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ArabicHonkai Star Rail: Saving the World with a Mobile Game — Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Regarding the Fictional Historian
Ash scanned his surroundings from top to bottom, taking in the quiet room. The girl resting nearby had grown into quite the soul-stirring beauty, her peaceful breathing a stark contrast to the chaos they had just endured. Seeing that she was safe, Ash finally allowed himself a moment to lean back and process exactly how he had ended up here.
Alright.
It sounded completely abstract, but Ash was a transmigrator.
On that fateful day, as a dedicated Honkai: Star Rail player, he had rage-swiped his card for multiple max-tier top-up packs. The grand result of his financial ruin? A measly zero-Eidolon, zero-Superimposition Cyrene after three hundred and ten agonizing pulls. To add insult to absolute injury, he had then spent three straight hours grinding relics, finally securing a piece with perfect double crit stats, only to watch every single enhancement roll straight into flat HP. His brain simply short-circuited. He burned out and collapsed right there on his floor.
What an utterly miserable way to end a life.
But when he opened his eyes again, he was breathing the air of the Honkai: Star Rail universe, sporting the exact same mop of grey hair as Stelle.
Fortunately, his starting point had been the Herta Space Station. Relying entirely on his meta-knowledge as a second-playthrough veteran, he successfully handled the opening crisis and joined the Astral Express crew alongside Stelle.
It was hard to say if his sudden death had been a blessing in disguise, but he wasn’t complaining.
Armed with his complete player knowledge, the trailblazing journey had been relatively smooth. Ash had formed deep, genuine friendships with the crew and the people they met along the way.
Which brought him to their current destination: Amphoreus. Because he possessed prior knowledge of the tragic storyline, Ash knew exactly what nightmare was brewing on this planet. Unwilling to let the tragedy play out, he chose to disembark early and rush over ahead of schedule.
After all, if he followed the original timeline, by the time the Astral Express naturally arrived at Amphoreus, the Iron Tomb’s gestation progress would be nearly complete.
By then, it would be far too late to save anyone.
Fortunately, hard work and meta-knowledge paid off.
Relying on his veteran experience, Ash successfully speedran a round of Amphoreus. He completely derailed the plot, causing all the oracles in this cycle to fail and ensuring that all the Chrysos Heirs survived the ordeal.
Before the Iron Tomb could even fully manifest its apocalyptic form, Ash stepped up and literally elbowed the cosmic threat to death.
Of course, he hadn’t done it entirely alone. Herta and Screwllum had provided massive orbital and computational support, proving that it paid to have Genius Society members as old acquaintances.
The current situation was the direct aftermath of elbowing the Iron Tomb into oblivion. Upon waking up, Ash felt a deep wave of relief seeing that everyone around him seemed to be alive and breathing.
“But here comes the real problem.” Ash rubbed his temples, feeling a massive headache coming on.
He had killed the Iron Tomb early, but he couldn’t resolve the massive chain reactions and the broken established storyline all on his own.
For instance, Ash was painfully aware that he didn’t possess a cheat system after transmigrating. Without a Game Development System or some cosmic interface, he had no way to help the Chrysos Heirs achieve their necessary Ascension.
Because the Iron Tomb had been eliminated prematurely, the Galactic Coalition was never formed. This meant that the Iron Tomb’s lingering viral influence and corrupted remnants had likely spread unchecked across the land.
And most.
If Cyrene wasn’t sacrificed to complete the temporal loop, could that entity even be resurrected in the future?
Thinking of this massive plot hole, Ash threw off his blankets and got out of bed, needing to see what the outside world looked like. Just then, two sets of approaching footsteps echoed from the corridor, and Aglaea and Keluida walked into the room, deep in conversation.
“Oh, you’re awake?”
“I was just discussing the Black Tide Creation with the Golden Weaver. Hearing news of your recovery, I was about to come find you myself. This Empress is relieved to see you are alright.”
Keluida crossed her arms and tilted her chin up haughtily. The small, elegant crown resting on her head looked like it might slide off at any moment from the sharp movement.
“Are you two still alive as well?”
Ash blinked, his eyes sweeping over the two women in genuine surprise.
Keluida immediately dropped her haughty posture, flashing a look of deep displeasure. “What exactly do you mean by ‘still alive’?”
“Since you are alive, we can at least discuss our next steps. There are still far too many remnants lingering in Amphoreus, and they have already begun spreading toward Okhema.”
Seeing Ash’s confused and slightly panicked expression, Aglaea offered a gentle, reassuring smile. She spread her hand open, revealing a cluster of shimmering golden threads dancing across her palm.
“Do not be so surprised. Thanks to your intervention, the creation of Destruction, the Iron Tomb, has indeed perished. However, its corrupted remnants are still spreading through the leylines.”
“Look closely. My golden threads can still clearly feel their chaotic movements.”
Hearing Aglaea explain it so calmly, Ash understood the gravity of the situation.
The remnants and the digital virus left behind after the Iron Tomb’s death had indeed spread like a plague.
But looking at Aglaea, he noticed her eyes seemed to have recovered their light. That was one of the few genuinely good outcomes of his reckless intervention.
Ash felt a small spark of pride. What he did had actually been meaningful.
