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ArabicHonkai Star Rail: Summoning the Chrysos Heirs — Chapter 2
Chapter 2: A Future That Does Not Exist for You
“Wh… where is this?”
Cyrene floated adrift in a boundless, star-speckled void. She crossed her arms warily, her slender fingers subconsciously gripping the edges of the thin gauze jacket draped over her shoulders.
Flowing rivers of starlight, slowly rotating nebulae, and the silent, ghostly outlines of distant galaxies formed a sprawling cosmic mural.
A deathly stillness reigned over the expanse. She could perceive no wind brushing against her skin, nor any shift in the ambient temperature. There was only a soul-piercing, icy silence—a quiet so absolute and vast that it made her very heart tremble in her chest.
[This is the Physical Data Space.]
A cold, mechanical female voice rang out abruptly, cutting through the dead air without the slightest fluctuation in tone.
[You may view it as a secret space unreachable by conventional means, an information cocoon existing within the cracks of reality.]
Cyrene jolted at the sudden intrusion, spinning around in the weightless vacuum.
“Who? Who’s speaking?” she asked hurriedly, her voice tinged with suspicion and mounting alarm as her gaze searched the endless starry sky.
Yet the voice seemed to emanate from everywhere at once. No matter which direction she turned, the flat, synthetic cadence remained entirely unchanged.
[I am your auxiliary tool. My purpose is to assist you in lighting the final spark of hope for this doomed future.]
The voice paused, accompanied by a few faint, rhythmic ticks echoing from the dark.
[In terms you can more easily understand…] The cold texture of the voice seemed to sharpen. [I am your System.]
Cyrene blinked, momentarily stunned by the declaration. ‘A System?’ she thought, her brow furrowing in doubt.
“Lighting the final spark of hope for a doomed future? Can you explain that in a little more detail?”
[I can, but a verbal explanation is not as effective as seeing it with your own eyes. Therefore, please witness it for yourself.]
The moment the words faded, the deep starry sky was violently torn asunder.
A blinding flood of pale, intense light poured down through the rift, instantly engulfing her entire field of vision.
Cyrene instinctively threw her arms up to shield her face. The harsh glare burned with a slight, stinging pain, causing tears to pool uncontrollably in the corners of her eyes.
Before the whiteout could even dissipate, a physical wave of noise violently struck her eardrums.
It was a chaotic mess of roaring engines, the screeching clash of tearing metal, and the unmistakable, agonizing screams of dying humans.
She slowly lowered her arms. The apocalyptic sight laid out before her made her breath hitch, sending her heart hammering wildly against her ribs.
The once-flat asphalt road looked as if it had been brutally overturned by a giant plow, leaving jagged chunks of concrete and broken rebar exposed to the open air. A civilian sedan, snapped entirely in half, lay overturned just a few paces away, its chassis twisted and deformed beyond recognition. Thick, choking black smoke billowed from beneath the crushed hood, filling the air with the pungent, chemical stench of burning rubber and fuel.
Beneath the smoke lay an even more intense, nauseatingly metallic scent of fresh blood.
Directly in front of her, dominating the middle of the ruined street, a massive, twisted, and utterly malicious shadow stood tall against the gray sky.
The monstrous creature towered over three meters in height. Its grotesque body was completely devoid of skin, covered instead in thick, writhing bundles of dark red muscle fibers. Jagged, deformed bone spurs pierced outward through its raw musculature like inverted thorns, glinting with a cold, lethal edge in the hazy light.
Stout, digitigrade lower limbs supported its massive frame, while a foul, viscous liquid dripped slowly from the razor-sharp tips of its giant, pendulous claws.
“Quick! Left wing, establish crossfire! Do not let it near the second defensive line! Hold your ground!”
Before Cyrene could even begin to process the shock of the towering beast, a series of hoarse, desperate roars erupted from behind her like rolling thunderclaps.
She immediately spun around to find the source.
