.....
: I never imagined that one day, watching a series would leave me completely numb...
: I should have known. Honkai really lives up to its name. I should've run away from the start. Seriously, I really believed MiHoYo's nonsense about this being some kind of "space comedy."
: So everything at the beginning was just sugar to lure people in before killing them off, huh?
: At this rate, Phainon really is the only one left...
: They actually killed everyone. I'm honestly impressed.
: So there really is a reason they're called MiHoYo.
...
The audience had experienced being brought to tears by emotional pain before.
But being hurt so badly that they became numb? This was the first time.
And for the viewers in the reaction room, this experience could only be described as unprecedented.
Especially now.
On screen, Phainon, after hearing Trinnon's words, he truly had become numb.
"Farewells... I've almost grown numb to them at this point. Right now... I can't even utter a plain goodbye." Phainon spoke slowly, his expression vacant.
"Snowy..." Trinnon called out to him worriedly.
"Don't worry, Trinnon. I'm no longer the empty shell that Aglaea brought back to Okhema." Phainon forced himself to pull himself together, at least enough to look less lifeless.
He knew that at this moment, sorrow and sentimentality were meaningless.
The only thing he could do was reaffirm his convictions.
"For every companion who couldn't reach the end, their conviction to save the world became a part of me, piecing together the soul I once lost."
"I lost my home village, but you, Aglaea, and everyone else created a second home for me."
"Now that this home is also in danger... it is my turn to repay your kindness and create a new world that can carry everyone's wishes."
"I hope that, in that new world, a new sun will rise, bringing one dawn after another to all."
By the time he finished speaking, a trace of hope had appeared in Phainon's eyes.
Other than hope, they had nothing left.
Trinnon looked somewhat relieved.
"Snowy, you've grown into the person Agy always dreamed of."
"Indeed, we don't need to say goodbye here..."
As Trinnon spoke, she extended her hand. The light of the Century Gate began to shine throughout the room.
"Because, even without the prophecy, we have the confidence to say... you will become that rising sun."
"And all of us... will see each other again "tomorrow.""
The radiance of the gate grew brighter and brighter, until it covered everything.
The sorrowful music rose together with the light before slowly fading away.
The scene changed.
Beneath a fiery-red sky... Mydei was engaged in a fierce battle with the Flame Reaver.
Then came a sickening sound that made everyone's heart tremble. A twisted blade suddenly pierced through Mydei's chest from behind.
"You..." Mydei's pupils contracted.
The question caught in his throat never escaped. As the Flame Reaver pulled out the great sword, all strength left Mydei's body.
Golden blood erupted.
Mydei crashed heavily to the ground. The immortal Mydeimos had finally fallen.
As Mydei finally felt death rapidly spreading throughout his body, the Flame Reaver turned away without the slightest hesitation.
A gate of light had already appeared before him. He stepped inside.
As the gate closed... Only Mydei's body remained in the empty frame, lying in a pool of golden blood.
"All shall bid farewell to one..." Trinnon's voice suddenly sounded once more.
The scene flashed to Styxia.
Cipher lay there quietly, completely motionless. Even the golden blood flowing from her body had already dried.
A desolate and mournful female voice began to sing alongside Trinnon's words.
"And that person alone will witness the miracle..."
Inside the Palace... Dan Heng gasped for breath.
After resting for only two seconds, he clenched his teeth and forced himself to rise once more.
He summoned the surrounding water, enveloping the Flame Reaver and his duplicates within it.
"...Such is destiny."
Somewhere within the flowing water... Trianne's doll floated upon the surface, still wearing a cheerful smile. Every time the image changed... A deep bell rang.
Dong!
Dong!
Dong!
The sound seemed like a funeral bell tolling for the Chrysos Heirs.
As the echo of the final bell faded away, Trinnon's last words scattered into the wind.
The scene returned to Mydei's face. That face had already lost all signs of life and become stiff.
The color had vanished from his eyes. All of Mydei's questions and confusion became his final words before death.
"Become the dawn... Deliverer."
Bang!
