When Caelus saw the first half of Amon's description, his heart began to beat a little faster.
It was that particular feeling you get when you're scrolling online and stumble across a girl who perfectly matches your type — a heady mix of anticipation and creeping dread that she might actually be a rough-handed dude hiding behind filters and a full face of makeup.
Complicated feelings.
A character like that in the Star Rail universe would absolutely bring mountains of entertainment, just like Zuowangdao had when he'd pulled it earlier.
A pity, though — the Amon he'd pulled was just a clone, not the real thing.
Honestly? Caelus still really wanted to pull the dice-form Amon who'd mastered the True and False Heavenly Way and ascended to become Lord of Fate, and the Amon who'd been promoted through an erroneous Path to become a Sequence Zero true god.
Add in the Star Rail universe's Aha, a pair of dice, a monocle, and a mask — the Mong-Wang-Ha combo could debut together, and the entire universe would erupt into glorious chaos!
Just thinking about it made him grin.
"System, do your best!"
[Brother, isn't this idea of yours a little too extreme?]
With those three clowns gathered in one place, would this universe even survive?
Picture it: under the Masked Fool's mask is actually a pair of dice, and on the red dot of the dice sits a monocle... God, that mental image was pure nightmare fuel.
The Galaxy Universe would instantly become the Imaginary Tree's largest cesspit.
"That's exactly what makes life fun — you've got to play it loud!"
Caelus raised a hand and pulled off the Persona Mask he rarely let leave his face. He rubbed both sides of it between his palms, and the mask, as pliable as dough, was kneaded and shaped into a crystal-carved monocle.
He fitted the monocle over his right eye, gave it a little pinch, and turned his gaze to the last gray meteor.
[Item: Universal Synthesis Machine (Childcare Edition, Prototype No. 12 — Failed)]
[Rarity: ★★★★★]
[Description: This product was crafted by the greatest inventor of Green Green Meadows, His Majesty the Grey Wolf King. Constructed in three seconds during a brief break from his sheep-catching endeavors, it was born beside the firewood pile in the kitchen.
Up to three elements may be fed into the synthesis machine. The designated target will have all inedible qualities stripped away before being fused, producing clean and hygienic food for infants to eat, or educational toys to bring children joy.
(Even if you shove three heaps of @#! in there it can still be fused into a gourmet dish — this King has pre-loaded all 114,514 imaginable flavors. — The Wolf King.)
Note 1: Mutton flavor is not among the 114,514 flavors.
Note 2: This machine is a failed prototype from the research process. Certain qualities of the synthesis materials were not fully stripped away, resulting in a minor accident — synthesized food may randomly carry chaotic special effects.
(The child starts flying and breathing fire. Far too dangerous. Discard it, discard it, start over. — Grey Wolf.)
Note 3: ...]
"Built a Universal Synthesis Machine in three seconds? Confirmed — this is the original-generation Wolf King, the one who could crank out a time machine from scratch in a bathroom with zero materials and never got nerfed."
A wave of nostalgic fondness washed over him, like running into an old friend. Caelus scrolled through the remaining notes at the bottom.
One of them warned against putting in black powder and glass beads, as there was an extremely small chance of synthesizing a miniature nuclear warhead that would destroy Wolf Castle.
"Giving this to a kid does seem a bit risky — but why on earth would black powder and glass beads fuse into a nuke?"
Caelus scratched his head. He couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he tried.
So this was the greatest inventor of Green Green Meadows.
Terrifying. Truly, utterly terrifying!
"What a find! What a find!"
Sure, among the synthesized dishes there were more than a few that carried negative buffs like 'temporarily changes your gender upon consumption,' 'forces you to keep dancing for a full hour after eating until you can stop,' and 'incredibly delicious, but causes uncontrollable laughter afterward.'
But that was exactly what made it fun!
