Arc City.
The traffic light at the intersection of the shopping street switched to green, but the private car stopped at the crosswalk didn't move an inch.
The car behind it honked.
The sharp blare echoed down the rain-washed street, but it couldn't get the traffic moving.
The driver who'd honked shoved his door open, impatient, ready to curse someone out—but the words caught in his throat.
He saw that every pedestrian at the crossing ahead had frozen in the middle of the crosswalk.
No one walked forward. No one stepped back.
Every head was tilted up, as if pulled by an invisible thread, staring blankly at the night sky.
The driver followed their line of sight and looked up too.
The night sky, normally stained a dull red by the city's neon lights, was now draped in a sheet of deep blue light.
The light wasn't blinding, but it cut through everything, tearing a massive gash through the thick clouds.
Inside that gash, there were no stars. No moon.
Only a warped, twisted world.
A massive translucent sphere floated slowly within the curtain of light, like ruined buildings sealed inside a droplet of water.
Deeper still, shadows of suffocating, vast dark purple drifted through the dark, occasionally brushing past the edge of the light-curtain to reveal tentacles as thick as mountain ranges.
A gust of wind passed, rippling across the curtain of light, and the images warped and stretched with it, as if they might crash down from the sky at any moment and flatten the entire city.
"Splat."
A girl on the sidewalk let her bubble tea slip from her hands. The plastic cup cracked open, splashing liquid across her shoes.
She didn't even notice, mouth hanging open, eyes locked on the sky.
In under ten minutes, Arc City's networks collapsed.
Every major social platform, short-video app, and local forum saw traffic spike to levels they'd never handled before.
Within fifteen minutes, every single entry on Weibo's trending top ten had been swapped out.
[Anomaly Over Arc City—UFO Sighting?]
[Alien Invasion Live: The End of the World]
On the forums, posts poured in like snowfall.
[I'm on Third Avenue! I saw it! That's definitely not a cloud! Something's moving inside it!]
[What the hell kind of monster is that? My god, that tentacle shadow is bigger than the finance tower right next to it!]
[Probably a mirage? Some kind of light refraction, has to be.]
[Bullshit! Your "mirage" can refract a monster that doesn't even exist on Earth?]
[I already packed my bags and I'm heading to the underground garage to hide. This is definitely aliens! It's exactly like in the movies!]
[Where are the authorities? Why hasn't the air raid siren gone off? What is actually happening over Arc City?]
Panic spread across the internet like a plague.
Crystal-clear short videos kept getting uploaded, the sheer oppressive scale of the footage pushing ordinary people's grasp of reality to its limits.
As this wave swept across the entire internet—
Europe. Schicksal Headquarters.
In the brightly lit laboratory, indicator lights on every instrument blinked wildly.
Changguang strode quickly into the Bishop's office and set an urgent, encrypted file down on the broad desk.
Otto Apocalypse was leaning back in his chair.
He didn't look at the file. His gaze stayed fixed on the giant electronic screen that covered an entire wall.
It was showing a live feed of the sky above Arc City.
"Bishop," Changguang said, pointing at the screen. "We have preliminary results on the optical anomaly over Arc City. Based on the spectral signature and refraction index, it resembles an atmospheric mirage phenomenon."
Otto said nothing.
Changguang continued, "But... spatial curvature in that region is showing extreme anomalies. The fluctuation pattern doesn't match any known natural physics model."
Otto rose and walked up to the massive screen, tilting his head back to study the dark purple tentacles drifting within the curtain of light.
"If it's a mirage, then this scene must exist somewhere in this world."
His gaze lingered on a floating, shattered pocket world.
"Deep in the ocean?" Otto murmured.
No.
He dismissed the thought almost as soon as it came.
Schicksal's detection network covered the entire globe, including the deepest ocean trenches. A biological anomaly of this scale couldn't possibly have escaped Schicksal's notice.
This wasn't some natural phenomenon.
Otto turned and walked to the liquor cabinet beside his desk, took out a stemmed glass, and poured himself a measure of golden liquid.
Lately, Anti-Entropy had been buying up heavy industrial materials at a furious pace—there were even rumors that Welt was building a mech to fight monsters.
The Shenzhou government, meanwhile, had been quietly assembling elite forces for closed-door training.
Most importantly, Siegfried and Cecilia had gone to Arc City.
As two of his most trusted partners, the couple had cut off every standard reporting channel once they arrived there.
Even when they did make contact, their words were evasive, full of things left unsaid.
All these seemingly scattered threads suddenly connected in light of this anomaly.
Something was brewing in Arc City. Something big.
And whoever was behind it had kept things airtight for months—tight enough to blind even Schicksal's intelligence network.
But now this anomaly had erupted without warning, laid bare in front of tens of millions of ordinary people.
Which meant that even Anti-Entropy, even Welt, the man who always seemed to work miracles, hadn't seen this coming.
