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ArabicHonkai Star Rail: Saving the World with a Mobile Game — Chapter 11
Chapter 11: As Expected, Geniuses Can’t Be Relied Upon
The digital footprint of Honkai: Star Rail was expanding like a localized supernova.
Across the sterile, metallic corridors of the Herta Space Station, researchers who had previously only lurked in Guinaifen’s live streams were now quietly downloading the client. The server traffic spiked with every passing hour, a silent proof of the galaxy’s growing curiosity.
Arlan stood before the pristine desk in the lead researcher’s office, his brow furrowed with genuine distress. “Madam Herta’s likeness is going to be exposed to the entire network at this rate,” he warned, his voice tight with protective concern.
Asta, however, merely offered a dismissive shake of her head. “There is no need to intervene just yet. If the situation escalates, I will contact Madam Herta directly.” She leaned back in her chair, her expression calm. “Besides, how many people in the galaxy have actually seen her true face? Even if they stumble across her in-game counterpart, they’ll likely just assume it’s an original character design. Let it be.”
“Understood, Lady Asta.” Ever the loyal head of the Security Department, Arlan bowed his head and retreated from the room.
The heavy mechanical doors hissed shut, leaving Asta alone in the quiet hum of the office. She immediately pulled out her personal terminal, her fingers flying across the holographic screen to pull up the Interastral Store.
“Honkai: Star Rail…” she murmured, reading the stylized title. “The premise seems heavily inspired by Astral Express fanwork.”
A strange spark of curiosity flickered in her chest. Was it actually good? Her thumb hovered over the download icon. She should probably install it. Not for entertainment, of course. This was strictly a tactical investigation to determine if the developer harbored any malicious intent toward the Space Station. Yes, a critical security audit.
She cleared her throat softly in the empty room.
The mention of the Astral Express brought a familiar, grey-haired figure unbidden to the forefront of her mind. Asta let out a soft, helpless sigh, her pink fingernail tracing idle circles against the glass surface of her desk. “Speaking of which… I wonder how he’s doing. He hasn’t visited the Space Station at all lately.”
She rested her chin in her hand, staring blankly at the download progress bar. “Didn’t he promise to come see me more often? I could have asked him if he knew anything about the developer behind this fan game.”
Her gaze drifted to the encrypted communication channel on her screen. “And it seems he hasn’t been in touch with Madam Herta either. I can’t get through to her. I can’t get through at all! Where in the cosmos is she?”
Deep within the veiled borders of Amphoreus, Ash was having the exact same problem.
Having wrapped up his immediate tasks, he stood before the glowing, ethereal construct of an aegis anchor, attempting to force a signal through the dimensional static to reach Herta. He needed to coordinate their next move. But the connection remained dead, returning nothing but hollow cosmic white noise.
Even Screwllum’s frequency was entirely unresponsive.
Ash dropped his hand, exhaling a long breath. As expected, Geniuses couldn’t be relied upon when it actually mattered. It was a good thing he had engineered a backup plan to save Amphoreus, or he would be completely stranded right now.
He summoned his system interface. The counter for Cosmic Shards was ticking upward at a dizzying pace. The game had officially breached the mainstream storefronts, and downloads were cascading.
On the streaming networks, Guinaifen had finally pushed through the early narrative and officially reached the Chrysos Heirs’ storyline, broadcasting the tragic, golden majesty of Amphoreus to trillions of viewers across the galaxy.
Ash tapped his chin, his eyes reflecting the blue light of the holographic panels. Popularity and download metrics were excellent passive generators for Cosmic Shards, but to achieve true Deliverance for this doomed world, he needed capital. Heavy capital. It was time to open the first limited character banner and unlock the top-up system. Someone out there needed to start swiping their card.
“Partner, this couldn’t possibly be based on me, could it?”
A familiar, overly cheerful voice broke his concentration. Ash glanced over his shoulder to see Phainon gesturing grandly at himself.
“The very first local the protagonist encounters, harboring a world-shattering secret…” Phainon grinned, scratching the back of his head. “Could it be that in your grand narrative, I’m actually the most crucial piece of the puzzle? Haha, just kidding.”
“Stop flattering yourself,” Ash replied dryly.
From the shadows behind Phainon, Mydei stepped forward, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his expression as flat as a stone slab. “If we are speaking of chronological accuracy, the first entity you encountered was that little pink…” He paused, correcting himself with a sigh. “Apologies. She should be addressed as the Thirteenth Titan now. The Original Titan.”
Phainon blinked, processing the correction. “Oh. Right. That is true.”
Of course, to the outside galaxy currently playing the game, absolutely no one would suspect that the floating, squishy mascot known as Mem was actually a Titan. She looked exactly like a harmless, marketable pet.
“I didn’t expect you to actually learn how to use your brain, Mydei,” Phainon shot back, before turning his attention back to Ash. “But partner, this story of yours… it doesn’t seem to match any known cycle of Amphoreus. Is it a completely original script?”
