Honkai Star Rail: Summoning the Chrysos Heirs — Chapter 42

Chapter 42: The “Lanterns” Deep in the Cave

Phainon’s voice remained as calm as a stagnant pool, devoid of the slightest ripple.

After delivering those four words, he did not spare a single glance for the group of Ability Users standing behind him. His pristine white robe billowed in the biting night wind as he turned on his heel, his figure swiftly dissolving into the deep, encroaching darkness of the forest.

Watching the swordsman’s silhouette get swallowed by the shadows, Shi Lei scratched his thick scalp impatiently. The heavy flesh on his face bunched up in confusion as he turned toward his captain.

“Captain, are we really just going to stand here and watch him leave? Are we seriously not going to do anything?”

“Huh? Not do anything? Why would you say that?”

Captain Shen Rui casually pulled the lollipop from his mouth, deftly twirling the thin plastic stick between his fingers. His narrow phoenix eyes, which perpetually carried a sleepy droop, opened just a fraction wider, looking at his subordinate as if staring at a complete fool.

“Eh?” Shi Lei blinked, entirely stunned by the counter-question. His thick eyebrows knitted together into a single hairy line. “Then… are we supposed to attack him? You saw that flaming sword earlier. That guy is a ridiculously tough nut to crack.”

Shen Rui raised his hand and slapped Shi Lei directly on his shiny forehead. The physical force was not particularly heavy, but the impact produced a sharp, echoing smack.

The captain sighed in absolute helplessness, shoved the sweet candy back into his cheek, and mumbled vaguely around the stick.

“Old Shi, is your skull stuffed with solid granite? He made his stance perfectly clear. As long as we do not interfere with his little pest control operation, we are not enemies.”

As he spoke, Shen Rui turned around, shoved both hands deep into his pants pockets, and adopted a loose, slouching gait in the exact direction Phainon had vanished.

“Since our operational goals are perfectly aligned and someone is generously willing to do our dirty work for free, why on earth would we refuse? We are simply passing observers now, understand?”

“Passing… observers…”

Shi Lei rubbed his stinging forehead, slowly repeating the unfamiliar concept before suddenly slapping his massive thigh in sudden realization.

“I get it! The captain is always thinking ten steps ahead. Why do the heavy lifting yourself when you can just slack off!”

“That is called tactical energy conservation.”

Shen Rui corrected him flatly without bothering to look back.

“Since we have already been spotted, there is zero need to sneak around in the bushes. Let us just follow him out in the open.”

“Oh, right! Coming!”

Shi Lei hastily signaled the other two silent teammates. The four figures quickly pushed through the dense, thorny underbrush, trailing steadily behind Phainon at a measured distance.

Walking at the absolute forefront, Phainon tilted his head a fraction of an inch.

A brief, sidelong glance swept over the little tail following in his wake. He said nothing, simply returning his cold gaze to the pitch-black forest path stretching out ahead.

This mild level of surveillance was still well within his acceptable range of tolerance.

The forest path was treacherous and difficult to handle.

Thick, tangled tree roots spread across the damp soil like a chaotic wooden net, waiting to trip the unwary. The stagnant air hung heavy with the suffocating scent of rotting humus, mixed with a cloying, fishy sweetness that coated the back of the throat.

They trekked through the oppressive gloom for roughly twenty minutes.

A dull, sickening sound of a heavy blade cleaving through solid flesh echoed from the darkness ahead.

Phainon smoothly sheathed his greatsword. The residual flames clinging to the heavy metal had not yet fully extinguished, casting a flickering, crimson glow over the twisted, dead bushes surrounding him.

At his armored boots, the third identical Abomination corpse was rapidly carbonizing, its mutated flesh crumbling into black ash under the residual high heat.

From the beginning of the encounter to its violent end, his steady breathing rhythm had not shifted a single beat. He looked as though he had merely snapped a dead branch that happened to be blocking his evening stroll.

