.

In other words, the wind and snow were so strong that the cold display screen could not receive any other sounds.

All that can be seen between heaven and earth is a pure white represented by the radioactive snow.

The only different color is Kita's bright red hair.

The long red hair fluttered in the wind and snow like a burning flame.

The snow is getting heavier.

Before I knew it, the flame was out.

Instead, there was a cold steel color.

At some point, Kita had put on a huge Japanese armor in the blizzard.

The armor was so massive that one doubted it was even wearable by a human. It was pitch black, devoid of any luster, as if fished out of the depths of hell. And on the armor's surface, carved in red metal was a hideous, ferocious demon.

The evil ghost opened its bloody mouth, revealing its sharp fangs, as if it was going to choose someone to bite.

"If I meet a god, I will kill him. If I meet a demon, I will kill him. If I meet a human, I will kill him. Nothing can escape my hand."

The devilish sword helmet drew out an equally huge blade and chanted the words of the oath like a song.

"The principle of swords and helmets lies here."

Chapter 22: In the Snowstorm

People have given Kita Ikuyo many titles.

"Original Knight", "Iron Slasher", "Mentor", "Nation Destroyer", "Witch", "Backward Design", "Incompetent", "Big Liar"...

Kita, who disappeared without a trace after destroying Washington, naturally has a mixed reputation.

After all, although Kita had spread the method of making a sword and helmet, he had never fought against the sword and helmets produced later. And Kita's record in Washington was surpassed by sword and helmet after sword, becoming insignificant.

Yes, people don’t believe that Unit-01 is necessarily stronger than subsequent models.

The times are advancing and so are technology.

Even if the sword and armor technology seemed incomprehensible to the people on Earth at first, after twenty years of development, the sword and armor of humans would far surpass the prototype of Kita.

...people believe so.

Until Kita Ikuyo destroyed the crystallization of human wisdom one after another in these five years.

Using the same sword and helmet as twenty-five years ago.

"Kita!"

"cold!"

Two swords of distinct shapes swung together, their blades clashing. The air was distorted by the immense force, and the blast of radiation snow scattered throughout the sky, unexpectedly squeezing out a dust-free patch of land within the blizzard.

In this space without a single snowflake, Liang could see every detail on Kita's face.

"boom!"

When the blades collided, Liang half-knelt down.

Hongxia's armor groaned under the weight. Kita's blow felt like the force of a sword, not a sword. It was like an entire aircraft carrier bearing down on a thin blade. The weight threatened to crush Hongxia's armor, along with the Ryou inside. Alarms flashed wildly on the display screen, and the armor strength indicator jumped dangerously high.

Damn it! I'll be crushed to death at this rate!

Ryo's thoughts raced, trying to find a glimmer of hope. It was an indisputable fact that Nijigasaki's abilities were inferior to Kita's first Kanesada.

A head-on confrontation will never end in good results. You must find the opponent's weaknesses.