Characters / Honkai Impact 3rd – Honkai Beasts and Herrschers

Honkai Impact 3rd Tropes: A to F | G to L | M to R | S to Z
Character Page Index | St. Freya Academy (Kiana Kaslana | Raiden Mei | Bronya Zaychik | Fu Hua)
Human organizations (Schicksal [Bianka "Durandal" Ataegina] | Anti-Entropy [Cocolia Orphanage] | World Serpent | Fire MOTH)
Honkai Beasts and Herrschers | A Post-Honkai Odyssey | Other NPCs and Historical Characters | The "Captainverse" | Part 2

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The eponymous "force of collapse" that tries to eliminate all of humanity from the world, and grows stronger with humanity's advancements. They mainly deploy Honkai Beasts of various strengths and turn humans into zombies. They also choose specific humans to become "Herrschers", or "Rulers", who are meant to command the Honkai forces and a specific aspect of nature.

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Honkai Beasts

Ganesha/Parvati

Ganesha (top) and Parvati.

A huge Honkai Beast in the shape of a large warthog. Ganesha is white with pink lines while Parvati is its stronger version, black colored with blue lines. Ganesha is the end boss of Chapter 1, while Parvati is one of the bosses in the Extra Stage "Everlasting Memory".

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• An Ice Person: Parvati can manipulate ice to attack.
• Belly Flop Crushing: Both have an attack where they walk on their hindlegs trying to follow you, then slam their body down.
• Breath Weapon: Ganesha can shoot a Wave-Motion Gun from its mouth. Parvati's own causes freezing ice chunks to cover the ground.
• Crafted from Animals: A week-long monthly event stage would let you fight Ganesha and gain weapons based on it: either a sword for Mei or a laser cannon for Bronya.
• Death from Above: Parvati can cause chunks of ice to fall from above in large amounts.
• Degraded Boss:
  • In one of the stages of the "Squad Snowwolf" Raid, Parvati appears as a Mini-Boss and is smaller than its regular self.
  • In one of the Chinese New Year event stages, you'll fight 3 mini versions of Ganesha for their meat (it's the year of the Pig and the girls are going to make barbecue with it).
• Dual Boss:
  • In the Infinite Abyss mode, the last floor may have you fighting Ganesha and Dark Bronya at the same time.
  • In the third Matrix Raid stage, both Ganesha and Parvati act as the boss at the end of the level.
  • In Q-Singularis and Dirac Sea modes, sometimes the last floor may pit you against both Ganesha and Wendy together.
• Full-Boar Action: They are Honkai beasts in the shape of gigantic warthogs.
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite their massive size and strength, they move surprisingly quickly.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Ganesha has an attack where it gathers energy, then releases a powerful shout that deals damage in an area around him. Parvati's version of it does no damage, but will freeze you solid and is nigh undodegable (it covers the whole arena). Mash buttons to break free!
• Rolling Attack: Both have 2 kinds of this: a very fast rolling attack that goes on a straight line and deals high damage in a single hit, and a slower one that tracks your position and deals multiple hits.
• Tron Lines: Ganesha has pink lines, while Parvati has blue.

Assaka

A tall Honkai Beast which caused havoc during the 2nd Honkai War. It is comprised of 2 halves: the blue half called "Son of Darkness" and the pink half called "Son of Dawn". Son of Darkness is fought first as a boss of Chapter 5, while Son of Dawn is fought in the chapter's final stage, after which Assaka reunites the two halves and fights as the chapter's last boss.

All of its forms are also fought in the Co-op Raid stages "Soul Throne" and "Squad Snowwolf" in multiple levels, although Assaka itself is only fought in one.

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• Attack Its Weakpoint: Either version normally takes reduced damage (even less as full Assaka) until you hit its large fist(s) enough, after which it starts taking more damage. It can regenerate its broken fist(s) later, however.
• Dash Attack: All versions of it have an attack where it covers itself with its large fist(s) and then charges forward.
• Dual Boss: In Co-op Raid stages "Soul Throne", Son of Darkness and Son of Dawn are fought at the same time in the 5th stage. In "Squad Snowwolf", the two halves are fought together in one of the penultimate stages.
• Duality Motif: Aesthetically speaking. Son of Darkness has an enlarged right shoulder and left arm, while Son of Dawn has an enlarged left shoulder and right arm. Assaka makes the whole design symmetrical except for the coloring.
• Dub Name Change: It's called "Ashvin" in the original Chinese and Japanese, a reference to Hindu Mythology where it's a name for a twin figure of sunrise and sunset (hence the name for the beast's halves).
• Improvised Weapon: When it (only as Assaka) Turns Red, it summons a large pink pillar from the ground to be used to pound your Valkyries with.
• It Can Think: In Chapter XII, Theresa is shocked to learn that the two Assaka she's fighting with the Olenyeva twins are able to retain their human thoughts and intelligence, even casually revealing about how the Honkai augmentations for the Vodka Girls were ultimately just a testbed for the Gray Serpent's own experiment on creating a human-Honkai chimera.
• Laser Cutter: Son of Darkness has a move where it fires a sweeping laser from its Shoulders of Doom. Assaka itself can fire 2 lasers at once in the same way.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Assaka has both the small arms and the large arms from Son of Darkness and Son of Dawn. The small ones have no use, however.
• Power Fist: Son of Darkness has an enlarged left hand while Son of Dawn has it on the right. Assaka, logically, has both. They can do different things with them, most notably causing explosions of energy with them.
• Rapidfire Fisticuffs: All versions of it have an attack where it smashes multiple times with its large fist(s). Assaka itself throws more punches than either of its halves.
• Recurring Boss: The Assaka are fought as powerful bosses at different points in Story Mode. First in Chapter V at different stages under each of their three configuration, then separately in Chapter XII, where the two Gray Serpents inject a serum on themselves to transform into the Assaka.
• Shock and Awe: Son of Darkness (and later Assaka itself) can summon lightning that sweeps from the sky, which slowly tracks your position and leaves small patches of electricity on the ground. The lightning can harm the boss itself though, especially if you intentionally move in a way that the lightning follows you and hits Assaka on the way.
• Spin Attack: One of Assaka's moves with the pillar is multiple spinning swings that hit around it.

Hellmaru

The boss of the 3rd storyline of Sakura Samsara mode. A Honkai Beast in the shape of a four-tailed fox, it was the beast that corrupted Sakura as she held Kallen's Honkai box, causing her to turn into a pseudo-Herrscher. The 3rd storyline event causes it to come out of Sakura's body to become fightable.

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• Breath Weapon: One of its attacks is a sweeping fiery laser from its mouth.
• Dash Attack: If you're far away from it, it can attack by rapidly dashing towards you.
• Death from Above: It has an attack where it makes balls of fire fall onto you from above. When in low health, it summons a magical purple stone that floats high above you and constantly drops the same balls of fire at intervals.
• Demonic Possession: In the story, it does this to Sakura's body, being attracted to Sakura's resentments as it's also resentful to the humans that hated it. Played with in the comic focused on Sakura's past, where (from an earlier scene of someone planting a strange crystal onto a bear that turned it into a Honkai Beast) it's implied that the fox was just a normal fox before a strange crystal was implanted onto it, turning it into a Honkai Beast as well - that is to say, the real possessing demon here is the 12th Herrscher, through said core. The person who implanted said crystal cores was revealed to be Sakura, also possessed by said Herrscher.
• Dual Boss: In Sakura Samsara and one stage of Matrix Space Raid, it's fought together with Sakura.
• Kill It with Ice: An update gives it a vulnerability towards ice attacks, at least for the Memorial Arena version of the battle.
• Lost in Translation: In a twisted sense. In the original Chinese/Japanese, its name is pronounced as "Higokumaru"^note "Scarlet Prison-maru". However, its post-amnesic self is also called "Higokumaru" in the English translated versions... and "Higyokumaru"^note "Scarlet Orb-maru" in Japanese.
• Multiple-Tailed Beast: In keeping with its kitsune image, it has 4 tails.
• Pillar of Light: More like Pillar of Fire, but it can create pillar-shaped fire explosions around itself.
• Playing with Fire: Can manipulate fire in various ways to attack.
• Really 700 Years Old: In one supplementary comic, it indirectly reveals that it has been around since 50,000 years ago. By that, "she" meant "herself" as the 12th Herrscher.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The can in question is the Honkai box that Kallen stole from the Schicksal. In the distant past, said box was what trapped its "true form"—that of a powerful virus controlled by the 12th Herrscher of the past, the nameless girl that would later be called "Higokumaru". Said box also contained the directive to turn the Herrscher into a Divine Key, but it's not after 50000+ years later that its soul went dormant, allowing the box to "impose its directive" upon it, turning it into the sword, Jizo Mitama.
• Summon Magic: In the fight against it in the last stage of Soul Throne's Nightmare difficulty, it has a new attack where it summons copies of Higokumaru to cover a lot of the arena with fire attacks. You have to move to a "shelter circle" (that disappears and reappears at different points in the stage) to be immune to fire attacks.
• Super Mode: It can enter one, indicated by it emanating a fire aura and the screen becoming orange-tinted. While it's active, Hellmaru's attacks are enhanced, and you'll slowly take continuous fire damage; it only stops if you break its shield gauge.
• Tail Slap: One of its attacks is a tail-slapping attack as it turns its body 180 degrees to hit its behind.

Jizo Mitama

The boss of the Celestial Castle in Sakura Samsara mode, as well as the end boss of the co-op Raid stage "Soul Throne". As the amnesiac Higokumaru (whom Sakura found near the beginning of Sakura Samsara's side story) starts to regain her memories, the powers seeping out of the cursed sword Jizo Mitama causes her to be forcefully merged with it, forming a large floating suit of samurai armor.

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• Animated Armor: It is a huge, moving suit of empty samurai armor (minus the legs) with the Jizo Mitama sword floating inside the torso.
• Deadly Lunge: In its third phase, it has an attack where it lunges towards your position with both swords multiple times while spinning like a drill.
• Deflector Shields: In the second phase, it's covered by a special shield that reduces any attack's damage to 1, but can be broken with enough sustained hits, leaving the boss stunned after that. It can regenerate the shield some time later, however.
• Demonic Possession: From the cutscene before the boss battle in Sakura Samsara, the sword seems to possess Higokumaru's body. This happens again in the final stage of "Soul Throne"; previously, Kallen's willpower suppressed it, but she lets her guard down after talking to Sakura, causing the sword's power to seep into Higokumaru again. As the sword used to be the 12th Herrscher's power and will, and Higokumaru used to be its "host", it's more of a case of "re-merging".
• Dual Wielding: In the first and second phases of its fight, it wields 2 long swords. In the third phase onward, it trades the swords for a single, longer sword.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Not only does it wield katanas, it is essentially the power of a mystic katana given form.
• Revenge: When Sakura asks "her" if "she" still wants to take revenge, "she" admits that giving up on revenge and doing good doesn't sound too bad. But then "she" adds that "she" still remembers Sakura's enjoyment from beating "her", implying that "she" at least wants payback from when Sakura defeated "her past self", as Hellmaru.
• Self-Duplication: In the last phase, it can create a purple-colored copy of itself that has its first phase's attacks. It reduces all attack's damage towards it to 1, but it doesn't have much HP to begin with.
• Single-Stroke Battle: In the first and second phase, it has an attack where it does a dashing slash attack towards you with both swords.
• Spell Blade: In the second phase onward, all of its sword attacks deal elemental damage.
• Spin Attack: In the first and second phase, it has an attack where it spins rapidly while slashing all around it; the move also drags you towards it. In the third and fourth phase, it also has an attack where it elongates its sword and then does a single circular swing.
• Status Buff: During its third phase, it can summon 3 "artifacts" at different points in the arena that gives it increased attack power, defense and speed. You can try destroying them to dispel the buff; you will also get some SP as a bonus if you succeed.
• Sword Beam: Starting from the second phase, some of its sword swings shoot out either crescent beams, straight lasers or Ground Waves of energy.
• Sword Plant:
  • In the second phase, it has an attack where it plants both of its swords on the ground and then creates explosions of energy at your location. They leave dark circles on their wake that will drain your SP if you stand on them.
  • In the beginning of the third phase, it plants its swords again, and now it tries to charge up a wide-radius explosion that will likely kill your character in one hit unless you evade in time. It leaves a much larger dark circle on the ground that also drains your SP, but at a slower rate.
• Three-Strike Combo: One of its moves with its 2 swords is to perform 3 slashes, the last one with both swords. In the second phase, this move also shoots Sword Beams.

