September 4th, 9:50 in the morning.
Ten minutes remained until maintenance ended for Chapter 9 of the Honkai Impact 3rd main story, "The Journey to Tomorrow."
On this ordinary-looking Thursday morning, the entire internet was running like an overloaded nuclear reactor, its heat boiling over.
Countless players sat glued to their screens, refreshing the game client over and over.
And in the stream of Elysia - miHoYo's officially invited "number one superfan" and promotional ambassador - more than ten million viewers had already crammed themselves in.
Danmaku swept across the screen in a blizzard so dense that even the streaming platform's servers began stuttering under the strain.
"Hello, hello~ Good morning, my lovely Captains!"
In front of the camera, Elysia wore a pink-and-white set of loungewear, her long hair like a pink waterfall carelessly tied back behind her head.
She propped her chin on both hands and gave the lens a smile sweet enough to break the scale.
"There's still a little while before the servers open, so don't be impatient, okay? Since we've got the time, why don't we talk about the earlier story together~"
The instant the word "story" came out, the danmaku sped up.
Because in this peaceful world without Honkai energy, the first eight chapters Su Yu had released, along with the side stories that came with them, had a dramatic tension and depth of characterization that left this crowd of local players - raised on industrial-grade saccharine - absolutely stunned.
Elysia opened a slideshow. The first image on screen came from the Xuanyuan Chapter and the Chiyou Chapter.
"To find a natural Stigmata that could heal Major Himeko's injuries, Kiana and the others went all the way down to the seabed off Shenzhou."
"Honestly, that Blood Rose armor Teacher Himeko wore after the Xuanyuan Sword corrupted her... wow, it was a real feast for the eyes!"
Elysia covered her mouth and laughed softly, her eyes bright. "It's a shame they never found the Stigmata in the end, but there's no need to worry!"
"In the main story right now, Himeko and the rest have already fought their way into Schicksal Headquarters. That's the most technologically advanced place in the world - there's definitely going to be a way to cure Teacher Himeko there! Right?"
A wave of agreement floated through the danmaku at once.
[Right, right, right! Schicksal HQ can research Herrschers, so curing a little Honkai sickness is nothing!]
[Big Sis Himeko is such a good person, that old crook Su Yu would never have the heart to kill her off!]
Elysia's tone brimmed with the natural faith of someone raised on classic shonen storytelling.
In her understanding, even if the main cast suffered, even if they came close to death, some miraculous reversal would always arrive at the final moment to save everything.
All that "saving the world" business was just a formality - a chance to look cool while you did it.
"And then there's the story of Eternal Recollections."
Elysia flipped to the next page. Theresa's tiny figure filled the screen.
Her voice softened with sympathy.
"I really never expected that our Academy Director - the one who's always reading manga and drinking bitter melon juice - was carrying such a heavy past."
"Born as Kallen's clone, and then forced to watch her most precious friend Cecilia die right in front of her, powerless to stop it... and in the end she took up her friend's dying wish and held all of St. Freya Academy together on her own shoulders."
Elysia balled up a small fist and said in earnest, "Our Auntie might be tiny, but there's nothing tiny about her sense of responsibility or her courage!"
The stream ignited on the spot. Players ached for Theresa with one hand and, with the other, launched into the traditional "daily Otto roast."
[Theresa is the cutest in the world! Fly free, Auntie, your Captains are with you forever!]
[Fly free, Auntie! I'll cover the academy's electricity bill! I'm topping up 648 right now as a building fund donation!]
[That old geezer Otto is a pure, unfiltered animal! He did all those monstrous things just to bring Kallen back!]
[Chapter 9 drops today, and if we get to punch Otto's dog head in, I'll send Su Yu ten super rockets on the spot!]
[If the game ever gives that Archbishop a health bar, I swear I'll pin him to the floor and beat him ten thousand times!]
Watching the danmaku boil over with fury at Otto, Elysia nodded in complete agreement.
And just as that anger reached its peak, she deftly steered the topic toward someone else.
"All right, all right, don't be so angry, everyone. Bad people always get what's coming to them. Instead of that awful Archbishop, isn't there someone else you should be feeling sorry for?"
She winked.
"The Forgotten - now that story really milked the tears out of us."
The Forgotten. Fu Hua's side story.
At the mention of that girl who always wore red-framed glasses, who was rigid to a fault in everything she did, who seemed almost incapable of losing her temper - their "Squad Monitor" - a heaviness settled over the stream, a regret nobody could quite put into words.
Elysia let out a soft sigh.
"Who could have guessed that the Squad Monitor, the one who's always so proper, always quietly protecting everyone, was actually Fenghuang, the Immortal, who guarded Shenzhou for thousands of years? In all those endless years, she went through far too many partings and far too much pain, all alone."