About a dozen meters away, several heavily scarred armored vehicles had been haphazardly parked across the shattered road, barely forming a makeshift barricade. A squad of soldiers, their faces heavily smeared with a mix of blood, sweat, and grime, were making a desperate final stand behind the steel chassis and ruined concrete walls.
Veins bulged on their foreheads as they screamed orders. Their expressions were a chaotic mix of caked dust and raw, unadulterated terror, yet their arms remained locked in place, gripping their assault rifles with white-knuckled intensity. Every single dark muzzle was pointed directly at Cyrene.
Or rather, they were pointed at the towering nightmare standing right behind her.
‘An army? A modern military force?’ The thought barely had time to flash through her mind before pure survival instinct took over.
A violent chill rushed from the soles of her feet straight to the crown of her head. The sight of those trembling gun barrels and the near-collapsing terror reflected in the soldiers’ eyes acted like freezing needles pricking directly into her nervous system.
A foul-smelling gale suddenly whipped up the dust around her ankles.
A terrifying, ear-splitting roar—loud enough to shatter glass and carrying a suffocating, physical wave of bloodlust—erupted violently from just over her shoulder.
Cyrene whipped her head back around in sheer panic, her pupils contracting to pinpricks from extreme, paralyzing fear.
The dark red, terrifying shadow had essentially turned itself into a living cannonball. Moving at a blistering speed completely disproportionate to its massive size, the beast tore through the air, charging straight toward her position.
Its massive, unhinged jaw, lined with rows of jagged, shark-like teeth, expanded rapidly in her vision. It was so agonizingly close that she could clearly make out the dark red chunks of raw meat and torn scraps of military fabric wedged between its fangs.
It was too fast. It was completely impossible to dodge.
‘I can’t get away!’ Her mind went entirely blank.
Her body went as stiff as a board, her limbs feeling as though they had been pumped full of solid lead. She couldn’t twitch a single finger to save herself. Left with absolutely no other option, she squeezed her eyes shut in despair, crossing her arms tightly over her head and tensing her muscles to the absolute breaking point in anticipation of the fatal crush.
Accompanied by a violent, concussive gust of wind pressure, the monster lunged. It carried a thick, gag-inducing stench of old blood and rotting flesh—and then it passed straight through her body without meeting a single ounce of resistance.
It was as if the beast had just charged through a hollow, insubstantial phantom.
The expected, bone-shattering impact never happened. The anticipated agony of being torn apart never arrived. There wasn’t even the slightest physical sensation of a collision.
There was only the icy, phantom chill of that nauseating wind and the deafening roar passing directly through her chest.
Immediately afterward, the deafening crack of concentrated gunfire erupted from the barricade behind her, the barrage so dense it made her scalp tingle as the soldiers screamed their desperate battle cries.
Cyrene snapped her eyes open, breathless, with tears still clinging heavily to her lashes. She slowly lowered her trembling arms, her heart racing at a dangerous tempo as she tried to process her own survival.
The scene unfolding before her eyes left her completely stunned and utterly bewildered.
She watched in total disbelief as the massive, hideous monstrosity ignored her entirely. It had passed through the exact spot where she stood without the slightest hindrance, not even disturbing a single strand of her hair in its wake, before crashing headlong into the fragile defensive line formed by the soldiers’ flesh and blood.
“Fire! Concentrate all fire on its head! Aim for the eyes!”
A middle-aged officer with two bars and one star pinned to his dirt-caked epaulets screamed with all his might. His face was painted in a gruesome mask of dried blood, and the heavy assault rifle in his hands spat out continuous tongues of angry, desperate fire.
Countless hot metal slugs poured onto the monster’s exposed head and thick torso like a torrential, driving rain. Dense clusters of bright yellow sparks burst wildly into the air as the rounds slammed against its dark red, keratinous armor.
But the all-out defensive barrage was entirely meaningless.
