The audience instantly erupted. No one had expected the truth to turn out like this.
On screen. Both Stelle and Castorice widened their eyes.
"Nikador's Reason?!" Castorice spoke in disbelief.
"That's right." Gnaeus, this being who represented Nikador's Reason, spoke slowly in his usual calm tone.
"No one knows when the black tide first appeared beyond the distant horizon, but when it slowly encroached upon Amphoreus' borders, Nikador was the first Titan to venture forth."
"During the battle against the black tide, their sanity began to slip away... In their prime, the Titan could obliterate an entire archipelago with a single slash, yet they could not sever the root of this corruption."
At this point, Gnaeus' tone suddenly rose.
"They battled the black tide by sheer will alone, but ultimately succumbed to it. Before their divinity could be completely corrupted, they removed a part of it..."
At this point, combined with everything discovered earlier, Stelle and Castorice, and even the audience outside the screen, instantly understood the whole story.
Everything originated from that mysterious Black Tide. And Gnaeus was precisely the fragment that Nikador had voluntarily torn away.
"The fragment of divinity that they stripped away, the fragment they wanted to preserve the most, was Reason."
"The Titan believed that their Reason would someday respond to their calling, to return to their body... and fulfill their sacred mission."
Gnaeus said slowly.
...
: No wonder Gnaeus feels so high-tier, turns out he was originally a part of a Titan.
: Completely guessed wrong earlier.
: So Nikador split off Their own reason, then completely fell into madness, and the kingdom started cutting away Nikador's body afterward?
: My brain can't quite process this.
: Holy crap.
...
But the truth did not end there. After Gnaeus finished speaking, his gaze swept across the field.
A flash of golden light passed. And the venue revealed its true form.
Castorice and Stelle's pupils shrank.
Before them appeared corpses in all kinds of gruesome states. Their clothing, physiques, even their appearances, were exactly the same as those seen earlier.
Dense piles of bodies stretched endlessly across their vision, all the way beyond sight. There was no way to count how many there were.
"All of these... They're-" Castorice murmured in shock.
"Are all these... versions of you from the past?" Stelle too was a bit surprised.
Before she could finish, Gnaeus nodded.
"They represent countless failed endeavors. With your help, I can finally put an end to everything."
Corpses scattered everywhere. They symbolized not only tragic sacrifice.
As Stelle and Castorice stood there in shock, the audience outside the screen felt an even deeper chill.
The reason was simple. Gnaeus' current state, was like being trapped inside a time loop.
"Time… has been fixed?"
"Or rather, you have been fixed here?"
Castorice's voice trembled with disbelief. "Every time you fail, you restart again?! And everything appears anew?"
Gnaeus nodded calmly.
"Yes. In the end, I am still a Titan's reason. I don't know whether it borrowed the authority of Strife, or the power of Oronyx."
"But in any case, after I fail, whether I'm killed by a Furiae monster, or fail to free the remaining fragments, I will always return to a certain point."
"Carrying most of my memories, I reappear once more at the festival's registration site. And the 'me' who failed, as you can see, all end up lying here."
A loop! A loop in time itself! As for why it was certain to be a loop, there was an undeniable piece of evidence.
The Nikador of later eras was still insane! So the Gnaeus seen now was never moving forward along the timeline, but stranded within a specific segment of time.
Only then did Stelle belatedly realize something, a wave of icy fear rushing to her head.
"Wait, then the corpses we saw when we entered, and the three fighters the registrar mentioned who were chopped into minced meat… one of them was you, right?!" Gnaeus nodded calmly in response.
"Usually, yes. The beginning of each loop often coincides with new fighters entering. I have to blend in and look for opportunities. Sometimes I can make it here, but more often, I fail on the outskirts."
Castorice processed his words. And thought of the Nikador they encountered in the later era. A possibility surfaced before the two of them.
Gnaeus had never succeeded.
If he had succeeded, if he had stopped Nikador's madness, then the future, and the Titans, would never have ended up like that.
...
: Holy shit, my brain is about to explode.
: Bro, this is the first episode, why is Amphoreus this terrifying?!
: A time loop already? This is straight-up that death-game-style loop, isn't it?
: What the hell is this place anyway? I'm kneeling.
: This is way more absurd than Penacony's dream-entry, okay?
: Gnaeus is basically playing a game, saving and reloading nonstop.
: No, seriously, what Path power even supports something like this?! I can't wrap my head around it!
...
The audience was stunned by Gnaeus himself, but even more stunned by the implications of the matter.
In the Honkai: Star Rail universe, time can branch into different timelines. But up until now, there had never been travelling to the past.
Even geniuses as powerful as Herta had to rely on data simulations to learn about the past. The Paths governed by the Aeons are the fundamental laws that make up the universe.
All of them are built upon the forward flow of time, not on tampering with it, nor reversing it. But now, within Amphoreus, a true, literal time loop was occurring.
This was an anomalous phenomenon that fundamentally overturned the logic of the Honkai: Star Rail universe.
While the audience was still reeling in shock, an even bigger question surfaced in their minds. What the hell is Amphoreus, anyway?!
Unlike Aeons bound to Paths.
It could manipulate time, alter space, and now it could even loop.
That was terrifying! At the same time, the audience's feelings toward Black Swan subtly shifted.
From treating her as a joke… To holding a trace of genuine respect.
...
: Black Swan is insane.
: As expected, once Black Swan-sama makes a move, it's never ordinary.
: She really never sets foot in a mundane world.
