""The gaze of distant stars"...?" Phainon narrowed his eyes.
"One day, you will understand. But not now."
Lygus had no intention of explaining. He merely shook his head and said:
"At this moment, please disregard this observer, and finish what you must, Lord Phainon."
With that said, Lygus stepped aside, revealing the Chalice behind him, as well as the Coreflames that had almost all been lit.
Only Kephale's Coreflame remained.
Phainon did not immediately step forward. Instead, he placed a hand over his chest and spoke calmly.
It was unclear whether he was speaking to Lygus or to himself.
"I once believed that as long as I chased the flames relentlessly, the fog before me would clear, and fate would reveal its truest form."
"But along the way, we... they, all who passed, never once received the justice promised by the prophecy."
In the eyes of the other Chrysos Heirs, especially Aglaea and Tribbie, Phainon was the perfect candidate to become the savior.
For the goal of recreating the world, and to give every one of his companions a proper ending, he could grit his teeth and swallow every negative emotion.
The tragic death of his benefactor. And his companions, one after another, marching toward the endings ordained for them by the prophecy.
Phainon had swallowed all of it.
In a certain sense, Phainon's body contained both the most blazing emotions and the coldest rationality.
They existed together within the same vessel.
But at this moment, he could finally endure it no longer and spoke the words he had kept suppressed within his heart.
This world was unfair.
The camera froze on Phainon's face.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds...
The shot remained frozen for a long time. And that prolonged close-up finally allowed the audience to sense that something was wrong.
That expressionless face looked like the deepest abyss, making him seem strangely unfamiliar.
Wait... was this really Phainon?
After watching him for so long, they had already developed an extremely deep understanding of Phainon.
They could detect even the slightest change in him.
Not to mention that the camera had deliberately and actively lingered on him for such a long time.
The audience recalled the previous scenes.
After Trinnon created the gate, Phainon had not been shown directly again.
Instead, they had been shown a montage of the different Chrysos Heirs dying, accompanied by Trinnon's narration, emotionally stabbing the audience until they had become completely numb.
After that, the perspective shifted to Herta and Screwllum.
And only then had they arrived here, at the Vortex of Genesis, where they witnessed the confrontation between Phainon and Lygus.
When they first saw it, the audience had merely been surprised that the story had suddenly shifted to Herta's side.
But the emotions did not match! The pacing did not match either!
This was bad! Something was wrong!
As their memories surged, the audience finally realized what had been strange about these three scenes.
The scene where Phainon entered the Vortex of Genesis had already been filled with overwhelming sorrow.
The story should have immediately shifted into the Vortex of Genesis and continued from Phainon's perspective, rather than repeatedly switching viewpoints.
Under normal circumstances, Herta's scene should have been placed at the very end of the episode so that it could surprise the audience.
miHoYo had deliberately broken the previously smooth pacing, inserted the scenes involving Herta and Screwllum, and only then shown the scene inside the Vortex of Genesis.
By that point, the emotions no longer connected properly. Furthermore, Phainon's condition was clearly wrong.
Based on what the audience knew about Phainon, his goal at this moment should have been to immediately recreate the world, rather than suddenly declaring that destiny had treated them unfairly.
And that was not the only reason. The Phainon here seemed even more... darker and colder?
That feeling of familiarity mixed with unfamiliarity caused the audience to narrow their eyes.
On screen, after saying those words, Phainon did not wait for Lygus to respond. He simply walked toward the Overflowing Chalice.
"I have perceived: Outside the Vortex, the world is collapsing, and the children of humanity are crying."
"But you, Lord Phainon, will bury the old world with that Coreflame, bringing all things into a gray unknown..."
Lygus quietly admired Phainon's back before speaking at the appropriate moment.
"It doesn't matter."
Phainon did not turn around. He merely said indifferently:
"This cruel Flame-Chase Journey has made me abandon my fantasies. The future is not a paradise with a gentle west wind, waiting for us to step in..."
That single sentence made the audience even more certain of their suspicions.
Before this scene, Phainon had practically never wavered in his belief in recreating the world. The story had repeatedly emphasized just how important the re-creation of the world was to him.
...