The high-caliber bullets that should have easily torn through human flesh and light armor simply deformed and shattered the exact moment they made contact with the monster’s hardened exterior. The flattened lead was heartlessly deflected into the dirt, failing to leave even a single, shallow white scratch on that impenetrable layer of keratin.
Even the punishing, rhythmic thud of heavy machine gun fire raining down from the mounted turret of an armored vehicle only managed to cause a slight, temporary indentation in the monster’s bulging muscle groups—a minor irritation that vanished in an instant as the flesh rapidly writhed and smoothed over.
However, these completely ineffective attacks succeeded only in fully enraging the hellish creation.
It suddenly reared back, raising a giant, slime-dripping claw high into the air before sweeping it horizontally with a vicious whistle that seemingly tore the very air apart.
The sickening, dull thuds of breaking bones exploded across the barricade almost simultaneously. The two vanguard soldiers, who had been bravely holding the line from behind the vehicle’s hood, didn’t even have the time to let out a short scream. The sheer kinetic force of the blow twisted and deformed their entire upper bodies, sending them flying backward like broken ragdolls.
They slammed heavily against a ruined concrete wall behind the line and slid lifelessly into the rubble, leaving two striking, bright red streaks painted across the gray stone.
As if entirely unsatisfied by the meager kill, the monster’s massive frame stepped forward, crushing debris and sending loose gravel flying under its immense weight. Its opposite claw rose high into the smoke-filled sky and slammed down with meteoric force directly onto the hood of an armored transport.
The deafening roar of twisting, shrieking metal exploded across the street.
The multi-ton armored vehicle proved as fragile as a cheap plastic toy before such absolute, overwhelming physical strength. The entire chassis was forcibly flipped and sent violently rolling to the side, instantly crushing several soldiers who couldn’t dive out of the way in time beneath tons of heavy steel wreckage.
Dark red blood gushed rapidly from the narrow gaps beneath the crushed vehicle, pooling out like a grim fountain and quickly spreading across the cracked asphalt.
It was a massacre. A completely one-sided, hopeless slaughter.
Cyrene remained frozen in place.
She was forced to watch these rapid, brutal tragedies unfold just inches away from her face. She watched vibrant human lives get effortlessly snuffed out, and she watched in mute horror as the roaring commanding officer was casually stepped on by the advancing beast. The sickeningly clear sound of snapping ribs echoed over the gunfire as the man’s entire chest cavity collapsed under the pressure.
Cyrene’s nails dug so deeply into her own palms that they nearly drew blood, her slender frame trembling violently and uncontrollably.
“How… how can this be happening?”
She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw herself forward and stop the carnage, but her throat felt as though it had been tightly blocked by cotton. No matter how much strength she tried to muster, she couldn’t force a single sound past her lips. Only a silent, desperate wail crashed back and forth within her chest, bringing with it a sharp, tearing pain.
It wasn’t until the blood-soaked monster—seemingly bored with the pitifully weak resistance of the ants beneath its feet—let out a final, world-shaking roar and strode off down the street to chase the few survivors fleeing into the distance, that Cyrene finally felt the suffocating grip on her lungs release.
She gasped greedily, pulling in a ragged lungful of foul air heavily mixed with the scent of raw blood and spent gunpowder. The acrid intake made her lungs sting sharply.
She doubled over, coughing violently into her hands. As she recovered her breath, her gaze involuntarily drifted back toward the center of the ruined battlefield, locking onto the broken figure lying motionless among the scattered rubble.
The middle-aged officer.
Cyrene staggered forward, her legs feeling like jelly as she stumbled blindly toward his position.
The man lay discarded on the edge of a rapidly expanding pool of blood, his heavy tactical vest torn completely open by the crushing weight. The massive, caved-in wound across his chest and abdomen was a shocking display of ruin, his mangled internal organs faintly visible beneath the splintered bone. Dark red blood gurgled steadily from his mouth and torso, permanently staining the loose gravel beneath him.
His face had already faded to a deathly, ashen gray. His unfocused gaze stared blankly up at the brownish-gray, smoke-choked sky, his pale lips moving in a slight, soundless tremor.
