The silence in the stream didn't last long.
Once the suffocating grief in everyone's chest eased off just a little, the viewers who'd caught their breath poured every ounce of that emotion into a furious, sweeping condemnation of the man behind the curtain.
[Old scammer! You have no heart!]
[I've been gaming for years and this is the first time I've seen a writer this vicious! Is this guy some kind of devil?]
[They finally built up a character everyone loved — handsome, dashing, so selfless — Father Otto — and then what? Snap! Gone! Surprised? Shocked?]
[Does old scammer Su Yu think he's being funny? Does he think he's such a great writer?! Well damn it, he really is too good at this! I never dreamed in my life I'd end up crying this hard over Otto!]
In the electric-sport chair of the official stream, Elysia silently pulled out a few tissues and, with the lightest touch, wiped the tear-tracks from the corners of her eyes.
She sniffled, her gaze landing on the danmaku flooding the screen, all of it aimed at condemning Su Yu.
In those pink eyes, the sorrow was quickly replaced by a gleam of shared outrage — a sense of solidarity with the mob.
Elysia bent down and hauled out from under her oversized desk an enormous inflatable hammer, pink and white, standing fully half her own height.
She hoisted the wooden handle onto her shoulder, and her exquisite face was painted with undisguised bloodlust.
The moment the camera caught that pose, the viewers instantly understood.
[Ohhh! Elysia's mobilizing!]
[Go get him in real life! Land one good swing for all of us!]
[Knock a nice big bump right on that sneaky head of his!]
Elysia's heels clicked briskly against the floor of the miHoYo Studio hallway.
She marched, hammer over her shoulder, straight to the door of the Director's Office.
She didn't bother knocking. Her free hand closed on the door handle and shoved it down, throwing the door open.
"Su Yu! You owe me an expla—"
Her voice cut off dead in the empty office.
The leather ergonomic chair behind the wide desk sat vacant.
The high-end monitors on the desk were still lit, screens crawling with a dense scroll of Honkai Impact 3rd backend data.
A half-finished cup of coffee sat beside the keyboard.
But the man himself was nowhere to be found.
Elysia stood in the doorway, giant inflatable hammer raised, staring blankly at the empty chair.
Last time he'd livestreamed, he'd pulled the exact same trick — calculating in advance that everyone's emotions would boil over, then greasing his heels and vanishing without a trace.
And now, history had repeated itself.
"You bastard..." Elysia gritted her teeth and gave the inflatable hammer a hard swing through empty air. "You can't hide out there forever! The moment you come back to work, I'm ambushing you halfway down the hall and hitting you as hard as I can!"
While Elysia raged impotently in the empty office, the mood over in another stream was downright infuriating.
"Ohh my, what did I tell you?"
Sparxie kept toying with her letter opener, the blade flipping between her slender fingers.
She made a long, deliberately provocative tsk into the mic.
"When the game was down for maintenance, you were all whining so hard. Going on about how not being able to play the new update right away meant you'd lose all the good things in life."
"Well, you're playing it now, aren't you? Isn't the world just so beautiful? So moving?" She dragged the words out, her voice dripping with malicious amusement. "So why aren't you laughing?"
"Go on, laugh. Laugh, why don't you?"
The danmaku froze for a full second in fury, then surged back even more furiously than before.
If keyboards could kill, Sparxie would have been hacked into eight pieces by now.
[Stop laughing! Get on with the story! Or I'm unfollowing this instant!]
[I'm about to lose it over this little demon, I want to reach through the cable and smack her!]
[I swear, this is the most infuriating livestream I've ever watched!]
Sparxie watched the Elation Points on her Masked Fool Terminal rocket upward like a launch, and couldn't help sighing to herself in satisfaction.
This Su Yu really was a little genius.
This was basically sitting on a mountain of gold, scooping up cash. So satisfying.
"Okay, okay, can't help it — that's just how spoiled Sparxie keeps her fans." She took hold of the mouse again. "Don't rush. I have a feeling there's something even more interesting waiting for you."
The game's story raced forward at breakneck speed.
Bronya entered the third world bubble.
The moment the screen lit up, it delivered a massive shock to every viewer.