: Th-This isn't... Ph-Phainon, is it?
: Phainon has shown his longing for the future more than once before. He firmly believed that the future would be beautiful, and that he and every living being would be able to live happily there!
: Exactly! The story has explicitly mentioned it so many times. Almost every time we felt that Phainon was under unbearable pressure, he would think about recreating the world.
: So why did he suddenly become so... realistic...
: That tone, holy shit, he sounds exactly like Phainon, but the more I listen, the less he sounds like the Phainon we know...
: Bro, don't tell me someone possessed you, Phainon?
: Wait...!!
: Holy shit! Could this be an unreliable-narration trick?!
: What do you mean?
: Doesn't Amphoreus have cycles? Is it possible that the Phainon we're seeing right now isn't the Phainon we know entering the Vortex of Genesis, but Phainon from another cycle?
: Did miHoYo deliberately interrupt the pacing just for this reveal?!
: This is bad! My brain is overheating! What do you mean, Phainon from another cycle? Isn't Amphoreus's cycle supposed to be a normal cycle, with one generation replacing the previous one?
: I can't take it anymore. miHoYo is seriously breaking my brain. Every scene is another massive revelation.
...
In the game, it was obvious that the Phainon in this scene was not the Phainon from the same sequence of events. In the game, the name displayed above Phainon's dialogue had directly changed.
Naturally, the players could be awakened to the truth by such a simple little trick.
But in the series, Xia Wen had put considerably more thought into it.
Ever since Aglaea's assassination, he had repeatedly made the concept of recreating the world appear in connection with Phainon, establishing how the Phainon of this cycle imagined the new world.
It had all been done for this moment.
After the camera lingered on his face, and after the Phainon here displayed an attitude toward recreating the world that was completely different from before, the audience immediately thought of...
"If what lies ahead is a mass of chaos, I will tear it apart..."
"...Then usher in the first ray of blazing sunlight."
Phainon's heavy yet resolute voice slowly rang out.
Lygus, meanwhile, was just like a spectator, using his distinctive voice to lend an epic quality to the scene:
"All shall bid farewell to one, and that person alone will witness the miracle. Such is the will of fate."
"Yet this time, will an epic with endless cycles turn a new page?"
As Lygus spoke, the sound of light, cheerful footsteps suddenly approached.
His words came to an abrupt halt. Phainon also opened his eyes and turned around.
The person who appeared before the camera was a girl none of the audience could possibly have guessed.
She had pink hair and wore a well-fitting purple-and-white dress. On her feet was a pair of Greek-style sandals commonly seen throughout Amphoreus.
Just like that, she stepped into the heart of the vortex.
"...Of course." The girl continued the words Lygus had left unfinished.
"This will be a romantic story like none that has come before..."
"You think so too, right?"
The camera revealed the girl's full appearance.
She had delicate features and a pair of large, blue eyes. She was smiling as she looked directly into Phainon's eyes.
The audience had seen this girl before… a few times.
In the promotional videos, and in the memories Phainon had revealed during the Trial of Strife.
They had all seen her. But they had merely seen her. Nothing more.
Yet for some inexplicable reason, the moment they saw that face, it felt as though they were gazing upon the very embodiment of hope.
Before any more thoughts could emerge in the audience' minds… the episode abruptly ended.
The screen went black. The third episode of Amphoreus had ended.
The instant it ended… the comments erupted with an unprecedented explosion!
...
: No! You absolutely cannot end it here!
: GAIA!!!!!
: No, seriously, bro! How can you cut it off at a place like this?!
: At least let Phainon return the Coreflame!
: Dan Heng is still outside elbowing the Flame Reaver! Holy shit!
: After that elbow, we're going to have to wait forever again!
: What about March? March still hasn't been found!
: Aaaaaah, no! What is going on with this Phainon?! And what is going on with that pink-haired girl?!
: I'm begging you! I won't send you any more local specialties! Just let me watch a little more!
: Mmmghhh, aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!
: I'm going to die! I'm going to die right now!!
: What is the meaning of ending it here?! Can't you combine all three episodes and let us watch the rest?!
: I! @#*¥(+!@!)!!
: I still have an exam coming up! How am I supposed to concentrate on studying after this?!
