"This is… the final lesson…"
Her greatsword shattered, the last sparks of her flame extinguished—Himeko collapsed in exhaustion.
At some point, the Spear of Destiny had already injected its serum into Kiana.
Accompanied by the Herrscher of the Void's anguished scream, Kiana finally regained her consciousness.
But by now, she no longer had the strength to reach out and pull her Himeko-sensei back.
All she could do was watch helplessly as Himeko drifted further and further away.
The song Nightglow seemed to narrate the scene itself.
[So stay alive, bravely.]
So please—live on, bravely.
The short ended. End credits began to roll slowly.
"The Final Lesson" Animation Short Film
Produced by miHoYo.
...
As the song carried on, Eden saw the four words The Final Lesson appear on screen. At that moment, she could no longer hold back her tears.
"Uuuhhh~~"
Elysia quickly pulled Eden into her arms.
She wanted to say something comforting, but Eden just kept shaking her head.
It was as if she wanted to say something, yet every time she opened her mouth, her sobs and broken cries drowned her voice.
So she could only cry silently in Elysia's embrace, tears streaming endlessly.
This short film…
It cut like a blade. It hurt unbearably. Yet she didn't know who to blame.
Blame the dev team? No.
The fact that it could make her cry like this only proved how much heart they had poured into it.
Himeko had truly ascended beyond being a "character." For Eden, she now felt like someone who genuinely existed in this world.
"This is… the final lesson…"
That smile, that expression, and her last words—they lingered in Eden's mind, again and again.
...
[Himeko!! She just… died like that?!]
[Aaaaaaahhhh damn you miHoYo!]
[Group raid! Storm miHoYo's studio! Who's coming with me?! (rage)]
[Stop crying, Eden, she's just a 2D character, not worth it!]
[There… there has to be a twist, right? Himeko's a gacha character, there's no way she's actually gone!]
[Uuuu my Himeko-auntie…]
[Killing off characters just for cheap shock value, what trash is this?]
[What kind of clown studio, what kind of trash game? F*** this, I'm done!]
...
The barrage flew by endlessly, filled with venom and anger.
But neither Elysia nor Eden had the attention to care.
Seeing Eden unable to stop crying, Elysia had no choice but to end the stream.
"Eden…"
...
Very soon, the incident spread across the internet like wildfire, shooting to the top of trending searches.
#HonkaiImpact3rd#
#Himeko#
#TheFinalLesson#
#EdenCried#
#miHoYo#
...
In just a few hours, Honkai Impact 3rd-related tags completely dominated Weibo's trending board.
Countless furious players swore they would "raid miHoYo's studio."
But at the same time, many rational voices rose to defend the dev team.
Meanwhile, the official accounts of Honkai Impact 3rd on Douyin and Bilibili were bombarded with mass reports and floods of insults.
This time—Honkai Impact 3rd had truly gone viral, far beyond its usual circle.
Even people who didn't play the game now knew about [Honkai Impact 3rd][miHoYo][Himeko].
Eden's fans were especially furious.
A tiny studio dared to make Eden cry?
How could they tolerate that?
Now, the game's ratings and reputation were plummeting.
Inside miHoYo Studio, the girls were in utter panic.
"Boss, should we… rewrite the story? Maybe bring Auntie Himeko back?" Even Kiana—who had just finished playing through the main story—looked at Mo Li with tear-filled eyes.
But Himeko immediately rolled her eyes at her:
"Kiana, could you not jinx me like that?"
Kiana wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes.
"What! I wasn't cursing you! I meant the in-game Himeko-sensei…"
Mo Li chuckled, handing Kiana a tissue.
"There's no need to change it—and we can't change it."
"But… the backlash online, the reviews…"
Mo Li waved his hand dismissively.
"What was our original intention? Wasn't it to make a sincere game?"
"The players are simply being swept up by emotion. But we cannot lose sight of reason."
"You've all seen the later storylines, right? If Himeko didn't die, the entire theme of the game would collapse."
In Mo Li's eyes, the greatest strength of Honkai Impact 3rd wasn't the gameplay, nor even the pretty girls.
It was the story.
If the story collapsed, then the game would no longer deserve the name Honkai Impact 3rd.
Indeed, Honkai's writing was powerful.
After all, the dev team were diehard Evangelion fans. They had borrowed much from EVA.
And if you learn from a masterpiece—how bad could your story be?
At the very least, far better than most anime coming out of the Dragon Kingdom.
Back to the point.
What was Honkai Impact 3rd's true theme?
"To fight for all the beauty in the world"?
No. That was just a slogan.
In Mo Li's view, the true theme was [Growth]—and [Inheritance].
The inheritance from the Previous Era to the Current Era.
The inheritance from Himeko to Kiana.
If Himeko came back, then the story would truly devolve into nothing more than "cute girls fighting monsters to save the world."
How would that be any different from bland white rice?
It wasn't that "death" was required to make a good story.
But in Honkai, the theme demanded it.
Change it, and the whole narrative would collapse.
"It's settled then. Even if this game loses money, I'll stick to the story as I envisioned it!"
Of course, losing money wasn't really a concern. Mo Li didn't need to spend much on making the game in this world.
And with all this attention, Honkai Impact 3rd was only gaining more popularity.
It was hardly a loss.
Besides, this was only the beginning.
When the saga reached the arc of the Herrscher of Flamescion, that was where the true climax lay.
In the memories Mo Li carried from Earth, when he experienced that chapter for the first time, he had spent an entire afternoon fully immersed—skipping not a single line of dialogue.
And the animated short Everlasting Flames was even more incredible.
It was clearly a hot-blooded, action-packed short—but still managed to make viewers cry tears of passion.
And what was "Flamescion"?
[The wood may burn to ash, but the fire it kindled lives on—passed down without end.]
The phrase came from the ancient text Zhuangzi: Nourishing Life.
Meaning: though the fuel will be consumed, the flame itself does not die—it is passed on, unbroken.
When that chapter came, and people looked back at today's outcry, all those who cursed the devs would look like nothing more than a joke.
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