It took a while for Alex to regain consciousness after tackling Void and sending them both through the portal.
Last thing he could remember was seeing Void get struck by the Selene's beam and that was it.
Eventually, the boy finally regained consciousness as he opened his eyes and slowly got back up to his feet.
He noticed that he was on a large area that was oddly colored purple.
That was until he looked around and saw something that shocked him a ton.
All around him were just floating chunks of what seemed to be dark colored stone.
Hell even the sky around him or whatever he could call it was also purple.
Alex continued to look around and survey his surroundings until he heard Void's voice.
"Y-You damn fool! Do you realize where you even are!?" Shouted the Herrscher, sounding a little different than before.
"S-Show yourself!" Said the boy as he placed a hand on the handle of Himeko's greatsword, immediately on edge.
"I'm right here idiot!" Shouted Void.
Alex heard that behind him and immediately turned around, ready to strike until he caught a glimpse of the Herrscher, who now looked drastically different than before as though she still had the same yellow, cross hair shaped eyes, she now had purple hair instead of white and wore a purple and white outfit.
"W-What the? Who the hell are you? Where's the Herrscher of the Void!?" Demandedly asked Alex.
In an instant the girl pointed her arm at Alex as the boy was immediately surrounded by lots of lances.
"Calm the hell down. I am Void, at least, I'm the true appearance." She said.
"True, appearance? W-What the hell are yo-..."
Alex stopped himself until he realized what she meant by that.
"S-So, you're Sirin." He said.
"Correct. Now, just what the hell was that!? Are you TRYING to get yourself killed!?" Shouted Sirin.
"More like I'm here to ensure that Kiana is the one that comes back. Not you!" Said Alex.
Sirin merely groaned at his response.
"You really don't understand where the hell are you even are. You're in MY pocket dimension. The Imaginary Space. This is my domain. Here, I can do every single thing I want and even control the terrain and the environment in my favor. You're severely outmatched." Said Sirin.
"You forget that the reason you're here is because you were massively injured. If anything, I gotta thank Himeko for doing the heavy lifting. Now, it's my turn to finish the job."
Alex grabbed Himeko's greatsword off his back and held it in front of him in a battle stance.
It was definitely heavy for him, but at this point he had to keep fighting regardless of how inexperienced he was with this type of weapon.
Sirin just sighed as she levitated into the air.
"Fine then so be it. I'll end you here and then I'll head back out and complete my unfinished business with those girls." She said.
Though Sirin was definitely weakened, Alex knew that he was definitely out of his element here as being able to hold the massive sword was a hassle.
Sirin snapped her fingers and began to send multiple lances his way.
At first Alex tried to just cut them down but it was clear that he was unable to swing with as much speed and power as Himeko.
He then decided to just fall back and dodge the lances instead.
With the heavy blade on his back, it made it really hard to get out of the way.
That was until one of the lances ended up tripping the boy.
He immediately got back onto his feet though it was just slightly too late as one last lance ended up grazing his back.
Alex yelped a bit as he got back up.
"Damn fool. Are you finally realizing the situation you've put yourself in? More importantly, even that minor cut on your back is enough to reaggravate the Honkai Poisoning I gave you." Said Sirin.
That was true as Alex began to feel the markings burn a bit, meaning that they were active as he fell onto a knee and dropping the sword.
Now he was really at more of a disadvantage than he already was.
Be that as it may however, Alex knew that he couldn't stop now.
He had to push past his limits.
Alex shrugged off the pain as best he could as he stood back up, once again grabbing the sword and holding it in front of him.
"I-Is that all? I can do this all day." Said Alex with a smirk.
With that, the two began to clash and go back and forth as Alex was doing more of the dodging and blocking as Sirin gave him zero chances to get even close to her.
"Why're you even doing all this!? What's the point!?" Shouted Alex.
"All you humans are why! My friends at the lab, me included, were all tortured and abused, just for some experiment! They all died because of them! I was given the opportunity to fight back! To get revenge on the ones that caused me and my friends so much pain!" Replied Sirin.
"What makes you think that EVERY single human has to pay for your bloodshed!? The Babylon Tower incident was sixteen years ago! Things are mostly different now!" Said Alex.
"That's just a lie! An excuse! Humanity will never change! Humans will always be vile creatures, always pursuing selfish goals and trampling over others just to reach them!" She shouted back.
