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ArabicHonkai Star Rail: Saving the World with a Mobile Game — Chapter 3
Chapter 3: Creating an Amphoreus within Amphoreus
“Heh, sorry, partner.”
Phainon scratched the back of his head, a sheepish grin breaking through his usual earnest demeanor. “Every time I see that guy, he just has to needle me. I totally lost my train of thought just now.”
Ash released a slow breath, his gaze finally shifting from the distant horizon to settle on his companion.
“Oh, right, I remember now.” Phainon’s expression darkened, the easygoing smile vanishing as he looked out over the rugged landscape. “Everyone in Amphoreus has returned.”
He paused, his jaw tightening. “But those spreading Black Tide Creations haven’t vanished. And that thing you warned us about before, the ‘virus’ that leaked out after the Iron Tomb bloomed, it seems to be spreading.”
Phainon shook his head, his voice dropping to a murmur. “But to be honest, it doesn’t even feel real. We actually did it, partner.”
He went on to describe the chaotic scenes they had witnessed just outside the city walls earlier. The Iron Tomb’s residual virus had indeed scattered, indiscriminately infecting both inorganic stone and organic flesh. Amphoreus, sitting closest to the epicenter of the battlefield, had taken the direct brunt of the impact.
The only silver lining was that after the Iron Tomb was completely shattered, the people had come back.
This perfectly aligned with Ash’s expectations.
But hearing Phainon call it unreal made a sharp twinge of awkwardness prick at Ash’s conscience.
He had drawn upon the power of the Enigmata to weave a colossal fabrication, fooling the gods and even twisting causality itself. In stark reality, everything they were experiencing right now was still nothing more than a fragile illusion.
Pushing the guilt aside, Ash stepped forward and clapped a reassuring hand on Phainon’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, take a deep breath,” Ash said, keeping his tone steady. “It’s completely normal for it to feel unreal, because the true Amphoreus is about to be reborn!”
He gestured toward the sky. “And we will also head toward the true starry sky!”
Brave words. But Ash knew he still intended to weave a beautiful, white lie.
He still had time, didn’t he?
In truth, Ash had racked his brain for a permanent solution. Aside from stalling for time with Enigmata-fueled fabrications, he had considered tracking down Acheron to see if her blade could sever the tangled causality of Amphoreus with a single, absolute strike.
Or, in a fit of absolute delusion, he could just march up and smash Nanook out of existence so the Iron Tomb would be permanently erased. He had even entertained the thought of pulling out another flawless, pure child to take Cyrene’s place.
But reality was a harsh mistress. Acheron was drifting everywhere through the cosmos, and Ash couldn’t find her at all. And as for the rest, challenging an Aeon to a fight?
It was a deeply helpless situation.
Ash looked down at the sprawling, ancient scenery of Okhema, resigning himself to the fact that he could only stall for as long as humanly possible.
At the very least, the conceptual artifact “As I Have Written” was still safely in his hands. If all else failed, he would have to stick to the original contingency plan and pack everything into the book.
As he was thinking this…
Suddenly…
“What was that noise?!”
[Detected strong player conviction. System activating…]
‘For real?’Ash suddenly looked up, his face a perfect mask of’where have you been all my life?’
Three years! Did this interface have any idea how he had spent these three years after transmigrating?!
His desperate struggle to hold on until now hadn’t been in vain.
In this universe where mysterious cosmic powers coexisted, where Aeon cults and terrifying forces lurked in every shadow, a normal person would barely survive two days!
But now, everything had changed.
“What will it be?” Ash muttered, his mind racing with calculations. “Will it lead directly to an Aeon, or can I start climbing the Imaginary Tree?”
It was a system, no matter what.
At the very least, if it could instantly elevate him to an Emanator of Erudition, he would gladly spend the rest of his days researching the origins of life with Ruan Mei!
[Ding! Game Development System successfully bound. Your experiences have been automatically recorded!]
[Ding! Detected host’s urgent need. Congratulations on generating the brand-new version 3.0 of the game “Honkai: Star Rail”.]
Ash: “¿”
Time seemed to freeze for a few agonizing seconds. At this moment, Ash felt as if he had been personally glanced at by IX, a massive, invisible question mark hovering over his head.
‘Uh, what?’
Was this a joke? The almighty system function it gave him was to… make games? In a universe where Aeons roam free, where cosmic terror is rampant, and where technology has ascended beyond human comprehension?