On a battlefield ravaged by Honkai Beasts, Bronya was stunned to find, standing at her side, none other than Kiana with her dual pistols and Raiden Mei with her katana.
The Trio, reassembled once more in this world.
They found themselves standing on the Second Herrscher's Siberian battlefield.
Bronya had no time to wonder why Kiana and Mei had ended up here.
Battle broke out in an instant.
Just as their defensive line was on the verge of collapse, a low, heavy engine roar rumbled through the sky.
A colossal Titan mech crashed down like a meteor, grinding into paste any Honkai Beast that dared draw near. And ahead of those steel giants, a lone figure descended from the heavens.
Welt.
He'd brought Anti-Entropy's mechs to rescue the Valkyrie squad — and had gone on to win a duel of proof against the Second Herrscher.
He hung suspended in midair, looking down from above at the bedraggled purple figure sprawled on the scorched earth below.
The mighty Herrscher of the Void, who had once driven humanity to the brink — now lay before him as helpless as a lamb waiting for slaughter.
Countless dimensional gates tore open behind him, and golden light, like divine punishment, bleached the entire screen white.
In that instant, Welt looked like a god descending upon the world.
The danmaku erupted with a flood of [Holy crap] and [Old Yang is a genius].
But the awe didn't last long.
Having crushed the Herrscher of the Void, Welt turned his gun on Schicksal's own Valkyries.
When Bronya woke again, what greeted her was a wasteland even more devastated than before.
Schicksal's banner burned amid the embers.
Welt stood calmly at the center of the ruins. Bronya's survival only earned a flicker of surprise from him before he told her, with perfect composure —
Schicksal had already been destroyed by his own hand.
Bronya demanded to know why.
Welt's answer left everyone gasping.
["The man named Welt Joyce, back in 1995, solemnly entrusted this name to me."]
In Bronya's memory, and in the memory of every player who knew this history, that year marked the glorious founding of Anti-Entropy.
But from the mouth of the Welt standing before them now, it was described as the hell of Anti-Entropy's destruction.
Over oppressive background music, Welt began reciting names, one by one.
Joyce.
Einstein.
Tesla.
Planck.
Schrödinger.
["They died before my eyes, killed one by one by Schicksal's Valkyries."]
["And I — I could only flee, shamefully! Like some frightened, weak animal!"]
["In countless nights since, I dream of the moment Joyce placed the Herrscher Core into my hands."]
["And now, I've come back! I've carried Joyce's name, and I've honored his promise to fight for mankind!"]
And yet, as Bronya looked at him, all she felt was rage.
What this man had done — how was it any different from that brutal Schicksal he claimed to hate?
The founders of Anti-Entropy would never have wanted the one who inherited that name to become nothing but a vengeful monster.
["So — they paid the price!"]
Welt tore the glasses from his face and crushed them in his fist.
Those once-deep eyes were now utterly consumed by crimson.
["Strength, purpose, ideals! When I took up the name Welt, I inherited everything that man had!"]
He spread his arms wide, letting the wind and snow batter his tattered coat.
["But beneath this name — nothing here is truly mine! I'm just an actor playing a shadow that's been dead for years!"]
The man's body began to shake violently. His Herrscher Core, pushed past its limits, started to backfire against him — blood sprayed from his body in great sheets, his frame riddled with wounds.
But he didn't care. His voice grew louder, wilder, more unhinged.
["But why should I keep playing a failed shadow?"]
["That's right! I killed the Herrscher of the Void! I saved this world! I did what that man never could! I've surpassed him!"]
["You're insane..."] Bronya's voice carried pure disbelief.
["I'm not insane! I've conquered the world!"]
BOOM!
Red light flared, and an enormous steel behemoth thundered down behind him. Amid the deafening mechanical roar, he looked down on the Valkyrie before him, his clouded eyes holding nothing but pure, distilled madness.
["This — this is my own strength, my own purpose, my own ideal! This is who I really am!!"]
The danmaku erupted like a geyser in that instant.
Old Yang's voice acting in this scene hit with staggering force.
That shift — from crushing, suppressed restraint to complete hysteria, that blend of self-loathing, arrogance, and despair — was performed to devastating effect.
[This voice acting is divine!]
[My skin's covered in goosebumps from these lines!]
