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ArabicHonkai Star Rail: My Death Feeds Their Madness — Chapter 58
Chapter 58: Mother Waited for You to Return
“Mother…?”
Kagashi’s voice trembled, a rare fracture in his usual calm.
Qiu Zhiyan’s body stiffened at the sound. Her frantic, bloodshot gaze darted toward him, tinged with a thick, agonizing confusion as she fought to recognize the man standing before her.
“…Kagashi?”
Her voice was a hoarse, grating rasp, stripped of its familiar warmth. It sounded almost inhuman.
“It’s me.” Kagashi took a slow, deliberate step forward. “Mother, you…”
Before he could finish the sentence, Qiu Zhiyan suddenly clutched her head and let out a guttural roar.
The mara affliction was accelerating, tearing through the last shreds of her sanity. Her facial features began to twist and contort unnaturally. Golden, woody striations pulsed beneath her pale skin, the parasitic roots of the Abundance swelling as they threatened to tear through her flesh and bloom into grotesque foliage.
Yet, even as the affliction ravaged her body—even as her consciousness teetered on the absolute edge of collapse—she remained firmly planted in place, her sword raised to protect the crumbling ruins behind her.
Only then did Kagashi notice the small, trembling figure huddled in the shadows of the debris.
Jingliu.
She was still alive, shielded from the carnage by the very woman who was losing her humanity.
Qiu Zhiyan roared again, swinging her blade wildly at the empty void. Her movements were utterly chaotic, a frenzied, desperate hacking, as if she were locked in mortal combat with an invisible horde.
Kagashi’s heart sank like a stone into the abyss. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the hilt of his own sword.
On the battlefield, the Cloud Knights had only one protocol for dealing with comrades who had fallen to the mara.
Destroy their elixir organ.
But this was his mother. His only remaining kin in this vast, cruel universe.
She was the one who had guided his hands when he first learned to hold a sword. Before his first deployment, she was the one who had stayed awake with him through the long night, imparting every ounce of her practical experience and detailing the fatal weaknesses of the Abominations of Abundance. After his father and sister perished in the endless wars, she was the one who had stood by his side, a steadfast anchor for hundreds of years.
“Mother…” Kagashi choked on the word, his throat tight with unshed grief.
Hearing him, Qiu Zhiyan suddenly stopped her frantic swinging. She turned her head, her movements jerky and mechanical.
Her cloudy, golden-tinged eyes stared at him for a long, agonizing eternity.
Then, with agonizing slowness, she made a gesture.
Her sword arm trembled violently as she painstakingly pointed the tip of her blade at the shivering Jingliu behind her. Then, she pointed the blade at Kagashi. Finally—she turned the tip inward, pointing it squarely at her own chest.
She repeated the motion. Twice.
Through the suffocating fog of the mara, she was using the absolute last dregs of her consciousness to convey a final command.
Kagashi closed his eyes, a deep helplessness washing over him.
Qiu Zhiyan’s cracked lips barely managed to curl into a faint, trembling smile. It was a smile woven with relief, a desperate plea, and an overwhelming, maternal worry.
A heartbeat later, that smile was violently erased. Her face was completely consumed by distortion and agony as she let out a piercing, inhuman wail.
The mara affliction had reached its terminal stage. The human soul known as Qiu Zhiyan was gone.
Kagashi nearly crushed his sword hilt under his grip. His arm had never trembled so violently in his entire life.
Suddenly, the creature that was once his mother raised her sword and charged at him with mindless, feral madness.
He forced down the rising tide of his emotions, locking his grief away in the deepest recesses of his mind. He waited for the exact moment she entered his range—
Schwing.
The muffled, sickening sound of a sharp blade piercing flesh echoed quietly over the ruined courtyard.
Both bodies stiffened simultaneously.
A single drop of blood spilled from the corner of Kagashi’s eye, tracing a warm, jagged path down his pale cheek.
Qiu Zhiyan slowly looked up. The feral madness in her golden eyes began to recede, peeling back to reveal a fleeting, miraculous trace of pure clarity.
“Kagashi… Mother waited for you to return…”
She called out to him softly, her voice returning to the gentle, apologetic tone he remembered so well.
“Forgive Mother’s cowardice… and her cruelty to you…”
Her eyes fluttered shut, and her body tilted forward, devoid of strength.
Kagashi stiffly caught her falling form. He held his mother tightly against his chest as he sank to his knees on the blood-soaked earth. His throat felt as though it had been packed with glass; he could not utter a single word.
His vision blurred, the world dissolving into a haze of red and gray.
Above them, the sky remained a bruised, apocalyptic crimson. In the distance, the grotesque flesh of the planet-devouring Rahu writhed against the horizon, accompanied by the deafening roar of star skiff engines as the last evacuation fleets desperately pulled away.
For Kagashi, the entire universe had narrowed down to the cooling weight in his arms and the tearing, suffocating pain in his chest.
We, the Cloud Knights, swear to be like clouds obscuring the sky, protecting the Xianzhou…
Mother, you were never cowardly.
Fighting to your very last breath for a falling city and its people, you never betrayed the Cloud Knights’ oath. You did not disgrace the Kagashi Family, nor were you cruel to your child.
You, who taught me how to wield a sword to protect the weak, will not be left behind on this blood-stained land. You will never become twisted nourishment for the Abominations.
“Mother, Kagashi will take you home.”