Deathly Doom

One of the bosses in Fu Hua's side story "The Forgotten". An ancient zombie of Chinese legends, found inside a deep cave.

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• Degraded Boss: She frequently appears as an Elite Mook in other places in the game (most notably in the "Abyss" modes).
• Flunky Boss: Only in the Memorial Arena version of the fight, she can sometimes command other zombies to fight you. The zombies that she controls are invulnerable, but she's left immobile and open to your attacks. In the higher rank version of the fight, in the last phase, she can control up to 5 zombies at once, but she'll stop doing it if you break her Armor Meter.
• Horns of Villainy: She not only has a horn-like extension on her right brow, the crest that floats in front of her head gives her the impression of having horns.
• Impaled Palm: She has thick double-pointed spikes going all the way through both hands.
• Intangible Man: She can turn intangible and your attacks will phase through her in that state. She won't be able to become intangible if her Armor Meter is broken.
• Power Floats: She floats at all times. If you break her Armor Meter, however, you can knock her down.
• Self-Duplication: In the Memorial Arena battle, in the second phase, you'll face 3 of her. They all have only a single life bar each, but they will quickly fill the arena with their "glowing towers" if you don't stop them.
• Super-Empowering: As an Elite Mook, she can empower another mook to make them stronger and faster. Attack her to stop the empowering.
• The Turretmaster: She primarily attacks by deploying "glowing towers" with different effects. As a boss, all of the towers are offensive in nature, but as an Elite Mook, she can also make a tower that increases the enemies' speed in its Area of Effect, and a tower that slowly heals all mooks in the area.

Benares

^{Human form}

^Kurikara

One of the bosses of Chapter 7. A large dragon-like Honkai Beast that rampaged in the 2nd Honkai War under the 2nd Herrscher's command, it emerges again in the present, attacking Theresa's fighter plane, Helios. In chapters 8 and 9 it comes under the command of the "Herrscher of the Void" in the Battle of Schicksal HQ. Much later, it reappears in ch. 16 in Nagazora City.

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• Adaptive Ability: At least as the SS version of the Memorial Arena fight against it, the element it turns into depends on the element attack you used the most against it. Upon taking an element form, it'll gain resistance towards said element, so it's advised to bring characters with different elemental abilities against it.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Chapter 54 of the Second Eruption comic focuses on Benares' reminiscence about how she gained sentience after being healed on the Moon by the empowered Sirin, as well as how grateful she is to the girl for turning the wyrm into a pseudo-Herrscher and granting her a new name, the latter of which profoundly touched Benares. Unfortunately, this memory flash happens as Shub-Niggurath lands a mortal blow to Benares, shattering her pseudo-Core and leaving her to die and lose her sentience. "Bella" spends the last of her human consciousness mourning her inability to stay by Sirin's side, and the latter is greatly enraged when she learns of the wyrm's disappearance.
• Androcles' Lion:
  • Benares became unfailingly loyal to Sirin when the latter brought the wyrm back from the brink of death by giving her a large fraction of the Herrscher's powers, as well as a new name which pleased Benares on an emotional level. Benares feared losing her sentience above all else, as its loss meant she would turn back into a mindless beast and would never be able to be by Sirin's side again.
  • In ch. 17, Kiana and Mei find Benares being heavily wounded. Kiana goes on to calmly touch the dragon and heal its wounds, and despite Mei's warnings, Benares becomes docile towards them. It then willingly goes with Kiana back to the Helios, surprising Tesla.
• Back from the Dead: Played with. In the climax of ch. 17, after she died protecting Mei from the "imaginary construct" and Mei became the Herrscher of Thunder, the latter turns her dead body into a new dragon, giving it a new life in the process, but its old consciousness is gone. "It was no longer Benares", as the narration says.
• Breath Weapon: Only used when it's far enough from you. At first it shoots air projectiles, but later it can either shoot lightning spheres, jets of flame or icy gas. Its "fire version" also has a move where it flies up and then shoots exploding fireballs from its mouth.
• Call-Back: The scene where Benares sinks into the Nagazora's flood in ch. 16 is one to a similar scene in the 2nd Eruption comic.
• Color-Coded Elements: It normally has a white, black and blue coloring, but the blue part changes color when it changes elements (the initial state is Non-Elemental): orange for fire, dark purple for lightning, and a different shade of blue for ice. When it Turns Red, its color changes into a slightly lighter purple and it also emanates dark smoke from its body.
• Dead Guy Junior: Not long after Sirin summoned Benares, she called the dragon "Bella", the name of one of her friends who was among the test subjects in Babylon Lab. The name made more sense later when Sirin gave the dragon a human form (presumably) based on the real Bella.
• Deadly Lunge: It has an attack where it simply flies towards you to tackle you (only if you're far enough from it).
• Death of Personality: In chapter 17, after Mei reawakens her Herrscher power, the first thing she does is to resurrect Benares’ dead body (after the dragon was killed by Husk Nihilius while trying to protect her) to become the Herrscher of Thunder’s loyal servant, with the narration making it clear that there is no longer any trace of Benares' mind. In the process, the dragon becomes a red-skinned wyvern, which Mei names "Kurikara".
• Dynamic Entry: In boss fights, it appears by landing violently at a predetermined place, knocking you down if you don't dodge it. The "attack" doesn't do any damage, but can be dodged for various Ultimate Evasion effects, and in Q-singularis, to fill up the "skill gauge".
• The Dragon: Literally one for Sirin, who summoned it back in the 2nd Honkai War as her strongest Honkai familiar. Herrscher of the Void (Kiana) also later summons Benares in a cutscene, and her later boss version can occasionally summon its head through a portal to fire its Breath Weapon.
• Eyeless Face: It has no eyes whatsoever, though it doesn't seem to trouble it in any way.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: It can harness one of those three elements after losing some health, and upon (nearing) its last bar of health it's capable of using all three at once.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Her stigmata set enhances the user's lightning damage. While it is good to be used on many lightning-elemental battlesuits in the game, it is the best set for Herrscher of Thunder (Mei), as the story explains how she and Benares are connected.
• Ground Pound: It has an attack where it pounds the ground twice with its front legs. Upon gaining an element, the pounding also gains elemental effects. In its second phase, it also has a different pounding attack that creates circular shockwaves.
• High-Altitude Battle: At end of Chapter 7 on normal mode, Fu Hua's Shadow Knight has a fight against it in mid-air. In-game, they step on an invisible floor in the sky.
• Hold the Line: Chapter 17 has a limited time event stage where you have to defend Benares from incoming enemies. After some seconds, the beast can help by unleashing a powerful attack on the arena, and then it lies down again.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: In the middle of ch. 16, you can't hope to deplete its health using Striker Fulminata (Mei) alone; the stage only tells you to survive for 1 minute.
• It Can Think: Raven claims in ch. 16 that when she fought Benares, she could sense human sorrow, pain and guilt from the beast. While most Honkai Beasts are instinctively drawn to Herrschers, she says that Benares actually desires to protect her (the Herrscher). She then says that Mei and the beast have a lot of things in common. Played with in that, in a talk with the devs in 4.1 beta, "Bella" was dead back in the 2nd Honkai War after the pseudo-core inside her was shattered; only her lingering feelings remained imprinted on the otherwise mindless beast, and those feelings are gone the moment the dragon itself passes away later and gets transformed by Herrscher Mei.
• Mook Promotion: The Second Eruption manga reveals that Benares was originally just a Seraph-class Honkai Beast, and a very small one at that.
• Morality Pet: To Sirin. Even after rejecting her humanity, her friends and the chance to have a happy normal life, Sirin cares a great deal for Benares, regarding her not only as a loyal servant, but as a dear friend. After Sirin reawakens inside Kiana's body, her concern for Benares, shown when she prevented Himeko from landing a finishing blow, is arguably the only remaining redeemable trait she displays.
• Move in the Frozen Time: When it Turns Red, it can no longer be affected by Time Slow effects (including Time Fracture). Even before that point, it has a high resistance to those effects (the durations being reduced greatly).
• Our Dragons Are Different: Benares is shaped after western-style dragons, with four strong limbs, large bat-like wings and an overall lizard-like body structure. The new dragon that Herrscher Mei transformed her dead body into, however, is a wyvern.
• Pillar of Light: More like Pillar of Fire, but it has an attack where it create fire pillars around your position (only if you're at a distance).
• Pity the Kidnapper: Benares is implied to be the "white dragon" who kidnapped Theresa's "sister" in the "Empyrean Legends" event. However, when the party finds said "sister", she has become the "Frigid Empress" and bosses the dragon around. The dragon then roars that (as Liliya translates) kidnapping damsels is something akin to a rite of passage for dragonkind; it felt like the other dragons will shun it if it didn't do so.
• Redemption Equals Death: After Kiana brings the dragon to her side, she dies protecting Mei from a creature of an unknown origin by taking its sword to her neck.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: She is the Blue to Sirin's Red during the Second Eruption comic. Benares is a stoic and rational individual, which allows her to stay composed even during the heat of combat, and she constantly suggests the quickest and most efficient way to deal with humans. Sirin, on the other hand, is more arrogant, boastful and hot-blooded, which makes her easier to outsmart and overpower.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Whenever you fight it in a non-story setting, upon defeat it flies off the top of the screen.
• Shock and Awe: When Sirin healed Benares' wounds and gave it a human form, she also gifted the dragon with a pseudo-Core made from what is presumably the Gem of Conquest, given that Benares' main attack in human form, "Might of the Vajrapani", generates massive bolts of lightning.
• Spin Attack: It has an attack where it spins around, hitting with its tail and then its head. Upon gaining an element, it'll also shoot out elemental projectiles from its mouth when it swings its head.
• Tears from a Stone: During Mei and Raven's fight with it in the end of ch. 16, its skin gets cracked underneath one of its "eyes", which, combined with the eye's glow, gives an image of it crying a tear.
• Tornado Move: Its "ice version" can create an icy tornado that sucks you towards it. As the tornado is generated in its former position right after it flies, you better start running when it prepares the move, as it can also follow the tornado by slamming down from above.
• Undying Loyalty: To Sirin. While all Honkai Beasts are, by instinct, obedient to Herrschers, Benares is unfalteringly devoted to Sirin, only caring about her queen's wellbeing no matter the cost. Her loyalty to her master even surpasses her Honkai-directive to kill humans, as she comes to temporarily serve Kiana, her queen's vessel, and even saves Mei, Kiana's friend, at the cost of her own life. One cutscene in ch. 17 serves as a note to her loyalty as well as an eulogy for her.
  She has been flying ever since she woke up. Benares. Honkai Beast. Monster. The people below cried for their lives. Yet she could not hear them. She could only hear the trembles of her heart. To serve the "queen". To protect the queen who calls her "Bella". She flew across the snowfield, over the mountains, through the stars, even transcending the world we know... In the end, she fell, for she could no longer fly. When the dragon perished with her memories, in her heart, only one voice remained. "My queen... how I wish to be called by you once more..."
• Use Your Head: One of its simpler attacks is to swing its head to hit you.
• Villainous Valour: In Chapter 16, even while facing both Mei and Raven and after being severely injured, Benares keeps fighting in order to prevent them from reaching Kiana, her queen's vessel, forcing the two to put her down. In ch. 17, when Kiana finds it lying around, she can sense that the dragon is still trying to move despite all her wounds.
• Weredragon: Chapter 19 of the Second Eruption comic shows that Sirin once granted Benares a human form as an added bonus to healing the dragon's wounds, using part of her Herrscher powers to create a pseudo-Core (specifically, a copy of the Gem of Conquest) and maintain Benares' human consciousness. For most of Earth's invasion, Benares assumes that human form until backed into a corner by Shigure Kira and Shub-Niggurath, whereupon she transforms back into her dragon form.
• Wind from Beneath My Wings: Whenever it jumps back, it also flaps its wings to blow you backwards with the wind. It does this move more often if it turns into the "fire mode", where it becomes harder for your characters to catch up with.

Tlaloc

The end boss of Ch. 10 and 11, as well as the "Team Raid" game mode. It's a gargantuan Honkai Beast that appears around the Eye of the Deep and later inside the Sea of Quanta.