"You're right. Not every person out there is redeemable, but, I assure you that we're better than what we were sixteen years ago! If you don't wanna believe that, then I'll just smash the truth into you!"
Alex closed his eyes, gripping the handle tightly as he tried to coat this sword with flames like he would with his normal sword.
Eventually flames began to circle around it as soon it was completely engulfed in fire.
This time instead of dodging, Alex began to charge directly at Sirin, jumping off the lances as he closed in the distance quickly.
Right as he was about to strike her, Sirin held an arm in front of her as a lance came in, blocking the blade from connecting.
Alex then heard something beside him as he turned to see that one of the massive chunks of stones began to hurl towards him.
The boy immediately backed off as the stone went right past him, colliding into another stone as dust and debris began to fall onto the area.
This clouded Sirin's vision until she moved out of the way, as a wave of flames went shooting right past her.
With the dust covering the air, this allowed Alex to get up close for the first time as he began to slash at Sirin with the flame coated blade multiple times.
The girl was able to dodge most of the attempts however due to her prior battle with Himeko, it was clear that she didn't start this battle at 100% meaning she was more vulnerable to even more damage.
Eventually she slipped up as Alex began to get more cuts onto her.
In retaliation Sirin had two lances fly at Alex and slash his chest in an X shape as she kicked the boy away.
The slash left a searing, burning feeling on Alex as he felt the Honkai Poisoning getting slowly more worse and worse.
Sirin snapped her fingers and thrusted her arm forward as another large stone came hurling at Alex.
As she did this, Alex took advantage of her being slightly occupied as with as much strength he could muster, he threw Himeko's flame coated broadsword like a boomerang as it headed towards Sirin.
The two's attacks connected as even more dust flew into the air, with the debris from the stone falling ontop of them.
The two eventually managed to get out from the rubble as Alex looked for and managed to find and grab the sword right as Sirin put out her hand, palm open as she began to drag Alex towards her.
Right as she did, Alex quickly engulfed the sword in flames again ready to strike.
Sirin noticed this at the last second and tried to launch Alex back but it was too late as Alex was able to slash her across her body as Sirin shouted in pain.
The girl punched Alex in the gut to push him back as she panted.
Both were panting as they were at their limit.
"W-Why won't you just stop!? You can't win! You won't ever win!" Shouted Sirin.
"Because you're going about this all wrong! Everything that happened back at Babylon Tower is over! I get that you're mad, I understand that you want revenge, but it's all over now! There's no reason for all of this to continue!" He shouted back.
"Just shut up!"
Sirin began to rush at Alex ready to punch him right in the face.
As she reached him, she went for the punch but tripped and missed as she fell onto the floor right in front of Alex.
The Herrscher began to tear up, knowing she had lost as she awaited for the finishing blow to be dealt.
Even with how much his body was burning on the inside due to the poisoning, Alex refused to do it, as he planted it into the ground and helped the Herrscher up.
"W-What're you doing? You have me right where you want. Finish the fight! Don't you wanna save my vessel!?" Shouted Sirin.
"Our plan recquired no sacrifices. That includes you." Said Alex.
"H-Huh!? You idiot! If I'm not dealt with then your friend won't ever wake up!" Said Sirin.
"Correction. You don't have to die. As long as you're put to sleep, Kiana will wake up. You don't deserve to die." He said.
This only shocked Sirin even more, as she delivered a punch with Alex taking it and not even trying to avoid it.
"Why do I deserve to live!? I'm the one that caused the 2nd Honkai War! The one who's caused all of this destruction! It's like that blonde clown said, I'm humanity's greatest threat! Even with all of that, why let me live!?" She asked.
With all that she had done, Sirin didn't want pity from anyone, certainly not now.
Even with that, Alex wasn't phased.
"You were used. You had no say, no control over your fate. Your desire and thirst for revenge is what kept you going all these years while staying dormant within Kiana's body. Humans are flawed, however, we certainly are trying our best to get better. The results won't be immediate, but what I can assure is that one day we will set things right and atone for humanity's past mistakes.". He said.
Sirin simply had no response as she began to tear up even more, before immediately hugging Alex.
The boy smiled softly as he hugged her back.
"T-Thank you. Thank you, so much." Said Sirin.
Alex's nodded as his vision began blur, the entire area starting to slowly glow white as it began to away signifying that the battle was over.
Chapter 40: Complete