A soft splash broke the silence. Jingliu staggered toward him, her small knees buckling as she splashed through the puddles of blood. Her tiny, trembling hands reached out to grasp Qiu Zhiyan’s rapidly cooling palm. Tears streamed uncontrollably down the young girl’s dirt-streaked face.
A few seconds later, the exhaustion and terror overwhelmed her, and Jingliu slumped forward, losing consciousness.
As she fell, Kagashi noticed something wrapped tightly around Jingliu’s small forearm. It was an incredibly familiar silver moon jade pendant.
It was the protective jade he had given his mother hundreds of years ago.
Kagashi carefully collected his mother’s remains. When he finally stood back up, his face was a mask of absolute, chilling calm.
All sorrow could wait until the war was over. Right now, he had a duty to fulfill.
He had people to save.
And he had Abominations to slaughter.
No matter if the tearing pain in his chest deepened with every single step, he could not afford to stop.
Some wounds would never heal. Some farewells could never be accepted. And some hatreds would only be extinguished by absolute death.
High above in the bleeding starry sky, General Shafen’s relentless assault continued, carving out the last possible evacuation route for the desperate survivors.
Numerous star skiffs, their formations shattered and their hulls groaning under the weight of too many passengers, narrowly escaped the gravitational pull of Cangcheng. Under Shafen’s fierce protection, they fled the Xianzhou ship that had been transformed into a bloody, writhing purgatory.
Kagashi picked up the unconscious Jingliu, secured her against his back, and soared into the sky on his sword, leaving the dying ruins behind.
“Every conquest of death is supreme joy. Like them, your flesh and blood are insignificant, but your pain… your pain might actually please me.”
Shuhu’s voice shrieked across the void. The Emanator of Abundance spoke each sickening syllable from a different, grotesque head, piecing the words together into a nauseating, overlapping chorus.
“Teng Xiao, what do you plan to kill me with this time? I am looking forward to it.”
Teng Xiao floated high in the upper atmosphere, surrounded by a raging storm of imaginary energy that was so dense it had nearly materialized into solid matter.
The General’s face was no longer contorted with the fiery anger of battle. Instead, it was perfectly, terrifyingly calm.
It was not the indifference of a man who had given up, but the extreme, volatile compression of all his rage, grief, and unyielding determination.
He cast one final glance at the last star skiff breaking orbit, watching it safely evacuate the doomed Cangcheng. Then, blinding golden light erupted from his eyes.
“With myself.”
Those two quiet words cut through the cosmic clamor, echoing with absolute finality.
Shuhu’s grotesque laughter abruptly stopped. Thousands of twisted heads frowned simultaneously, their myriad eyes narrowing in sudden apprehension.
This reaction was entirely unexpected. Based on all their past clashes, Teng Xiao should have displayed that delightful, predictable rage, rushing forward in a reckless frenzy. This cold, majestic calm was something entirely new.
Vast oceans of imaginary energy gathered behind Teng Xiao, condensing rapidly into a colossal, god-like phantom.
The giant phantom raised a massive blade that ignited with roaring golden flames. With a motion that seemed to cleave the very fabric of space, the blade struck down from the heavens, piercing straight through the corrupted earth of the Xianzhou.
In a blinding instant, the golden flames incinerated the gargantuan, fleshy tree that Shuhu had transformed into.
Wherever the golden fire swept, the writhing flesh and blood shrieked and recoiled. The Abominations of Abundance were instantly reduced to drifting ash.
In a matter of seconds, the divine flames did not merely destroy Shuhu’s physical vessel. They spread outward, engulfing the entire section of the Xianzhou ship that had been assimilated by Rahu, burning the corruption down to the molecular level.
Those unfortunate souls who had been devoured by the Evil Star, their faces trapped in eternal torment across its fleshy surface, were finally granted peace. As the flames consumed them, they looked up at the golden phantom, their eyes reflecting nothing but pure liberation.
Teng Xiao let out a roar capable of shattering mountains. The giant golden phantom behind him violently retracted into his physical body, and the General transformed into a blinding golden meteor.
The meteor tore across the void, instantly piercing through the core of Rahu and annihilating the massive Abomination in the boundless cosmic dark.
Shuhu vanished in the resulting shockwave, seemingly eradicated from existence.
Yet, neither Teng Xiao nor Shafen showed a single trace of joy.
They knew Shuhu would not die so easily. But Cangcheng… Cangcheng was gone forever.
From the very moment Rahu sank its teeth into Cangcheng, even with the apocalyptic fury of an Emanator of The Hunt, they had been forced into an impossible dilemma.
If they immediately annihilated the Evil Star, the millions of survivors still trapped within Cangcheng would be incinerated by their own General’s hands. If they hesitated and did not strike, the corruption would spread, and countless more across the galaxy would perish.
Someone always had to pay the price. Someone always had to make the agonizing choice.
The starry sky fell utterly silent, save for the drifting embers of a dead world.
Kagashi floated in the void, watching the space where Shuhu had disappeared. His golden eyes were filled with the same dead, terrifying silence as the cosmos around him.
One day, Shuhu would no longer have a chance to resurrect. One day, there would be nowhere left to run.
He swore it upon his mother’s ashes.
To achieve this sole, burning aspiration, he was prepared to walk this path entirely alone. There was nothing left in this universe he could not afford to lose, and no price he would not gladly pay.