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• Background Boss: In Ch. 11, it stands at the background like Wotan before it.
• Giant Hands of Doom: It can use its long hands to attack your team. They can be targeted to deal damage to its health bar.
• Mix-and-Match Man: In ch. 12, in the levels that involve Sakura, if you peek into one of the monitors, you can find a data about "Project Chimera", a project where a human soldier is grafted with cells of multiple different Honkai Beasts. The test subject is codenamed "Tlaloc".
• Off with His Head!: The one that appears at the end of Chapter 11 (featured in the plotline animation "Cyberangel: ZERO Exception") ends up decapitated when Bronya, empowered by the Core of Reason, makes short work of it by ramming its head with Project Bunny's new motorcycle mode at full speed, cleanly blasting off everything above the shoulder. Bronya then ensures it doesn't come back by beam-spamming the hell out of its corpse.
• Pivotal Boss: In Ch. 10 and the "Eye of the Deep" Team Raid, it is fought in a circular arena with it on the center. As its health goes low, it'll smash the arena, causing a large part of it to break and collapse, making it no longer circular.
• Sequential Boss: At the end of Ch. 11, you fight it right after fighting Seele.

Kumbhakarna

The icy King Mook version of the Elite Mook Legatus, it first appears in ch. 18, being summoned by the Herrscher of Ice.

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• Floating Limbs: Its arms aren't attached to its body, and it can punch at long ranges with them.
• Ground Punch: One of its attacks is to punch the ground, dealing damage in an Area of Effect.
• An Ice Person: It can surround its right arm with a massively thick coating of ice, which it will then either use for striking attacks or to shoot a stream of towering ice crystals along the ground to strike enemies.
• Spin Attack: It has an attack where it spins both of its arms around it.
• Weak to Fire: It takes more damage from fire attacks, and after it covers its right arm with ice, some of its attacks leave it open to your igniting attacks, which will deal big damage onto it.

Herrschers

Herrschers of the Current Era

The 1st Herrscher - Reason

The first Herrscher to awaken in the present era, holding the Core of Reason that grants the user the ability to instantaneously create any technological construct imaginable, so long as they understand its exact workings and construction. The Herrscher of Reason was originally a man named Welt Joyce, the protagonist of the Anti-Entropy prequel visual novel.

However, by the beginning of the game Joyce has already passed away, and instead his core and his title as the Herrscher of Reason is held by his successor, Welt Yang. For more information on him, see his appropriate folder in Anti-Entropy's page.

In chapter 11 the title of Herrscher of Reason is inherited by a third person, Bronya Zaychik. For tropes concerning their character, see this page.

The 2nd Herrscher - Void

Voiced by: Xiaotong Wang ^*In-game voice / 洪海天 ^*"Will of the Herrscher" animation / Dian Tao ^*"Final Lesson" animation (Chinese), Sakura Tange (Japanese)

Sirin, one of the test subjects of Schicksal's Babylon Tower's research department. She awakened the power of the 2nd Herrscher within her, and soon after she went on a rampage, starting the 2nd Honkai War. She met her demise after Otto ordered to bombard the tower while Cecilia was keeping her busy, and her Herrscher Cores were then found by Schicksal and shared with the Anti-Entropy.

In-game, she's shown in Chapters 5 to 6 as they take place in a "simulation of the past", i.e the 2nd Honkai War, and is also available as 2 Stigmata sets.

For tropes concerning the present Herrscher of the Void who debuts in chapter 8, see the Herrscher of the Void section on this page

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• Age-Inappropriate Dress: After awakening as a Herrscher, Sirin's outfit consists of a dress that covers her body from her chest to her pelvis, which leaves the entirety of her legs exposed. After going to the moon and receiving new Cores, she gets an even more revealing outfit. It doesn't help the fact that Sirin tends to stand on positions that show off both her legs and butt.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Right before Otto's nukes hit them, Cecilia craddles Sirin, regretting that she had little time to be a proper mother to the girl, as she sensed only loneliness in her heart.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: For some reason she didn't choke when Benares brought her to the Moon. Likely part of being a Herrscher.
• The Beastmaster: Part of being a Herrscher is that she can talk to and command Honkai Beasts.
• Big Bad: Sirin is the main antagonist of the Second Eruption comic, given the story focuses on the events of the Second Honkai outbreak and her involvement in it. In comparison, Otto, who might as well be the game's main antagonist, is relegated to a Supporting Leader role for Siegfried and Cecilia, even though his shady motives are starting to come out in the open.
• Colony Drop: In the 2nd Honkai War, after she gained extra power from the "Honkai God" in the moon, she hurled many pieces of the moon's debris onto the earth, causing mass devastation in multiple countries.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: While Sirin's mother's name is never provided, her memories of her mother certainly show just how much of a caring and loving mother she was to Sirin. While in the dream world created by her using one of Fenghuang Down's feathers, Sirin is deeply conflicted when Cecilia starts to care for her as much as her mother did.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Sirin might be a tyrannical little girl, but she shows a lot of affection for Benares, even naming her after one of her dead friends. When Benares is mortally wounded and goes back to being a mindless Honkai beast, Sirin, who is trapped in the Lotus-Eater Machine she created for Siegfried and Cecilia, feels her subordinate's demise and immediately snaps out of the dream, enraged that Benares was killed while Sirin was absent.
• Evil Is Hammy: Whenever she's about to state her intents as a Herrscher, expect Sirin to deliver a really flowery speech about reducing humanity to a pile of ashes. She's noticeably more subdued when she loses confidence and returns to being her normal girl self.
  Sirin: The time has come to break another seal and sound another trumpet. BEHOLD! I shall reduce the surface of this land into an empty, spoiled waste! Its cursed inhabitants shall languish and lament the day they drew GOD's wrath!
• Exotic Eye Designs: Her eyes are gold with 4-pointed stars as her pupils. Kiana's Herrscher of the Void battlesuit later inherits this as well.
• Flight: As part of being a Herrscher, she can freely fly.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: She was an orphan that was used as a guinea pig for experiments. At the age of fourteen, she would unleash the Second Eruption that would cause millions of deaths and change the world forever.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The Sirin: Ascendant Stigmata set works okay when they're put in any physical damage character, but it's practically the best set for Herrscher of the Void (Kiana) - she's much less effective without this set.
• Heel–Face Reincarnation: Otto experimented on her core after her death, attempting to create a suitable vessel for Sirin from a Kallen clone. This experiment would eventually create K-423 — Kiana Kaslana, the heroine of the series. She eventually acknowledges that she is Sirin's humanity, reborn from her wish to experience the happiness of friends and family.
• Heel Realization: While trapped in the dream she had trapped Siegfried and Cecilia in, she started having doubts about her role after experiencing how a loving family feels like. Sadly, it was around this time that Benares gets killed, and Sirin is so distraught that she renounces her doubts and believes that they were trying to distract her so that they could kill her friend.
• How Do I Shot Web?: When gaining Fenghuang Down's illusory power for the first time, Sirin thought of using the ability on Cecilia and Siegfried to trap them in a nightmare forever. Instead, she instilled a happy Lotus-Eater Machine on them, and the results are the same no matter how many times she tries, much to her frustration. It gets even better, as when she tries to insert herself into their dream world, she gets stuck inside it too, though this turns out because Sirin had unconsciously wished for a normal family life all along.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Sirin may deny it, but she unconsciously wishes for a normal, happy family life that she hardly had the opportunity to live. When she drags Siegfried and Cecilia into a dream world made by Fenghuang Down's feathers, she's frustrated to find that they are enjoying themselves with a happy family life, and starts wavering once she inserts herself into the dream world. Her final moments are spent in Cecilia's loving embrace, who laments that the dream world was the only opportunity she had to be Sirin's mother figure. It is precisely Sirin's feelings and desire to see Cecilia again that manage to make K-423, the playable Kiana Kaslana, a functional clone with the Herrscher's consciousness.
• I'm Cold... So Cold...: During her final moment in the 2nd Honkai War, Sirin's consciousness drifts and starts fading away, afraid of the cold and darkness that have come following her defeat. Then Cecilia, who was just as doomed as the Herrscher because of the incoming Schicksal nukes, embraced the girl like a mother would, giving her the warmth Cecilia knew she wanted beyond the Honkai's omnicidal drive. It is exactly that feeling of warmth that Sirin's soul wants to experience again when she finally gains consciousness as K-423.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: After awakening her Herrscher powers, Sirin kills the scientists that have experimented on her and her friends. Considering that they caused the children's death by their treatments, they had it coming. After this, she decides to kill all of Schicksal. A more extreme goal, but Schicksal, despite their reputation (and the amount of decent people among its ranks) is very questionably morally-upright and they were responsible for deaths of thousands (whether due to wars against the Honkai, experimenting on people, or large-scale accidents). Later, she decides to wipe out humanity both out of revenge and envy that they kept living their normal happy lives while she lost everything. This is part of the Honkai's corruption that slowly but surely compels any Herrscher to destroy mankind.
• Literal-Minded: When Theresa rejected her offer to join her side, she told Theresa that the latter needs to "simmer off at a cool place"... and used her powers to teleport the white-haired girl into the bottom of a frozen lake (and take the Oath of Judah from her). Theresa used the Judah's power with her mind to track her, so that its chains can pull her out of the lake.
• Misanthrope Supreme: After snapping, Sirin came to see humans with utter contempt and hatred, believing that all of their goodness was merely a façade that hid their true rotten and heartless nature. In fact the main reason she felt no remorse in killing humans by the millions is because, to her, humans are like insects, low-lifeforms that can replenish their numbers like ants or viruses even if she was to kill them by the millions. These feelings persisted even after her death, becoming the Herrscher of the Void persona within Kiana.
• Necromancer: During the Second Honkai outbreak, Sirin revived three of her fellow Babylon test subjects and gave them a fraction of her power, turning them into pseudo-Herrschers. When Otto kills the one who had powers related to the Herrscher of Death, he's disappointed that the core he ripped out was a fake.
• Not Quite Dead: During the climax of the 2nd Honkai War, Theresa activates the Oath of Judah's Zeroth Level and neutralizes Sirin's Herrscher powers long enough to impale her dead with a lance. However, because the Herrscher Cores are what's maintaining Honkai energy within a host even if they physically die, Sirin manages to come back as soon as Theresa lets her guard down and removes the spear, using the Core of Death to restore her pierced heart. It's only when Siegfried removes said Core that Sirin dies for good. That said, her consciousness is preserved within her original Core, which is then implanted into K-423, otherwise known as the playable Kiana Kaslana.
• Posthumous Character: While implied in previous chapters, chapter 25 confirms that the original Sirin died during the Second Honkai War. She is later cloned and two separate persons are born from her final thoughts: the desire for a normal and happy life with Cecilia (Kiana) and a desire to make humanity suffer for making her life a living hell (Herrscher of the Void).
• Pre-Insanity Reveal: There is the data in her stigmata profile showing that she Used to Be a Sweet Kid back then. The Second Honkai War comic story also occasionally shows her past, i.e she was once a normal, happy person before getting abducted by Schicksal to the Babylon Tower. Theresa got to see this when she was abducted into the "Honkai chrysalis": She and her friends were persuaded by the scientists to let themselves be the test subjects for Honkai-related experiments "to help humanity survive", the experiments themselves caused her a lot of pain and the death of her friends, and the scientists also treated them like crap (especially if the subjects are shown to be not as useful as they thought). Theresa then hugged Sirin and apologized, but the latter just went on to state her intent of vengeance.
• Power Floats: Once she's awakened to her Herrscher powers, she always floats.
• Power of the Void: She was called "Herrscher of the Void" for a good reason - her powers let her return anything into nothingness by space-rending. She can also use this power to hide inside the "Imaginary Space". However, another Herrscher like Welt can see through it and open a way.
• Power Parasite: During the 2nd Honkai War, she instantly acquired Welt's Imagination-Based Superpower the moment she absorbed his core. Later, she takes some of the Fenghuang Down's feathers that Fu Hua used against her, gaining its illusory abilities in the process, though she can't quite master the illusion she wants to project at first.
• Psychopathic Manchild: After becoming a Herrscher, she acted like a playground bully, flaunting her powers and taunting "weak humans" with it. It helped (or not) that she's barely a teenager (probably even younger).
• Rapid-Fire "No!": When things don't work out the way she envisioned, she's quick to scream "Nyet!" repeatedly, and as the 2nd Honkai War progresses and she gets thwarted and overpowered several times by smarter opponents, she starts throwing tantrums more often.
• Revenge: Ever since she became a Herrscher, her mind is filled with nothing but wrath and desire of vengeance towards humanity.
• Sadist: As her Evil Gloating implies, she enjoys causing misery on anyone she meets, due to her hating humanity.
• Soul Jar: Like all Herrschers, her soul lies dormant in her Herrscher Core after her death. After it was put inside Experiment K-423, her consciousness resurfaces, her desire for a second chance with a loving family resulting in "Kiana." Later, her desire for vengeance on mankind also returns as a "mysterious inner voice".
• Space Master: Her Herrscher ability is to manipulate and rend spacetime, letting her create painful space distortions and teleport around by accessing the Imaginary Space. This commonly manifests itself as giant hands grabbing her targets from a black portal and dragging them through it. She can also use the portals to redirect enemy attacks elsewhere, up to and including a tactical nuke.
• Spell My Name With An S: The game occasionally calls her "Celine" or "Selene". The name "Celine" was used in Guns GirlZ, this game originally goes with it too until an update where it's changed to "Sirin", because she's Russian and the localizers tried to approximate a name that's more Russian while still being close enough to the original name. Incidentally, "Sirin" is the name of a mythical beast from Russia, the equivalent of Greek Sirens.
• Spike Shooter: She primarily weaponizes "Subspace Lances" that she can summon from the Imaginary Space to be shot at her target. In the supplementary comic, she's able to make the spike temporarily phase through the enemy and then make them materialize in the middle of the enemy's body. Theresa was the firsthand victim of this; she's only lucky she has Healing Factor. When she possesses Kiana, she's also able to do so.
• Split Personality: Like most Herrschers, she had one, though it didn't take long for her Herrscher self to take the control over after the tragedies and trauma that befell her normal self. At the end of her story in the 2nd Honkai War comic, her normal self was reawakened in the body of K-423, who would later be rechristened "Kiana" and develop a new personality, while her Herrscher self remained dormant until she was about 12 years old where she caused a disaster.
• Stormof Blades: Her Subspace Lance summons multiple blades of spacetime energy that bombards her foes.
• Time Master: Her Special manipulates chrono energy to slow down enemies.
• Tragic Villain: Sirin lost everyone she has ever loved and suffered so much at the hands of the scientists from the Schicksal organization that she came to believe that all humans were rotten deep down and didn't deserve to live. While this doesn't excuse her actions, it at least makes her sympathetic.
• Transhuman Treachery: Upon embracing her Herrscher side, she willingly sided with the Honkai and aimed to destroy humanity, shown by her going Race-Name Basis towards other people. This only gets worse with the Herrscher personality in Kiana, who has none of Sirin's remaining feelings for particular people.
• Tsundere: Towards Benares. While she can get a bit demanding and even scolds her servant whenever she might oversteep her boundaries, Sirin deeply cares for Bella, as she shed tears when the Honkai beast nearly died from the wounds inflicted by Welt and went to a Roaring Rampage of Revenge when she died.
• Unskilled, but Strong: At the end of the day, Sirin is just a little girl who's been given godlike powers, and as such is easily outmaneuvered by significantly more experienced and clever opponents like Fu Hua and Welt, only winning nearly all of her battles thanks to sheer endurance. She has to be bailed out several times by her Herrscher powers adapting themselves to the situation at hand, and in one extreme case, the Will of Honkai even blocks an attack that would have otherwise obliterated her mind. Several times, she called out her opponents for "cheating". Best exemplified with Fu Hua's response when Sirin accuses her of resorting to dirty tricks to beat her:
  I'm no cheat. I just leveled the playing field. I know you're no warrior at heart. You're just a weak little girl who only dares attack when victory is guaranteed. You now know that your Herrscher powers can't help you win. Are you shivering already? Are you scared?
• Upgrade Artifact: In the 2nd Honkai War, she was brought to the moon by Benares. There, she met something called the "Honkai God", and she asked "it" for help to destroy the humans. From said being, she got 4 extra Herrscher Cores (of the 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th Herrschers of the past), giving her more power, as well as changing her clothes to be more alien-looking (as seen in her Sirin Ascendant stigmata set).
• Villain Protagonist: The Second Eruption comic is as much about Sirin's rise to power and descent into insanity as it is about the Ensemble Cast's preparations for countering the Second Honkai Impact she is about to unleash.
• We Can Rule Together: After Sirin showed her past to Theresa, she mentioned that she can sense the Honkai in Theresa's body (i.e she's genetically engineered with Honkai Beast genes), which Sirin felt makes the two of them "sisters"; she then asked Theresa to join her and see the world burn together. Theresa, while feeling sorry for the girl, politely declined and asked her to stop her quest of revenge. Sirin, lamenting that not even presenting her own past can sway Theresa to her side, chose to dump the white-haired girl elsewhere and take her Oath of Judah for herself.
• We Need a Distraction: In the 2nd Honkai War's beginning, Tesla points out that the Honkai horde that appears in the tundra near the Babylon Lab are but a distraction while Sirin is busy absorbing Honkai energy from the lab. Earlier, a small Honkai Beast appeared near Sirin, seemingly suggesting something to her, likely leading to the horde's appearance. Welt and Siegfried had to split their forces, one to fight the beasts and another to find her.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: After losing her mother and thus becoming an orphan, she is sent to the Babylon Tower, where she was subjected to horrific experiments and ended up losing her friends, Sirin snapped and awoke her powers, deciding to use them to scour humanity from the face of the planet.