The screen went completely black. The audience stared blankly at their own reflections on the dark screen.
Their faces were twisted with pain and numbness.
Their minds began to drift. Some of them even started seeing their lives flash before their eyes.
How had they first gotten into Honkai: Star Rail?
Oh, right. It was because of that damned promotional video and its catchy opening song.
There had been a flying-head monster wielding a scythe, spaceships and space stations, a swordsman surfing through the air on a flying blade, a handsome white-haired general, and an enormous robot.
The imagination, the worldbuilding, the visuals, the special effects... They had never seen such a wonderful series before.
Together with all the cheerful music and promotional videos, it had drawn them into this abyss.
They even remembered one promotional video called Space Comedy.
And indeed... from the Herta Space Station to Belobog and the Xianzhou... the story had always been passionate and heroic.
Even during Penacony, they had wept for Aventurine and mourned the dead, but those had been tears filled with genuine emotion.
They had grown increasingly fond of the story, its core themes, its philosophy, and its ever-expanding world.
Everything had been developing so beautifully.
How had it ended up like this? Painful enough to leave them numb...
When they first became fans, none of them had imagined they would ever experience something like this.
Somewhere in the back of their minds... Everyone seemed to hear a grand voice coming from MiHoYo's headquarters.
They remembered what Director Xia had said when Amphoreus first began airing:
[This will be a romantic story filled with brilliant sunshine.]
You've got to be freaking kidding me! The audience's numb expressions began to twist.
At that exact moment... all over the world, everyone seemed to become possessed by the Harmony.
At the same time, they all performed the exact same action, they placed their hands on their keyboards.
Bring forth the thunder!!
.....
: !@#¥%(*!!)
: You spent so fucking long writing all these vivid, memorable characters just so we could watch them die with our own eyes, didn't you?!
: I'm going to fucking kill you! MiHoYo!!!
: Kill the men! Kill the women! Kill the old! Kill the young! Hahahahaha! Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!!!
: Hahahahaha! Amphoreus is so bright and cheerful! So romantic! So happy! The characters in this story are truly blessed!! Hahahahaha!
: Where the hell is the romance, may I ask?! I-!@%#...!! MiHoYo, you !@#¥!! I fucking @#¥!
: We've just received some news. Something major has happened over at MiHoYo.
: Brothers! I've booked the tickets for this afternoon. Follow me, we're storming MiHoYo headquarters!!
...
"Liking" something is merely a broad and general term.
When people watch a story, they unconsciously project a part of themselves onto one of its characters.
Some people want to become like a certain character, while others long to experience the kind of life that character has lived.
This is what it means to identify with a character. It is not merely about becoming immersed in a story. It is also because part of the audience has been entrusted to those characters.
When people sincerely invest their emotions in them, then at the instant a character dies, a part of the audience dies alongside that character.
This is the highest state that every tragic story seeks to achieve.
Only by accomplishing this can the meaning that tragedy wishes to convey make the audience, who stand outside the story as observers, truly empathize with it and feel unbearable pain.
But achieving this is extraordinarily difficult. A sufficiently compelling story and a strong cast of characters are only the foundation.
There is another crucial element, one that is perhaps the most difficult to obtain:
A sufficiently long narrative and time.
People can experience intense emotional fluctuations because of a story that sends their emotions soaring and crashing over the course of several days.
But those emotions will rapidly fade with time. Only things that remain in people's minds for a long time and repeatedly appear in their thoughts can truly settle within them.
Fine wine becomes richer with time.
Memories become beautified by time.
And stories, more than anything else, become increasingly important as time passes. A story becomes part of people's lives, something natural, something habitual.
Once it reaches that point, it creates the illusion that the story somehow belongs to them.
This is the most extravagant destination any work can hope to reach and Honkai: Star Rail has already accompanied everyone for a long time.
And the story of Amphoreus itself has been genuinely lengthy. It has had more than enough time to develop its characters and explore all those delicate and beautiful details surrounding them.
The characters outside Amphoreus have naturally received plenty of development as well, but their portrayal and growth occurred linearly alongside the progression of the main plot. It was not a continuous process without interruption.