Soon, the claustrophobic view ahead finally opened up.

A massive cave entrance, half-concealed by thick curtains of hanging vines, emerged at the very edge of his vision. The jagged opening resembled the gaping maw of a colossal beast waiting to devour its prey, steadily exhaling a current of cold, bone-chilling air into the forest.

“Looks like this is the place.”

Phainon stopped his advance, his eyes tracing the weird, unnaturally twisted rock formations jutting out above the dark entrance.

He murmured the words softly, his tone carrying a flat certainty that suggested he had anticipated this exact destination all along. Without a second of hesitation, he stepped over the threshold and into the absolute darkness.

A few seconds later, Shen Rui and his three-man squad halted in front of the very same cave.

The freezing subterranean wind blew through the captain’s messy bangs. His perpetually lazy, slouched posture tightened by a fraction, and his nostrils flared slightly, as if physically tasting the heavy scent of lethal danger lingering in the draft.

He turned his head, locking eyes with the short-haired girl in his squad.

“Thorn, get to work. Ask the local flora what kind of nasty surprises are hiding inside.”

The girl named Thorn gave a crisp nod.

She crouched down against the damp earth, stripped off her tactical gloves, and pressed her bare palm flat against the moss-covered rock near the entrance. She slowly closed her eyes, steadying her breathing.

A faint, pulsing green light ignited at her fingertips. The gentle luminescence quickly spread outward, traveling deep into the cavern’s throat along the interconnected network of lichens and creeping moss.

Only three seconds passed.

Thorn’s eyes snapped open, her previously calm expression twisting into extreme gravity.

“What did you sense?”

Shen Rui instantly caught his teammate’s sharp shift in demeanor. His right hand, which had been lazily resting in his pocket, whipped out in a flash. The dull silver bracelet encircling his wrist faintly shimmered, flowing with a strange, liquid metallic luster.

Hearing her captain’s prompt, Thorn drew in a shaky breath before speaking in a low, tight voice.

“There are many of those identical monsters lurking inside. At least six or seven of them. But deep in the very back of the cave… there is something else. A massive entity. Its physical mass is so huge it is almost scraping the highest point of the cavern ceiling.”

She slowly tilted her head back, staring up at the jagged rock archway above them.

“That thing… it feels like a colossal, magnified version of these smaller clones.”

The forest air plunged into a brief, deathly silence.

Only the rhythmic, echoing drip of condensation from deep within the black cave served to keep time in the suddenly oppressive atmosphere.

“Looks like we finally found the main event.”

Shen Rui’s voice sliced through the heavy quiet.

Every trace of laziness had been completely scrubbed from his features, replaced by the frigid, calculating intensity of a veteran hunter locking onto his prey.

“I have no idea how this oversized freak managed to evade the energy fluctuation monitors on the orbital satellite grid. But since we have stumbled right onto its doorstep, we cannot just walk away.”

“If we leave a biological threat of this magnitude unchecked…”

He did not bother finishing the grim sentence. Instead, he lowered his head, his fingers flying rapidly across the holographic interface of the communication terminal strapped to his wrist.

A dense packet of on-site environmental data and audio recordings was swiftly compressed. Along with their precise GPS coordinates, the file was beamed directly back to the Bureau headquarters via a heavily encrypted signal.

Having secured their backup plan, Shen Rui raised his head and rolled his shoulders, his neck letting out a crisp, echoing crack.

“Let us move. We are going in too.”

“Since our new friend is so graciously leading the way, it would be rude to miss the climax of the show.”

With that declaration, the captain stepped boldly into the pitch-black maw of the cave. The three Ability Users behind him exchanged a single, knowing glance, smoothly shifted into a tight combat formation, and followed closely at his heels.

The interior of the cavern was vastly wider than the entrance suggested.

The jagged rock walls were thickly coated in a foul, viscous liquid, and the uneven ground felt dangerously slippery and greasy beneath their boots.

Swish.