The 3rd Herrscher - Thunder

The Herrscher of Thunder holding the Gem of Conquest, normally sealed within Raiden Mei as a split personality. For more information on her, see her appropriate folder in Raiden Mei's characters page.

The 4th Herrscher - Wind

Voiced by: Noah (Chinese), Ryoko Maekawa (Japanese)

Wendy, the end boss of Chapter 3. A former Valkyrie from New Zealand who is a victim of an experiment where she had the Gem of Desire implanted in her legs, causing her to be crippled and become the Herrscher of Wind. She's an unassuming girl at first, but her Herrscher self awakens in her stressful moments, forcing the Valkyries to subdue her.

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• Barrier Change Boss: The Wendy boss in World 2 of Sea of Quanta has a barrier that makes her immune to one type of attack (physical and elemental) like every other enemy in that world. However, hers changes between the two barriers types in the battle.
• Blow You Away: Her Herrscher ability is to control the winds.
• Chekhov's Gun: Her Gem of Desire was last mentioned in ch. 4 as it was used to power up Wotan, exhausting her life in the process. In ch. 10, Cocolia mentions that she still has it hidden in The Deep, and it becomes the MacGuffin that our Valkyrie team needs to secure. Later on, it winds up being in the hand of Kevin.
• Et Tu, Brute?: She's definitely hurt when Bronya suddenly attacks her in the end of chapter 3, which leads her to turn Herrscher again. However, in ch. 4, after she's captured by the Anti-Entropy, she figures out that Bronya was actually controlled against her will; Wendy wants to let Bronya and the latter's friends to know this from her last message.
• Evil Cripple: Downplayed in that she's only evil half the time; the reason she has an evil side is also the reason her legs are crippled: she was experimented on by scientists and ended up with a Herrscher core (called "Gem of Desire") lodged in her calf.
• Flight: She's able to fly as her Herrscher self, and generally floats around by default.
• Four Is Death: She's the 4th Herrscher, and the first to die in-story, in Chapter 4, no less.
• Fuuma Shuriken: She can create three of them made of wind to be thrown at the player characters.
• Sacrificial Lion: She dies two chapters after her introduction.
• Slasher Smile: Her Herrscher self constantly wears this expression.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Her Herrscher self awakens when Bronya was suddenly controlled by Anti-Entropy and attacked her, causing her to fly into a rage and think that Bronya betrayed her.
• Tornado Move: She can summon swirling tornadoes.
• Wind Is Green: Her main color scheme is green and she has the power of the winds.
• You Remind Me of X: Her looks reminded Bronya of her old friend Seele (from a supplementary comic). This causes the normally stoic Bronya to open up to Wendy and show more kindness than she usually does. Wendy even calls her "Bronya-onee-chan" like Seele did.
• You Will Not Evade Me: She has a move where she creates a wind vortex that sucks the player character(s) in, then creates a wind explosion that deals substantial damage.

The 5th Herrscher - Ice

Voiced by: Aki Toyosaki (Japanese)

Ana Schariac, an 18-year-old A-rank valkyrie who was promoted leader of the new Snow Lotus squad, as the only survivor from the original one. In chapter 18, her unit, which was deployed in Coral Island in South-East Asia, is wiped out again… by her own hands after she became the Herrscher of Ice. She later becomes a boss character and gets featured in a set of Stigmata.

