Honkai Star Rail: Summoning the Chrysos Heirs — Chapter 13

Chapter 13: RevenantYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

A few minutes ago, on the second-floor gantry of the abandoned Hongda Chemical Plant.

A corrosive, sour stench clung to the stagnant air, mingling heavily with the metallic tang of old rust. Crouched low behind a decaying reaction kettle, Chen Lang pressed a finger to his earpiece. His colleague’s voice filtered through the encrypted channel, laced with an absurd, almost comical disbelief.

“Wait, you’re telling me you got held up by some random girl? And she just dropped two hundred bucks on a single jianbing?”

Chen Lang adjusted the dial on his tactical goggles, a deep crease forming between his brows. He ignored the idle chatter, turning his head to peer through the dense, rusted labyrinth of industrial piping. Down in the cavernous gloom of the ground floor, a twisted, grotesque silhouette lay practically fused with the shadows.

“I get it,” Chen Lang muttered into his mic, his tone clipped. “Don’t get careless out there. I’ll keep an eye on the interior.”

Cutting the communication line, his gloved fingers tapped a restless rhythm against the cold steel of his gun barrel.

‘Could it be those lunatics from the Divine Advent Cult?’He narrowed his eyes, sweeping the suffocating darkness for any microscopic shift in the shadows.’No… those gutter rats are masters of blending in. Using a flashy, nouveau-riche tactic like throwing cash around just to draw eyes? It’s too stupid.’Chains of logic rapidly assembled and shattered in his mind. Chen Lang pursed his lips, unable to piece together a rational motive.’Forget it. I don’t care who she is. If she dares to cross the perimeter, she’s not leaving.’

Taking a slow, measured breath, he forced the distracting thoughts from his mind. He gripped his specialized Stun Pistol with both hands, his breathing leveling out as the muzzle locked steadily onto the monstrous shape below.

That was the terrifying biological anomaly designated as a “Revenant.”

Suddenly, the deathly still mass of flesh twitched in the dark.

Chen Lang’s pupils constricted.

‘Wait… something’s wrong with its bio-rhythm.’

Through the emerald hue of his low-light lenses, he watched the monster reboot like a dormant engine. It had been curled in the corner, mimicking a corpse for days, but now its dense muscle fibers rippled and spasmed violently beneath its leathery hide.

Chen Lang was intimately familiar with those tremors.

This nightmare possessed a sickening, despair-inducing regenerative factor. When pierced by conventional kinetic rounds, its flesh would knit back together faster than a seasoned operative could swap a magazine. The only reliable countermeasure was high-voltage electricity, which could instantly short-circuit its aberrant nervous system. As long as the blue arcs of current danced across its skin, this ferocious apex predator would regress into a whimpering stray, retreating deep into the shadows.

They had weaponized that exact weakness. For half a month, they had trapped it within a high-voltage grid, wearing down its stamina like hunters breaking a wild hawk. From its initial, frantic attempts to ram the electric net, to eventually being shocked until its skin charred and split open, the beast had seemingly resigned itself to its fate. To conserve its rapidly depleting energy, it had even slipped into a state of suspended animation.

But now…

The sickening grind of bone against bone echoed in the hollow factory. The monster slowly propped its massive frame upward, a low, turbid roar rattling in its throat.

It was longing.

A primal, overwhelming hunger that completely eclipsed its conditioned fear of the electric grid.

‘And it happens the exact second that strange girl shows up outside…’

A shard of ice slid down Chen Lang’s spine. The flawless synchronization of those two events reeked of lethal danger. He slammed a finger against his earpiece, his words firing off in rapid succession.

“Grizzly calling Command Center! The target is exhibiting abnormal agitation! Repeat, the target is exhibiting abnormal agitation!”

The steady, authoritative voice of Lei Zheng immediately crackled through the static. “State your situation.”

Chen Lang quickly relayed the shifting variables, his eyes never leaving the factory floor. “The girl outside just approached the perimeter, and the Revenant immediately broke its hibernation state. There has to be a direct correlation between the two!”