A blinding, golden-red arc of pure light suddenly ignited the subterranean darkness.

An Abomination that had attempted a silent, plunging ambush from the high ceiling was cleanly bisected by the radiant arc while still suspended in mid-air.

The two ruined halves of the monster plummeted downward. Before the severed meat could even slap against the wet stone floor, the sheer, overwhelming heat carried by the sword pressure flash-fried the remains into brittle chunks of charcoal.

Phainon twisted his wrist in a casual, fluid motion, flicking a spray of nonexistent blood from the glowing edge of his blade.

“Looks like you cannot wait any longer.”

He stared down at the fresh pile of ash at his feet, his tone as chillingly indifferent as if he were holding a conversation with the empty air.

The suicidal manner in which these lesser monsters threw themselves onto his blade felt less like a coordinated attack and more like a desperate, frantic attempt to stall his advance.

“Since you are so incredibly eager to meet…”

The dense muscles in Phainon’s legs instantly coiled tight. The solid stone floor beneath his boots groaned and instantly spiderwebbed into a massive crater of fractured rock.

His entire body blurred, transforming into a human cannonball fired from a heavy siege weapon. A rolling wave of blistering heat trailed in his wake as he charged violently into the deepest bowels of the cavern.

The scattered Abominations that lunged out to block his path could not even track his physical silhouette. They were simply caught in the violent, explosive air pressure of his passing and violently blown aside like discarded ragdolls.

A moment later.

Phainon’s forward momentum halted with jarring suddenness.

There was no path left to tread.

Blocking his way was a massive, unnaturally smooth wall of solid stone, looking for all the world like a naturally formed dead end.

Yet, the nauseating, concentrated stench of rotting fish and old blood was steadily seeping out through the microscopic hairline fractures in the rock face.

Phainon stared up at the towering barrier, the golden-red firelight of his weapon reflecting clearly in his calm, unblinking eyes.

He did not waste time searching for hidden mechanisms. He did not hesitate, and he did not probe the stone for structural weaknesses.

He simply gripped the long hilt of Morning Invader with both hands, slowly drawing the massive greatsword back until the heavy blade slanted behind his shoulder.

‘Breath, frozen.’

The very next fraction of a second, his back foot stomped down, anchoring him to the earth. The immense, terrifying physical power generated from his waist and abdomen surged upward, channeling flawlessly through his shoulders and into his arms.

Slash.

The greatsword tore through the heavy cavern air with a deafening, high-pitched shriek, slamming directly into the dead center of the stone wall with apocalyptic force.

Rumble!!!

The entire subterranean structure violently convulsed under the sheer weight of the blow.

Jagged chunks of gravel rained down from the ceiling like a deadly hailstorm, and thick clouds of pulverized rock dust exploded outward, blinding the cavern.

That seemingly indestructible, perfectly smooth wall proved as fragile as wet paper beneath the absolute power of his strike, instantly detonating into thousands of flying fragments.

A massive, jagged breach was violently torn open. The rough edges of the new tunnel glowed with dark, melting red embers, illuminating the space in front of Phainon.

It was a path forcibly carved into existence by nothing but pure, unadulterated power and blistering heat.

The choking dust had not yet begun to settle.

Phainon stood tall before the newly created threshold, his white robe snapping wildly in the turbulent, superheated airflow rushing through the gap.

He tilted his head up just a fraction. His piercing gaze cut straight through the swirling debris, casting deep into the suffocating darkness waiting on the other side of the breach.

And there, at the far end of the newly opened cavern.

Deep within the pitch-black void, two massive, scarlet lanterns slowly ignited.

They were not lanterns.

They were the eyes of a waking behemoth.

Those glowing orbs swam with pure, unfiltered tyranny, bottomless greed, and the world-shaking rage of a predator violently roused from its slumber. Across the smoking crater split by the greatsword, that monstrous, hateful glare collided fiercely with Phainon’s calm, utterly waveless eyes.