[666! Buff Lumina! She's the longest river and the highest mountain in your game! (facepalm)]
[Did you know? With Lumina's support, Mydei in the second half of 3.1 truly ascended to godhood!]
[Did you know? Lumina-Castorice has been wiping the floor with every other character in your game! (facepalm)]
[Buff Lumina! Buff Lumina! Buff Lumina! My E6S5 Lumina can't even one-shot mobs anymore! (crying) My E6S5 Lumina is on the verge of becoming E6S5 "Lumina-in-Jail"!]
[E6S5 Lumina? Only you guys know the bittersweet journey it took to get here. (facepalm)]
[Bittersweet? Please, drop the "bitter" and "sour." This journey has been nothing but sweet, as sweet as a cream puff...]
The moment Little Bear typed "Buff Lumina," the comment section erupted in a wave of lamentations. Users complained that their E6S5 Lumina could no longer instantly vaporize monsters, that their E6S5 Lumina was gradually starting to have a "game experience."
They understood this was the fault of power creep... Characters had become inflated, Abyss monster HP had also inflated, and in this situation, relics of the old era would naturally fade into the background.
And Lumina... was naturally one of those so-called relics of the old era.
But... when she would actually fade into the background, that was a topic for another time.
Setting aside all facts and power levels, wasn't Lumina still a product of the 1.0 old era?
If that's the case, is there anything wrong with buffing Lumina?
Absolutely not!
Glancing at the comments in the Comment Section, Little Bear smiled without saying anything.
Saying Lumina needed a buff was, of course, just a joke.
After all, the ones who truly needed buffs were undoubtedly the Terrifying Scythe Girl, the Terrifying HP-Drain Guy, the Terrifying HP-Drain Girl, and others from the 1.0 era. It had nothing to do with Lumina, who still held a solid T0 position in the current Version.
Little Bear controlled the characters in his party and engaged the Flame Reaver, which had three question marks above its head.
Pointy-Hat Lady's superb E-Q-E combo, followed by the E6S5 Terrifying White-Skirt Healer Girl's E-Q-A superb burst of damage far exceeding the main DPS, instantly left the Flame Reaver with critical HP.
"So strong... Calypso was telling the truth."
Then, Castorice's words nearly made Little Bear burst out laughing.
"Was Calypso talking about Little Lumina and Little Herta?"
Before fighting the Flame Reaver, Little Bear had briefly glanced at the Comment Section. Some people were hoping he wouldn't be able to defeat it.
That's because this Flame Reaver was currently unbeatable, boasting extremely high resistance, HP, and damage reduction, making it an almost guaranteed loss.
But they never expected this: the divine power of E6S5 Little Lumina and E6S5 Little Herta!
Although Little Herta wasn't an HP-scaling DPS and couldn't fully benefit from Lumina's ridiculous HP-scaling buffs, she still secured the top survival spot in the Herta Team thanks to a host of universal buffs.
Well... okay, she secured the top survival spot in all team compositions.
It couldn't be helped. She... just gave way too much.
Aside from lacking a debuff removal at E0, she was practically the Aeon of Abundance incarnate...
No, wait, even the Aeon of Abundance wasn't as ridiculous as Little Lumina.
The Aeon of Abundance was a pure healer, increasing max HP and providing a resurrection mechanic.
But Little Lumina? She had all that, plus defense reduction, energy regeneration, damage reduction, toughness break efficiency... and more. Given Little Bear's understanding of the game, he couldn't imagine how the developers could ever make the Aeon of Abundance stronger than Lumina if they ever added them to the gacha.
After a moment's thought, Little Bear stopped dwelling on it.
Since the developers created this monster, let them figure out how to deal with it.
The battle continued. The Flame Reaver was only at critical HP; its health bar wasn't empty yet.
With Pointy-Hat Lady's "high-difficulty" maneuver, "Glimpse the unknown, and be enthralled," the Flame Reaver was instantly knocked down to 1% HP, entering a locked-health state.
Clearly, a scripted defeat sequence had begun.
The camera zoomed in, and half the screen was filled with the Flame Reaver's cool and arrogant figure.
"With your soul's essence... offer it to the flame."
The Flame Reaver's words reached everyone's ears as an extremely dangerous aura condensed around him.
