The night was studded with stars. In a dimly lit university dorm room, only one corner still glowed with light. Clearly, even in this dorm with very regular sleeping habits, there was still one night owl awake.
"Goddamn it, you son of a bitch, I passionately greet your mother! Do you like tormenting Theresa that much?! Wasn't the half-month free-fall in chapter 28 enough? Now you're slapping me with succubus Kevin too? I seriously suggest deporting you to the neighboring Douluo Continent to go fight Sukuna."
Shun, while advancing the main story and clicking through dialogue options, kept ranting nonstop. Sigh… when will us Theresa fans finally stand up?
Everyone knows Honkai Impact 3rd hasn't released a new battlesuit for Theresa in dozens of versions already. The last one was Stargazer back in 3.x, the story hasn't given her any real highlights since, and even her Herrscher form got NTR'd by some blond twink.
As an old Captain and longtime Theresa enthusiast, Shun naturally missed the golden days when the Honkai dev team was crawling with fellow Theresa stans. Back then, my Theresa Emperor was genuinely one of the most popular characters.
Still, nostalgia is nostalgia the main story had to keep moving.
In the plot, Theresa had already joined forces with the Kaslana Stigmata Will to confront Ancestor Kevin.
"You know nothing about Honkai!"
Kevin declared, gripping the Judgment of Shamash. In an instant the divine key was refined; he raised the blazing sword and prepared to unleash an absolutely broken attack.
The Stigmata Will had already eaten dirt. Roaring flames surged forth, slashing straight toward the isolated Theresa.
Even though the current Theresa had reached a level capable of facing the Finality head-on, in front of Kevin the true number one beneath the Finality she was as helpless as a child.
A sword with the power to incinerate the heavens and boil the seas landed squarely on Theresa's body… and squarely on Shun's heart.
Yes, literally his heart.
Shun's eyes suddenly widened. His chest seized violently. He slumped forward onto the computer desk as his consciousness rapidly faded.
He realized he was most likely about to die, yet the last fragments of his mind kept rambling.
"You bastards… letting the whole dorm get guaranteed grad school spots. If you guys don't burn paper offerings for me on Qingming Festival from now on, I'll go down there and make your afterlives hell!"
"Fuck, I didn't even get to see the final chapter! Six years chasing this main story and I die before the end fuck!!…"
After Shun completely collapsed onto the desk, the computer screen playing the Honkai plot went black at the same moment. The dorm fell silent again nope, someone was still snoring like a little gremlin.
"Holy shit, where the fuck did this send me? Is this still Earth? Japan? Or… is this the afterlife?"
Shun slowly regained awareness. He opened his eyes and found himself floating in an endless, formless chaos.
"Aren't people supposed to see their life flash before their eyes before death? Why didn't I get one? Well… this emptiness does kinda match what I imagined the afterlife would be."
Shun forced a bitter laugh, trying to find humor in despair. How could he not understand what total nothingness implied?
In a place where nothing mattered, his fate was probably to end up like some eldritch JO-level entity. But what could he do? He was already dead. Couldn't even kill himself again. A corpse really couldn't do anything at all!
Time lost all meaning. A week? A month? A year? Shun's consciousness had nearly dissolved completely. He no longer remembered who he was. In this meaningless void, his sense of self kept eroding.
Just as the very last spark was about to wink out, he saw light.
The light wasn't bright, but to Shun who had been trapped in darkness for who-knows-how-long it was like a moth that had lived its whole life in shadow suddenly spotting a roaring bonfire.
The moth flings itself into the flame, embracing death to be reborn. Instinctively, Shun reached toward that glow. The moment he touched it, the entire world transformed.
He felt himself hurtling forward at impossible speed. He saw a tree only recognizing it as a "tree" after the concept returned to his mind.
An inexplicable force dragged him along. He smashed through an invisible barrier. Then came a burst of gleeful, childish laughter. A chaotic mass of countless masks and circus props coalesced in front of him.
Next appeared a humanoid male figure: silver-white hair, pitch-black skin, golden eyes, clad in a long robe. His arms were severed yet floated freely; a massive golden wound gaped across his body, leaking streams of golden blood.
Then came the colossal figure forging an immense wall… One after another, innumerable indescribable great existences manifested before Shun.
When Shun looked upon Them, They naturally perceived him in turn. But for Aeons who unwaveringly walk their chosen Paths, such a trivial gaze could not sway them in the slightest.
Except, of course, for one particular god of amusement.
"This is way too interesting! Right now, it's exactly like that moment back then ah! Akivili, my best friend Aha's best friend. That day you appeared before me in just the same way!"
Aha, whose thoughts always jumped wildly, suddenly grew nostalgic for his long-departed closest companion.
Without hesitation, Aha sprang into action, chasing after the streak of light that was Shun streaking across the cosmos.
"Friend! Friend, don't go, please! Friend… without you, Aha… If only you'll stay, Aha can do anything!"
