But after muttering for a while.... A sudden flash of brilliance burst in the old man's eyes.
Across from him, Elios regained a bit of clarity. He took the documents from Aris's hands and checked them repeatedly, at least three times.
This rising new star of Greek had his brows knotted into a tight lump.
"Let the Coronal Radiance resound across the land."
Elios murmured the line, confusion in his voice. "Mr. Aris, can you tell me what this 'Coronal Radiance' is?"
The old man Aris simply spread his hands. "I wish I knew. But my guess is that it's probably content from MiHoYo's newest episode, or maybe a promotional trailer for some character."
"Using something like that to pry public opinion… Do you believe it?" Elios set the documents down on the table and took a sip from his glass.
Aris didn't answer. He merely shrugged.
That slightly youthful gesture, when placed on a man over seventy, made him look somewhat cynical and carefree.
"The two of us, the Mavromi family and the Marinakis family, have been rolling around in Greece's scenery for so many years."
Elios shook his head and said, "The media, parliament, the judiciary, the unions… where don't we have resources? Which road haven't we already cleared? Why would this person choose such a method?"
"Yes." Aris nodded.
"So what was our original plan?" Elios asked.
"To mobilize our resources and connections, and launch a counterattack on the legal and political fronts." Aris restated the plan that had long been decided.
"Our allies in parliament would raise inquiries. Our connections in the judiciary would delay the review process. On the media side, we'd arrange interviews and commentary, turning the matter into a public issue. The entire process would take about six months."
"Mm." Elios tapped the table.
"Slow, but reliable. As long as it's handled properly, the censorship will eventually be lifted. That was our approach."
At this point he paused, lifted the document, and said, "But now, he wants to adopt a plan that's far harder to understand. Honestly, Mr. Aris, I may be not be that old, but I've never seen tactics like this before."
The two people sat across a long table.
Yet the old man Aris seemed more like the younger one, while Elios, though only in his twenties, appeared almost excessively composed.
After hearing Elios speak, Aris chuckled softly, a glimmer of understanding flashing through his eyes.
"This plan may seem arrogant at first glance."
"But Elios, have you considered that MiHoYo has always dominated in the entertainment field?"
"In your view, he intends to ignite something using a single episode of a story right when censorship takes effect. It sounds somewhat unreasonable."
"But in my view… it actually fits MiHoYo's style even better."
After hearing Aris's words, Elios fell silent for a long time.
The old man smiled. "What, you don't trust them?"
"It's not that." Elios shook his head with a bitter smile. "I just feel it's impossible. Mainly because this plan is far too bold. If it fails, we might end up spending even more time and resources."
"Young man, timing is the most important thing." Aris shook his head.
"Xia Wen has keenly perceived this point. For him, and for us, there is no difference between six months and one year, or two years. Do you understand?"
At this point the old man's eyes flashed as he continued word by word, "I've lived seventy-three years. I've gone through the many things in life."
"I've seen marches, strikes, protests. I know what can make people take to the streets, nothing but injustice and anger."
"It seems that our ally intends to reignite those emotions. MiHoYo hasn't just studied Greek culture deeply, even human nature is well understood by them."
Hearing this, Elios began to think silently.
The old man before him had stood firm in Greece for more than forty years.
A well-known heavyweight. And someone who had always been known as a pioneer.
Seeing him praise Xia Wen's plan so highly, Elios couldn't help wondering whether there was something he himself had failed to consider.
But after thinking for a long time, Elios still shook his head with a bitter smile.
"Mr. Aris, I still can't figure out exactly why you trust them so much."
Aris chuckled and said casually,
"Do you know the revolutions people are best at using?" Elios repeated the term, his tone subtle.
"Of course I know. Over the past years, I've seen many things, but the most common things? Media hype, NGO infiltration, street movements, and then regime change."
"Then have you ever thought about what their most powerful weapon actually is?" Aris asked again.
"Well… I've looked into it a little, but I'm not an expert. What's your view?" Elios straightened his posture, asking humbly.
"…Narrative." Aris paused for a moment.
He was old, but he had experienced far too much.
Some things only needed a single glance for him to grasp their essence.
"Those narratives… are tailor-made."
"They study the culture, history, pain points, and aspirations. And then they weave a fantasy of heaven on earth in the way that best fits the locals' way of thinking."
"Before anything else falls, it isn't bombs, it's movies and television dramas. It's fairy tales of democracy and freedom."
"Then they tell you: look how terrible the place you're living in is right now. You should fight for that heaven on earth, the world you see in TV shows."
"That requires media mouthpieces. It requires local collaborators. It requires opinion leaders willing to cooperate. It requires turning complex problems into simple battles of good and evil, turning historical grievances into a binary confrontation between dictatorship and democracy."
"And what happens in the end?"
"In the end, those countries swept up by those revolutions are left in total chaos. Ordinary people truly believe that as long as they overthrow the current people in power, they'll live the kind of life shown in TV shows."
"If you ask me, that's bullshit." Aris spat out the curse with obvious disdain.
The old man's modern style and temper made Elios smile wryly, but at the same time, he learned a great deal from what Aris said.
Like the Mavromi family, he was a true localist. He also knew that those so-called revolutions, were not far away from them.
They weren't just in the news. They were in neighboring countries.
That was why he had chosen to ally with MiHoYo.
"But what does that have to do with MiHoYo's plan?" After a moment of silence, Elios asked.
"Because MiHoYo is using the same weapon to strike back." Aris laughed.
"Think about the young people in Greece today."
