Honkai Star Rail: Summoning the Chrysos Heirs — Chapter 65

Chapter 65: What Phainon is Not Good at Right Now

The introverted youth led the way down the shadowed corridor, with Phainon following silently in his wake. Before long, their footsteps halted in front of a mottled wooden door, its paint peeling in jagged strips.

The moment the door creaked open, a thick, metallic stench of oxidized blood rushed out to greet them.

Stepping into the dim confines of the room, Phainon locked his gaze onto a worn wooden bed pushed against the far wall. The girl codenamed Diting lay there in absolute stillness. The bandages wrapping her small frame, originally a sterile white, were now soaked completely through. They formed a startling, dark red shell that encased her like a macabre blood cocoon.

She was no longer blindfolded with the black cloth depicted in her file portrait. Her eyes were tightly closed, and her pale eyelashes trembled slightly with the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

As if sensing the approach of an unfamiliar presence, the girl’s eyelids fluttered, though she did not open them.

“You said… you know what the mastermind looks like, right?”

Her voice was incredibly weak, wavering in the stagnant air like a candle flame on the verge of being snuffed out.

Phainon walked to the bedside and came to a halt, his calm gaze sweeping over the girl’s bloodless face.

“That’s right. I know.”

He gave a single nod, his voice steady and entirely devoid of inflection, simply stating an established fact.

“As long as I can pinpoint the location of the source, I can go and erase it. This disaster will naturally end.”

“Good… I believe you.”

A low, wet swallowing sound came from Diting’s throat. She propped her trembling hands against the edge of the mattress, trying to force her battered body upward. The moment her arms exerted the slightest pressure, fresh crimson seeped out from beneath the heavy layers of gauze.

“Careful! Do you want to die?”

Watching from the side, Tang Yuan jumped up in a panic. She closed the distance to the bedside in two frantic steps, reaching out as if to press Diting back down. Fearing she might aggravate the horrific wounds, she pulled her hands back, ultimately settling for carefully supporting the girl’s shoulders to help her sit upright.

“Your previous injuries already damaged your lungs, don’t move so much…”

Tang Yuan grumbled incessantly while adjusting the lumpy pillow behind her friend, though the rims of her eyes were rapidly turning red.

After finally sitting steady, Diting panted for a few heavy moments. Relying purely on the sound of his footsteps, she turned her face toward Phainon.

“The monster’s appearance… what exactly is it like?”

Phainon did not waste breath on pleasantries. He lowered his head and reached into the deep pocket of his coat, withdrawing a folded piece of paper. He smoothed it out and held it up in front of Diting.

It was a sketch designed to induce visceral discomfort.

In the center of the parchment, an eerie purple flower was captured in full bloom. The petals were unnervingly thick and fleshy, densely covered with countless needle-sized pores that resembled the skin of some diseased creature. From those tiny holes, a noxious purple mist was depicted spewing outward, each wisp twisting and spiraling as if possessing a life of its own.

Diting reached out into the empty space. Her pale fingertips brushed against the cold edge of the paper. She made no attempt to look, nor did she lift her heavy eyelids. Instead, she passed the sketch directly to her side.

“Vector, help me describe it.”

The paper hung suspended in mid-air.

Tang Yuan did not reach out to take it. She stood frozen, staring fixedly at Diting’s pallid face. Her lips trembled, and her hands were clenched so tightly into fists that her knuckles turned white.

“Are you crazy? Do you really intend to use that ability?”

Tang Yuan’s voice suddenly spiked in volume, laced with raw terror and mounting anxiety.

“Your body is already in this state. If you use Sonic Imaging at that level again, you’ll go deaf in both ears! You won’t be able to hear a single thing!”

Facing her companion’s desperate shouting, Diting only tilted her head slightly. A faint, serene smile graced her exhausted features as she gently shook her head.

“It’s okay, Tang Yuan.”

Her tone remained fragile, yet it carried a quiet firmness that left no room for argument.

“Deafness in both ears is only temporary. After a few days of rest, the nerves will repair themselves.”

“But…”

“No buts.”

Diting cut her off. Her closed eyes seemed to peer straight through the suffocating darkness of the room, looking out toward the ruined city streets shrouded in purple mist beyond the window.

“If this disaster isn’t resolved, there will only be more sacrifices outside. Compared to those fallen comrades, what does a few days of hearing… really matter?”

Having said her piece, she pushed the trembling paper forward once more.