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• An Ice Person:
  • What she became when she awakened as a Herrscher; she had frozen most of Coral Island by the time Schicksal's Valkyries and World Serpent agents arrive there. Her presence nearby causes the screen itself to freeze when Durandal, Rita and Mei fight in the city to find her.
  • Predictably, her Stigmata set enhances the user's ice damage. The individual pieces can only be crafted through the "Stigmata Transmute" system, where you can convert a certain Stigmata set using high amounts of certain crafting materials into her Stigmata.
• An Ice Suit: Being the Herrscher of Ice and thus one with the frigid frost, her "outfit" is actually rather Stripperiffic beyond her hood and veil... with the caveat that most of her skin also turned pitch black.
• Boss Vulnerability: In the boss fight, she may sometimes encase herself in ice that blocks off all damage taken, but it leaves her immobile and unable to do anything else.
• Child Prodigy: Being a member of the Schariac house, she became a Valkyrie at the tender age of twelve and reached the A-rank at sixteen. This makes her transformation into a Herrscher all the more frightening.
• Cowardly Lion: When she tried to encourage Chen Tianwu to keep moving and not give up, the narration states that "those words were not only meant for him", that he knew that she's also fighting her own fears. He notes that she is easily frightened, but will summon up the courage to do the right thing when she has to.
• Dark Secret: In one of the ice statue memories that Mei found, after Chen Tianwu was brought into the disaster relief camp, he asked Ana if she came across his sister, who might still be trapped in the disaster zone. Ana then gave a startled reaction and she also rejected his request of wanting to stay beside her, leading to him giving a one half of a pendant for her in the hopes they'll meet again someday. The secret was revealed later: before she found him, she did find Chen Tianwen first... but due to her fears, she ended up running away, abandoning Tianwen to death in the process. Eventually she returned to save her, but it was too late. It's likely what led to her other scene about her repeatedly saying "I'm sorry" as she's running away, and what led her to try to distance herself from Tianwu. And this is all revealed to Owl himself in the middle of ch. 19, causing him to Freak Out.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Her stigmata set gives more powerful effects the closer the user is to their target. While this poses no problem for melee ice damage-dealing characters, it becomes this for the 2 ice damage-dealing characters who can fight at range: Goshinsou Memento and Herrscher of Reason. Especially the latter, as she's touted as the strongest "ice battlesuit" in the game; but her main source of damage is a ranged attack, so in order to maximize her damage with this Stigmata set, she'll have to fire her shots at close range.
• Face Framed in Shadow: Her face and body are wrapped almost entirely in shadows. The "shadow" on her face "breaks" after Mei strikes her at the end of ch. 18.
• Fighting from the Inside:
  • When the World Serpent agents first meet her, she was sealed within ice as she's slowly transforming (as Mei puts it, "metamorphosis") into a Herrscher. When Raven breaks the ice with her 3rd Divine Key, she's shown to be writhing in pain, implying that she's trying to fight back the Herrscher possession. Seeing this, the Serpents decide that it's not the time to hesitate and proceed to go at her.
  • In another stage, when Durandal comes across a comm device that belonged to the Snow Lotus squad member, she figures from the recording that Ana might've tried fighting off the corruption but ended up killing her own squad. When Alvitr sends the Valkyries' findings to the World Serpent agents, Owl guessed that she might've sealed herself in ice out of Self-Restraint.
  • In the middle of the chapter, Owl expresses concern that the Herrscher used to be a Valkyrie and that may allow her to see through their trap; Raven points out that she didn't act like a "human" when they first meet her. Mei, while recalling what Einstein told her (most likely about Kiana's similar condition), goes to explain it:
    Mei: That ex-Valkyrie's body may be thoroughly corrupted... but her mind may still be resisting its influence. She appeared to be mindless only because she was still fighting the Herrscher persona for control over her body. If the Herrscher persona had won, we wouldn't be seeing that instead.
  • In the third part of the chapter, it's implied that Owl's nearby presence calms her down, as the narration states that the nearby frozen flowers start to melt. He then tries to present his half of their pendants to her, and then touch her face; even though both of them could barely feel the touches of each other, it apparently sends "ripples" down their bodies. He then gives her the words of encouragement to do this:
    Owl: Ana, I know you haven't given up yet... Remember yourself, don't let your heart fall to the Honkai...
  • Near the end, when Owl's about to be attacked by Durandal, she reacts with screaming and causing a frigid blast that engulfs Durandal and Mei; after that, she and Owl are nowhere to be seen, and then they're seen walking away from the place. This implies that she's trying to stop Durandal from harming Owl, hinting that her consciousness is still there.
  • Later in ch. 19, when she and Owl encounter Rita and the Immortal Blades who stood in their way, Ana defeats the latter in an instant before giving Rita a sound trashing. It should be noted that they gave several warnings to just leave them alone and that they don't want to hurt anyone. Even after defeating them, she doesn't kill any one at all.
  • In the middle of ch. 19, she finally manages to speak properly to Owl... and she's saying that she's losing time, she's slowly losing her memories, and she wishes to die. She's in the verge of losing herself against the Honkai, so she decides to leave him and go to Mei so that the latter can kill her. Mei strikes her down, but before the former could deal the final blow, Owl once again comes to Ana's defense... and he gets stabbed In the Back by Ana for his troubles, as she has become completely corrupted by the Honkai.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In the trailer for Version 4.1, she is seen standing alongside an unknown man. This man is later revealed to be Owl.
  • In ch. 18, the narration points out that after she's released from the ice block, she spells a string of strange syllables ("Sh...en... Ugh...") It's implied that she's trying to call Owl's real name "Chen Tianwu", someone she once saved from the 2015 Honkai event in Manila.
• Fusion Dance: She would later merge with Owl's Herrscher core after the latter awakened his own Herrscher powers, to become "Herrscher of Stars".
• Hostile Weather: Her activity causes the otherwise tropical island to be filled with extremely cold weather, so much that Raven and later Mei feel hampered by it. It gets worse not long after; Rita says that the Herrscher could interfere with the tropical climate and potentially cause a global disaster if she isn't stopped quickly.
• Instant Ice: Just Add Cold!: When she's first shown in ch. 18, her scream causes cold wind to blow and frost to form on the World Serpent agents. Mei feels that the cold air pierces her skin and hurts her lungs.
• Ironic Fear: In ch. 19, it's implied that she's scared of zombies, despite her being a Valkyrie who typically deals with the living dead often.
• Irony: In ch. 19, in a flashback, she's shown carrying the injured Chen Tianwu away from the disaster site in Manila. In the present, she (as Herrscher of Ice) is now being carried by Owl the same way, to get away from Coral Island.
• My Greatest Failure: During a massive Honkai attack, Ana was separated from her team and had grown frightened. There she ran into a young girl who was trapped under a pile of rubble. As there were enemies closing in from all directions, she had chosen to abandon her to save her own life. The shame and guilt however was too much for her to bear and she eventually returned to save her. However by then, it was too late. The shame and guilt only further strengthened when she discovered that it was Owl's little sister whom she had abandoned. From that moment on, Ana became a Cowardly Lion. Even though she remained easily frightened, she would push through her fears, and devote her life to saving people and fighting the Honkai.
• Pensieve Flashback: In ch. 19, when Mei is pursuing her, the former comes across multiple strange ice statues along the way. When Mei looks closer to them, she gets treated to a vision of Ana's memories: her graduation as a Valkyrie, her time in the Honkai event in Manila 2015, and her meeting with Chen Tianwu. Then in the present, when she manages to talk properly to Owl, she claims that she's slowly losing her memories as she's succumbing to the Honkai, implying that those statues contain her lost memories.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: Her hair used to be light brown, but after becoming a Herrscher, it turns cold white.
• Power Echoes: Befitting a Herrscher, her voice has a slight echo to it.
• Power Floats: Like most Herrschers, she can float in the air.
• Take My Hand!: As seen in a flashback in ch. 19, back in Manila, 2015, she saves a man named Chen Tianwu from underneath building rubble after the Honkai disaster struck said city. After she digs out some of the debris, she extends her hand to pull him out.
• Teleport Spam: In the boss fight, she likes teleporting from place to place.
• Tragic Ice Character: In a recording that shows her "awakening", she was desperately struggling against the Honkai's control of her body, and in anguish, told her subordinates to get away from her; but it's too late as she immediately caused the whole city she's in to be covered in ice when she "awakened", killing her subordinates in the process. When Mei first finds her in said city, she has covered herself in ice out of Self-Restraint; when Mei's partner Raven breaks the ice, Ana was first shown writhing in pain and struggling to say anything, causing them to hesitate at first. Later on, she's slowly losing her mind and strength against the Honkai's influence, to the point that she can only wish to die as a human. But before it can happen (through Mei), Owl tries to stop it... and she gets completely corrupted and mortally wounds him.
• The Unintelligible: She struggles to speak and can only let out painful groans, murmurs, and occasionally screams.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: In the World Serpent agents' first encounter with her, she just sends Honkai Beasts and zombies at them as she tries to flee and create a huge wall of ice. She's fought properly in the team's second encounter with her, with you controlling Mei as Herrscher of Thunder. However, Mei got trapped by Owl by the Scepters of Duat and the Ice Herrscher attacks her; by the time Mei recovers, the two are gone, and she and Durandal go to pursue the two. The Herrscher is fought again in the final stage, but Mei's final blow on her causes the former to hesitate as Mei sees "Kiana" in her, giving her the opportunity release a strong wave of coldness again; she and Owl are later shown walking away from the place. Ironically, in ch. 19, once she regains her consciousness fully, she comes towards Mei instead (to have a Suicide by Cop), inverting this.

Herrscher of Rimestar (Unmarked Spoilers!)

After Chen Tianwu a.k.a Owl became Herrscher of Earth in the middle of ch.19, his mind gets close to Ana's, and he decides to lend his Herrscher Core to her, in the slim hopes that she can stay alive. This causes them to fuse together into one being that can manipulate both ice and gravity. Later, Mei and Durandal confront this new being and fight her together, ending her threat in the end.

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• Background Halo: She has a black circle with flower patterns floating behind her.
• Battle Tops: She uses multiple spinning tops as her weapon. They can attack by either bumping towards you, dropping on top of you, or opening like a flower and releasing bursts of ice.
• Face Framed in Shadow: Like regular Herrscher of Ice, her face is always shaded pitch black.
• Humanoid Abomination: Reports about her say that this new being - in terms of her coming into being, her nature, and her powers - are unprecedented. Her upper body still looks like a normal human, but her lower body is seemingly fused into a giant white flower. It doesn't help that both Ana and Owl's minds are trapped within as the Honkai manipulates the fused body like a mindless husk.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Her awakening causes further icy destruction on Coral Island.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Her hair grows absurdly longer compared to Ana's regular hair length. Were it not for her huge lower body, her hair would touch the ground and then some.
• Sequential Boss: As a Memorial Arena boss, she has 2 phases:
  • In the first, she attacks by waves of ice and falling icicles. She's protected by a special Armor Meter that has to be blown off by fire attacks; once the meter's depleted, she takes more damage.
  • After her health is depleted in the 1st phase, you enter an "interim" phase where she disappears and sets up a gigantic ice meteor to fall. You can interrupt it by hitting the ice chunks that appear in the arena, and if you succeed, she'll get stunned as she reappears and the battle enters the second phase. If you don't, however, prepare to dodge, and she'll appear afterward and can attack immediately.
  • In the 2nd phase, she no longer has the Armor Meter, but now she has more attacks to throw at you, including one where she commands her "claws" to grab and freeze your character; if you get hit, you'll be forced to switch in your other character to free the previous one from the ice.
  • For the battle in ch. 19, in the "interim" phase, you'll also be moving from place to place as you catch up to her, fighting against her Battle Tops along the way.
• Together in Death: Later, after Mei deals the killing blow to their body, Owl thanks her and calmly embraces death with Ana.

The 6th Herrscher - Rebirth (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Herrscher of Rebirth, born from the Sea of Quanta and thus completely independent from the other Herrschers and the Cocoon of Finality. During her fight to save the two bubble universes, Seele becomes a new Herrscher under the Pseudo-Cocoon of Finality Sa, gaining the Authority of Death. Her abilities include the creation and destruction of life.

See Seele's section for more details.

The 7th Herrscher - Flamescion (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Herrscher of Flamescion, who can access not only the core of Flame, but Void, Reason, and Sentience as well, with her connection to each appearing as a Herrscher gem in her sword. In the battle against the Herrscher of Dominance, Kiana accepts the powers and feelings of Bronya, Fu Hua, and Himeko to become not merely the Herrscher of the Void's vessel, but a Herrscher all her own. In addition to being able to manipulate fire, she can generate technological constructs, create portals and gravity wells, and manifest tangible illusions. See Kiana's character page for more details.

The 8th Herrscher - Sentience (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Herrscher of Sentience, which took possession of Fu Hua’s dead body after Otto killed her but became hostile to the Honkai due to the influence of Fu Hua’s memories. This Herrscher's power is manipulating the minds of people and manifesting momentarily tangible illusions. See Fu Hua's character page for more details.

The 9th Herrscher - Stars (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Herrscher of Earth, who has the power of gravity. When Ana Schariac was completely corrupted by the Honkai as Herrscher of Ice, she mortally wounds her friend, Chen Tianwu a.k.a Owl. It leads to him entering a "dream" where he sees what happened in the Honkai disaster in Manila, 2015. The Awful Truth causes him to lose himself in a rage and makes him susceptible to the Honkai, turning him into the 9th Herrscher.

See Owl's section for more details.

The 10th Herrscher - Dominance

Voiced by: Fei Mu ^*沐霏 (female voice & puppets, Chinese), Atsumi Tanezaki & Ryousuke Higa (Japanese)

"Your ideals can never be realized. Because this world has always been ugly!"

Not to be confused with the Herrscher of Domination, its Previous Era counterpart. The Herrscher of Dominance, also known as the Legion Herrscher, is the overarching antagonist of chapters XXIII through XXV, trapping the protagonists in an enclosed dimension called the Theater of Domination.

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• Arc Villain: The main villain from Chapters XXIII to XXV.
• Break Them by Talking: The Herrscher of Dominance tries this on various characters, from Seele to Kiana to Mei, by repeatedly pointing at their insecurities and hypocrisy. More often than not, it fails rather miserably, showing the the Herrscher grossly underestimates the strength of will of the protagonists.
• Climax Boss: The Herrscher of Dominance's fight against the heroines at the end of Chapter XXV concludes Part 2 of the overall story, with Kiana coming out both emotionally and physically stronger for it thanks to recovering the Gem of Haste and being granted temporary powers from her companions.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Inverted. A single puppet is easy to defeat, the main problem lies that there are hundreds of them and they can gang up against the protagonists. There is a part where Kiana has to face 500 puppets.
• Despair Gambit: This is how the Herrscher of Dominance created its nigh limitless army of puppets: all it takes is for someone to be consumed by despair to fall victim to the Herrscher's control.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: It draws its strength from the darkness and weakness in the hearts of its hosts, but also blinds itself to the good in the human heart and all the things that let people overcome hardship. Thus, it grossly underestimates the willpower of people like Mei and Kiana, which leads to its defeat.
• Graceful Loser: The Herrscher of Dominance takes its ultimate defeat against Kiana and subsequent execution rather well, recognizing Kiana's strength and wanting to understand where Dominance's parallels with her differ. The remaining puppet then warns Kiana that the next enemies won't be as easily conquered by Kiana's ideals.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Their attempt to break Kiana's will by showing her the Gem of Haste backfires spectacularly. Not does it fail to break Kiana's resolve, but the doll carrying it also chases Kiana through the theater without an escort, which lets Kiana reclaim the core. This itself turns out to be a trap that reawakens the Void Queen, but that plan turns out to be even worse, as Kiana is able to tap into it to defeat the Void Queen first, and then the Herrscher of Dominance itself. In trying to gain another pawn, they instead made Kiana stronger.
• Hunter of Their Own Kind: This Herrscher, unlike its counterpart from the Previous Era, has the ability to steal control of Herrscher powers, which is believed to be a response to the Will of Honkai's outright loss of control over several Herrschers.
• More than Mind Control: The Herrscher of Dominance, rather than outright controlling its victims, influences them to join its ranks.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The puppets present the Gem of Haste in order to break Kiana's will and allow "Sirin" to reawaken. This fails utterly, as not only does Kiana's resolve grant her the Gem's power, but she even manages to defeat her Herrscher of the Void persona for good, allowing her to have access to the full power of her Void Core as well.
• Power Parasite: The Herrscher of Dominance can steal actively channeled Herrscher powers straight from other Cores to use for itself, giving it a massive advantage against rogue Herrschers like Bronya and Kiana. It's not absolute though; it's completely ineffective against superior Herrschers like Mei, and the savage beating it takes from her also weakens its hold on the powers it managed to steal, which immediately begin to flow back to their cores.
• Spam Attack: It makes use of its hundreds of puppets and dozens of giant puppeteer hands against Kiana, relying on sheer mass of numbers with its attacks.