The situation was on the verge of spiraling out of control.
Otto swirled the glass in his hand.
"So," he said, eyes narrowing slightly, "Siegfried, Cecilia, and Welt... whatever they're fighting, it must be something truly terrifying."
He drained the glass in one go.
He had to do something.
The truth didn't matter right now.
What mattered was order.
If this anomaly plunged the world into panic and triggered mass riots and unrest, the already fragile peace holding everything together would shatter in an instant.
As Schicksal's Bishop, he wouldn't allow that kind of chaos to happen.
Just as Otto was about to order a media lockdown and activate emergency protocols, the tablet Changguang had left on the desk lit up with a red push notification.
It was a headline from a Shenzhou social platform.
Otto picked up the tablet and glanced at it.
[Official Statement from miHoYo]
Below the headline was an exquisitely designed poster.
The background of the poster was exactly the monstrous silhouettes currently looming over Arc City.
Across the center, in bold text:
[Honkai Impact 3rd Holographic Immersive Promotional Test — Thank you to the citizens of Arc City for your cooperation and support.]
The rest of the article read like standard official copy.
The gist: miHoYo had poured a fortune into developing new holographic projection technology, and to tie in with the launch of the new update, Under The Deep, they'd specially arranged this large-scale visual test over the skies of Arc City.
Right beneath the statement, Eden's personal account posted an update.
[Eden: Investing in new technology always comes with risk, but seeing everyone's reaction, I think the money was well spent. Hope miHoYo gave you all a night to remember.]
Attached to the post was a selfie of her holding a glass of red wine, with the curtain of light from the Sea of Quanta glowing behind her.
That wasn't all.
Five minutes later, Arc City's official government account issued a statement.
[Regarding tonight's optical projection over the city: miHoYo Studio registered the event with the relevant authorities in advance. As one of our city's outstanding local tech and cultural enterprises, miHoYo's innovation in visual technology deserves recognition. We hope the company continues to produce quality work and contribute further to the thriving growth of Shenzhou's gaming industry. Citizens are also reminded to mind traffic safety while viewing the holographic display.]
Three fronts, moving in unison.
The developer, the top investor, and now official endorsement.
Otto looked over the statements, his finger sliding across the tablet screen.
In just twenty minutes, online sentiment did an astonishing about-face.
The panic, the talk of "the end of the world," was rapidly buried.
Netizens went into full celebration mode.
[No way no way no way!!! It's actually a hologram?!]
[I seriously thought aliens had landed! I was about to write my will and you're telling me it's an ad campaign?!]
[miHoYo is insane! Projecting a hologram into the sky?! How much money did that burn?!]
[Rich-lady Eden funded it! Figures! One of her leg hairs is thicker than our whole waist!]
[This has to be the best tech in the world! That tentacle's reflection gave me chills, it looked so real!]
[Da Wei's a genius! Su Yu's a genius! For this marketing stunt alone I'm going to drop a first-time 648 to support them!]
[Su Yu the old scoundrel might stab our hearts with plot twists, but you can't knock this tech. Respect.]
The panic that had gripped the forums was gone in an instant.
Players even started picking out details in the monster silhouettes that matched bosses from the game.
Plenty of passersby who'd never touched the game were now clamoring to download it after seeing the spectacle.
Otto tossed the tablet back onto the desk.
This was textbook crisis PR.
A commercial frenzy, used to bury an apocalyptic warning.
This Su Yu character really had nerve.
Otto wasted no time. He pressed the comm unit on his desk.
"Amber."
A calm female voice answered through the comm. "Bishop."
"Notify PR. Mobilize every network resource we have, immediately," Otto ordered. "Give miHoYo's statement full support—control the trending topics, steer public opinion. If any physics-literate posts try to analyze the authenticity of that footage, shut them down at once."
"Yes, Bishop."
Otto watched the shadows still writhing over Arc City on the giant screen, then cut the connection.
He didn't know what was actually hidden behind that curtain of light.
But he knew this show had to go on—and he had no choice but to play his part.
At the same time.
Sparkle lowered her legs from the edge of her gaming desk.
The danmaku in her stream had shifted direction so fast it made her raise an eyebrow.
The same viewers who'd been sobbing over Bronya's storyline and cursing Su Yu as a cliffhanger-loving dog one second earlier were now completely absorbed in the viral "Arc City sky anomaly."
[Whoa! Did you guys see the trending topic? That thing in the sky is a hologram!]
[miHoYo's tech is insane, I just went outside to look, that tentacle looked completely real.]
[Boss Su doesn't hold back—using an entire city to advertise the new update!]
She didn't rush to indulge the chat's excitement.
She picked up her phone from the desk, rose from her chair, and walked out of the streaming room, its RGB lighting bathing everything in cold blue.
The living room lights were off, the only glow coming from the city neon through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Sparkle slid open the heavy glass door and stepped out onto the wide balcony.
