Honkai Star Rail: My Chat Group is Full of Broken Timelines — Chapter 45

Chapter 45: The Truth of a Single Universe

“Stepping onto a Path… I never imagined it would happen like this.”

Kazuki’s hands clenched into fists, so tight the knuckles shone bone-white. It felt as if a thousand hidden currents were surging through his body, a dormant volcano of raw data and cosmic logic stirring in his very soul, waiting for the right moment to erupt.

Ever since arriving in this world of Honkai: Star Rail, he had fantasized countless times about the moment he would finally become a Pathstrider. He’d pictured himself awakening to The Hunt in the heat of a desperate battle against the Abundance, or touching the essence of Preservation while shielding his companions from harm. He’d even imagined being chosen by Akivili’s Trailblaze while drifting aimlessly through the sea of stars.

But, alas.

Compared to the larger-than-life Pathstriders of the galaxy, he was, disappointingly, just a guy. As an ordinary person, he hadn’t even entertained the notion of the Path of Elation; he wasn’t a true Masked Fool, willing to cast everything aside for the sake of a good laugh.

He never, ever expected to step onto the Path of Erudition. And certainly not like this, in a manner that felt less like a choice and more like being cornered into it.

“A pawn of Nous?” he whispered, the words a mix of self-deprecation and something else… a complex, twisted sort of pride. A wry smile curled at the corner of his mouth. “Then again, to even be noticed by an existence like That… it’s a hell of an honor, I suppose.”

To catch the eye of the Aeon of Erudition, one typically had to be a member of the Genius Society. By piecing together the truth behind the chat group and the so-called parallel worlds, Kazuki had inadvertently drawn that cosmic gaze upon himself, bathing in its light and stepping onto a Path. It was an exceptional, unheard-of case.

After a few moments, Kazuki forced himself to accept this new reality. So what if he was being manipulated by Nous? In this vast universe, even some Aeons were rumored to have been born from Nous’s calculations. He was just a small fry, an ordinary Xianzhou native whose greatest advantage was a ‘cheat’ that turned out to be a tool created by that very same entity to anchor the worldline.

‘Fine. I’ll accept the ‘cheat’ you’ve given me,’ he thought, his gaze lifting to the porthole. He looked out into the void, almost imagining he could pierce through the layers of stardust and see the colossal supercomputer floating in the silent depths of the universe.

The power of Erudition flowed through him, a cold and clarifying current that seemed to strip away all artifice, allowing him to perceive the underlying logic of how things operated.

As it happened, accepting this gaze would make meeting Herta in the future much more convenient. Others might not recognize the faint aura of an Aeon’s attention, but as an Emanator of Erudition herself, Herta would surely be able to detect a trace of it on him.

also… it was time to make his conjectures public. Firefly and Castorice knew next to nothing about the state of the galaxy, so telling them now would do more harm than good. Besides, their worlds had yet to be fully anchored into the same timeline as his and Robin’s.

Kazuki opened the chat group interface and handled to his private messages with Robin.

[Cliffhanger King: Robin, could you send me your contact info?]

The reply came almost the instant he sent the message.

[Pure Beauty Knight: Oh? My contact info? Kazuki, are you trying to find the ‘me’ in your world for some reason?]

[Cliffhanger King: You could say that…]

Kazuki’s response was deliberately vague, a spark of mischief hiding behind the words. Perhaps, still reeling from the shock of the truth, he needed to do something drastic just to confirm that this was all real and not some elaborate illusion.

[Pure Beauty Knight: Alright, my contact info is… here. Try it and see if you can get through. I can only guarantee this is my current number; I have no idea if you can reach me in your world with it…]

Robin sent her contact information without hesitation. They were, after all, members of the same group and had known each other long enough for her to feel that Kazuki was someone she could trust implicitly.

[Cliffhanger King: Wait for my good news.]

Closing the chat, Kazuki couldn’t stop the corner of his mouth from curving into a grin.

He wondered just how much of a fright this was going to give her.

No sooner said than done. He immediately dialed the number Robin had just provided.