The 12th Herrscher - Corruption (Unmarked spoilers)

^{Click to see HoC's true form}

^{Click to see HoC in "Because of You"}

Voiced by: Yan Ning ^*宴宁 (Chinese), Marina Inoue (Japanese)

Accidentally brought into the Elysian Realm by Mei after she had contact with the Will of Honkai, the new Herrscher of Corruption started erasing the Flame-Chasers' sims with the complicity of Vill-V's sealed evil persona. A shapeless and voiceless virus, it is described as an "infant" who's just barely starting to grasp basic notions like the survival instinct. It eventually takes Elysia's appearance after entering the Elysian Realm and erasing her, thus becoming the Arc Villain for Chapters 29-31.

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• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Downplayed a bit on evil, as all it really wants to do is survive. Unfortunately, it's so obsessively consumed with the will to live that despite being able to hold intellectual conversation, it's incapable of seeing things much further beyond whether they're threats to its continued existence, and defaults to committing evil acts in the name of living. This makes it unable to understand the Flame-Chasers when they sacrifice their lives to stop it, and it completely fails to comprehend the important parts of Elysia's character despite being able to review the memories directly. It knows intellectually that Living Is More than Surviving, and does want to tackle that conundrum when it has time, but that's still a very distant second compared to actual survival, and its methods are so destructive that it can't be allowed to escape the Elysian Realm.
• Evil Costume Switch: Played with. HoC tries its best to imitate Elysia's appearance and manner of speech, but its "Elysia" skin emphasizes dark and cold colors and has flaming amber eyes, showing that its imitation isn't quite perfect.
• Foil: To the Herrscher of Sentience. Both were recently born, both are heavily influenced by the memories and feelings of the person they took the appearance of, and both fail to understand why the others refuse to acknowledge their actions. However:
  • HoS acts like a child throwing tantrums, destroying what she doesn't like and desperately trying to assert her own identity. However, in spite of her destructive and selfish tendencies, she genuinely seeks the approval and affirmation of others, and has a Hidden Heart of Gold through which she can be convinced to follow the right path. This is why the various fighters of Honkai she meets let her go, as she is not inherently a threat if left to her own devices, and Fu Hua still hopes to find her so she can teach her to be good.
  • HoC, on the other hand, inherited Elysia's All-Loving Heroine trait in the most twisted way possible, absorbing the Flame-Chasers' sims to end their suffering (or so it thinks) and let them live forever within it. Additionally, it's driven primarily through its desire to survive. Though it claims to and tries to love everyone, it's only doing so to gain control of the Kevin Killer Mk 666 as only "Elysia" can control the Elysian Realm's delete button, which is the primary threat to its existence. For all its claims about wanting to saving everyone, it actually mainly wants to save itself. This makes it impossible to reason with despite being able to hold meaningful conversations with Mei and the Flame-Chasers, which, combined with the threat its abilities pose, is why it cannot be permitted to live.
• Man of Kryptonite: It is this for the Flame-Chasers' sims. Normally they'd be able to just stomp any troublemakers flat, and being AI replicas could just restore from backups should the worst happen. However, the Herrscher of Corruption is a sentient virus capable of corrupting data, making it the worst possible thing to be loose in the data-based Elysian Realm. It erases Elysia overnight without a hint of a struggle, and Kalpas, despite being one of the strongest Flame-Chasers in raw power, can't even put up a decent fight against it while it ravages his body and mind.
• Morphic Resonance: The Herrscher tries to imitate Elysia's appearance. But aside from having a different color palette, another trait that gives away its identity is the red eye on "her" left breast.
• Mortality Phobia: It took the prospect of certain death at Kalpas' hands for it to even comprehend the concept of dying, but once things finally clicked it began to fear for its life, especially when it detected its other "selves" roaming around in the real world being exterminated. This newfound will to live causes it to begin attacking the Flame-Chasers. Mixed with Elysia's loving nature, it also starts to apply that logic to the other Flame-Chasers, genuinely thinking that it's doing them a favor by corrupting and absorbing them so that they can "live forever".
• Oculothorax: In the "Because of You" animated short, when it's confronted by the reconstructed Elysia in her Herrscher of Human:Ego form, it manifests as a huge digital eye surrounded by a swarm of tentacle-like cables, and can change its appearance enough to pull off Death Glares, even surrounding its "iris" with "teeth" as a show of rage and defiance toward Elysia.
• Really Was Born Yesterday: Though unclear exactly when it was actually born, the nascent Herrscher of Corruption hadn't yet grasped even the concept of life and death before hitchhiking onto Mei's return to the Elysian Realm. The things it experienced while accompanying Mei through her ordeals caused it to mature rapidly, particularly when confronted by the fear of certain death during Mei's duel with Kalpas. This newfound fear, combined with sensing the extermination of its "selves" in the real world, caused it to attack the Flame-Chasers' sims and the Elysian Realm in an effort to survive.

The 14th Herrscher - Finality (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Herrscher of Finality, the final Herrscher and the origin of all other Herrschers. In an attempt to both defeat the Honkai and prevent the completion of Project Stigma, Kiana takes the gamble to gain part of the Authority of Finality and become a human Herrscher with the help of Mei and Bronya. She succeeds and gains full control of the Cocoon of Finality, ending the Honkai crisis on Earth. While the main Authority of Finality is time manipulation, as Honkai's origin her abilities include many of the other Herrshers' up to and including creation, realistic illusions and flame manipulation. See Kiana's character page for more details.

Herrschers of the Previous Era (Warning: Unmarked spoilers inbound)

The 1st Herrscher - Reason

The first Herrscher of the previous era who was also turned into the first Divine Key, Void Archives. Like the present era's Herrscher of Reason, he and his Divine Key can recreate any piece of technology he understands the construction of, including massive amounts of previous era technology, which Otto Apocalypse used extensively after coming into possession of the Divine Key. Following the Kolosten arc, he takes over one of the now-dead Otto Apocalypse's empty clones, and goes on to become one of the antagonists of A Post-Honkai Odyssey. For tropes concerning him, see the Void Archives section on this page.

The 6th Herrscher - Death

The Herrscher of Death who held the Gem of Serenity, whose powers revolved around disintegrating anything she touched. Flashbacks of the Previous Era give her an uncanny resemblance to Seele Vollerei. Her core would later be used as the component for the 6th Divine Key, "Abyss Flower".

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• The Ghost: This Herrscher is often mentioned due to Otto's obession with resurrecting Kallen, believing that the 6th holds the key to truly revive her with her soul intact instead of making clones he knows are inherently different from Kallen; however, the Herrscher in question is not present in the Current Era, so Otto has to look around for the Core of Serenity. The 6th Herrscher as she appeared in the Previous Era is actually sealed within Seele Vollerei as her Stigmata, usually manifesting herself as "Dark Seele" when she feels her host is in danger.
• Necromancer: Otto believes that the Herrscher of Death's powers are the key to resurrecting Kallen, and he's not wrong. Sirin used the Core associated with this Herrscher to revive three of her fellow test subjects and turn them into pseudo-Herrschers, and even managed to regenerate her heart after Theresa pierced it, only dying for good once Siegfried yanks the Core of Serenity.
• Walking Wasteland: So far, anyone who even holds a mere fraction of her powers through the Gem of Serenity tends to involuntarily spread black deadly fumes that disintegrate anything they touch. During the Second Honkai War, a resurrected Galina displays such powers and wreaks havoc in Novosibirsk, though she's unable to contend with Otto's Void Archives before the latter neutralizes her.

The 7th Herrscher - Flame

The Herrscher of Flame who held the Gem of Haste, said to be more destructive than the six previous ones. During the Previous Era, Captain Himeko succumbed to Honkai corruption and became this Herrscher. For more information on Captain Himeko, see her entry on Fire MOTH.

The 8th Herrscher - Sentience

A Herrscher who appeared 6 months after the 7th's defeat, spreading a strange sleeping sickness that affected people that browsed the internet for select keywords. The Eighth's remains would eventually form the Divine Key Fenghuang Down, which possesses similar hypnotic abilities. It first appears in a simulation of the past created by the Pioneer in the Second Key comic.

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• The Faceless: The form it adopts in the mental dreamscape is that of a nondescript girl made of black smoke with red highlights, naked and sporting two long pigtails. The only feature we can make out from her face is an unnerving Slasher Smile.
• Grand Theft Me: The Eighth can hide itself into the minds of the people it infects, and the only sign that it's controlling them is the black sclera on their eyes.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: We the comic readers can faintly make out the blurred words that are "infected" by the Herrscher, but in-universe it's completely censored for fear of being afflicted by the memetic sickness. Any mention of the Eighth Herrscher is explicitly replaced by black squares instead of letters.
• Let Them Die Happy: It reasons that trapping its victims in a dream of their own making and letting them die happy is the best way for things to end. Of course, a lie is a lie, and those who fought back against the Herrscher wouldn't be fooled by mere dreams. This is true for the simulation's version of Otto Apocalypse, who's out for revenge against the Honkai after failing to save his wife and daughter from the Honkai sickness; even though the 8th presents him with a dream where they never died, Otto reasons that it would be spitting on the dead if he was to give in to that falsehood. Durandal's simulation similarly breaks out of the dream by killing the fake Ragna, remembering the painful truth that Bianka was saved by a serum made out of the real Ragna's dead body and reasoning that it's the same pain that keeps her going.
• Mind Virus: This Herrscher can "infect" a given word, whereupon any human that reads said infected word suffers a memetic infection that forces them into a deep sleep and an unending dream. In the span of 30 days after the first reported case, two million people fell victim to this infection. MOTH managed to devise a drug that filtered out the infected keywords, but since the Herrscher kept adding infected words to its list, the drug's effectiveness gradually decreased.
• Passed in Their Sleep: The most common side effect of this Herrscher's sleep-inducing Honkai radiation is that the victim just won't wake up from their unending dream, resulting in death.

The 10th Herrscher - Domination

The Herrscher of Domination, or Herrscher of Legion. It is not just one person, but a whole lot of them sharing the same mind. Each of them are far weaker than standard Herrschers, with various simplistic powers of their own, but their true strength lie in numbers, diversity, and location spread. Despite that, they all share the same goal: assaulting the places where Divine Keys are made, i.e Fire Moth's facilities. To defeat them, Dr. MEI lured them into a remote island and then fought them with her special "battlesuit" Divine Key, together with several Fire Moth personnel. After their defeat, their separate cores are used to create the Divine Key, Xuanyuan Sword; due to the amount of the cores (around a thousand), the sword is the only Divine Key that is mass produced.

The 11th Herrscher - Binding

A Herrscher briefly mentioned by Otto when he explains the true power of the Oath of Judah. Records of the Previous Era called her the Herrscher of Binding, describing her unique ability as a strange field capable of nullifying any and all Honkai energy as well as any energy-based phenomena caught within it, ironically making her the perfect Honkai killer.

