Chapter 913: The Alarm Sounded

The alarm sound began at the top of the tallest tower in the city center.

It was shrill and piercing, blasting out from the tower's speaker array, then radiating outward in all directions with the tower as its center.

Immediately, a second set of alarms sounded from the roof of City Hall three blocks away, then a third, then a fourth; every building equipped with an emergency broadcast system lit its red warning lights in turn under this chain‑reaction mechanism, turning the whole city's sky into an ominous dark red.

At that moment Heimu walked at the very end of the group, hands in the pockets of the teacher's uniform, the ash‑gray low ponytail swaying lightly with each step.

Heimu's dark‑purple eyes were half‑closed, her gaze lazily resting on the backs of the two girls ahead; Hua still kept that upright, stiff walking posture, shoulders straight, the gray‑blue low ponytail moving neatly behind her shoulders.

Kaluoer walked beside her, her steps much more bouncy; one moment she hurried two steps ahead of Hua, tilting her head to speak, the next she slowed to kick a small stone by the road, the dark‑blue coat tied around her waist swaying with her hopping movements.

Heimu watched the two silhouettes, a lazy curve at the corner of her mouth, but her mind was already racing.

The home‑visit procedure needs to be redesigned.

The original plan was extremely simple: follow Hua home, knock, enter, meet Hua's father, adjust his health parameters in the System Panel, then smile while drinking tea, accept the father's clumsy thanks, and finish.

But now Kaluoer is added.

The very existence of this white‑haired girl is a Variable; her personality is overly outgoing, curiosity overly intense, mouth too restless, and she could at any critical Node ask a question that makes the scene awkward.

Conversely, Kaluoer's presence can also serve as a good cover; she can draw most of Hua's attention, giving Heimu more room to maneuver.

She was just calculating how to allocate Kaluoer, this "interference item," after arriving at Hua's house…

The alarm sounded.

Everyone's phones on the street vibrated simultaneously, a scarlet emergency push notification popping up on the screens.

Then a series of dull crash sounds came from the distant overpass.

Heimu felt a gust of wind surge from ahead, as if someone had slammed a massive door shut.

Immediately after, more sounds followed in succession.

Heimu stopped, quickly lifted her head, the dark‑purple pupils shifting in an instant from half‑closed to fully open.

About two hundred meters ahead, an out‑of‑control bus barreled across three lanes, its side scraping the guardrail and sending a spray of blinding sparks, finally flipping over in a gruesome angle onto the road's center, its windows shattering on the ground.

Behind it, more vehicles collided in a chain at an irrational speed: a sedan slammed into a side door, was pushed to overturn a roadside fire hydrant, the hydrant's burst water jet shooting skyward; a motorcycle swerved sharply to avoid the hydrant but crashed straight into a fruit stall, whose owner had fled the moment the alarm sounded, leaving crushed watermelons and scattered oranges littering the ground.

"W‑What's happening—"

Kaluoer's voice shifted from excitement to confusion, her smile not fully retracted, hanging half‑tight on her face.

Her warm golden eyes widened, first scanning the street crash, then the flickering red warning lights overhead, her mouth forming an uncertain circle.

Hua's reaction was half a beat faster than Kaluoer's.

Her right hand instinctively rose to her chest, fingers slightly spread, her center of gravity dropping a few centimeters, the school uniform skirt swaying gently as she adjusted her stance.

Her blue eyes flicked quickly over the intersection ahead, the alley on the left, the shop on the right, finally fixing on the rapidly spreading chaos beneath the overpass.

She said nothing, but her tightly furrowed brows reflected the girl's tension.

At that moment, a mass of gray things surged from beneath the overpass.

At first they were only a few vague gray silhouettes, emerging from the shadows of the bridge piers.

But the next second they solidified into bodies: gray‑white shells, joints traced with faint purple luminescent patterns, uneven limbs, so numerous it seemed someone had unzipped a production line in the overpass's shadows.

They darted between vehicles, shells scraping burnt car doors with a screech like fingernails on a blackboard.

A slightly larger one leapt onto the overturned bus's roof, raising its head and emitting a roar that sounded like metal snapping and a beast's howl, the sound wave cracking a circle of fissures in the surrounding glass curtain walls.

The city's emergency system voice blared simultaneously from every still‑working speaker, mechanical and cold, repeating the same line: "Honkai disaster alert. Level: Unknown. All citizens, please seek immediate nearby shelter. Repeat. All citizens, please seek immediate nearby shelter."

Heimu stood at the very center of the chaos, the surrounding crowd scattering in all directions like ants shattered by a stone.

Her gray‑white long hair was brushed by a man sprinting past in a panic, the ends swinging in an arc behind her shoulders, yet she remained perfectly still.

She merely narrowed her eyes slightly, the dark‑purple pupils glowing with a deep cold light under the red warning lamps.

Something's off.

Since stepping onto this street, the Plot has been off.

Collapse Beast exists in the setting of "Hua's Adventure Record," but not now.

Earlier, when she encountered a few scattered Collapse Beast in the alley, she already felt something was off, but at the time she thought it was a random encounter mechanism triggered by the Painted World.

But now, with the city‑wide alarm, chain‑reaction crashes, a flood of Collapse Beast, and panic‑filled crowds crowding the whole street, this is not an encounter.

This is an end‑times Script.

In the picture album, the Plot concerning Honkai is all concentrated in the later part, where Hua awakens Great Void Sword Qi and leads the survivors in a counter‑offensive climax.

At the normal Plot progression speed, this point in time should still be campus daily life plus family warmth, with monsters not yet making an appearance.

Heimu slipped a hand from her pocket and brushed her chin.

Her dark‑purple eyes shifted slightly, several different thoughts racing in her mind simultaneously.

She was thinking, when a sharp sound suddenly rang in her ears.

The sound burst out from all over the city at once, tearing the afternoon air, ricocheting wave after wave between the buildings.

Kaluoer covered her ears, a genuine layer of fear finally surfacing in her warm golden eyes.

"W‑What is this again?!"

Hua said nothing, lips pressed into a thin line, ice‑blue eyes shifting from the Collapse Beast on the street to the alarm speaker in the sky, then back to the Beast, the light in her pupils flickering as the rapidly changing scene reflected.

The street's chaos was escalating rapidly.

Pedestrians scattered in all directions, and Heimu lowered the hand that had been touching her chin, turning to face Hua.

Her expression remained calm, but her right hand trembled slightly.

"Hua, classmate."

Heimu spoke in as steady a tone as possible.

Hua snapped his head around to look at her.

Blue eyes reflected the flickering red warning lights.

"Plan changed."