“Help me describe it, please.”

Looking at that slender hand shaking in the air, Tang Yuan felt a sharp sting in her nose. She gritted her teeth and snatched the sketch, her grip so forceful she nearly tore the edges.

“Fine… I’ll read it! I’ll read it for you!”

Tang Yuan took a ragged breath. With a choked, tearful voice, she began to read out every sickening detail of the monster in the drawing, her words echoing through the deathly silent infirmary.

However, as Tang Yuan’s emotional description filled the room, Phainon’s eyes slightly lost their focus. His consciousness detached from the grim reality, sinking deep into the pristine Physical Data Space within his mind.

“Cyrene.”

He looked at the familiar pink-haired figure lounging comfortably in the chair before him.

“Roughly when will Aglaea arrive? Is the negotiation on her end not over yet?”

Noticing Phainon’s arrival, Cyrene offered a breezy smile and gently swiped her finger through the empty air, pulling up a new visual feed.

The projection displayed a sleek official helicopter weaving through a thick layer of clouds.

“Hmm… Agy is currently rushing over on a transport specially dispatched by the Special Anomaly Bureau.”

Cyrene rested her chin in her hand, her tone light and entirely unbothered as they watched the blonde woman resting with her eyes closed in the cabin.

“At their current cruising speed, she should arrive over the ruins in about half an hour.”

“That’s good then.”

Hearing the exact timeframe, the rigid tension in Phainon’s shoulders finally relaxed.

As long as his teacher arrived on the scene, all these tedious, troublesome matters requiring delicate communication and emotional coordination could be safely handed over to her. He was a weapon. He was far better suited to holding a sword and hacking away at grotesque monsters that lacked the ability to talk back.

Having fought entirely alone through countless grueling cycles for so long, that deep sense of isolation was etched deep into his very bones. Asking him to stand in a room, interact with fragile humans, and build trust with a group of strange Ability Users was infinitely more difficult than dropping him into a pit to solo ten of those Abominations from a few days ago.

Unfortunately, Cyrene’s next words hit him like a bucket of ice water, instantly dousing the small flame of hope in his chest.

“But… since you just had a massive stroke of luck and found the key person, Diting, Agy directly stated that she won’t be coming inside the perimeter for now. Since she doesn’t need to track anyone down anymore, she’ll stay on the absolute outskirts and set up her Golden Threads to provide wide-area support.”

Phainon’s entire body froze.

A visible crack formed in his famously impenetrable, stoic expression.

“Cyrene, wait!”

He stepped forward, his voice urgent and his speaking speed noticeably increasing.

“Actually, I can be the one providing support on the outside! Can you discuss it with Aglaea and have us swap jobs?”

Phainon was experiencing genuine panic. Asking him to stay in this claustrophobic room to look after heavily wounded girls, soothe their turbulent emotions, and somehow formulate a cohesive battle plan? He had long since forgotten whatever basic social skills he once possessed. He was utterly, hopelessly unequipped for this.

“There’s really no need to be so nervous.”

Watching her summoned warrior practically beg for a reassignment, Cyrene scratched her cheek, looking somewhat helpless against his sudden distress.

“According to what I know of her sensory ability from the Remembrance data, you won’t need to do any planning. You just need to follow the exact direction Diting points and clear out whatever is in your way. It’s very simple.”

Phainon opened his mouth, desperate to argue his case further.

But Cyrene simply offered him a cheerful wave, delivering her final verdict.

“Good luck, I believe in you. Go become the great hero who saves the day in this major Western Ruins incident~”

The moment her playful sign-off echoed in the space, Phainon felt a sudden pull. He was unceremoniously ejected from the Physical Data Space, his consciousness slamming back into his physical body in the real world.

Realizing the connection was cut, Phainon could only shut his mouth in quiet defeat.

He slowly opened his eyes, his vision refocusing on the peeling walls of the infirmary. By now, Tang Yuan had just finished choking out the final, gruesome characteristic of the monster in the drawing.

The room fell into a heavy, expectant silence once again.

Phainon let out a long, quiet sigh, resigning himself to his fate, and turned his gaze back toward Diting on the bloodstained bed.

[Elysian’s Note: In Chinese mythology, Diting is a divine mythical beast capable of hearing everything in the universe and discerning truth from lies. This perfectly mirrors the girl’s code name and her “Sonic Imaging” sonar ability.]