Honkai Star Rail: Summoning the Chrysos Heirs — Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Apostle of Condemnation — The Shadow of Pitch Black!

Cyrene’s diamond-shaped pupils contracted violently, reflecting the crystalline glass shards dancing through the night air and the twisted, grotesque visage framed in her window. The stench of rancid saliva and decaying meat flooded her nasal cavity on the back of the night breeze, churning her stomach.

‘Phai…’

The familiar name rushed to her lips, ready to spill out into the dark. But before a single syllable could escape, the phantom image of an index finger pressing gently against a pair of lips flashed across her mind.

She could not shout.

Phainon was nearby. He was watching.

That absolute certainty washed over her. The taut, panicked strings of her heart instantly went slack, replaced by the detached, icy calm of a veteran gamer staring down a scripted strategy level.

She bit her lower lip, forcibly swallowing the cry for help back down her throat. Pivoting on her toes, she launched her body backward with practiced lightness, turning on her heel to sprint out of the bedroom.

A deafening roar rattled the walls. Seeing its prey attempt to flee, the ashen-skinned monster surged forward. The muscles in its massive arms bulged outward, thick veins writhing beneath the skin like trapped snakes, as its claws violently clamped down on the window frame.

With a horrific screech of twisting metal and crumbling concrete, the entire aluminum alloy window was torn from the wall and casually discarded into the night.

The creature dropped to all fours. Moving with the frenzied, terrifying momentum of a crazed giant ape, it barreled through the cloud of plaster dust and murderous intent, sprinting directly toward the corridor where Cyrene had vanished. The floorboards groaned in agony under its trampling weight, every thunderous footfall causing the delicate porcelain dolls in the display cabinet to tremble and clatter.

‘Seriously!’Cyrene complained internally, casting a quick glance over her shoulder at the massive, pursuing shadow. Her inner voice carried the distinct annoyance of a player dealing with a malicious developer’s enemy spam.’I already did my morning run, and now I have to add an evening sprint to the schedule? This plot pacing is way too tight!’

Despite her mental grumbling, her physical movements remained flawlessly efficient. The moment she crossed the threshold of the living room, she grabbed the edge of the heavy solid wood front door and swung it backward with all her strength.

The heavy door slammed shut with a dull, resounding thud.

It was a futile gesture. Against absolute, brute power, that line of defense was paper-thin.

It did not buy her even a single second of delay.

A massive, black-furred fist punched straight through the center of the door panel. Wood chips exploded outward, flying through the corridor like lethal shrapnel. The monster roared, obliterating the rest of the ruined door as it squeezed its bulk through the frame. Its bloodshot, scarlet eyes locked onto the slender figure sprinting ahead.

The distance closed with terrifying speed.

Five meters.

Three meters.

Two meters.

A foul, putrid wind blasted against the back of her neck. Cyrene could feel the icy displacement of air as razor-sharp claws slashed toward her back. The monster lunged, its filthy fingertips a hairsbreadth away from grazing her flowing hair.

Then, the world shifted.

Cyrene felt the floor vanish. The solid concrete corridor dissolved into thin air, instantly replaced by a void of absolute darkness.

Her foot met nothing but empty space. A violent, stomach-dropping sensation of weightlessness consumed her entirely. She let out a startled gasp, her body tipping forward into the bottomless black.

‘I’m going to fall!’

She squeezed her eyes shut, instinctively bringing her arms up to protect her face, bracing her muscles for the inevitable, bone-shattering impact.

The crash never came.

Instead of the unforgiving concrete floor, a pair of soft yet surprisingly strong arms caught her mid-air, cradling her falling body with steady precision. There was no pain. Just a faint, cool scent of midnight and shadows lingering at the tip of her nose.

Her eyelashes fluttered in confusion. She slowly opened her eyes.

Pure, unadulterated darkness greeted her, as if all the light in the universe had been abruptly swallowed whole. Yet, within that chaotic void, she could feel the distinct presence of a completely unfamiliar girl holding her close.

Before Cyrene could even attempt to make out the stranger’s features, the suffocating darkness rapidly receded, draining away like a retreating tide.

The ambient noise of the city rushed back into her eardrums. The rhythmic chirping of cicadas and the gentle rustling of wind through the trees replaced the monster’s roars. The dim, warm halo of a streetlamp spilled over them, illuminating a pebble-paved walking path and the familiar silhouette of a children’s slide in the distance.

They were in the park directly downstairs from her apartment complex.

“Phew… glad I made it in time. That was almost a total disaster…”

The girl holding her let out a long, heavy sigh of relief. Her voice trembled slightly, betraying a very un-heroic sense of sheer luck.

Cyrene blinked. She hopped lightly out of the girl’s embrace, her feet touching the solid pebbles, and took a moment to smooth down her somewhat rumpled pajamas.

Though she had no idea what specific brand of spatial ability had just saved her, her impeccable acting skills dictated an immediate, flawless response.

“This… lovely lady?” Cyrene tilted her head, curving her lips into a perfectly helpless, grateful smile. “Although I am not entirely sure what just happened, thank you so much for lending a hand.”