Ash merely shrugged, keeping his expression carefully neutral.
Naturally, it didn’t belong to any past cycle. It was a predetermined future that hadn’t yet come to pass—a timeline he had violently derailed and rewritten by arriving early. Yet, the weight of this current cycle was as real as any other. The so-called Deliverer from beyond had already descended.
A sudden, incredibly soft weight settled onto his shoulder, accompanied by a fuzzy sensation brushing against his ear. It tickled.
“Eh? Cyrene, when did you get up there?”
Ash turned his head. Crouched delicately on his collarbone was Cyrene in her diminutive Mem form, affectionately rubbing her large, velvety ears against his cheek.
“Heehee, I saw you spacing out and wanted to see what was occupying that mind of yours,” she chimed. Her voice in this form was impossibly sweet, carrying a squishy, melodic cadence. “Let me see… these are the companions from the Astral Express Crew in your Remembrance, right? They really are spectacular.”
Ash adjusted his stance, holding his terminal closer so she could see the screen.
Thinking of the Express Crew brought a sudden realization. Based on the temporal flow of the outside universe, Stelle, Dan Heng, and the others should be arriving at the borders of Amphoreus very soon. However, if his calculations held true, the Amphoreus they would step into was locked in the past.
He couldn’t be entirely certain how the timeline would warp around their arrival. There might be slight deviations from the main storyline he knew, but the core trajectory shouldn’t shift too drastically. Probably.
“Come to think of it,” Mem murmured, her tiny paws resting against his neck, “I believe I met you for the very first time near a place just like this.”
“A special energy radiating from you drew me in~” She kicked her little legs playfully, then pushed off his shoulder, doing a graceful mid-air flip to hover directly in front of his eyes.
Ash offered a strained, nostalgic smile. “Yeah. Back then, you couldn’t even form words. When I called you a little pink dog, all you could do was squeak ‘mi~ mi~ mi~’ at me.”
“Hmph! Do not call me a little pink dog!” Cyrene planted her tiny hands on her hips, puffing out her cheeks in a show of exaggerated anger. “I am clearly a beautiful, elegant little fairy.”
Ash chuckled softly. He knew perfectly well that the nascent Mem had been instinctively drawn to the resonance of the Stellaron he carried. To save Amphoreus, acquiring a Stellaron hadn’t been the hardest part—not with Herta’s vast network of resources at his disposal.
He vividly remembered the day he first set foot in Amphoreus, standing before the towering entrance of the Januapolis Temple, where he first encountered the Ripples of the Past.
It felt exactly like that very first meeting.
“But, partner…”
Ash blinked. In the span of a single heartbeat, the tiny floating mascot vanished.
The air shifted, growing suddenly warm and fragrant as the adult Cyrene materialized out of thin air, standing intimately close.
“But, I think… no matter how many times the cycle turns,” she whispered, the playful squishiness of her voice replaced by a rich, velvety seriousness. She reached up, her slender fingers delicately tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Her gaze locked onto his, dark and lingering, carrying a heavy, unspoken gravity. “I would always be there, waiting for you at that entrance.”
She leaned in just a fraction, the distance between them evaporating. “After all… you are the hero I have been waiting for.”
Ash’s breath caught in his throat, his expression freezing under the sudden, intense weight of her attention.
Seeing his reaction, a brilliant, teasing smile broke across her face. “Heehee. I even prepared a special bucket list.”
She took two graceful steps backward, putting a sliver of breathing room between them. “Looking up at this real starry sky… this list holds every single thing I want to do with you once we finally leave this place. But no peeking yet~”
Ash let out a slow, inward sigh. Every smile, every subtle shift in her expression was dangerously captivating. Cyrene’s ability to smoothly switch between a harmless mascot and a devastatingly gorgeous woman felt entirely like cheating.
She could appear silently by his side as a pet, and in the blink of an eye, bloom into a mature woman running ahead of him. It was beautifully unpredictable. Honestly, he half-feared he might wake up one morning to find a squishy Mem curled up in his bed, only for her to transform before he could process it.
“Cyrene. I’ve traveled to many places across the stars,” Ash said, his voice softening as he stepped closer, gesturing toward the game’s glowing main menu. “Through this screen, maybe I can’t show you the true depth of all of them.”
He held her gaze. “But when this is over, we can go see them in person.”
Her eyes widened slightly, shimmering with anticipation.
“The endless snowfields of Belobog,” he promised, his voice steady. “The submerged Dragon Palace of the Xianzhou Luofu. The dazzling Movie Park of Penacony. And…”
“Teacher Tribbie! Teacher Tribbie!”
The romantic tension shattered like glass.
“Hey, you’re here too, Mydei? Now it’s my turn to laugh at you!” Phainon’s loud, obnoxious voice echoed through the space.
Ash slowly turned his head, his face a mask of utter bewilderment. “?”