Senrix felt a sudden, disorienting sense of weightlessness, as if the world had vanished beneath him and left him suspended in nothing.
For a heartbeat, he thought he was floating in a void, drifting like a leaf in a windless sky.
He shifted his body slightly, trying to get his bearings, and realized with a jolt of panic that he wasn't floating at all.
He was falling.
Head first.
The air scread past his ears, and he instinctively braced for impact, twisting his limbs to protect his vital organs.
The next instant, cold water swallowed him whole.
It was like plunging into liquid ice. The shock forced the air from his lungs, and for a terrifying mont he didn't know which way was up.
Gasping, Senrix kicked hard and broke the surface, coughing violently as seawater burned his throat.
He looked around.
Dark, still water stretched in every direction, vast and suffocating.
The surface was broken only by a few crimson coral rising like skeletal fingers from the depths, their jagged edges glinting faintly in the dim light.
'The Forgotten Shore,' he thought imdiately, dread coiling in his gut.
The coral was unmistakable.
And so was the monster about to swallow him.
It surged up from the black water, a hulking nightmare about the size of a whole house. It had three heads, each one resembling a shark's, but its skin was rotting and sloughing off in tattered strips, revealing pale, writhing muscle beneath.
The stench of decay hit him even over the salt.
Summoning his mory, [Crimson Engine], Senrix felt it materialize around him in a burst of scarlet light.
Skeletal, blood-red wings snapped open behind his back, and with a single powerful beat he dodged the giant monster's gaping maw by re inches.
The rush of displaced water nearly dragged him under again.
He spun in the air, wings steadying him, ready to strike back at the creature's exposed flank.
But when he turned around, he froze.
The humongous monster that seed capable of eating a whole house in one bite was still swimming.
Rather abnormally.
It wasn't attacking.
It was fleeing, moving far too fast for sothing that massive, cutting through the water like a torpedo. It looked as if it was running from sothing.
'Is this the Nightmare Creature that almost ate Sunny back then? No, no, the appearance is a bit too different,' Senrix thought, narrowing his eyes.
He let [Crimson Engine] draw a portion of his blood to fuel itself, feeling the familiar cold drain as the wings flared brighter, and began swimming upward toward the surface.
His head broke through again, and he hovered just above the water, scanning the horizon.
There was nothing.
No shore, no islands, no broken ruins to stand on. Just an endless, black sea under a sunless sky, and those damned crimson corals jutting up like gravestones.
He beat his wings harder, gaining altitude to see farther.
To the left, perhaps a few dozen miles away, the silhouette of a colossal statue lood, half-shrouded in mist, its head missing.
And near its base, just a few miles from the statue, he could make out a sliver of land, a small, jagged outcropping of dark stone.
"Based on the distance, I'll be able to get there by this ti tomorrow," Senrix muttered to himself, calculating. "By then, Sunny will already be traveling towards where Nephis and Cassia are."
His voice sounded too loud in the silence.
As he spoke, his eyes caught sothing else.
A small area of rock, nearly subrged and almost hidden by the sheer darkness, just a few ters to his right.
It wasn't much, barely large enough to lie down on, but it was solid.
With a weary exhale, Senrix glided toward it and landed, his boots scraping against wet stone.
He dismissed [Crimson Engine], and the wings dissolved into motes of red light. Imdiately, exhaustion hit him like a hamr.
The mory had taken a significant amount of blood, and his limbs felt heavy, his head light.
He sat down hard and leaned back, letting the cold stone support his body as he tried to steady his breathing.
'Let rest for a bit. I need so sleep,' Senrix silently thought to himself as he closed his eyes and lay down on the rock behind him, then fell into slumber.
Throughout his whole sleep, he strangely dreamt of a man that looked strangely like him.
He had ssy gray hair with singed ends.
Rather than seeing his face, Senrix saw his mask.
It was black and gold.
His outfit was chaotic and didn't have a consistent pattern to it.
His left arm had a glove that extended into a gauntlet.
The right was without a glove, instead having a cape that extended from his upper arm.
He had huge spikes at his right shoulder as well.
He wore a black shirt with white accents.
His pants were also black.
There were belts in various places: on his back, his pants, and his arms.
One of these belts held a few bullets.
Then he heard the man say in a deep voice: "Protect Elysia."
After the man finished saying that, the dream shattered into thousands of pieces like broken glass.
In one of the scattered pieces, he saw the man in a frozen environnt tearing apart a human that seed to have been the cause of the frozen environnt.
Then he saw the man sparring against another person.
That person was a tall man with fair skin and a stern expression.
His eyes were blue like aquamarine gems, and his hair was as white as snow.
His gaze seed to pierce through the masked man's punches.
The white-haired man wore a long black coat over his white turtleneck, with black pants and boots.
There were splashes of blue here and there on his outfit.
Then, one after another, he saw more pieces showing many people.
She had long, light-pink hair complented by prominent, fluffy fox-like ears.