Aris continued speaking, his voice carrying a sense of age and weathered experience. "What kind of world are they living in?"
"A world where an economic crisis erupted, where unemployment is rampant, where the older generation keeps repeating how glorious our ancestors once were!"
"But the new generation of young people can still only go to other places to deliver takeout. Where is their sense of pride supposed to come from?"
"From the reliefs in museums? From the numerous epics in textbooks? Or from pop culture on TikTok?"
"They need something they can be proud of. Something that can tell them that their culture is still alive, still valuable, still capable of shining in this era."
"Child, you have been a prodigy since you were young. You grew up under the influence of the Marinakis family. Naturally, you believe that our country and our culture are great."
"But for ordinary Greeks, the loss of their former glory has lasted for far too long."
At this point, the frivolous expression on the old man's face completely faded.
All that remained on his aged face were the marks carved by time, along with a deep sense of fatigue.
He had been following Honkai: Star Rail for quite a long time. He had also been watching it.
In the past, he had only studied it with interest, trying to understand the secret behind its success. But just a few days ago, when the second episode of Amphoreus aired, a deep sense of resonance struck him.
The great city of Castrum Kremnos. And the people it had left behind.
In some ways, how similar it was to Greece today.
From that night onward, he could no longer watch Honkai: Star Rail with the detached perspective of a researcher. And it was also that night that he completely understood Amphoreus.
After that, he began mobilizing the power of his family and started conducting grassroots investigations to gather Greek public opinion.
About Amphoreus' level of recognition, not the kind of superficial, official responses. But real fieldwork.
Spending money, hiring companies, collecting opinions at any cost across cities throughout Greece and across the internet, cross-verifying the data.
In the end, he reached a conclusion that completely reassured him. Those statistics on the MiHoYo official website were all real.
Saying Amphoreus' penetration rate in Greece was one hundred percent might be an exaggeration, but eighty percent was absolutely no understatement.
That was why, when Aris saw Xia Wen's plan, he immediately realized,
MiHoYo and Xia Wen were incredibly shrewd. They had precisely grasped the hidden power beneath the surface, confirmed that they had the leverage to influence public opinion, and then made a move that both enemies and allies found impossible to understand.
But the harder something is to understand, the less resistance the plan will encounter.
And as long as Xia Wen can truly ignite the emotions of the Greek people as the information suggested, then this incident will inevitably become the burial ground of those bastards.
Even the old man Aris couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
The changes are enormous. Meanwhile, across from him, Elios was caught in a storm of emotions.
After hearing Aris's words, he realized that although he was young, he had been disconnected from ordinary people for far too long.
On the other hand, this seemingly old man had always been up-to-date with the modern trends.
"... I..." Elios forced a word out of his throat. He wanted to say something.
But when he realized he had nearly fallen into arrogance and an overly elitist mindset, he felt so ashamed he wished the ground would swallow him.
"Child, there's no need to blame yourself."
"You still have a long road ahead. This is only a trivial issue on your journey through life."
"Now, returning to the topic, you should understand what I mean, right?" Aris smiled kindly, completely unconcerned.
Elios finally gathered the courage and spoke about his realization.
"So Amphoreus uses the core of Greek culture. Those Titans, the tragedies, those are things left behind by our history."
"The problem is that we can no longer tell those stories well. The Greek mythology films we produce are either ridiculously cheap garbage, or popcorn blockbusters."
"The kind of story that can truly move young people and give them a sense of identity, we've already lost the ability to create it."
Aris nodded with a smile and spoke the most crucial point.
"Yes. At the moment we needed it most, MiHoYo appeared. It used our values to tell a story that even we ourselves could believe in."
"It tells Greek young people that their culture is not dead."
"And now, on social media and in schools, young people are discussing Amphoreus, discussing the choices of Mydei, the fate of Tribios, and those philosophical metaphors."
"What Xia Wen wants to do is build upon this foundation, so that at the very moment the censorship takes effect, Amphoreus will become a voice that the entire Greece cannot ignore."
"So that every Greek, whether supportive or opposed, will have no choice but to discuss it, argue about it, and then… form public opinion."
Elios finally understood completely.
Picking up where Aris left off, he said, "…And when public opinion boils to a certain level, those in power will have no choice but to respond."
He finally understood Aris's thought process. In this cultural war between MiHoYo and Hollywood,
On the battlefield of Greece, the battlefield had never been in parliament. Nor in the courts.
But in the heart of every Greek person. And MiHoYo had already entered those hearts long ago.
"After hearing you explain it like that… I'm actually starting to look forward to what this 'Coronal Radiance' will be like."
"A story powerful enough for MiHoYo to bet everything on must be incredibly shocking." Elios spoke softly, then quickly asked, "So what do we need to do?"
"Don't act on your own. Just cooperate with MiHoYo." Aris leaned back in his chair, utterly relaxed.
"Didn't you understand what Xia Wen meant? He meant that the two of us should just lie back and relax. He'll carry the game, we just follow behind."
"Carry?" Elios didn't understand.
The old man couldn't hold it in anymore and complained, "What exactly has the Marinakis family raised you into? You're so young, don't you play games? An old guy like me still plays a couple matches every day to prevent Alzheimer's. This won't do for you."
"Anyway, stop thinking about it. Just lie back and relax."
After saying that, the old man ignored the confused Elios and began happily basking in the sunlight.
To be honest, after fighting uphill battles for more than forty years, this was the first time he had heard a young person tell him to just lie back and relax.
But limits aside, he was also very curious.
What the so-called 'Coronal Radiance' would bring to them and to the nation called Greece.