“Hold on! Don’t go to sleep! Look at me!” Cyrene dropped heavily to her knees beside him in the dirt, her voice trembling so severely that it cracked and changed pitch. “The monster is gone! Just hold on! I’ll… I’ll call an ambulance right away!”
She hurriedly patted down the pockets of her thin dress, her fingers searching with frantic urgency, but she felt nothing but the soft fabric.
It was completely empty.
Her heart sank like a stone. A sudden, cruel realization hit her—she had left her phone sitting on her bed back in her own reality. She didn’t have a single way to communicate.
Gritting her teeth so hard she tasted a faint hint of copper in her mouth, she looked back down at the dying officer and spoke in a rapid, panicked rush.
“I forgot my phone. Where is yours?! Tell me! Which pocket is it in? Please, just speak to me!”
However, the broken man on the ground offered no reaction whatsoever. Those dull, graying eyes simply continued to stare straight up at the ruined sky, the edges of his pupils already beginning to dilate into the void of death.
“Damn it! Damn it!” Cyrene shouted, her voice thick with anxious desperation.
Seeing that he was entirely unresponsive, she threw all hesitation to the wind. She thrust her trembling right hand forward, reaching directly for the officer’s blood-soaked tactical jacket to search for a radio or a phone.
However, in the very next second—
Her pupils shook violently.
Her hand passed straight through the officer’s chest without meeting a single ounce of physical resistance.
She felt no rough texture of Kevlar or fabric. She felt no fading hint of human body temperature. She didn’t even feel the wet, sticky sensation of the viscous blood pooling right where her fingers should have been.
The dying officer lying before her was nothing more than a hyper-realistic holographic projection. Although the gruesome sight looked entirely real, he possessed absolutely no physical entity in her world.
Time itself seemed to freeze.
Cyrene remained locked in place, maintaining her awkward, reaching posture over the corpse as her mind flatlined into a total, uncomprehending blank.
She refused to accept it. A massive, overwhelming sense of absurdity and sheer unwillingness drove her forward. She thrust her hands out once again, this time pressing her palms directly toward the gruesome, bleeding wound on the officer’s ruined abdomen.
She desperately tried to use her own hands to apply pressure, to physically block the life that was so rapidly draining away into the dirt.
But the result was no different.
Her hands once again phased through the mangled flesh without the slightest hindrance, as if she were merely waving her arms through a pocket of empty air. Her palms passed through his body and pressed firmly against the rough, cold asphalt of the road beneath him.
In that singular instant, an all-pervading despair hit her like a deep, freezing tide, completely submerging her in the cruel reality of her situation.
She slowly pulled her hands back, raising them up to her eye level.
They were fair, perfectly clean, and slender. There wasn’t a single stray bloodstain or speck of grime marring her skin—they remained as pristine as a sculpted work of art. Her untouched hands formed the cruelest possible contrast with the shocking, crimson hellscape painted across the ground beneath her.
This purgatory-like scene was unfolding clearly right before her very eyes, and the intense, metallic scent of tragic death was thick enough to suffocate her. Yet, amidst all this suffering, she was nothing more than a wandering ghost, completely abandoned by the physical laws of the world around her.
“Why… why can’t I touch anything… why…”
Cyrene knelt in the center of the illusory pool of blood, her spirit entirely broken. She stared down at the officer, who had now completely lost all remaining signs of life, and murmured the question to the empty air.
Amidst her extreme confusion and crushing helplessness, that familiar, coldly mechanical voice rang out once again, echoing from the very depths of her empty consciousness.
[Regrettable.]
[This is a virtual image constructed from high-dimensional information streams. It is a cruel, calculated deduction of a future that does not exist for you.]
[Here, you are merely an observer, a silent recorder, and ultimately… a ghost. You cannot interfere with the established causality of this space, and the creatures and creations of this place cannot perceive your existence. What you are witnessing is the reality that is soon to arrive.]