: Aaaaaah! Do you know what I'm doing right now?! I'm holding my head and smashing it against the wall like a madman! MiHoYo!!!
: Not calm at all.
...
The audience' reactions to this cliffhanger were greater than they had been after any previous episode.
But there was nothing that could be done about it.
Anyone who had already endured the spiral knife, the fast knife, the slow knife, the surgical knife, and the ultimate invincible flashback knife, until they had been stabbed so many times that they had gone numb, only to then experience an unprecedented sense of emotional resonance unlike anything in the history of television viewing, followed by one explosive revelation after another and could not possibly remain calm.
The emotional aftershock was unbelievably powerful.
On MiHoYo's official website, enormous numbers of audience remained unwilling to leave.
After the livestream ended, the episode would be uploaded to the official website, allowing audience to freely move through the progress bar and revisit every detail.
This episode had the most terrifying replay rate in the entire history of Honkai: Star Rail.
More than ninety percent of the audience flooded back into the official replay of the episode.
The details that had once made them furious, numb, despairing, and broken had now become precious treasures they needed to repeatedly revisit and carefully savor.
As for the remaining ten percent? They were still busy flooding the livestream chat with comments to vent their emotions.
At the same time, Honkai: Star Rail's influence across social media climbed to an even greater peak.
Discussions about Amphoreus were everywhere. Never before had the audience felt that they could have so many shared topics with strangers they had never met on the internet.
Were there many things to talk about? Far too many!
Philosophical thought had always been one of the central themes running throughout Honkai: Star Rail.
In Amphoreus, it had not been diminished in the slightest. Instead, it occupied an even greater portion of the story.
In the third episode, there had been so many explosive revelations that the audience had overlooked much of the philosophical depth expressed through Aglaea, Hyacine, and Cipher.
But now that the episode had ended, the audience who enjoyed this aspect of the story could finally catch their breath and begin reflecting on it.
Then there was narrative misdirection, a technique that had been overused to death in mystery stories, yet MiHoYo had somehow managed to give it a completely new form.
Three entire episodes of buildup. The portrayals of the Chrysos Heirs and Phainon had been constructed little by little. Then, through the story itself, the final fragment known as the Flame Reaver was fitted into place.
Explosive moments like these could be found everywhere throughout the third episode.
Wasn't Aglaea's death shocking?
Wasn't Cipher saving the world shocking?
Wasn't the great battle involving Aquila shocking?
What about the Emperor's Scepter?
And what about the moment Herta and Screwllum appeared together?
That was what made the third episode so terrifying. It did not rely on a single explosive moment to send the audience into a frenzy.
Instead, it took all the buildup from three entire episodes, blended it into one, and unleashed reversal after reversal, sending the audience' emotions on a relentless roller coaster.
Then, within the third episode, it detonated everything at once.
There was laughter and crying. There was shock and sorrow.
The audience had clearly been stabbed so badly that they were practically dying, yet they simply could not stop watching.
They understood that this was still not the true climax.
The third episode was merely another chapter of buildup. Just like the previous two episodes, it existed to advance the plot and further deepen the portrayal of Amphoreus.
Everything was preparing the stage for the re-creation and the fulfillment of the prophecy.
Yet even with nothing more than that… they had already been driven this insane.
They had already experienced something unprecedented in the entire history of watching a series.
Then what would the fourth episode become? Would it be filled with sorrow? Or would it erupt into something overwhelmingly exhilarating?
The audience could not even begin to imagine it.
And precisely because they could not imagine it, their anticipation for the next episode continued to rise uncontrollably.
"I'm going to die if I don't get to see the fourth episode."
In the past, words like these had merely been jokes.
But for audience around the world now, they could only be considered a realistic description of the situation.
In the end… all those thousands of words and countless tangled emotions… were transformed into Honkai: Star Rail's overwhelming popularity across the internet.
#SoThisIsTheTrueHonkaiStarRail
#IllReallyDieIfIDontSeeEpisodeFour
#TheFlameChasingJourney
#ATrulyImmersiveViewingExperience
All kinds of Honkai: Star Rail tags dominated trending charts everywhere on the internet.