: Even a place like this got dug out by her, honestly, that's numbingly fitting.
: The gold value of the mysterious woman who takes action keeps rising!
...
On screen, Gnaeus looked at the two of them.
He knew it. A variable had appeared. Their presence proved that his efforts had never truly succeeded.
But now, with help from those who came after him, perhaps things could be different.
A plan rapidly took shape in Gnaeus' mind.
"Honor, Tenacity, and Sacrifice... they're all versions of me. Hearing the murmurs of these soul fragments has led me to a conclusion."
"The seal that binds their divinity is already broken. As long as we complete the soul-forging here, Nikador will be whole once more."
"And you will go into battle with a Titan nearly at the zenith of their powers. And when that happens, the glory of slaying a god will also be presented before you."
"I will return to where I came from and become a part of Nikador's divinity once more."
A sharp gleam flashed within Gnaeus' helmet.
"In all likelihood, I will also be consumed by corruption. An inevitable course of action if we hope to end this madness."
To put it in gaming terms, this meant Gnaeus was giving up the possibility of ever 'reloading' again.
Everything that happened today would become Gnaeus' final save file.
If Stelle and Castorice failed, then Nikador's reason would also merge back into the whole, becoming polluted by the Black Tide like the other divinities.
But he chose to gamble. Because even without gambling, the arrival of these two had already told him, success was impossible for him alone.
He would wager that within his final 'save file,' these two could slay Nikador, and complete the act of deicide.
"You are willing to... sacrifice yourself for a future you won't get to witness?" Respect welled up in Castorice's eyes.
"This is my purpose, my origin. I am no mortal and I do not fear death..." Gnaeus replied calmly.
Then he looked at the two young girls he had only known for a short time.
One was clearly steeped in a aura of death. The other was unfathomably mysterious.
"While we haven't known each other for long, I have learned much from you. In return, I'll teach you a lesson of mine before I go..."
"Girl."
Gnaeus turned to Castorice.
"Do not detest your talent and do not abhor death. Journeys and epics are only glorious and magnificent because all things eventually fade to dust."
As the embodiment of conflict, at this very moment, Gnaeus was speaking to Castorice about the grandeur of the world.
"If you die by my lance, then there's no need to reflect on what I said. But if you should send me to my grave... promise me that you will use my Coreflame to fuel a roaring blaze and continue the fight against the black tide."
Gnaeus, or rather, Nikador, once again conquered the audience before the screen.
Upon him, everything became tangible. Compared to the childlike Oronyx, Nikador far better matched the Strife Titan imagined in everyone's minds!
Previously, Nikador had been seen as the source of apocalyptic disaster. A mad god.
Yet now, through Gnaeus, through everything witnessed along this path, what the audience saw was a guardian of Amphoreus' boundary, a bulwark standing against the Black Tide.
Facing the mysterious Black Tide that even Titans could not resolve, it did not retreat. Instead, it turned its own will and divinity into the battlefield, and carried out a magnificent, tragic attempt.
The very existence of Gnaeus was proof of Nikador's dignity and glory.
At this moment, even the audience understood the meaning of conflict.
Its meaning was opposition.
Challenge. Conquest. And transcendence of the self.
Strife Titan, a name truly deserved!
As the audience remained stunned, on-screen, Gnaeus had already stepped onto the battlefield.
Facing Castorice and Stelle, his voice suddenly rose, surging with boundless battle intent.
"I am Nikador, the Lance of Fury, the messenger of turmoil, and the embodiment of Strife!
"Remember this: I am the scar that this world needs!"
As his fury intensified, so did the terrifying pressure of his voice. A blood-red aura began to spread across the entire field.
Golden lightning erupted from all directions. The four fragments flew to Gnaeus' side, merging seamlessly.
In Castorice and Stelle's eyes, it was as though a golden sun had risen upon the battlefield.
Blinding golden light and lightning rampaged freely, destroying everything around them.
Wind roared. Dark clouds gathered thickly across the sky.
Boom!
An incomparably massive bolt of golden lightning slammed down upon the Blade of Fury above Castrum Kremnos.
Amid the thunderous explosion, an ancient war song resounded!
A figure wielding a sword suddenly passed straight through Stelle's body.
It was Phainon!
Before Stelle and Castorice's eyes, beyond that overwhelming presence, a scene from a thousand years later also appeared at this moment, as Nikador's reason from the past merged with his divinity,
Manifesting a millennium earlier. Time and space rapidly overlapped.
Mydei, Phainon, Dan Heng, Their figures flickered endlessly around Nikador's colossal form.
This grueling battle, they had endured it for who knew how long.
"Did you hear that?"
"What?"
"They've returned!"
A voice echoed in Stelle's ears.
In the instant of her daze, the phantom of Nikador suddenly solidified into a golden entity.
A massive blade descended in a sweeping arc!
Clang! Gnaeus raised his battle sword and forcibly blocked the strike.
Before Stelle's eyes, before Nikador's golden body, Gnaeus slowly turned his head back and gritted his teeth.
"Best me-"
"-Grant me an end befitting a warrior."
The next second, past and future fully overlapped.
Phainon. Mydei. Dan Heng. All of them saw Stelle and Castorice.
And the Nikador from the past finally reclaimed the consciousness trapped in time!
Under the golden radiance, Nikador gripped his spear and unleashed a heaven-shaking war cry!
"Boooom!!!"
Golden sigils of Strife bloomed behind Nikador like a blazing sun.