She wore a futuristic, high-tech variation of a traditional Japanese miko outfit.
'Sakura.'
She had long, flowing pale blonde hair and heavily veiled blue eyes.
Her outfit resembled a modified, dark blue and white nun's habit with butterfly wing cutouts.
'Aponia.'
She had long, rich crimson-red hair and gold eyes.
She wore an elegant, glamorous dark red and black evening gown fit for an opera singer.
'Eden.'
She had steampunk-style brown hair styled with a tiny top hat.
Her outfits were asymtrical, covered in gears, leather straps, and chanic goggles.
'Vill-V.'
He had long, pale green hair tied in a loose ponytail and kept his eyes closed.
He wore traditional, flowing white and teal scholar robes.
'Su.'
He was a quiet youth with ssy dark blue-grey hair and golden eyes.
He had dark, demonic horns and a tail, wearing a heavy, oversized black jacket.
'Kosma.'
She had long, wavy bright green hair and slitted green eyes.
Her snake-like appearance featured scales, floating chanical constructs, and a dark green-and-white laboratory dress.
'Mobius.'
She was a small child with soft light-blue hair and blank grey eyes.
She wore a simple, paint-splattered white dress and went completely barefoot.
'Griseo.'
She sported short, tomboyish slate-grey/blue hair.
She wore a sleek, dark blue and black martial arts bodysuit optimized for high-mobility combat.
'Hua.'
She had ssy light brown hair and cat-like traits, including feline ears and a tail.
She wore a highly revealing, casual desert-thief outfit with gold bangles and daggers.
'Pardofelis.'
He was a tall man with fair skin and a stern expression.
His eyes were blue like aquamarine gems, and his hair was as white as snow.
He wore a long black coat over his white turtleneck, with black pants and boots.
There were splashes of blue here and there on his outfit.
'Kevin.'
And lastly.
She boasted vibrant pink hair with elf-like pointed ears and bright blue eyes.
She wore an elegant white, pink, and dark purple dress decorated with floral and crystal motifs.
'Elysia...'
As soon as Elysia appeared, Senrix abruptly woke up and looked at his hands as he muttered to himself.
"Who are the Fla-Chasers?"
Looking up, he saw that the sun had appeared and the dark sea from earlier had receded.
"Who am I?"
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A/N: from anyone who had not played the honkai impact 3rd ga:
(According to chatgpt because I'm too lazy to check the wiki)
• Humanity's answer to Divine Cataclysm
In Honkai Impact 3rd, the Thirteen Fla-Chasers are an independent faction of genetically modified super-soldiers who served as humanity's last line of defense during the Previous Era.
They were the only surviving mbers of the MANTIS project after the devastating "Tragedy of Binding". Short for "The Moths Who Chase the Fla," their na signifies their tragic, self-sacrificial journey to fly into the fire to save humanity from the Honkai cataclysm.
• Who are the MANTISes?
MANTIS stands for Modified Artificial Nonhuman Tissue Integrated Soldiers.
These warriors underwent dangerous surgery to have their DNA fused with Honkai Beast genes.
This granted them imnse, reality-bending powers matching the Herrschers, but at the cost of losing aspects of their physical and emotional humanity.
• The Elysian Realm
Though the real Fla-Chasers fought 50,000 years ago, players encounter them in the current era inside a massive simulation called the Elysian Realm.
Before their deaths, the original Fla-Chasers uploaded their mories, personalities, and combat data into this virtual system to test and train future generations—specifically guiding Raiden i to unlock her true potential.
The 13 mbers and Their SignetsThe group is structured by ranking, though the order was chosen based on the whims of their founder, Elysia, rather than pure strength.
Each mber holds a specific title called a Signet:
Kevin Kaslana (I - Deliverance): The strongest soldier and humanity's ultimate weapon.
Elysia (II - Ego): The charismatic second-in-command and true founder of the group.
Aponia (III - Discipline): A powerful psychic capable of foreseeing destiny and commanding others.
Eden (IV - Gold): A legendary superstar who funded the war and sang until her era ended.
Vill-V (V - Helix): A chaotic engineer with split personalities who built humanity's weapons.
Kalpas (VI - Decimation): A masked, rage-fueled warrior who fights with overwhelming raw destructive power. (Senrix is based on this guy)
Su (VII - Bodhi): A blind doctor and psychic who observed parallel worlds to find a cure for the Honkai.
Sakura (VIII - Setsuna): A swift, fox-eared assassin fighting to protect her sister.
Kosma (IX - Daybreak): A quiet youth carrying a heavy burden who mutates into a demon-like beast.
Mobius (X - Infinity): A ruthless, morally gray scientist obsessed with human evolution and immortality.
Griseo (XI - Stars): A young painter who brings her artwork to life using Honkai energy.
Hua / Fu Hua (XII - Vicissitude): A disciplined martial artist who survived into the current era to guard humanity.
Pardofelis (XIII - Reverie): A nimble, cat-eared rchant who relies on luck and stealth.
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