Scenes from the story surfaced in Elysia's mind, and her eyes reddened faintly.
"Especially Nuwa and Fuxi! Nuwa worked so hard sculpting little figures and composing myths, all to commemorate everything, so history wouldn't be forgotten."
"And Fuxi - she worried that Ah Hua wouldn't take care of herself once she was gone, so even before civilization had really been built, she was already thinking about staking out land and putting up houses to make money for Ah Hua..."
A flood of sobbing emotes rolled through the danmaku.
[When I first read it I just thought Nuwa and Fuxi were funny, but the moment that flashback hit I cried my eyes out under my blanket.]
[Thousands of years of loneliness. Your memories wearing away until you forget the faces of the people who mattered most - immortality like that is the cruelest curse there is.]
Elysia continued, "And then later, when Ji Lin fell to corruption and drew the Xuanyuan Sword against Ah Hua, demanding answers from her in that agonized way... watching it from the other side of the screen, I felt like a piece had been carved out of me. It hurt so much."
She drew a deep breath, and the gloom hanging over her vanished, replaced by something like profound admiration.
She paused, and her downcast eyes suddenly blazed.
"But!"
Elysia's voice rose sharply.
"Our Ah Hua didn't let herself drown in that false illusion of the past!"
She cleared her throat and sat up straight, the usual playful charm dropping away from her face, leaving something solemn and unyielding.
She began to imitate the lines Fu Hua spoke in the game, just before she shattered the illusion - lines that had shaken countless players.
"'These memories are like a beautiful dream. But now is no time for sleeping!'"
"'I have promises to keep with them, and things I still must accomplish. I have not forgotten that they once fought at my side. I have not forgotten their wish to protect this world. I am not alone. Their will walks with me.'"
"'And I, standing here in this very moment, am the proof that they once existed!'"
Carried by the sheer force of Elysia's performance, the danmaku across the entire stream erupted like nothing before it.
Text packed the screen so thickly that the video underneath all but disappeared.
[Crying!! The Squad Monitor is a real man... no! A real woman!!]
[Shenzhou Tablet, undefeated!!!]
[This is the resolve of the old generation who fought the Honkai! Absolutely fired up!]
["The Immortal laid her hand upon my crown, bound up my hair, and granted me eternal life!" Shenzhou Tablet, forever the GOAT!]
Watching the chaos scroll past, Elysia nodded in satisfaction and slid back into her usual slightly lazy posture.
"Right? Isn't she the most textbook 'beautiful, powerful, and tragic' character there is? So beautiful, so strong - and so terribly unlucky."
Then she pivoted, jabbing her index finger at the air with a look of mock reproach.
"Although the absolute worst of them all is that huge jerk Su Yu!"
"I mean, when he finally let Ah Hua leave that illusion, he forced her to forget everything about Nuwa and Fuxi that she'd only just barely managed to remember!"
Elysia puffed out her cheeks in indignation.
"Handing someone a piece of candy and then slapping it out of their hand right in front of them - what exactly is he trying to do! I want to crawl through the network cable and bite him!"
At those words, the roaring enthusiasm in the stream stumbled, oddly, for just a beat.
Some of the sharper-nosed lore-diggers felt something drop in their stomachs, and a nameless unease started spreading through the danmaku.
[Wait... now that Ellie lays it out like that, that old crook Su Yu can barely hide the knife he's holding anymore.]
[Holy crap, she's right! Think about it carefully - is there a single member of the main cast with a background that looks even remotely human?!]
[Mei's father went to prison and she got bullied at school as a criminal's daughter. Kiana isn't a real young lady at all, she's a clone with the code name K-423, and there's a Second Herrscher's soul sitting inside her ready to go berserk at any second!]
[And Bronya! Dream of Choices already spelled it out - not only did she lose both parents and grow up an orphan, she used to be the coldest-blooded child soldier assassin in all of Siberia!]
[Theresa's even worse. From the moment she was born she was nothing but Otto's experiment for resurrecting Kallen...]
As the list of "tragic backstories" piled up line by line, a stormfront gravity settled over the stream.
Everyone seemed to realize all at once that this game, with its sunny anime-styled skin, had cruelty and despair written across every page underneath.
And just as the whole chat was about to spiral into conspiracy-theory panic, one comment slid across the screen.
[And Teacher Himeko! Teacher Himeko is the most tragic of all - to this day she's still an over-the-hill single woman who keeps failing at blind dates!!]
That single line burst the heavy mood in the stream like a needle through a balloon, all the tension hissing out at once.
[LOL! Everyone else's is so bleak, and then you get to Teacher Himeko and just deflate like that?!]
["Over-the-hill single woman" my foot! Somebody drag this atmosphere-ruining clown out of here hahahaha!]
[Big Sis Himeko: Ever heard of manners? This is called the charm of a mature woman, thank you very much!]
