Chapter 147: The Core Rejected Me
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The authority of the Herrscher of Reason is to construct things through understood knowledge — in this regard, merely operating it is not a difficult task for Bronya.
After all, as someone whose name was recorded in Charon’s records as a youth, Bronya is naturally exceptionally familiar with the weapons in her hands.
Moreover, the switchable firepower modules equipped on Project Bunny also require her to have a certain understanding of weapons.
There’s no need for any so-called recitation. For a Herrscher, using their authority is like eating and drinking for humans — it’s an existence as natural as instinct.
“…”
It hurts so much!
According to common sense, the step of accumulating knowledge and wisdom for the Herrscher of Reason should be the most difficult part of using this power, but…
For Bronya Zaychik, the biggest problem isn’t whether she can reasonably use this authority, but rather—
Whether she has the qualifications to use this power.
“…The core is rejecting me.”
An accident that should absolutely never occur in a fully transformed Herrscher of Reason happened. Bronya experienced the same pain as when Jiang Qiao first forcibly used the Herrscher of the Void core — that ‘refreshing’ sensation of having every cell in her body backlashing against her directly made the girl’s face turn deathly pale. Completely unable to understand what was happening, she gritted her teeth, her face full of disbelief.
To master a Herrscher’s authority, one must necessarily have the corresponding awakening. Just like how Kiana Kaslana had to recognize her essence as Sirin, acknowledge that she truly was a Herrscher — only after having such awakening did she gain the qualification to compete with the Herrscher of the Void for Imaginary authority.
The same applies to the Herrscher of Reason.
According to the original development — Bronya gained the correct understanding of this power after experiencing various adventures in multiple bubble universes, and then at a moment of near-death, she suddenly awakened and transformed, finally mastering this power in an incomplete manner.
Without these experiences as foundation, merely harboring the mood of wanting to show off while using this Herrscher authority, suffering backlash is only natural, right?
The core won’t acknowledge her, nor will the thoughts of 300,000 people.
This still-immature little girl doesn’t have the qualifications to bear the identity of the Herrscher of Reason.
“…Are you alright?”
Durandal is not an arrogant person. When she learned that her opponent was a Herrscher, especially the renowned Herrscher of Reason, she had already brought out 100% of her focus to respond.
Even the opponent’s confidence in victory was viewed by the silly goose as a strong person’s self-assurance, making her take things even more seriously.
However, before this battle could even begin, her opponent before her — the Herrscher of Reason named Bronya Zaychik — turned pale and began sweating profusely, which left her somewhat puzzled. At the same time, her personality made the silly goose proactively ask with concern.
“…Bronya is…fine!”
Her teeth were almost completely crushed. Fortunately, thanks to past experiences, Bronya had higher pain tolerance than ordinary people. Enduring that pain, she forced herself to make her expression look as natural as possible.
The act she started, she had to finish no matter what, right?
If she just slunk away and fell flat on her face at light speed, how embarrassing would that be?
— Thanks to Jiang Qiao’s usage, this Herrscher-transformed body wouldn’t suffer obvious damage when suffering core backlash, only needing to endure tremendous pain.
Moreover, even though the core rejected Bronya, she could feel that she could still use this power—this was also Jiang Qiao’s backup plan.
He knew that with the current progress, Bronya absolutely couldn’t unleash the power of the ‘Herrscher of Truth,’ so that program of changing output by switching different Herrscher outfits wasn’t just for fun, but rather for better mastery — or rather, it should be said to help Bronya master it better.
After all, Jiang Qiao’s version of Bronya was already the ascended Herrscher of Truth. At the moment of ascension, he perfectly mastered this power.
But for the current situation, even just the power of the Herrscher of Reason would be sufficient to handle things.
However — he overlooked that not everyone could be as adept at mastering Herrscher authority as he was.
Never mind the authority of the Herrscher of Truth, Bronya didn’t even have the qualifications to use the authority of the Herrscher of Reason.
To a certain extent, if Bronya wasn’t the original owner, she wouldn’t even have the ability to pilot this body of 【Bronya】.
Even so, Ducky would often feel discord between body and consciousness. While it couldn’t be said to be a size too big, it was at least a beat too slow — much like the peculiar aesthetic of pairing an antique CPU with a quad-Titan setup.
The body’s speed could be faster and perform better with thought, but consciousness still remained in the realm of ‘human,’ making it completely impossible for that high-performance body belonging to a ‘Herrscher’ to display its proper performance.
“Project Bunny!”
The old-model Ducky, completely unable to keep up with the version, endured the pain and gritted her teeth as she called out her best partner.
Her most skilled combat method was using Project Bunny to provide fire suppression against enemies. Although she felt this power was very difficult to use and master, being able to sense that she had been ‘enhanced’ to some degree, Bronya planned to charge…no, this level was already sufficient to handle an S-rank Valkyrie! (Equivalent to 5% of the Herrscher of Reason)
The moment her consciousness linked with Project Bunny, Bronya felt instantly much more relaxed.
Though she didn’t notice Project Bunny’s somewhat confused little eyes.
— In the combat system between Project Bunny and Bronya, Project Bunny was the one responsible for calculations, but after becoming a Herrscher, 【Bronya】 was instead the one providing enhancement to Project Bunny.
By connecting with its consciousness, 【Bronya】 could provide higher-performance enhancement to Project Bunny, causing its strength to undergo qualitative improvement.
But now…
Project Bunny, entering combat state, only felt — how about we just disconnect, you’re already affecting my performance, master.
If it weren’t for Jiang Qiao also leaving some power on Project Bunny’s side, it might have already been knocked back from Blue Project Bunny to its original form.
To put it bluntly, letting it fight this person alone, its chances of winning might still be… oh, still zero, never mind then.
“Here it comes!”
Sensing the Herrscher-like oppressive aura emanating from Bronya standing together with Project Bunny — though it felt somewhat lacking, Durandal, who respected her enemies, still raised the Abyss Flower in her hands with a grave expression.
At the same time, she was extremely vigilant of her surroundings.