Caelus snapped out of his blank, sky-staring daze and looked over from the bench where he was sitting. March 7th was crouched on the ground negotiating with a line of ants about whether they'd like to join the Express as her pet stars, and she was tugging at Stelle, who didn't mind her keeping ants at all.
"Hmm, want to toss three ants in and see what comes out?"
Caelus rested his chin in his hand and mulled it over.
Whether the synthesized result was food or a toy depended on the materials fed in. With three fusion slots, as long as two of the items were considered 'edible' by the user — even if you decided that Stelle's underwear counted as food, that still qualified as 'edible' — the output would be something to eat.
Conversely, if two of the three slots held non-edible materials, the output would be a toy, even if the thing you threw in was a living creature.
Of course, because this was a childcare edition, there was a ceiling on what could be synthesized. Powerful existences like Emanators couldn't be fused in — after all, little Grey-Grey had no way of catching an Emanator on his own.
Emmm. That made sense, actually.
Just as Caelus was debating whether to play with the Universal Synthesis Machine first or go look for the newly hatched demon beast that had landed who-knows-where, a crisp, brief notification chime rang out, and his thigh buzzed.
He pulled out his phone. A message popped up on the screen.
[Little Gui Guinevere: #GhostSighting#! A girl in the prime of her youth wanders into an abandoned garden — wild spirits everywhere, peril at every turn!
#ThrillingAndExciting# [LIVE] Supernatural Strangeness Records! Two girls accidentally enter an abandoned estate — narrowly escape a vengeful ghost's assault! One goes pale as a sheet, the other has fainted and has yet to wake! Not suitable for viewers under 200 years old!]
Attached was a livestream link. The thumbnail showed a photo of an orange-haired girl in a dim, shadowy environment.
[Little Gui Guinevere: Master, master, do you want to come join my stream? Give me some instant tips — I always feel like my content is a bit stiff. I can never do it as naturally as you...]
As abstract as it gets.
Wanting to learn the art of chaotic content creation was only part of the reason. The other part traced back to half an hour ago.
Moonlight filtered through cracked glazed roof tiles. The wooden lattice windows along the corridor had been eaten hollow by woodworms, and vines coiled around the faded vermilion doors like dried-out bones.
"Folks, your Little Gui is right now standing in the most terrifyingly haunted spot on the Luofu — the Fyxestroll Garden."
Guinaifen's camera swept over a crumbling octagonal pavilion. The wind chimes on its eaves had long since rusted, yet on this windless night they suddenly began to tremble, emitting broken, grating sounds of corroded bronze — as though some invisible hand were flicking them.
"Please like, follow, and share to give your Little Gui some courage!"
The orange-haired girl crouched low and glanced carefully around, her furrowed brows making her fear plainly visible.
"Th— they say that recently, a lot of strange things have been happening here. A few nights ago, a drunk man was wandering around here in the dead of night to sober up, and he stumbled across a ghost — a headless one, riding a horse, pacing back and forth…"
A trembling voice. The brown-haired girl in apricot-yellow robes with twin tails shrank her shoulders in front of the camera.
"A gh— a ghost!? And it was… headless?"
The brown-haired girl dressed in pale moonwhite robes with azure silk ribbons also sounded a bit tense.
Miss Li Sushang was operating in full Auto-Battle mode.
Because Caelus only had three control slots, and right now they were occupied respectively by: Silver Wing in the Honkai World, Bronie who was learning Aether Editing, and Seele who was flirting with Sister Silver Wolf and Sister Haxxor Bunny while keeping Little Duck company.
All three slots taken. The Moonscar portion of consciousness had gone dormant, the body was fully under Li Sushang's control with even the shared senses cut off — complete Auto-Battle mode.
Of course, if Caelus wanted, he only had to transfer control back and Moonscar could wake up at any moment.
[Shangshang Solo Fan: Is Shangshang sis here again today? Double the Shangshang — AWSL!]
[I'm Super OP: My pants just moved. I'm out.]
[SC Message — BedriddenwithIllnessIsStillRocking: Streamer, what do you do for work?]