She kept her tone soft and sincere, the very picture of an innocent civilian. “However, could I ask… what exactly was that thing? And… who are you?”

The girl, whose shoulders had still been slumped in relief, stiffened as if struck by lightning.

She released Cyrene entirely, spinning around to face away. Her hands flailed awkwardly in the air for a second, clearly entirely at a loss for what to do with them.

“Ahem!” The girl slammed a fist against her lips, coughing loudly twice to forcefully adjust her demeanor.

The shift was instantaneous.

A dense, pitch-black mist abruptly condensed in the palm of her hand. The shadowy vapor seemed alive, slithering up her arm like a phantom serpent before coalescing over the right side of her face. It hardened into a sleek, black half-mask adorned with complex, eerie patterns that carried a strange, dark beauty. Simultaneously, the shadows swallowed her right hand entirely, forming what looked like a gauntlet forged straight from the abyss.

Having completed this dazzling, highly choreographed transformation sequence, the girl whipped around to face Cyrene.

She planted her left hand firmly on her hip, covered her masked eye with her shadow-draped right hand, and struck a pose so exaggerated it bordered on theatrical. Lifting her chin to look down her nose, she spoke in a slow, dramatic aria.

“Hmph. Foolish mortal. Since you have asked with such sincerity…”

She paused for effect.

“I am the Apostle of Condemnation, the Shadow of Pitch Black! I am the one who walks the gaps between shadows, destined to cleanse all unclean things from this world!”

The girl peered at Cyrene through the gaps of her fingers, narrowing her eyes to look as sharp and deep as humanly possible.

“As for the anomaly that occurred in your dwelling… hmph. It was merely a filthy Abomination. It caught the scent of the alluring aura emanating from your mortal vessel and attempted to covet your soul. I simply arrived to casually bestow a minor divine punishment.”

The grateful smile on Cyrene’s face froze solid. Her diamond-shaped pupils dilated in sheer, unadulterated bewilderment.

Apostle of Condemnation? Shadow of Pitch Black? Divine punishment?

She understood every individual word perfectly, yet strung together, they formed a sentence of pure, unfiltered nonsense.

‘Is this… the legendary chuunibyou?’

“Um… this Apostle of Condemnation, Miss Shadow of Pitch Black?” Cyrene ventured tentatively, testing the absurd title on her tongue. “May I ask, noble Apostle, why did you happen to be passing by my apartment building at this exact hour?”

Hearing the highly cooperative, respectful tone, the girl who called herself the Shadow of Pitch Black curled her lips into a deeply satisfied smirk.

“Hmph, you possess some insight.” She tossed her hair dramatically, thrusting her right hand toward the starry night sky. “A Blue Tyrant who wields the thunder of the nine heavens issued a contractual commission to me, requesting that I protect your fragile mortal body. I once owed that Tyrant a debt of karma, and so I have descended upon this realm tonight to repay the favor.”

Blue Tyrant? Wielding thunder?

Cyrene’s brain rapidly began transcoding the heavy chuunibyou dialect into standard human logic.

Lightning-type ability user. Special Bureau. Contractual commission for protection.

‘Ah. Case closed.’

It was An Ning.

To think that the Special Bureau’s resident ‘Thunder’lady, who always acted so cold and professional on the outside, had somehow earned a nickname like’Blue Tyrant’ in the local underground.

“Hmm… I think I understand.” Cyrene clasped her hands together in front of her chest, her face lighting up with an expression of sudden, awe-struck realization. “So it was arranged by the great Blue Tyrant. How truly honored I feel.”

“It is good that you mortals can comprehend the gravity of the situation.” The girl lowered the hand covering her eye, clearly immensely pleased with Cyrene’s compliant reaction. Her tone softened just a fraction. “Since the crisis has been resolved, I need not waste any more breath…”

“Um, Lady Shadow of Pitch Black? I know it is terribly rude to interrupt your grand speech…” Cyrene reached out, extending a single finger to gently poke the chuunibyou girl on the shoulder. Her voice carried a distinct, subtle awkwardness.

“What is it?” the girl demanded, fighting to maintain her aloof, mysterious posture.

“Do we… really not need to perform a strategic retreat first?”

Cyrene’s face was the picture of innocent worry, but her gaze was not on the Apostle of Condemnation. She was looking right over the girl’s shoulder, staring straight up at the residential building they had just escaped.

Following her line of sight, the reality of the situation became glaringly obvious.

The massive, ashen-skinned monster was currently hanging half its upper body out of the shattered third-floor window. It hadn’t wandered off just because its prey vanished. Instead, it was staring directly down at the two girls standing in the park, its bloodshot eyes locked onto them with lethal intent.

Bathed in the pale moonlight, thick strings of foul saliva dripped from its jaws, splattering against the pavement below. Its hideous fangs gleamed with a chilling, metallic coldness in the dark, as if silently mocking the sheer ignorance of the two ants chatting below.

“Because that Abomination…” Cyrene pointed upward. “…seems to have already found us.”