"Not good!"
"Everyone, scatter!"
Sensing the Flame Reaver charging up and feeling the aura of death looming in her heart, Castorice cried out in alarm, urgently signaling the others.
She wanted everyone to spread out so the Flame Reaver's ultimate attack wouldn't wipe them all out in one go.
In the game, the Flame Reaver summoned its Broken Containers, which launched a combo attack against the entire party.
Swish, swish, swish—Bang, bang, bang!
In the end, the Flame Reaver's ultra-powerful combo only managed to shave off a fifth of Little Bear's team's health.
"Kid, Lumina's Divine Power!"
Seeing the Flame Reaver's incredibly weak "story-mandated defeat" move, Little Bear burst out laughing.
[If you didn't laugh at this, you're this (thumbs up).]
Lumina Combat Skill: Applies [Life Mark] to all enemies. Units with [Life Mark] deal 50% less damage with their next attack.
With Lumina's HP support, the entire team's health was already extremely high.
Now, the Flame Reaver's attack was also reduced by 50%... Clearly, under these circumstances, even a scripted defeat-level attack couldn't kill a single character.
Unless it was one of those... 99,999 damage scripted defeats.
But sorry, Lumina's Ultimate locks the entire team at 1 HP~
What boss? What scripted defeat? Go talk to my Lumina about it.
[Lumina: Are you done messing around?]
[(Luminaholdingback_laughter.jpg)]
[Poor Flame Reaver, realizing its scripted defeat attack only took off a fifth of the characters' health, throwing a tantrum and crying. Aww, so pitiful (lol).]
[Flame Reaver: My god, did they eat the Aeon of Abundance? Why are they so tanky?]
[Not that squishy (facepalm).]
"It actually took off a fifth? Overpowered, way too overpowered!" Instead of the (Luminaholdingback_laughter.jpg) in the Comment Section, Little Bear's attention was focused on the one-fifth of health lost to the Flame Reaver.
It took off a fifth? Is this even human? The attack power and damage are way too high, right?
"Buff her, she must be buffed!"
"Buff my Little Lumina, and buff her hard!"
Little Bear said with a serious and passionate expression.
"At this rate, isn't it a sure thing that Version 4.0 will have monsters that take off half our health?"
"Then in Version 5.0, wouldn't Little Lumina get one-shotted?"
"No, no way. Buff her, she must be buffed. Little Lumina is too weak! Buff her so her Ultimate has no downtime and can be manually canceled!"
"And give me Little Lumina's Eidelon Two for free!"
After thinking for a long time, Little Bear finally pointed out Lumina's two major mechanical flaws.
He couldn't help it. Lumina was full of strengths from head to toe. If you asked Little Bear to find a mechanical flaw, he really couldn't think of one on the spot.
But there was one genuine mechanical flaw: after Lumina used her Ultimate, she couldn't manually cancel it. After a character died and was revived at 1% health, all their subsequent actions within Lumina's Ultimate would only deal 5% of their original damage.
While it was hard to die, it wasn't impossible, so this mechanic really needed optimization. Otherwise, it was no different from being dead... Adding a cancel button during the Ultimate would be so much better.
Then there was the lack of crowd control at E0, which was the flaw of all flaws. It had to be changed!
She must be buffed!
If she isn't buffed soon, she'll really become "Lumina the Fraud"...
[Little Herta agrees with the buff.]
[Little Ruan Mei agrees with the buff.]
[Little Jingliu agrees with the buff.]
[Huang Xiaoquan agrees with the buff.]
[Little Castorice agrees with the buff.]
As Little Bear finished speaking, a wave of "xxx agrees with buffing Lumina" comments flooded the live stream.
But despite the talk, everyone was just joking. No one genuinely thought Lumina needed a buff.
Need a healer? Pull for Lumina.
Need a support? Pull for Lumina.
Need a Main DPS? Pull for Lumina.
Low-Eidelon Lumina can't carry? Pull for Lumina's Eidelons.
These four mantras had become the fundamental logic of Honkai: Star Rail, applicable to all newbies entering the game.
As the battle concluded, the game screen transitioned into a cutscene.
Thanks to Lumina and Herta "holding back," Flame Reaver, Castorice, and the others hadn't taken any damage.
