Aglaea's words sounded more and more like she was raising a whole forest of death flags the longer one listened.
But before the audience could think too deeply about it, the scene suddenly changed.
What appeared before them was an oil painting that had emerged out of nowhere.
The colors of the painting were rich and saturated.
The whole canvas was steeped in a deep, golden hue.
Within the painting, there was a colossal statue of Kephale bearing the Dawn Machine on its back, along with vast fields of wheat stretching into the distance.
On the right side, a girl whose appearance could not be clearly seen leaned against a large tree, bathed in the golden radiance of a master artisan.
The voice of a young Phainon rang out.
"Is something wrong?"
The unknown girl hesitated slightly. "Mmm...?."
Young Phainon, clearly getting impatient, urged her from off-screen. "Ugh, don't keep me in suspense. Come on, tell me already. What did you see?"
The nameless girl finally spoke. Her voice was lively and crisp, full of youthful energy. "Haha, I just wanted to get a reaction out of you. Alright, I'll tell you."
"...This card is the Deliverer."
"Deliverer...? What does that mean?" The young Phainon was utterly confused.
At this point, the image remained fixed on that oil painting, yet the two voices outside the frame were already enough for the audience to understand.
This was probably a fragment of Phainon's childhood memories.
Just as that thought crossed their minds, the girl replied, "Uh... The interpretation is really long. Maybe I should just skip it."
"All you need to know is, this card means... you'll be a hero worshiped by all! You will protect this world and save lots and lots of people from scary enemies with your sword! Do you like the sound of that?"
Her words fell. But Phainon showed no excitement. Instead, his voice sank, heavy and subdued.
"But..."
This reaction caught the girl off guard. She asked, "What's the matter? This is a good card!"
Young Phainon spoke hesitantly, "But I don't want to be everyone's hero! I just want to stay in this village with everyone I know."
"Grandpa and grandma said the outside world is full of bad people. That's why they're always at war... Who wants to save bad people like them! I can be a hero, but only our village's little hero!"
Hearing this, the audience instantly understood the meaning behind what Phainon had said earlier, in front of the Vortex of Genesis.
At this moment, Phainon still had no idea what would happen next.
"Well, little hero..." The girl asked softly with a smile, "If the day comes for us to say goodbye to Aedes Elysiae, could you become a Deliverer then?"
"Do I... have to leave the village?" Young Phainon began to hesitate.
At such a young age, he couldn't understand what kind of thing could possibly force him to leave the village.
"Mm-hmm," the girl replied firmly. "If something like that happens, someone will have to save the world."
"Then... Then I'll..." Young Phainon hesitated again.
Just from the voices alone, the audience could already picture him biting his finger, torn and unsure.
A carefree childhood, and the Phainon shown not long ago felt like complete opposites.
In the minds of many audience, Mydei's words echoed once more. He had already lost everything.
In the end, after hesitating for a long time, Young Phainon still couldn't make a decision.
The girl didn't press him. Instead, she laughed sweetly. "Haha, I'm just teasing you. Don't worry. Aedes Elysiae is a peaceful place. Bad people won't reach us here."
"Are you going home already...? If you're not in a hurry, should we go play with the fairies again?"
A child's worries were instantly buried beneath the urge to play.
Young Phainon shouted happily, "Fairies! Okay! I love playing with them! Hmph, I'll win back the wooden sword I lost to them!"
The voices within the painting gradually faded away.
It was easy to imagine, Phainon, at that moment, must have been happily playing with this unknown girl, running around with those fairies.
Paired with the wheat fields in the oil painting, the audience could already feel that sense of tranquility.
However, just then, the golden oil painting vanished.
In its place appeared a portrait of a pink-haired woman, split apart down the middle.
The fracture looked like a slash wound, golden streams of blood flowing out from within.
"May this world never have need for a Deliverer." The girl left behind those meaningful words. The screen went completely black.
[Heroic Saga of Flame-Chase · End]
…That's it? It's over already? The audience barely had time to react. The comments instantly exploded.
...