“But then again…”
“Gray Treasure, slow down.”
Hyacine stepped up beside him, gently supporting Ash’s arm as they walked past the two women and out of the recovery room.
A dazzling, ethereal light spilled through the crack in the heavy double doors. As far as the eye could see, the Okhema Holy City outside still stood tall and proud, bathed in the radiant glow of the giant statue of the world-bearing Titan.
However, looking further into the horizon, the creeping spread of the black tide was clearly visible, looking as though it were bleeding down from beyond the starry sky itself.
Ash honestly didn’t know if the current situation was a net positive or a disaster waiting to happen, but it was entirely within his expectations. He mentally prepared himself to see if he could establish a comms link with Herta again.
But before he could even open his terminal.
“Yo, partner.”
“Oh? You are awake.”
Two figures approaching from opposite ends of the grand corridor met in perfect sync. Both men put their hands on their hips and stared directly at Ash.
The sheer absurdity of the scene made Ash freeze in his tracks.
But before he could even formulate a greeting, the two men finally noticed each other.
“If it isn’t the ‘Sun That Will Eventually Rise’?”
“And if it isn’t the ‘Necessary Pain of This World’?”
“You came to check on our partner too?”
Mydei crossed his arms over his chest, looking Phainon up and down with a deeply strange, almost accusatory expression.
“I am genuinely starting to wonder if you are following me on purpose. How do I manage to run into you everywhere I go?”
“I just received word that our partner woke up, so I came specifically to see him. Who knew you would be loitering here? I thought you were supposed to be stationed in Kremnos City.”
After the Iron Tomb had been elbowed into dust, the remaining viral corruption and monstrous remnants needed to be purged from the cities. Mydei had naturally volunteered for the vanguard of this exhausting task.
Watching the two of them bicker and act exactly the same as they always did, Ash let out a long, quiet sigh of relief.
Since Amphoreus functioned much like a massive scepter of data, everything here was essentially recorded information. As long as the data could be preserved and recorded, everything could theoretically return to normal.
But as Ash looked down at the sprawling expanse of Okhema from his high vantage point, the true reality of the situation made his heart skip a heavy beat.
After all, the place they were standing in right now wasn’t actually real.
Here was the massive, glaring logical loophole: Ash had elbowed the Iron Tomb to death prematurely. The sequence was broken. So how did Amphoreus, acting as the scepter, actually survive the paradox?
The terrifying answer was simple.
It didn’t survive at all.
It sounded shocking, but as a second-playthrough player who knew exactly what the future held, Ash had brainstormed countless desperate strategies to save this world.
But he quickly realized that the core conflicts of Amphoreus involved the direct interference of Aeons. There was simply no way for a mortal transmigrator to solve a problem of that magnitude completely.
Fortunately, there was one loophole he could exploit.
The Path of Enigmata.
The Fictional Historians.
This utterly insane, borderline suicidal plan had clearly succeeded by the time Ash woke up in that bed.
That was the truth. Everything he was currently looking at, whether it was the bickering heroes in the hallway or the towering statues of Amphoreus itself, was completely fictionalized by Ash.
Or, to be more accurate, he had fictionalized the reality that Amphoreus still existed in the physical universe.
He had successfully deceived the gods.
To pull off a scam of this cosmic magnitude, Ash had specifically sought out and consulted the thirteen-year-old Gallagher, learning the exact methods needed to weave a lie so dense it became a temporary truth.
As for why he had to go to such extreme lengths to fictionalize an entire planet?
Because in the end, Cyrene was gone. According to the original, tragic development of the timeline, the Galactic Coalition and countless other planets would suffer immense, bloody sacrifices to fix the broken loop.
Ash had figured that since he was already here, he could exploit the time difference, kill the Iron Tomb early, and perhaps save millions of lives in the process.
But the harsh truth was that he had severely overestimated his own cosmic weight.
The Iron Tomb was gone, yes, but Amphoreus still couldn’t be saved from its destined collapse. To prevent immediate erasure, he could only trigger his absolute last resort backup plan: first, temporarily fictionalize a reality where Amphoreus still exists, and then forcefully fictionalize the fact that Cyrene had successfully returned to the past.
By weaving these two massive lies together, the timeline of Amphoreus formed a closed, stable loop.
He had hoped that if this insane method actually worked, it would at least buy him enough time to find a real solution.
‘It seems the fabrication succeeded, but the next step… what the hell should I do now?’ Ash muttered in his heart, feeling a crushing wave of exhaustion washing over him.
Undoubtedly, what is fake will eventually be exposed as fake.
Conceptually, Amphoreus still existed in the universe’s records, which meant Cyrene, Aglaea, Mydei, and the others naturally existed right alongside it.
But the very second an Aeon or an emanator looked too closely and discovered the planet was gone, it would truly be gone forever. The exact same rule applied to the fictionalized version of Cyrene.
With Amphoreus constantly being watched by various powerful cosmic factions, Ash didn’t delude himself into thinking his amateur Enigmata abilities could deceive the gods for much longer.
So even though the immediate apocalypse had been held off, he felt the suffocating urgency of a ticking clock echoing in his skull.
‘Where’s Mei?”Can’t you help me out here? Even just drawing your blade and cutting off causality would be fine!’