Trinnon, Bartholos.
It was clearly a reunion between acquaintances, yet the audience felt no joy at all.
Because they did not know what other accidents would happen next.
On screen, seeing Trinnon, there was no surprise on Phainon's face. He only asked, "I thought you'd be waiting at the Vortex of Genesis. Are you all right?"
Trinnon looked somewhat downcast. She turned her head and looked toward the imitation ritual basin in the room.
Phainon also followed her gaze. The spirit water from the ritual basin had already dried up, leaving behind only an empty cup.
"The spirit water... has dried up?" Phainon raised a hand to cover his forehead, feeling waves of dizziness.
His irritated emotions almost became impossible to suppress.
Damn it! Why were there obstacles everywhere?
"When Okhema's night descended... all the spirit water dried up along with it. We anticipated that you'd be on edge, so we came ahead to wait for you."
Trinnon softly comforted Phainon.
Phainon took a breath, looked at Trinnon, and asked, "Kephale's Coreflame... You know where it is?"
Trinnon nodded and said, "Yes. Little Ciphy protected the Coreflame well... No one would be able to guess where she stashed it."
After she finished speaking, Bartholos, who was standing behind Trinnon, grinningly moved closer to Phainon and said, "...Heeheehee! I don't have to pretend to be an envelope anymore! That was suffocating!"
"Bartholos!? What in the world..." Phainon looked at Trinnon in confusion. He did not understand why this spirit thief, would be here.
Seeing his attitude, Bartholos became very displeased and shouted,
"Hey, you'd better watch your tone, brat! That Coreflame that the entire world is after..."
"...is currently nestled in the depths of my bottomless tummy!"
After saying that, Bartholos stared at Phainon's expression, wanting to see the other party lose composure in shock.
But Phainon merely froze for a moment before quickly accepting the truth. He only said, "This certainly was... unexpected."
"Huh? Your reaction's too composed. It's completely different from what I was anticipating!" Bartholos scratched his head and instantly lost interest.
But the audience could understand Phainon's current feelings.
If it were in the past, they would also have been surprised by this news, but now, only numbness remained.
…
: Phainon has lost too many emotions. We're the same.
: Aside from recreating the world, there's really nothing else in his mind.
: We've really been stabbed numb by all these knives!
: Phainon has also gone numb.
: Ever since Aglaea died, in just a few short days, he has experienced so many separations of life and death.
: I tried putting myself in his shoes. If I were Phainon, I would have collapsed long ago.
: His personality is truly too resilient.
: The feeling we had about Phainon before was right. Even if the sky fell, he could still shoulder it for you. It's the same now.
…
On screen, Trinnon, who was standing to the side, reminded him, "Bartholos... Snowy still doesn't know the truth behind Okhema's eternal daylight."
Bartholos reacted and coughed once. " Ah... you're right. Then you'd better strap in and listen up, brat!"
"That girl, Cifera, spun a grand lie that deceived all of Amphoreus..."
"She tricked all of you into believing that that giant ball on Kephale's back would cast light over Okhema forever..."
"Not just that... Heeheehee, she even managed to fool that dumb ascension trial, and allowed me, the great Zagreus... to survive!"
As Zagreus loudly proclaimed these shocking truths that Phainon had never heard before, the camera remained fixed on Phainon's face.
This face, which had weathered so much hardship in just a few short days, showed no emotional fluctuation at all. He was like a numb puppet.
Only occasionally would a faint, almost imperceptible sadness appear in Phainon's eyes.
And after Zagreus finished speaking, seeing Phainon's reaction, he immediately became angry enough to jump.
Why did Phainon still not have the reaction he had imagined?
At this moment,Phainon lowered his eyes and asked, "So, for the last thousand years... what maintained Okhema's eternal daylight was not Kephale's miracle, but Cipher's lie woven using the divine authority of Trickery..."
He should have felt shocked and speechless. But for some reason, after hearing these truths that were enough to overturn Amphoreus, Phainon found that his heart had no fluctuations at all.
Yet his sharp instincts heard the truth behind the truth.
"But now, the lie has come undone. Which means..."
At that moment, he finally felt a trace of sadness. The words he should have finished also stopped there.
And Zagreus finally understood why Phainon had shown no reaction. Thinking of everything that had happened recently, he restrained himself a little and replied,
"You didn't guess wrong... Cifera has already passed, and all her lies have scattered to the winds like ash."
Heh… What hope was there? Phainon paused slightly and turned his head away.
The sorrowful sound of the violin in the background also grew a little louder at this moment.
Moved by the scene, the audience's hearts were filled with sighs.
Phainon only paused for a moment before regaining himself.
He looked at Zagreus and asked, "But you just said, you, Zagreus, relied on Cipher's lie to keep living. If she is already..."
Zagreus let out a laugh and said proudly, "Heeheehee... Guess you're not as smart as I thought, brat. Don't forget. I am one of the Twelve Titans of Amphoreus. And this Coreflame in my belly... Is it not the core that maintains a Titan's life and divinity?"
Phainon instantly understood. Kephale's Coreflame had replaced Cipher, maintaining Zagreus's life.
"So, you're... going to hand the Coreflame over to us, just like that?" Phainon gave Zagreus a deep look.
Zagreus laughed. "Heeheehee... Just so! How about it? Let's hear some groveling gratitude, eh?"
The already numb Phainon asked almost instinctively, "Why? In the myths... Zagreus was the most cowardly and shameful of the Titans."
Toward the evaluation in the myths, Zagreus gave a disdainful snort.
He said contemptuously, "Hey, stop slandering me with those fabricated tales! My pursuits are far greater than one measly life..."