The rain had stopped, but the air was still thick with moisture, mixed with the earthy smell of wet asphalt and exhaust from distant traffic.
Dozens of floors up, the night wind carried a distinct chill.
She glanced down at her phone screen.
Five minutes ago, social media had been dominated by words like "apocalypse" and "aliens."
Now the front page was dominated by the joint statement from miHoYo and the government, and Eden's selfie with her wine glass.
The comments below were nothing but awe and admiration.
Public opinion had been wrenched around by this combo, forced onto a new track.
Clean, efficient, no gaps left uncovered.
Sparkle's thumb hovered over the screen for a second, then she powered it off.
She lifted her head.
Her gaze cut across the towering skyline, straight to the night sky wrapped in that deep blue curtain of light.
The curtain of light writhed slowly above the clouds—inverted ruins, vast dark purple shadows twisted out of shape, even faint ripples of light like water refracting somewhere within.
To tens of millions of netizens, this was miHoYo flexing with a "holographic projection."
But to Sparkle, it wasn't a hologram at all.
"Well, well."
She muttered, her voice too soft for anyone but herself to hear.
"This isn't some holographic sky-screen. This is the Sea of Quanta, plain and simple!"
She knew that feeling far too well.
The masked Fool, Sparkle, had visited the real Honkai world before.
She'd heard all manner of bizarre stories there, and left behind more than a few "amusements" of her own making, the kind that drove the locals up the wall.
The Sea of Quanta, that perilous space connecting countless pocket worlds—how could she possibly be unfamiliar with it?
She just hadn't expected to see it here, of all places—on this parallel Earth she'd written off as "peaceful and boring," in the night sky over Arc City, revealed in such a blunt, unceremonious way.
The night wind blew past again.
Sparkle felt a chill creep across her forehead.
She raised a hand, pressed the back of it to her skin, and felt a fine film of cold sweat.
Right now she was nothing more than an ordinary, even frail, human body.
The kind of Strength a Pathstrider wielded—bending rules at will, conjuring illusions—was completely sealed away in this world.
If those monsters drifting through the Sea of Quanta up there actually tore through that curtain of light—which already looked as thin as a cicada's wing—and broke into this world—
she knew perfectly well her fate wouldn't be any better than the ordinary people down below, snapping photos with their phones.
Sparkle lowered her hand.
She thought of Su Yu.
From the very first day she'd signed that partnership contract, Sparkle had known he was no simple man.
When Su Yu looked at her, there was none of the usual dazzled admiration ordinary men had for a pretty girl, and none of the calculation a businessman might have for a walking traffic magnet.
He looked at her the way you'd look at someone you already knew.
Someone whose whole background he'd already figured out, down to the last detail.
He knew she was the masked Fool.
But he'd never once called her out on it.
He'd extended an olive branch—given her a place to live, given her exposure, even let her mock his own scripts without restraint on her stream.
Sparkle had been happy to play along.
If he wanted to play this game, fine—she'd keep the unspoken mystery going too.
See who cracked first.
But now—
Sparkle tilted her head back again, looking at the churning Sea of Quanta above.
"Well, Boss Su, you really did give me the surprise of a lifetime."
She said it quietly, the corners of her mouth pulling wider and wider, completely beyond her control.
Just a few hours ago, Su Yu had released Under The Deep, its story landing right at the moment Bronya entered the Sea of Quanta.
The timing was too precise.
This wasn't a coincidence.
"I knew it."
She braced both hands on the railing and leaned her body far out over it, watching the ant-sized traffic below.
"There's no way Aha, that old bastard, would just lose his mind and dump me in some boring, worthless world where I couldn't find a single scrap of fun."
She turned around, leaning her back against the railing, tilting her head up toward the living room ceiling.
"So this is where the real fun was waiting for me all along."
Something was stirring awake inside Sparkle.
It was the kind of excitement that made her bones itch and her soul tremble.
What exactly was Su Yu hiding in this world?
The game story that had sent the whole planet into a frenzy, the real Sea of Quanta hanging in the sky, everything else he knew—
He'd turned every ordinary person on the planet into an audience, spun them all around his finger, and even repackaged a genuine apocalyptic crisis as a network-wide digital entertainment carnival!
This man was completely out of his mind!
"Boss Su..."
Sparkle raised both hands, fingers interlaced, and covered the lower half of her face.
Her shoulders began shaking violently—silently at first, and then fragments of laughter started slipping out through her fingers.
"I can't wait to rip that mask off you myself!"
The laughter grew louder, echoing across the empty high-rise balcony.
"I have a feeling this is going to be... an unprecedented, ultimate delight!"
"Hee hee hee hee!!!!"
She laughed without restraint, the teetering abyss of quanta reflected in her eyes, as if she couldn't wait for the apocalyptic carnival to come.
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