Making games, my foot?
‘Answer me, you bastard!’
Could this thing be some garbage Aha sent just to toy with him?
A divine war is about to break out, and you are telling me to sit down and make games?!
His newly ignited hope was instantly extinguished. Ash felt as helpless as a potential Self-Annihilator. He honestly felt it would have been better if the stupid thing hadn’t shown up at all.
Giving him hope only to crush it into dust? How interesting.
But then, the mechanical voice echoed in Ash’s ears again.
[Ding! Release the game and attract players. Data such as concurrent users and player spending will be converted into Cosmic Shards for you.]
[Cosmic Shards can be exchanged in the System Event Shop for abilities, items, materials, and more.]
[They can also be used to redeem future version updates.]
Ash paused for another two seconds, and then his expression gradually became peculiar.
So it wasn’t as simple as just making basic games?
If he could collect Cosmic Shards and exchange them for various reality-bending abilities in the Event Shop, he could theoretically ascend to godhood.
Well, that’s great!
But then again, what exactly was this game?
‘I’m making Honkai: Star Rail inside the actual world of Honkai: Star Rail?’
Ash quickly checked the content of the first game version provided by the system. Whether it was the combat mechanics or the character modeling, it was indeed exactly like the “Honkai: Star Rail” he knew.
But that was fine.
Since the content of the first version seemed to start from version 3.0, and in the current real-time period, not many major cosmic factions should be paying attention to this isolated planet yet.
Ash suddenly remembered that the core ability of “As I Have Written” was to record the foundational data of Amphoreus.
As long as he spread that data to the stars and let everyone in the universe know about it, Amphoreus and all the data within it could potentially ascend into a real planet with real people!
Instead of trying to spread it through something slow like printing physical books, wouldn’t it be infinitely faster to spread it directly through a wildly popular game?
‘Wait, this actually matches up perfectly?’
In an instant, Ash seemed to know exactly what to do. This would not only provide an ultimate safety net for the Chrysos Heirs and Amphoreus, but also give Ash a concrete path to ascend.
After all, unlike the Astral Express Crew, he had no special identity or Stellaron other than his “New Game Plus” meta-perspective.
“Partner?”
Phainon’s puzzled voice dragged Ash out of his grand daydreaming.
“Partner, why are you spacing out?”
“Haha, you’re right,” Ash laughed, his eyes bright. “We defeated the creations of Destruction, and Amphoreus is about to be reborn. We should be happier at a time like this.”
Phainon looked up at the sky, his eyes shining as if he could already see the near future where the true dawn would rise and the vast starry sky he had never seen before would finally appear.
In contrast, Ash stepped up and patted his shoulder again.
The difference was, this time, it wasn’t a lie.
“There’s still a long time before Amphoreus is fully reborn,” Ash said, his voice ringing with authority. “In the meantime, it’s not just the virus left by the Iron Tomb we have to worry about; we also have to make Amphoreus ascend completely.”
He grinned. “But don’t worry, I already have a foolproof way to spread the story of Amphoreus!”
Ash’s bold words drew everyone’s attention at once.
There wasn’t a single soul present who didn’t look forward to the arrival of this day.
But clearly, even defeating the final boss, the Iron Tomb, and even destroying Lygus, still wasn’t enough to make Amphoreus reborn immediately.
But in the next second, Ash reached into his pocket and took out his mobile phone.
“A brick?” Mydei crossed his muscular arms and frowned in deep skepticism. “Just with this? What exactly are you going to do with that?”
The others also looked at each other in total confusion.
Ash had a look of utter speechlessness.
To put it bluntly, Amphoreus was like a cosmic backwater; its civilization hadn’t connected with the stars yet. Plus, the Xuanfeng people didn’t even have a formalized written language, so of course, they didn’t know how incredibly useful a mobile phone could be.
“This isn’t just a ‘brick,’ Mydei,” Ash said dryly. “In my partner’s place, it’s called a mobile phone.”
“Right?”
Beside him, Cyrene stepped forward slowly, her hands clasped elegantly behind her back.
Having already received a brief explanation from him in the past, she gave Ash a playful, knowing wink.
Ash nodded and then snapped his fingers.
“Exactly, Cyrene is right. We are going to use this little device to make a game, and through it, we can spread all the memories of Amphoreus to the universe.”
He waved them over, tapping the screen. “Come, come, everyone, take a look at this.”