The barrage of comments did little to ease the trio's fear.
"Shangshang, why are you such a coward — you promised you'd protect me!"
Guinaifen's utterly useless best friend complained, turning to grab Li Sushang's arm. "Sister Sushang is the reliable one. You'll definitely protect me, right?"
"Sister, is this — is this actually real?"
After nearly getting her backside tanned by her mother's rattan feather duster all the way from the Yaoqing Xianzhou, Sushang had finally come to fully believe that Li Sushang was not some secret half-sister of her mother's, but a visitor from another world.
Thanks to their nearly copy-paste identical appearances and Li Sushang's more mature and reliable personality, Sushang had kept the 'sister' honorific, and for the stream's audience she'd explained them as twins.
Under the moonlight, Li Sushang's face had gone deathly pale. "I… can't say for sure. How does that old saying go? The witching hour of midnight — when the Yin energy is at its heaviest…"
Honestly, even now she still couldn't quite understand the logic of these two. If they were so scared, why on earth had they come here to stream in the first place?
"Waaah—! Just— just now, did something run past!"
Sushang screamed in a voice warped and pitch-shifted with fear, staggering backward and crashing into Guinaifen who was holding the phone. The camera lurched — and in that shaking frame, it caught a sliver of eerie pale light.
"Don't— don't panic… I'm here…"
Li Sushang took a deep breath and frantically recited the mantra for keeping a calm, untroubled heart.
When she'd first arrived at Fyxestroll Garden, Li Sushang hadn't been this frightened. She was scared of ghosts, yes, but she was also confident in her own martial arts — she could tear down this entire abandoned estate without breaking a sweat!
But before Moonscar had gone to sleep to rest, she'd told Li Sushang a story called 'Mysterious Revival' — Five Turbidities and Evil Worlds, Hell emptied, malevolent ghosts resurrected, the mortal realm become a prison.
Vengeful ghosts could not be killed. Only a ghost could fight a ghost.
From the moment she'd finished the first chapter of that story, Li Sushang had been scared out of her wits!
Ghosts were far more terrifying than monster beasts (Honkai Beasts).
With a Honkai Beast, you just had to beat it down. But demons and spirits and ghosts — those were things you could sense but never touch.
How could a sword cut down something formless?
Suddenly, from somewhere in the distance came the creak of a wooden door. A half-rotted nanmu wood door swung open on its own with no wind to move it, and from beyond it drifted a wisp of pale green flame, sketching out a vague, shifting silhouette.
A piercing, sliding wail erupted — startling the night owls perched on the eaves into flight, the sound surging toward the three of them.
"AAAAHHHH!!!!"
"GHOST!"
The stream camera shook wildly. Amid the girls' screaming, the phone clattered to the ground.
The Xuanyuan Sword was scared right out of her hand. Sushang, nerves stretched to the absolute breaking point, was pointing at the ghost-fire — and then her neck went rigid, her head lolled to one side, and she keeled over with a thud.
Even as she hit the ground, her finger was still pointing straight ahead.
At the same moment.
"Uwaaaaaah!!!"
Ash-green hair the texture of soft moss curled down over her shoulders, the faded, talisman-pale ends quivering in the wind. The fuzzy ears poking out between the strands of hair drooped limply, like two ginkgo leaves beaten flat by a downpour.
The cloud-pattern embroidery on her pale green robes creased as she hunched her shoulders. Those amber eyes — usually marked with flame-shaped patterns like a great beast's raking claws — were now scrambled into tangled, panicked lines by sheer terror.
The little fox girl with matcha-cake-green hair flung away the phone she'd been using to stream and very nearly keeled over alongside the streamer with a thud of her own.
"Huo Huo, you're a Judge of the Ten-Lords Commission now. When faced with the uncanny and the supernatural, you need to be bolder."
The puppet Judge beside her — still wearing Herta's exterior — was Senior Xueyi, trying her best to coax the little fox girl's half-fled soul back into her body.
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