By now, the monster had risen to its full, terrifying height. Its turbid, milky eyes suddenly ignited with a piercing crimson glow, locking dead onto the main factory gates.

“Understood,” Lei Zheng replied. “Chen Lang, maintain visual. Do not engage rashly. I will immediately deploy ‘Thunderbolt’ to your—”

“Roar—!!!”

A deafening, shrill shriek shattered the comms feed.

Chen Lang’s eyes widened in horror.and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

Down below, the monster abandoned all hesitation. It launched itself forward like a siege shell fired from a cannon. The concrete beneath its hind legs spider-webbed and exploded into dust as its massive body blurred into a dark afterimage, tearing straight toward the exit!

And Chen Lang’s vantage point placed him directly in its warpath.

“Sir! It’s charging!” Chen Lang roared, his combat instincts overriding his shock.

He jerked to his feet, bringing the heavy pistol up in a fluid motion. The holographic crosshairs snapped onto the rapidly expanding silhouette. Without a fraction of hesitation, he squeezed the trigger.

Bang—!

A blinding flash of artificial lightning strobed across the factory floor. The specialized round tore through the stagnant air, biting deep into the monster’s shoulder.

Zzzzt—!!

Blue, high-voltage arcs detonated outward. Countless electric snakes burrowed frantically into the creature’s meat, designed to fry its synapses and drop it instantly. Based on half a month of grueling data, it should have collapsed into a twitching heap.

Instead, reality delivered a brutal wake-up call.

The monster merely stumbled. Its muscles locked and spasmed wildly from the excruciating voltage, but the absolute madness burning in its crimson eyes didn’t dim for a second.

It didn’t retreat. Enduring a lethal surge of current that would have stopped an adult elephant’s heart, it dug its claws into the floor and accelerated.

‘The current failed?!’

Chen Lang’s chest tightened. The cavernous maw, lined with jagged, overlapping teeth, expanded rapidly in his vision. A foul, rotting wind slammed into his face, carrying the promise of death.

Driven by pure survival instinct, he threw his body sideways.

“Damn it!”

He slammed heavily onto the rusted gantry, the impact driving the breath from his lungs as he rolled across the grating. A violent gust of wind shrieked past his ear. The monster’s razor-sharp claws grazed his scalp, the sheer kinetic force of its passing scraping his cheek raw.

Chen Lang scrambled to a half-kneeling position, swinging his weapon around to face the inevitable close-quarters slaughter.

But the attack never came.

The monster didn’t even spare him a glance. It treated him like an irrelevant pebble in the road. Shattering heavy wooden shipping crates and plowing right through rusted industrial machinery, the beast tore toward the factory gates with single-minded lunacy.

Chen Lang froze, his gun aimed at empty air.

‘It didn’t chase me?’It defied every known biological essential. Revenants were inherently bloodthirsty, driven by an insatiable urge to slaughter. How could it completely ignore fresh prey that was practically resting on its tongue?’Unless…’

Chen Lang whipped his head toward the mangled path of destruction leading to the exit, the blood draining from his face.

There was something out there. Something whose gravitational pull on the beast was absolute.

A lure so intoxicating that the monster willingly endured the agonizing sensation of its own nervous system being immolated by electricity, just to break containment. The attraction outside vastly overpowered its deeply conditioned terror of the grid.

Cold sweat soaked through his tactical vest. Chen Lang’s gaze hardened, and his fist came down hard on the red emergency alarm strapped to his waist.

“Chen Lang! What’s your status! Respond if you can hear me! What is happening with the Revenant?!” Lei Zheng’s anxious roar battered his eardrum.

Chen Lang panted heavily, his eyes fixed on the violently deformed steel of the main gates. He swallowed the dryness in his throat, his voice tight with dread.

“Sir… the Revenant is completely out of control. It shattered the defense line and is charging outside!” He gripped his weapon tighter. “There’s something out there… something with a fatal attraction to it.”You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.