Meanwhile, in a distant star zone, Robin had just finished her chat with Kazuki. She sat in the cockpit of the Harmonious Dove, staring out at the river of stars, her mind a whirlwind of contradictions. She truly couldn’t fathom why Kazuki had suddenly asked for her contact information.

Was it really as he said, that he wanted to find her counterpart in his world? But they were from two different worlds… or so she had always believed. Everything that had happened today, however, was systematically overturning her understanding of reality.

The versions of herself from two separate worlds announcing their retirement at the exact same time; the chat group suddenly losing its ability to transport them across worlds; and those inexplicably clear memories blooming in her mind… She distinctly remembered that she had never met that mysterious person in her world.

But at this very moment… she recalled a casual chat in the group from a few months ago. Kazuki had mentioned something, but at the time, she was certain she had never met a woman named Tingyun.

Yet now, a picture inexplicably surfaced in her mind: in a lavish reception room, a shrewd Foxian girl was smiling at her, her voice as crisp and clear as a bell. “This young lady is named Tingyun. It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Robin.”

‘That’s not right…’she thought, a tremor of unease running through her.’I’ve never met her!’

But the memory, once a second-hand story from Kazuki, was now solidifying. Its edges sharpened, claiming a space in her past where none had existed before. The details of the meeting began to overlap perfectly with what Kazuki had described, becoming so vivid that she couldn’t help but doubt herself.

Had she really never met that mysterious person? Were she and Kazuki truly in parallel worlds?

Just then, her personal comms device chimed, a string of unfamiliar routing codes flashing across the screen.

“Hm? Who could be calling?” Robin frowned. Her first thought was of Sunday. Her brother must have heard the news of her retirement by now, surely?

She picked up the device and saw it was a number she had never seen before.

“Eh? It’s not my brother… could it be…” Robin’s mind flashed back to the message she had just sent. It couldn’t be such a wild coincidence, could it?

Robin took a deep breath, her fingertips trembling slightly as she pressed the answer button.

For a long moment after the connection established, there was only silence—a void filled by the faint hum of stellar winds brushing against the ship’s hull, a sound that traveled across the unimaginable distance between them.

Ultimately unable to contain her spiraling curiosity, Robin spoke first, her voice laced with a tension she couldn’t quite conceal. “Are you… Group Owner Kazuki?”

She didn’t dare to think about how mortified she would be if this was just a coincidence and a complete stranger was on the other end.

“It’s me, Miss Robin.”

Finally, Kazuki spoke. Hearing that familiar voice, Robin let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. The relief was immediately followed by a wave of deep confusion that threatened to drown her.

What on earth was going on?

“Robin, I know you must be very confused right now.” Kazuki’s voice was much calmer than hers, as if he had already processed and accepted all the impossible facts. “But I only discovered the truth a little while ago myself…”

“The truth…” Robin murmured the word, her heart pounding against her ribs. She had a chilling premonition that what she was about to hear would shatter her understanding of the world.

“That’s right, the truth.” Kazuki’s voice paused, as if he were carefully arranging his words for maximum impact. “The so-called parallel worlds… they’re nothing more than potential futures, possibilities that Nous has ‘anchored.’It calculates the’special moments’that must happen, but for everything else… all the infinite variables… It only allows the’best’ outcome to survive. And this chat group we’re in? It’s the tool. Through me, through all of our perspectives, It has been anchoring the one true future for this galaxy, step by step.”

Robin didn’t know how she managed to remain conscious as she listened to those words. Perhaps from the moment Kazuki started speaking, her mind had already begun to detach.

Nous? Anchoring the future? The chat group was a tool? Each word was a celestial hammer, smashing the foundations of her reality into dust.

But in the wreckage, at least one thing was confirmed.

“In other words,” she said, her voice barely a whisper, “you and I… we’re in the same universe right now?”

“Exactly,” Kazuki confirmed, his tone grim. “And who knows? Perhaps while Nous was anchoring this future, we’ve already died countless times. Countless other versions of us have become sacrificed possibilities, erased from existence.”

This was truly… After hearing that conclusion, Robin simply stared into the star-dusted void, her mind utterly and completely blank.