No one was harmed in the previous battle...
In the cutscene, Flame Reaver stood before the Luminary Throne, only to be backstabbed and have his heart ripped out by Anaxa, who was sitting on the throne behind him.
"Failed to kill in one blow..."
"Indeed, you are no ordinary mortal."
As Calypso-possessed Anaxa spoke these words, the screen shattered, and the game entered another battle.
"That laughter... Why does it feel like Calypso, or rather Anaxa, is the real villain here?" Hearing the laugh, Little Bear couldn't help but complain.
"Troublesome. Children of Man, do not waver. We will defeat them one by one."
"A failed sneak attack makes it hard to strike again... A pity."
The sneak attack hadn't been a fatal blow; it didn't even seem to have caused much damage to Flame Reaver, which gave Calypso a major headache.
This Flame Reaver before her was far more troublesome than Calypso had imagined...
"Professor Anaxa? No, it's Calypso?" Seeing Professor Anaxa's appearance but hearing Calypso's tone, Castorice immediately guessed that the person controlling Anaxa's body was actually Calypso.
Upon realizing this, Castorice felt a wave of relief.
But just a moment later, her expression grew even more solemn.
Just as Calypso had said, even that sneak attack hadn't finished off Flame Reaver... Defeating him now would be even more difficult...
However, they could just run now.
They just needed to leave someone behind to cover their retreat...
Castorice tightened her grip on her scythe, a torrent of thoughts flooding her mind.
"Hey, Lumina, how much longer do we have to keep up this act?"
Herta took advantage of the lull to approach Lumina, her voice tinged with exhaustion as she asked.
It was so tiring... having to control the strength of every attack.
Too weak, and it wouldn't match Herta's strength and status; too strong, and she might just blast this Flame Reaver to death.
Having to maintain that delicate balance, just enough to challenge the Flame Reaver, was giving Herta a massive headache.
After the prolonged battle under such "high-intensity energy control," Herta was already showing signs of fatigue.
If she were engaged in something important, a truly crucial task, mere "high-intensity energy control" would be nothing. She could sustain it for an entire Amber Era without any issue.
But this felt like playing house with children, and it was genuinely exhausting.
She had no idea where Lumina got this kind of enthusiasm.
If Lumina's hobby was acting weak and helpless in front of a beautiful girl, playing the wolf in sheep's clothing, then Herta really had nothing to say.
She's already like this, what more can you do?
Just go along with her.
"Don't be impatient, don't be impatient. It'll be over soon."
Lumina smiled, finding this whole "wolf in sheep's clothing" act quite amusing.
Though it really is a bit tiring...
Acting is exhausting, you know.
When an attack that even Lumina couldn't defend against landed in front of her, she had to feign shock, pretend to be surprised, and dodge... and her own attacks couldn't be too fierce.
She had to keep up appearances while controlling her power.
While it was fun, if there weren't a beautiful girl present, and it was just Lumina and the enemy, she would never act this way.
It couldn't be helped; beautiful girls were the source of all Lumina's power.
With a beautiful girl around, even the most difficult tasks were nothing at all~
"Fine, fine." Herta sighed, not saying anything more.
What could Herta do when Lumina had already said so?
As the older sister, she naturally had to take good care of her younger sister.
"Let's continue the fight." Lumina waved her staff, and tiny specks of green light emerged from the core at its tip, flowing into Castorice and the others, completely healing their injuries and fatigue.
"Mem? So... so amazing," Mem exclaimed, feeling the change within her body.
At this moment, Mem felt as if she had returned to her peak condition after a comfortable night's sleep, her entire body brimming with power.
"This power..." Castorice murmured, sensing the energy.
"What is Sister Lumina up to now?"
Compared to the surprise of Castorice and the other Amphoreus natives, Stelle was a bit puzzled.
With Sister Lumina's strength, couldn't she just smash the Flame Reaver's head with her staff and end this directly?
Hmm... I get it!
Stelle understood. Sister Lumina's current actions must be part of a plan for something later!
As expected of Sister Lumina, right?
While everyone was focused on the present, she was already thinking about the future...
Sister Lumina is truly amazing!
But one day, I, the Galactic Baseballer, will completely surpass Sister Lumina!
Of course, Stelle meant surpassing her in strength and intellect.