Only Amphoreus was different. Within this world, one that was isolated enough and lasted long enough, everything about every character was fully displayed within a single continuous story.
As a result, the audience lowered their guard and unconsciously entrusted part of themselves to this story and its characters.
Sometimes, they even entrusted themselves to more than one character.
But now... Almost all of them are dead.
That feeling of a part of yourself dying alongside a character, sometimes dying again and again, has finally been experienced by the audience.
This is what it feels like to be broken. Predictions about the plot and speculation over where the story will go no longer seem particularly important.
Because the audience has already been completely broken. They can no longer find any meaning in it.
And yet... just as the audience collectively sank into this sense of nihilism...
...
The final remaining person forced his way into their minds.
Phainon.
He carried the expectations of everyone upon his shoulders, as well as the possibility that all those characters might someday be brought back.
At this exact moment, a subtle and mysterious connection, one that crossed the screen and transcended the story itself, bound the audience and Phainon tightly together.
The characters they loved, Aglaea, Tribbie, Trianne, Trinnon, Castorice, Cipher, Mydei, Hyacine, and many others had all placed their hopes in Phainon.
And the audience's love for those characters was grafted onto Phainon through the expectations they had placed in him.
At this moment, he was no longer carrying only the hopes of the entirety of Amphoreus.
He was also carrying the expectations of the countless people watching the story.
Who could have imagined that after the plot had reached this point, the audience would experience grief, numbness, and complete emotional collapse because of Amphoreus' lengthy companionship and painstaking development...
Only for that same companionship and development to once again create an emotional connection between them and Phainon, one that transcended the boundaries between dimensions.
The meaning of the Flame-Chase Journey. The longing shared by every Chrysos Heir.
These fictional meanings, existing only within the story, merged with the incomparable expectations and hopes that truly existed within the hearts of the audience.
These undeniable, genuine meanings had now converged within Amphoreus and the central theme of the Flame-Chase Journey.
They had completely resonated with one another. The audience grieved, just as Phainon did!
Within the story, the companions and predecessors who had saved Phainon departed one after another. In reality, the characters the audience loved departed one after another in order to save the world.
The audience was furious, just as Phainon was!
Within the story, why did Amphoreus have to reach this point? Why couldn't that wretched fate leave Amphoreus even a single path to survival?!
Phainon could do nothing but watch all of it happen before his eyes. And in reality, why did MiHoYo have to hurt the audience like this?
Why did they use such an enormous amount of resources to construct a beautiful world in which everyone could immerse themselves, only to tear it apart before their very eyes?!
The audience could do nothing but watch the story descend into ruin.
This resonance, this connection, made the already broken audience experience such overwhelming emotions that they could neither completely stop watching not completely continue watching.
Because when they reached this point in the story, it was as though they had reached it alongside Phainon. They had already followed the entire plot and walked every step of the journey together with him.
And now, without even realizing it, they had completely become members of the Flame-Chase Journey themselves!
The audience's desire for the world to be created anew burned just as fiercely as Phainon's!
...
: Honkai: Star Rail is seriously going to break me! AAAAAAAAAAH!
: I've completely become MiHoYo's plaything! Why did this happen?! Somehow, while drowning in pain and grief, I suddenly began to resonate completely with Phainon.
: An experience like this is so incredibly rare, but it's also so fucking agonizing! AAAAAAAAAAH!
: I don't even know whether I'm supposed to cry or feel fired up anymore.
: MiHoYo calculated all of this from the beginning, didn't they?! I'm seriously begging you!!!
: The Flame-Chase Journey!!!
: It will definitely succeed!!!
-----------
T/N:
Hi Everyone, LordIsland here.
Thinking of starting a new translation. Already have a few novels, but please give your recommendations.
Zenless Zone Zero Recommendations.
Honkai Star Rail Recommendations.
Genshin Recommendations.
Honkai Impact 3rd Recommendations.
Other Recommendations.
Once the novel is decided, I will start translating it by as early as next month.