: That went by so fast! It's over just like that?!
: Phainon's story is kind of heartbreaking… I wonder if he'll succeed. Damn it, this hurts way too much.
: Who is that pink-haired woman anyway? It feels like she already knew what was going to happen to Phainon.
: Yeah! She's really mysterious, definitely not a simple character.
: So the destruction of Aedes Elysiae had some hidden truth behind it, right? Looking at it now, that place really doesn't seem like an ordinary village.
: What was the final painting trying to hint at? Shattering… the lack of a deliverer…
: Aaaaah! It feels like I watched so much, yet also like I watched nothing at all!
...
Everyone was lamenting how unbelievably fast this episode had passed.
Even though it was the longest episode of Honkai: Star Rail so far, thinking about it carefully, maybe it was precisely because there was so much buried within it.
Because there was so much to savor, the audience didn't leave right away after it ended. Instead, the discussions in the barrage only grew denser.
...
: The pacing of this episode was really well-balanced. It felt incredibly delicate.
: Yeah, the opening with Stelle's perspective felt like a road movie, then it turned into an encounter battle, and later an adventure. Along the way, they developed at least several characters.
: The integration was genuinely well done.
: And there were so many scenes worth screenshotting! Every single frame could be a wallpaper!
: The visual designs of Okhema City and Castrum Kremnos were absolutely stunning. MiHoYo's art team is getting more and more insane.
: Yes, yes! And Nikador's design too, three arms wielding a spear, divine sigils, golden bone spears, and that final strike. It was so cool it took my breath away!
: Why is no one talking about the music? It fit the visuals and atmosphere perfectly!
: The ambient sound design was also amazing, especially the segment in Okhema's marketplace. I honestly felt like such a city really existed, the audio and visuals blended way too well.
...
As the audience continued to reflect, they suddenly realized, the first episode was practically the culmination of Honkai: Star Rail's audiovisual presentation so far.
The barrage frantically tried to capture every memorable highlight, yet it felt like there was no end to them.
Art, music, visual effects, all of them had evolved across the board.
The overall scale was comparable to the final chapters of previous arcs.
It wasn't that other arcs lacked quality, but that they simply didn't pile on this much.
Amphoreus gave off the feeling of going all out with sheer density.
And beneath all that surface-level polish, the first episode also completed a more complex transformation. That was weaving the plot together to shape a multitude of clearly defined characters.
...
: Without even realizing it, I've already memorized so many Chrysos Heirs.
: Aglaea, Phainon, Mydei, and Tribbie, all three of them are absolute killers.
: Phainon really is… At first glance, I thought he was a cool, reliable, pure college guy, but turns out he's hiding so much homesickness and self-doubt inside…
: That feeling of becoming more successful yet more lost, becoming stronger yet drifting further from the past, who even understands that… It's so painfully bittersweet.
: Anyway, I'm begging MiHoYo's writers to be a bit nicer to him!
: And Aglaea too. At first I thought she was a cold, indifferent person, but turns out she's actually weighed down by layers upon layers of responsibility!
: Aglaea, my beautiful goddess!
: I want Aglaea to step on me hard!
: Later on, I completely understood why Aglaea was so strict when interrogating Dan Heng and Stelle. From her position, there really was no room for mistakes.
: The Nikador segment was also especially heroic!
: When Gnaeus revealed the truth and Nikador flipped from the mad king state, I literally got goosebumps.
: Actively stripping away one's own Reason, falling into an endless loop just to search for a sliver of hope… What kind of ancient tragic hero is this?
: Oh right, and there's also Caenis. Fuck, can this idiot just die already? I seriously can't take it anymore.
:+1!
...
Among all these characters, what surprised audience the most was this.
Everyone's motivations are extremely clear, whether it's the seemingly villainous Nikador, or the cold Aglaea.
Behind every one of them lies their own story. And those stories are fully shown within the narrative.
Even the most slow-witted audience can feel just how much effort MiHoYo put into shaping these characters.
And with so much effort poured into character writing… What exactly is it all for?