"Let me tell you then! My lifelong ambition... was to work with Cipher to conjure the greatest trick in the world!"
"Assume this world holds a hundred million possibilities, and no matter how one looks at it, ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine of them all point to outcomes of certain destruction..."
"But! With an exquisitely brilliant scheme, we fooled all the fools, villains, and disasters of this world, and achieved that one-in-a-hundred-million possibility..."
At this point, Zagreus's tone was already overflowing with unconcealable pride and satisfaction.
"This... is the "miracle" I wished to achieve in my life's pursuit, even at the cost of turning into this!"
What do people understand trickery to be?
Deception? Theft? Some cheap tricks?
But now, Zagreus was openly telling everyone of another possibility.
Trickery could also save the world. That was not a privilege reserved for heroes.
In traditional narrative epics, saving the world had always been the privilege of heroes.
The power of salvation had to be bright and righteous.
Amphoreus was no exception. And yet... Who was to say this was not Zagreus spitting in the face of so-called fate?
Everything here had been decreed by fate. Even the end of the world had been reproduced with such precision.
That was why Zagreus felt proud, why he said this was something he would spend his entire life proving.
If fate had already decided something, anyone might accept that fate, whether calmly or unwillingly. But only it and she absolutely could not.
Because they were thieves, the most despicable and also the most realistic people in this world. Cipher had been the last survivor of her city-state since childhood, and even surviving had been difficult for her.
If this was the identity and path fate had arranged for her, and she had to obey it, then Cipher would have starved to death long ago.
In her world, there had never been any fair and honorable option. Because that gutter-like fate had never given her any room to choose.
Zagreus, at its core, was the same kind of person as Cipher. So, when the end of the world arrived, their first choice was naturally to do whatever they could to survive.
To steal.
Just like Cipher stole food and treasure. Just like the survival rule they had always believed in.
Lies could oppose prophecy. Deception could defraud fate.
If this was the road fate had given them from birth, then they would walk that road all the way into the dark. They would carve out a road only they could walk.
Zagreus let out a strange, loud laugh. It reached into its own stomach and, while enduring the pain, pulled out the Coreflame.
"Take the Coreflame with you, brat! Go finish your mission!"
"Remember this well... What saved Amphoreus wasn't the grace of that simpleton Kephale, nor was it the babbling of that child Oronyx..."
"...It was the divine power of me, scorned by all... and the millennium-long lie of a cat-eared thief!"
Zagreus had never laughed so heartily before. After pulling out the Coreflame, its body rapidly shrank until it vanished.
Even before it turned to ash and dust, its laughter continued to echo.
In the empty room, Zagreus had already disappeared.
Only the Coreflame remained, floating in midair.
Phainon stared at the Coreflame, his lips dry.
Conflict, Death, Trickery.
The beings known as the Three Calamity Titans had completely finished walking their own paths. Nikador, Thanatos, and Zagreus.
Three somewhat evil sounding beings. And yet now, in the minds of the audience, they lived so clearly.
Though they were called calamities, the three Titans had each protected this world in their own way.
And Phainon could clearly feel it. Everyone in Amphoreus was doing their part for the continuation of this world.
The audience could no longer hold themselves together.
Beneath the despairing end of the world, every sacrifice, every flash of deathly brilliance, even the Titan of Trickery, could make them shed tears.
The audience began to feel a little pained, pained by why MiHoYo's character writing had to be so strong.
It was clearly a character who had barely appeared a few times, yet with only a few strokes, it had made him live forever in their hearts.
...
: Conflict resists the black tide, Death brings peaceful rest, Trickery protects the world for a thousand years. How is this a calamity? These are clearly pillars!
: The person and Titan whom everyone thought were running away actually did the most, and they couldn't even tell anyone about it...
: MiHoYo, did you really have to create this kind of contrast here? I seriously can't take it anymore.
: Amphoreus's history has always recorded that the arrival of the Three Calamity Titans was the beginning of the end. But in reality, it was because the end was coming that the Three Calamity Titans descended, right? Wuwuwu!
: Praise Lord Zagreus!
: Praise Lord Zagreus!
: This is the greatest trick and deception I can imagine! You did it!
: Everyone is desperately running, using their own ways to save the world!
: So-called life, at a time like this, in the eyes of these Titans, truly isn't worth mentioning.
: Knives, knives, knives! It's all knives!
: Now even a dog passing by would get stabbed by MiHoYo! Stop killing them! I'm really scared!
...
Just as the comments were still shaken by Zagreus's departure.
Trinnon, who had been quietly waiting at the side, saw that the Coreflame had finally been safely delivered into Phainon's hands.
She slowly spoke as well:
"With this, the final Coreflame can be returned to its rightful place."
"The spirit water in the holy city has all dried up... We can try to break the sealing magic of Phagousa's priests... and use the Century Gate to send you into the Vortex of Genesis."
"But... that will likely exhaust any remaining power of Janus that we have. After that, the rest is up to you, Snowy."
....
At this moment, there was only silence.
Phainon stared at Trinnon. On her small body, there was not the slightest trace of fear, only calm acceptance.
Parting...
Phainon had already become somewhat numb to it.
Other than making the re-creation of the world succeed, he could no longer think of anything else that could support him in continuing forward.
And the audience also felt their vision go dark.
One second ago, Zagreus had just disappeared. The next second, Trinnon, their precious Trinnon, was about to be gone too.
There was not even the slightest bit of buildup in between!
"Killing people like mowing grass" was no longer enough to describe how deranged MiHoYo had become.
The expressions on the audience's faces had become almost exactly the same as Phainon's. Blank, stunned, and with an extra layer of breakdown compared to Phainon.
Honkai: Star Rail, it really can make people break down just by watching it.