Watching the chat slip back into memes, Elysia had in fact caught a faint whiff of that deeply buried malice in the story's direction.
But she had always been an optimist, so she waved a hand with a smile and soothed them.
"Relax, everyone~ You've all seen plenty of shonen stories in anime where the protagonists start out miserable, haven't you?"
"It's all groundwork for the moment they break through and grow later on! Whatever happens, I think we should have a little more faith in Su Yu. How could he possibly bear to torture these adorable girls~"
[Right, right, right, Ellie's got it!]
[This is the classic build-up and payoff! The worse it is up front, the better the payback feels later!]
[A charitable company like miHoYo would never actually have the heart to torment its players.]
Far away in his office at miHoYo, Su Yu read that last line and quietly buried his face in his hands.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Elysia, I'm so sorry!
It isn't me who's wrong - it's this world!!
"Okay, okay, enough of these heavy topics." Elysia switched subjects right on time, her eyes curving into two lovely crescents. "Speaking of which, for today's pre-launch warm-up stream, I actually invited a very special heavyweight guest~ Why don't you all take a guess at who it is?"
[A guest?]
[No, no, no, it's definitely that old crook Su Yu himself! Bring him out so we can beat him up!]
[Blind guess: Auntie!]
Amid the players' wild assortment of guesses and impatient demands, Elysia turned to the side with a beaming smile.
The camera framing widened slightly.
A mature woman with hair as red and fierce as flame, dressed in a crisp business suit, strolled into frame without a shred of ceremony, holding a glass of ice-cold beer still fizzing at the rim.
The danmaku froze for a single second - then detonated.
[HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP!!!]
[That red hair! That way of drinking! Is this Teacher Himeko's real-life model?!]
[Ellie got the real Teacher Himeko herself on the show, the sheer prestige of it!!]
[Brother Su, where on earth did you find a model this accurate? She looks like she was cut straight out of the game!]
Himeko glanced at the danmaku hurtling up the screen, brushed a strand of red hair back from her ear without the slightest concern, then gave the camera a hearty wave.
"Yo, morning, everyone. I'm Himeko."
She dragged over a chair and dropped into it beside Elysia, grinning as she griped, "Honestly, I don't get you young people and your livestreams. That brat Su Yu just nagged me until I gave in, and since I happened to have the day off, I figured I'd come sit around for a bit."
[Hahahaha, that bold personality, that complaining tone - this is one hundred percent Teacher Himeko!]
[Perfect flavor! She really did walk straight out of the game!]
[Teacher, teacher, did Brother Su leak you any inside info? What's the actual direction of today's Chapter 9 story?]
Reading the question, Himeko rubbed her chin and frowned a little, puzzled.
"Him?"
Himeko pursed her lips, her tone carrying a mix of distaste and confusion.
"That brat's been all mysterious about it. He told me I absolutely had to be sitting in this stream today and watch closely. And he said something like... he wanted me to really enjoy myself, since this is probably the kind of top-tier treatment an ordinary person never gets in their whole life."
Himeko spread her hands and took another sip of beer. "God knows what riddle that idiot kid is playing at now - whatever. It's paid slacking either way."
Delighted laughter rippled through the stream. Everyone assumed it was just another entertaining exchange between the producer and the woman who'd inspired the character.
But beside her, the instant Elysia heard those words, a flicker of alarm passed through her pink eyes and was quickly hidden away.
Treatment an ordinary person never gets?
Why go out of the way to put Himeko in front of the camera specifically for the Chapter 9 update?
It was the kind of move that all but stapled the word "foreshadowing" to its own forehead, and in that instant the disquiet in Elysia's chest climbed to its peak.
But time no longer allowed her to think it through.
The clock in the lower right corner of Elysia's monitor ticked over precisely to 10:00.
The grey countdown on the maintenance screen vanished, replaced by an "Enter Game" button glowing a deep, ghostly blue.
"All right! Maintenance is over! Is everyone ready to charge in with me!" Elysia cheered, cutting the small talk short.
She took hold of her mouse and clicked to enter the game without a moment's hesitation.
Under the gaze of ten million pairs of eyes.
The display switched to the main story selection screen.
The title of Chapter 9 - "The Journey to Tomorrow."
And the cover art was Himeko, holding the Godslayer Sword, clad in Vermilion Knight armor.
Smiling, Elysia opened the chapter.
Beside her, Himeko sipped her beer in perfect contentment.
Ten million players in front of their screens waited eagerly for a rousing shonen battle.
At that moment, in that stream full of laughter and cheerful voices, not a single person knew.
That today.
This morning of September 4th.
Would become, for every one of them since the day they first knew Honkai Impact 3rd.
The single most painful, most despairing, and most tragic day in its history.
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