It's honestly really hard to guess. Given Honkai: Star Rail's past habits, while the audience are deeply captivated by these characters, they're also full of caution.
Still, the audience is very confident. After all, they've been watching for a long time.
They've been eating knives for ages. Surely this time, they won't end up crying from getting stabbed again, right?
Hmph! Otherwise, wouldn't watching all this Honkai: Star Rail be for nothing?
...
: Hmph hmph, in my view, this MiHoYo is nothing but clay chickens and tile dogs, utterly unthreatening.
: Exactly, the better the characters are written, the higher our guard goes.
: This time, we definitely won't repeat the tragedy of Firefly's past. When MiHoYo's knife comes again, we'll firmly block and resist it!
: When I watched Phainon's part, I was already wondering if MiHoYo planned to have Phainon fail to become a demigod, then stab us with a knife.
: Hehe, if it's that kind of knife, I'll definitely be laughing.
: I've been prepared for ages, bro. I've eaten knives for so long that when I felt the emotions were off in the final segment, I already armored myself up.
: Sigh, if the next episode really goes that way, then there's nothing to hope for.
: Hehe, if that really happens, I'm changing my signature to: MiHoYo, are you even capable? Why is your knife so dull?
: Don't mess with us, brothers, why do I feel like you're all raising death flags…
: Don't be afraid, it's already the fourth main arc. We've long since seen through MiHoYo's tricks!
...
Quite a few vigilant audience became smug because they thought they had "seen through" MiHoYo's intentions.
Some of them even went to leave comments under Xia Wens' posts.
Things like "come stab me, come stab me" kept popping up nonstop.
But beyond these overly optimistic audience, even more audience, after praising the first episode's pacing and production, turned their attention to the dark undercurrent that runs throughout the entire story.
No matter how complete the first episode's narrative felt, the abnormal nature of Amphoreus was constantly highlighted through various details.
Time loops, partial rule rewrites, and its obvious conflicts with Honkai: Star Rail's mainstream part, all strongly suggest that this world did not evolve naturally.
This part of the truth left audience restless and itching with curiosity.
At the same time, the black tide that drove Nikador mad only appeared briefly in the first episode.
As a force capable of corroding Titans and defeating Nikador, it's also a point that can't be ignored.
As audience carefully reflected on everything, they were shocked to discover that the first episode left behind a massive number of mysteries!
Mysterious powers like Titans and Coreflames. Stelle abruptly obtaining the Path of Remembrance.
Internal power struggles within Okhema, and scum like Caenis. And externally, even more factions are getting involved. The Garden of Recollection, the Herta…
Visibly, the truth behind Amphoreus is destined to become even more complex, the audience couldn't help but sigh.
...
:Damn, I only just snapped back to my senses, did MiHoYo really leave this many hidden threads behind?
: Holy shit, it's all foreshadowing and dark lines.
: Multi-line storytelling. This time it's even more complex than Penacony, one internal line, one external line.
: I'm anxious, I'm anxious! Stelle is exploring inside, Herta is investigating outside, when will they finally converge?
: I also want to know the secrets on Phainon's body.
: But for now, the main quest is probably just pushing forward with collecting Coreflame. Who knows what state the other Titans are in, or what the true nature of the black tide is.
: I hope the upcoming Titan battles each have their own unique traits and stories. Don't repeat too much, even if there's slight repetition it's fine, there are so many Titans after all!
: I'm also really curious how Amphoreus will connect with the outside world!
: Ahhh! Looking at it this way, it's another massive pit!
: I can't wait for episode two!
: Release it already, or I'll start making up the plot in my own head!(Actually, I already have)
: Keep up the level of both dialogue and action from this episode! Please don't start strong and end weak!
...
Original Author:
The final scene where March 7th gets frozen was saved for episode two. Version 3.0 is way too long, I've already skipped a ton of scenes, and it still feels impossible to finish writing. But things get better later on. Once the buildup is over, the plot becomes much faster. I really want to write my way at light speed to version 3.4 already…