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• The Ghost: The Second Eruption comic doesn't even grace us with an image of her, as Otto only recounts descriptions of her power and how it ties in with the Oath of Judah's true power. The Sakura Samsara comic does, however, present us with the crucified body of a girl when narrating how 70% of human civilization was destroyed by the time she was defeated.
• Power Nullifier: Taken to the extreme. Anything caught in this Herrscher's field would simply stop operating, making her the ultimate Honkai killer despite being Honkai-related herself. This turns out to be the basis behind the Oath of Judah's Zeroth Level, with the key difference being that the Herrscher of Binding was immune to her own powers; in contrast, Theresa, being partially made of Honkai genes, is the one most affected by such a nullifier field.
• Weak, but Skilled: This Herrscher was stated to be weaker than the ten that came before her, but the power to nullify anything related to the Honkai proved to be devastating to M.A.N.T.I.S. soldiers, whose DNA were augmented with Honkai energy. M.O.T.H. units didn't fare better since the Herrscher's field also disabled electronics and electricity-based equipment. Because of those extreme nullifier powers, she was essentially the strongest being within her field.

The 12th Herrscher - Corruption

The Herrscher of Corruption, whose power was to infect humans, machines and animals alike with a contagious and lethal technovirus. "She" used to dwell within the girl who would later be called Higokumaru until the latter died and "released" the Herrscher as a result, sucessfully wreaking havoc on humanity's already diminished population until she was sealed by Dr. MEI inside a black box, where her powers would weaken over 50,000 years until only her hatred would be left. This entity also manifests herself as the large fox-like Hellmaru inside the Sakura Samsara dimension. After Hellmaru is defeated, the box would then "impose its directive" upon her, turning her into the Divine Key, Jizo Mitama.

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• Breaking Speech: In Sakura Samsara, "she" (as the "demon in the box") calls out Sakura for wanting to destroy the village, and that she's the one behind the Honkai Beasts' attacks. While "she's" not wrong, Sakura was under the Herrscher's influence when she turned animals into said beasts.
• The Corrupter:
  • True to her namesake, she corrupted everything in her sight, luring them in to give in to their inner demons. When Sakura opened the box, the Herrscher's consciousness possessed her and turned her into a pseudo-Herrscher, forcing Kallen to fight and seal Sakura alongside the box. When she tried to tempt Kallen during the events of Elan Palatinus (taking place some time before Sakura's backstory), she found herself unable to beat Kallen's incorruptible resolve and got sealed for her troubles, explaining the Herrscher's hatred of the Kaslana bloodline.
  • In ch. 20, in one of Fu Hua's flashbacks in the Previous Era, she identified the Herrscher's "corruption" as different from the usual Honkai corruption, and that it didn't involve mind alteration or mental suggestion. It's implied that the Herrscher simply manipulated the bodies of people against their will.
• Fog of Doom: Once "Higokumaru" got murdered by paranoid soldiers, her dying desire for revenge stirred the Herrscher's power within her, manifesting itself as a dark mist infused with powerful Honkai energy that zombified the girl's killers in short order. This mist also appears in the Elan Palantinus comic (after Kallen defeated her corrupted comrade, Eleanor) and Sakura Arc comic (when Sakura freed herself of its influence by stabbing herself).
• For Want Of A Nail: "Her" fate comes out differently in the "Sanka Saga" event (which takes place in an Alternate Timeline). "She" was sealed in Sakura's body and Kallen had to seal the two together, like in the main timeline, but Kallen - who, in this timeline, still lived on when the "original Kallen" would've died - tampered with Sakura's body, trying to find a way to bring Sakura "alive" again and get rid of the Herrscher once and for all. Sakura's soul would eventually be "moved" (thanks to one of the experiments Kallen commissioned) onto a clone body that would later be named "Kasumi", while the Herrscher still resides in Sakura's body. Unable to do anything to it, Kallen merely left Sakura's body sealed for 500 years to the present. While in the main timeline, Kiana (with Bronya's assistance) eventually helped Sakura's soul defeat the Herrscher, allowing "her" to be converted by the "black box" into the sword Jizo Mitama, in this timeline (where there's no Kiana nor Bronya) "she" eventually possesses Sakura's body, forcing Kasumi, Kallen and Rita to fight and defeat it (in form of Jizo Mitama the boss). Kallen then uses the "Preta Rune" in order to seal herself and Sakura's body into the "Saha World", making the two of them disappear together, leaving behind the Preta and Deva runes for Kasumi to retrieve.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Prior to her awakening as the 12th Herrscher, she was just an ordinary, harmless girl.
• Murder Into Malevolence: It was after the death of "her" body that "she" became vindictive and hateful towards humans, and "she" went to slaughter many people until "she" was sealed. For 50000+ years, "her" wrath and hatred only grew, only coming to a halt when Theresa shows the Herrscher forgiveness for the first time in millenia; realizing the folly of "her" hatred, the 12th Herrscher willingly returns to slumber inside its box, promising to think about ways to forgive and make the world a beautiful place. The 12th's tragedy is a lesson in itself; that every twisted vine of hatred ultimately grew with a seed.
• Nuke 'em: In the span of a mere minute after revealing "her" true nature as a sentient virus that infects even processors and logic systems, she hacked the entire security system of the base her host was held captive in, launching all 300 nuclear warheads at humanity's three remaining cities and wiping them all out. This instantly reduced humanity to the 31,022 people still in the base before MEI sealed her inside the "black box".
• Sadist: The 12th Herrscher, once freed in Sakura's village, possessed her and secretly corrupted wild animals into Honkai Beasts, and then "she" gloated to Kallen that "she'll" destroy everything the latter vowed to protect. After Kallen sealed "her" with Sakura, "she" kept tormenting Sakura for 500 years while both of them were sealed inside the Stigmata Realm. In a bid to push Sakura over the edge and make her accept her hatred for humanity, "she", under the form of Hellmaru, recreated Yae Village and the moment when Sakura's younger sister, Rin, was to be sacrificed to appease the gods, making sure that Sakura's attempts to escape with Rin would always end in failure, and then "she" would repeat the process all over again, creating the whole setting, "Sakura Samsara". Only Kiana's intervention saves Sakura.
• The Virus: This Herrscher's powers pushed beyond even the normal Honkai corruption that turned normal humans into zombies, being able to infect humans, animal and even technology.

The 13th Herrscher - Humanity/Origin (spoilers)

Revealed at the conclusion of chapter 3 of the Elysian Realm's story mode, the 13th Herrscher was Elysia, second-in-command of the Flame-Chasers of Fire MOTH. As it turns out, she was not actually the 13th Herrscher but the first, living among humans her whole life.

For more details concerning her, see her entry here.

The 14th Herrscher - Finality

The Herrscher of Finality was the final and strongest Herrscher of the Previous Era, said to be the one who destroyed the previous human civilization 50,000 years before the story. Siegfried catches a glimpse of her when he simulates the data contained within the relic he found on the Moon.

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• Failed a Spot Check: Implied. After humanity failed to defeat her on the Moon, the survivors of Previous Era hid in underground shelters and entered cryosleep before she arrived on Earth. It would seem hiding from the Herrscher's eyes was apparently successful, as humanity returned from cryosleep 50,000 years later without a hint of her presence. That said, as the Will of Honkai's Ambiguous Situation entry details, it was possible she simply didn't bother to destroy the remaining humans; and because she was undefeated in the Previous Era, her current whereabouts are completely unknown.
• Foreshadowing: In the 2nd Eruption manga, the Will of Honkai makes it clear it was aware humanity had hidden themselves in underground shelter in an effort to escape the Finality in the Previous Era. Why the Will did not direct the final Herrscher to utterly annihilate what's left of humanity completely is thus puzzling until the revelations starting from Chapter 32: that the "Will of Honkai" is a human construct meant to control the path Honkai takes, and that the Herrscher of Finality itself is not interested in humanity's total destruction, but rather has kept it trapped in 50,000 year time-loops, apparently in search of a particular outcome.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: The 14th Herrscher has been given little to no characterization beyond bringing about the end of the Previous Era, and most of the drama in the story comes from either the survivors' decisions when transitioning to the Current Era following her victory, or the struggles from the Current Era characters against the resurgent Honkai.
• Got the Whole World in My Hand: This Herrscher is often depicted as holding the Earth and expressionlessly watching over it. Siegfried's simulation of the past has her dwarfing the planet as she outstretches her hands to grab it. This is most certainly a depiction of her overwhelming presence and power in spite of being human-sized.
• Greater-Scope Villain: As the most powerful manifestation of the Honkai ever recorded, she's the Herrscher who defeated the advanced human civilization 50,000 years ago, ending the Previous Era and forcing humanity's survivors to rebuild the world and move on to the Current Era. The circumstances of her victory on the Moon also paved the way for Kevin's descent into anti-villainy, given his desire to defeat the Honkai at all costs stems from that fateful battle and its immediate aftermath.
• Hero Killer: As the strongest Herrscher, the Finality's power far exceeded any and all expectations, leading to humanity's downfall. Nothing the eight remaining heroes of the old civilization threw at her worked, and she even trounced two of them within five minutes. After Dr. MEI's Selene satellite drained her down to 70% of her power and Kevin stopped her cold with a blow from his Judgement of Shamash, all the Herrscher needed to do was rest for twelve hours to recover that loss of power.
• Identical Stranger: Looks nigh-identical to Kiana when the latter lets her hair down as the Herrscher of the Void.
• Invincible Villain: So much so, the surviving humans of the previous era had to hide in shelters in order to prevent mankind from being wiped out. Or rather, to shield themselves when time was reset so they could continue their struggle into the next cycle.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Why exactly do humans become Herrschers, and subsequently become enemies of humanity? Answer:It's a complete accident on the Herrscher of Finality's part. Apparently, it just wants to "embrace" humans, but the way it attempts to do so almost always drives people insane and sending them on destructive rampages, forcing humanity to fight back for survival. The more it fails, the harder it tries, and the worse it gets, until eventually mankind goes extinct from the conflict. As far as can be gathered, the Herrscher of Finality has thus been putting the planet through 50,000 year time loops to effectively Save Scum until somebody figures out how to avoid the dead end.
• Person of Mass Destruction: She didn't just force humanity underground, she also purged the land, the sea, and the sky by saturating them with so much Honkai energy to the point it took the Fourth Divine Key, designed as a satellite orbiting Earth in space, 50,000 years to slowly siphon away the Honkai concentration to space and restore the planet.
• Reused Character Design: She looks identical to God Kiana from Guns GirlZ down to the same attire. It's not stated if this Herrscher is the same character as the Kiana from previous miHoYo titles, seeing as Honkai Impactt 3rd is an Alternate Continuity.
• Secret Test of Character: One that humanity has failed continuously in miserable fashion over countless 50,000 year time-loops, albeit partly because the test itself is seriously flawed. The Finality's intention is to mirror what it sees in humans and ask if they can accept that picture, Warts and All. Unfortunately, Honkai energy and the Herrschers that embody it are too often so chaotic and destructive that humanity gets preoccupied with survival, and in the Previous Era at least this resulted in people performing increasingly amoral acts to stamp out perceived threats. This further compounds their failure in the eyes of the Finality and propels it to answer these acts with greater "challenges", creating a death spiral that inevitably results in the Finality stamping out humanity's feeble attempts at a last stand before resetting time to give it another go. To break the cycle, Elysia sacrifices herself to alter the "exam" by granting the next cycle's Herrschers the ability to retain human morals, which incidentally has the unexpected effect of allowing the Finality's question to be imposed more directly to the Herrschers themselves by continuously challenging their morals and convictions at every turn.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: The 14th and Final Herrscher of the Previous Era, and, fittingly, the strongest Herrscher that has ever lived. Not even the eight heroes, who had managed to defeat the previous 13th Herrschers, stood a chance against her, and all they managed was wounding her for twelve hours.
• Story-Breaker Power: She is on a whole other league compared to any other Herrscher. The humans of the Previous Era had to hide away from her in order to prevent being wiped out, and in Chapter 17, both Otto and Kevin agree that if she was to return, humanity would be doomed.
• Time Master: In truth, the Herrscher of Finality didn't "destroy" humanity, but has actually been "resetting" it along with the whole planet, looping everything in multiple 50,000 year-long cycles for an unclear purpose, though the people of the Previous Era speculate that it's searching for another being like itself.
• Walking Spoiler: This Herrscher is an important backstory character whose ramifications extend even to the present day.