[Mad and handsome at the same time! Wait, why do I find dark-fallen Old Yang kind of hot?]
As the fight continued.
Welt demanded of Bronya — wasn't she, too, filled with hatred for the one who'd taken her precious people from her?
But Bronya told him she felt no hatred for Welt at all. What she felt was pity.
["You're not strong at all."]
["Bronya has met people far stronger than you. When disaster struck, they faced it with courage. When despair blotted out the sky, they fought back with sheer will."]
The instant those lines landed, everyone's mind conjured the same image — a red figure swinging a Greatsword amid a sea of flame.
Teacher Himeko.
Even after her body was gone, the will she'd taught still lived on, carved deep into her students' souls.
["Of course you wouldn't understand. You're nothing but a complete and utter bastard."]1yFu0
Bronya stared coldly at the man before her, now fully unraveled.
["Bronya is nothing like you, and she never will be. You're not fit to carry the name 'Welt' at all!"]
Those words became the final straw that broke what was left of the shattered husk before her.
Enraged past reason, Welt reached out, trying to seize control of the nearby Star of Eden, meaning to tear the girl in front of him apart for her insolence.
But the sphere, humming with immense gravity, didn't answer his call. Instead, after a burst of distorted warping, it settled quietly right in front of Bronya.
"Bronya knows far more than you do. Star of Eden, Zero-Rated Output — release!"
Bronya reached out and grasped the Divine Key.
A massive black hole tore open in an instant, swallowing this distorted, false world whole — along with the mad avenger trapped inside it.
The labyrinth shattered.
When Bronya opened her eyes again, she had finally reached the core region — the chamber housing the Herrscher of Reason's core.
And more importantly, she saw the figure she'd longed for.
"Seele!"
Seeing Seele standing there, completely unharmed, every viewer let out a breath they'd been holding.
But in the script written by this man called Su Yu, no peace was ever allowed to last.
Seele turned around, the corner of her mouth curling into a smile.
That smile carried something chillingly wrong about it.
The moment her eyes opened fully, the clarity that once lived there had been utterly swallowed by a crazed shade of crimson.
Bronya instinctively stepped back in alarm.
Dark Seele made no attempt to hide who she was. She told Bronya plainly that Seele's body had already been assimilated by the Sea of Quanta — there was no way to bring it back to the real world.
And the only reason she herself could appear here was because of a bargain.
If she could obtain the Herrscher of Reason's core and break the seal on the Sea of Quanta, the "Serpent" imprisoned in its depths would help her escape this place.
Battle broke out, unavoidable.
Bronya, her strength already spent, was finally overwhelmed beneath the savage swing of the scythe, and sank into deep darkness.
But in that endless fall, Joachim's call reached her once more.
Bronya found herself back in the space that held the labyrinth, starting the trial all over again.
This time, the memories inside the trial were her own — her own life.
All the pain and every parting she'd once endured now became the very foundation that let her stand back up.
Having finally earned Joachim's full approval, Bronya awakened, wrapped in light.
Seele looked at the girl standing before her again — resolute, her gaze steady to the point of being almost frightening — and at last, chose to trust her.
The danmaku was just starting to fill with [Yesss] —
When disaster struck without warning!
The once-calm space began to shudder violently.
With a tearing sound, an enormous fissure split open in the Black Tide beneath Seele's feet.
It was the colossal entity lurking in the depths of the Sea of Quanta — Tlaloc!
A massive, warped claw reached out from the Abyss and seized the stunned Seele in its grip, dragging her without mercy into the bottomless depths of the Black Tide.
Bronya threw herself forward with everything she had, but couldn't even brush the hem of Seele's coat.
[HOLY SHIT!!!!]
[Old scammer, do you even have a soul!!!!]
[This is what they call 'so close'? My knife's ready! Su Yu, get out here and die!!!]
Just as the entire stream's danmaku, choked thick with rage to the point of nearly crashing the server, and countless viewers prepared to launch a full-scale "hunt Su Yu" operation —
The black screen didn't cut back to the selection menu.
Accompanied by a low, urgent pulse of electronic sound, a brand-new, high-quality CG animation flickered to life on every viewer's screen — its first frame appearing without warning.
The animated short — Cyberangel.
____
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