Just as a pig's head cannot catch a swallow, and a lifelong vegetarian cannot hold onto Xiangzi, Aha naturally could not catch Shun either. But unlike that wise-yet-powerless vegetarian lady, Aha was an Aeon blessed with both terrifying intellect and terrifying might.
He tore off his own mask, poured the imaginary energy of the Path of Elation into it with reckless abandon, and hurled it toward Shun.
"Take it, this is my final ripple!!" In the end, effort was rewarded. Just before Shun departed this universe entirely, the mask carrying a fragment of Aha's consciousness and Path energy hitched a ride on Shun's very last train and escaped this cosmos together with him.
Aha lingered in place for a moment, then seemed to grow bored again. With another burst of playful laughter, the Aeon vanished once more.
Notably, almost every major faction across this universe detected the anomaly. All the Aeons turned in unison toward a single shooting star, and the Aeon of Elation even put on a particularly theatrical show. Barring surprises, this event would dominate the headlines for the next several Amber Eras.
Meanwhile, at the distant fringe of the Imaginary Tree in a universe on one of its outermost branches (in my personal setting it's still the Sea of Quanta multiverse; I believe Honkai Impact 3rd, Genshin Impact, and Honkai: Star Rail do not share the same universe) Shun, this intruder from beyond the narrative layer, had nearly traversed the entire Tree before finally decelerating near the solar system.
At last he came to rest on a Gaia-class planet called Earth, manifesting as a meteor and plummeting downward.
Earth. Southeast Asia. The Philippines. Capital region, outskirts of Manila.
Ana and Angelina had just finished attending a banquet and were now rushing from a suburban manor back toward the Schicksal branch office in the city.
Because they were still young, Ana at 17 and Angelina at 16, they had not joined the adults' drinking party and instead returned early to stand duty at the base.
Though it was called "duty," there really wasn't much to do. Not long ago the Snow Lotus Squad had successfully resolved a medium-scale Honkai outbreak in which two Honkai Emperors had emerged, yet the veteran team handled both flawlessly. Tonight's banquet was held in celebration of that victory.
The Snow Lotus Squad was Schicksal's A-rank Valkyrie unit. Every member without exception was an elite B-rank or higher. Although Ana was a newcomer, the potential she had already demonstrated made her shine like a rising star, her future was limitless.
Since the entire squad had arrived via the Snow Lotus Squad's dedicated transport aircraft "Skadi," Ana and Angelina had no choice but to borrow an ordinary off-road vehicle from the manor's garage for the return trip.
Frankly, traditional civilian vehicles couldn't hold a candle to Schicksal's all-terrain models, and Philippine suburban roads were notoriously bad due to poor infrastructure. Driving therefore fell to Ana.
As an exemplary student and the young miss of the Schariac family one of Schicksal's three great houses Ana naturally had far better resources and training than Angelina, who had grown up in a Schicksal-sponsored orphanage. Ana held an A-rank driver certification; Angelina's was only B-rank.
"Ana, you drive first. I'll nap in the passenger seat. When we get back to base, my treat late-night snacks." Angelina tugged the air-conditioned blanket over herself and gave a playful wink.
"Okay, okay~ Lina, do you really hate talking to me that much?" Ana feigned a wounded expression and teased back.
"Hmph hmph, you naturally wicked little Schariac brat. I'll personally—"
In an instant Angelina lunged like a pouncing tiger. Ana fought back instinctively, and soon the two were wrestling and laughing in the front seats, completely disregarding the fact that the vehicle was still in motion.
But that was only natural. As combat Valkyries B-rank and above, they could free-fall from 40,000 meters with nothing but their bodies and land without injury or equipment.
An off-road vehicle's top speed was slower than their 100-meter sprint, and the barbells they lifted in training outweighed this multi-ton car. Danger? What danger?
For Valkyries, that was simply how things were. The car only needed to avoid flipping. The girls had far more serious things to worry about in actual combat.
Because they were busy roughhousing, neither noticed the golden meteor streaking down from the night sky.
After some playful struggling, Ana finally gained the upper hand. With effort she pinned Angelina back into the passenger seat and buckled her in.
"Alright, Lina, enough messing around. I still have to drive. Flipping the car is whatever, but hitting a person would be bad."
Angelina pouted. "Hmph! What's the big deal? We're in the suburbs no one's around. And the high beams are on anyway."
But this time, Murphy's Law struck once again. Less than five seconds after the vehicle steadied and resumed smooth driving
Bang!
A heavy impact thudded against the front of the car.
"Uh-oh!" Both girls thought simultaneously did their jinx actually come true?!
"A-Ana… it's fine, right? Maybe it was just a small animal?" Even as she said it, Angelina's voice lacked conviction.
As Schicksal Valkyries, if they negligently struck and injured the very civilians they had sworn to protect… their careers would be over in an instant.
"I… I'll get out and check." Driven by instinctive kindness and a sense of duty, Ana barely hesitated before opening the door and stepping out to inspect the front of the vehicle.
Under the powerful glare of the off-road's high beams, Ana finally saw clearly what or who she had just struck.