Pseudo-Herrschers

The Seraphim Princes

Avrora, Prince of Desire

Agata, Prince of Haste

Galina, Prince of Serenity

When Sirin returned to from the Moon to invade Earth and lay waste to humanity, she resurrected three of her friends who died to Schicksal's experiments and imbued them with the power of the additional Cores she received on the Moon, turning them into pseudo-Herrschers. Avrora is given the powers of the Gem of Desire, granting her control over wind; Agata wields the fire powers of the Gem of Haste; finally, Galina is given the corrosive abilities of the Gem of Serenity.

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• Actually a Doombot: Not them per se, but rather the Cores they hold. Otto is surprised to find out that Galina only holds a pseudo-Core when he yanks it out from her chest, and surmises that Sirin holds the real Cores.
• Apologetic Attacker: Galina is constantly apologizing when she's releasing her deadly fumes over the city of Novosibirsk, and again when she attacks Amber.
• Back from the Dead: Sirin resurrected them with the power of the Core of Death and sent them on a mission to cause as much devastation as possible, feeding Sirin's Cores in the process.
• Blow You Away: Avrora's control over the powers of the Gem of Desire allows her to freely conjure a megastorm that devastates a number of Finnish cities, as well as create gusts that can either shield her or be thrown at her enemy.
• Empty Shell: Agata is reduced to a vegetative state when Fu Hua enters the fight and uses Fenghuang Down to convince Agata's mind that she's been killed. Sirin manages to snatch Agata's body away from the battlefield, but can't find any more use for her since she's a breathing corpse. Otto is also quick to note that Galina is neither human nor Herrscher, but rather a mindless corpse given the powers of the Core of Death.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Cecilia throws the Black Abyss with such force that it breaks through Avrora's Storm Aegis and pulverises the latter's entire torso, instantly killing her.
• No Ontological Inertia: The Honkai megastorm Avrora was moving inside of quickly dissipates when she's killed by Cecilia, and it's replaced by sunny weather once Cecilia lands on the ground.
• Playing with Fire: Agata wields the power of the Gem of Haste, allowing her to melt the ground she walks on and fire small beams of heated plasma. Despite being able to lay waste to the city of Astana in Kazakhstan, Fu Hua makes a point of telling her that her flames are nothing next to the 7th Herrscher of the Previous Era.
• Red Baron: Sirin makes up flowery titles for each of them based on the Cores she gave them; Avrora is the Wind of the Bitter End, Prince of Desire and Vanquisher of Men; Agata is dubbed "Brave Agata" and Prince of Haste; and Galina is designated Prince of Serenity.
• She Is the King: Downplayed, since Sirin gives them the designation of Prince even though they're girls.
• This Cannot Be!: Avrora's last thoughts are incredulity at being defeated despite being a Seraphim Prince.
• The Worf Effect: Their Honkai emission readings are each evaluated to be around 50% of the power Sirin displayed before she was shuttled to the Moon. This makes them prime targets for a beating once Schicksal sends out its greatest fighters to eliminate them; Avrora is quickly killed by Cecilia, Agata gets effortlessly trapped by Fu Hua's Fenghuang Down, and Galina is easily subdued by Otto's mimicry of Fenghuang Down.

The "Honkai God"

The Will of Honkai (spoilers)

The mysterious entity Sirin meets on the Moon, who grants her four additional Herrscher Cores to empower her and send her on a mission to eradicate mankind through the 2nd Eruption of Honkai in the Current Era. It seems to be the primordial driving force behind all Honkai beasts, and considers the Herrschers to be its disciples. In the Previous Era, Dr. MEI once theorized it is the great gestalt of the Honkai and appropriately named it the "Will of Honkai".

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• Ambiguous Gender: Sirin refers to this entity as "she", but since it's capable of changing appearances depending on its interlocutor, she's probably talking solely on her experience with the being.
• Ambiguous Situation: Though held as the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire setting whose will is enforced by the Herrschers, the Will of Honkai's actual nature of existence is still very unclear, with information about its existence being only mostly told indirectly through view points of other characters. The following are a number of mysteries surrounding its existence:
  • When meeting Sirin, the Will of Honkai makes it clear it knew how humanity hid from its servant Herrscher of the End to build a new civilization 50,000 years later. The very fact it didn't order the End to completely destroy humanity but rather devastate the surface planet leaves a big question mark to its supposed Kill All Humans motive.
  • Its response to Sirin calling out to it when she is about to have her mind destroyed by Hua's Fist of Taixuan? A content, mocking smile. This is despite the fact up until this point it has been assisting and guiding Sirin at every turn.
  • Its ability to create and influence Herrschers has proven time and again to be potent, to the point in most cases it basically has the Herrscher become its extension of being. Yet, there are individual anomalies showing it isn't infallible, and its relationship to the Herrschers isn't as clear-cut as it seems:
    • The circumstances of the birth of the Herrscher of Reason in the Current Era leads the Herrscher to be completely resistant to the "echoes" of the Will of Honkai. Notably, Joyce — and his successors Yang and later Bronya — are the only Herrschers who have never been compelled to act as its enforcer.
    • Mei's powers as the Herrscher of Thunder have given her the ability to use EM waves to block its influence. Mei doesn't believe for a moment that it wouldn't build itself a backdoor into her powers, yet so far, it appears to have done nothing of the sort.
    • It loses control over the Herrscher of Sentience the moment she is born, forcing it to try and tempt her down a path that would at least align with its goals in spite of the hatred of Honkai she inherits due to possessing Fu Hua's body and memories.
    • Notably, when the newborn Herrscher of Corruption intruded upon Mei's meeting with the Will of Honkai, it not only attempted to corrupt Mei but also the Will of Honkai itself. It was just instinct, and it didn't work, but if the Will of Honkai's influence was absolute it logically shouldn't have even tried. Though it is assumed the Will of Honkai planted the Herrscher of Corruption on Mei to act as a Trojan Horse, the reality seems to be imply the nascent Herrscher was just so singleminded in trying to corrupt everything it can, it was still clinging onto Mei when she left.
    • Even more strangely, the very first Herrscher ever born on Earth, Elysia, lived her entire life without ever hearing its voice and could live among humans until the very end, without even knowing she was a Herrscher for most of her life.
  • Related to the above, Kevin states every Herrscher is blessed with a link to the Imaginary Space — a link which is explicitly bestowed by the Will of Honkai. This means it must have approved the birth of every single Herrscher shown in the story without exception, including the ones which come to oppose its will. Why the Will of Honkai would approve the birth of Herrschers opposing it, such as Kiana becoming the Herrscher of Flamescion, is once again not explained.
  • The entity definitely exists, and several characters in the story have met it. However, when Mei questions Kevin's sim about it he's confused by the question because no such entity existed in the Previous Era. In fact, Fire MOTH had created the hypothesis and specifically disproved it. This in spite of the fact the real Kevin sent her to the Elysian Realm to learn "answers". This is because they were the ones that created the Will of Honkai in order to make sure the next Era could expect approximately the same Herrschers.
• The Chooser of the One: The Will of Honkai is responsible for selecting human hosts for its Herrschers, blessing them with a link to the Imaginary Tree embodied in a Herrscher Core which becomes their source of reality-bending powers. Unlike in Guns GirlZ, it's not made entirely clear how the Will decides its chosen ones, but common factors include high compatibility with Honkai energy (lesser humans simply turn into zombies), and an unhealthy degree of hatred or resentment for humans and the world.
• Cosmic Entity: Su's observations of alternate worldlines in the Imaginary Tree reveal the Honkai is present in every Alternate Universe he can observe. The Alien Space manga also has the Sugars comment their own civilization also experienced Honkai Eruptions at some point in their history, and managed to overcome it; they further state other alien civilizations in the universe such as the Sky People have also faced its influence in their own planets.
• Diabolus ex Machina: Taking down Sirin would've been so much easier if this being didn't interfere directly to give the girl everything she needed to get stronger at every turn, first by giving her additional Herrscher Cores on the Moon and then giving her subtle whispers on how to overcome her opponents' tricks. At one point, the Will of Honkai even blocks Fu Hua's Edge of Taixuan, which is said to be unstoppable and would have annihilated Sirin's mind.
• Enigmatic Empowering Entity: It's the mysterious presence who gives Sirin additional Herrscher cores on the Moon and guides her towards wiping out humanity.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: The "Honkai God" seems to take on the appearance of whoever speaks to it. When Sirin encounters it, it deliberately takes on Sirin's silhouette; when Otto talks to it, it responds by reflecting his form.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Of the entire series, being the ultimate source of all Honkai Beasts and Herrschers hellbent on destroying humanity. Every single major character, both protagonist and antagonist, are in one way or another influenced by the Honkai and its minions.
• Has a Type: Not as a form of attraction, but the Will of Honkai notably remains completely stoic during its encounter with someone until said person expresses something it approves, signified by a smile.
  • With Sirin, it begins smiling once Sirin contemplates on the wealth of information and knowledge it granted, and decides on destroying humanity on its behalf.
  • With Otto, it begins smiling once Otto declares he will not let the past weigh him after it forced him to relive his moments of guilt and regret. Despite not giving Otto any order like with Sirin, it does comply to his question regarding the means to revive Kallen (even if the manner with which it does so is questionable), and thanks to that clue, 15 years later Otto manages to come up with a concrete plan to make his wish a reality.
• Hearing Voices: Anyone who becomes a Herrscher is bound to hear whispers from "God" (sometimes through the Honkai Beasts), which might as well be echoes of the Honkai's will. The only exception is Welt Young, who isn't a proper Herrscher (having inherited it from the previous Welt) and thus can't hear the "Honkai God". The other exception is Elysia, who claims that she never heard that entity’s voice even once despite being literally born a Herrscher.
• Kill All Humans: When it communicates to Sirin, it appears to desire nothing less than the eradication of humanity and its civilizations, and gladly lends its powers to Sirin the moments she declares her intention to carry out its omnicidal agenda.
• The Man Behind the Man: It is the entity who gives Sirin everything she needs to carry out the Honkai's goal of humanity's extinction, apparently whispering hints to her whenever she's in a bind. The Will of Honkai's connection with Sirin is severed when it blocks Fu Hua's Edge of Taixuan, making it the last time we see it directly intervening in the story. Its disappearance greatly impacts Sirin, who can no longer count on "God"'s whispers and is forced to make decisions on her own, eventually leading to her defeat.
• The Omniscient: Both Sirin and Otto believe so. At the very least, the Will of Honkai knows more about the universe and bending its laws more than any of its Herrschers, to the point Otto claims all the accumulated knowledge of humanity is nothing but a speck of dust to its wealth of knowledge.
• Smug Smiler: Once the Will of Honkai starts smiling on someone, it appears to keep that expression even when said person cannot see it directly. It stands out because whenever it is shown meeting a person, it starts out completely expressionless before the person gains its approval.
• Troll: Its behavior when Otto meets with it. It forces him to take in a volume of information his brain can't handle, and then when he continues to beg for some information on resurrecting the dead, it just drives a sword into its own chest (potentially implying that the only way he will ever meet Kallen again will be in death), leaving Otto frustrated and bewildered.
• Trojan Horse: It's long been assumed by the Current Era that the Will of Honkai is an empowering force for the Honkai and the Herrschers. It's not. The Will of Honkai, or Prometheus No. 17 as it was known in the Previous Era, is actually a form of restraint imposed by the Previous Era that serves to both force Honkai to think in the same manner as humanity and also ensure that the succeeding era's Herrschers are as similar to the Previous Era's as they can manage, all so that when the next Herrscher of the End comes Kevin will know what to expect when implementing Project Stigma.
• Walking Spoiler: Even moreso than the Herrscher of the End, being the true form of the ultimate evil that lies behind the Honkai. Except it's not actually the ultimate evil. While antagonistic, it actually serves to limit Honkai and the Herrschers.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Sirin fancies herself as an invincible goddess, but the moment she goes face-to-face with this being, even she starts to feel dread and understood that she just met something beyond human comprehension. Otto comes to the same conclusion when he meets it, and is reduced to prostrating himself and begging for the being to impart with its unfathomable knowledge, which nearly breaks his mind when he briefly absorbs all of it.

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