The night over Arc City had been set completely ablaze.
The pillar of projected light rising from the city's exact center spread out against the underside of the clouds, staining the entire night sky a rippling, fluorescent blue.
Office workers in high-rises pushed open their windows, pedestrians on the street stopped in their tracks, and even delivery riders pulled their scooters over to the curb in unspoken agreement, tilting their heads back to gawk at the hyper-dimensional holographic projection spanning the entire sky.
In the image, a girl with long, silver-white hair stood amid the fractures of the Sea of Quanta.
The backdrop behind her kept shifting — from the reflections of the Sea of Quanta to Sea Abyss City's Eye of the Deep, and countless other scenes besides.
The girl's name was Bronya Zaychik.
This was the promotional teaser for Honkai Impact 3rd's new version, Cyberangel.
The beam of light rotated slowly above the city, the image switching every few seconds, each frame rendered with a precision that looked pulled straight from a game engine.
As the beam turned slowly overhead, someone at a roadside food stall simply raised their phone and started streaming live.
"You guys seeing this?! This is exactly what I told you about last time! That giant hole in the sky over Arc City before — same hologram tech!"
The stream's danmaku was instantly buried under a wall of "holy crap the old scammer's burning through the budget" and "miHoYo really cracked the core technology."
Of course.
The onlookers currently celebrating in the streets had no idea that what had appeared over Arc City last time wasn't a hologram at all — it had been a genuine reflection of the Sea of Quanta.
But after Anti-Entropy, the Shenzhou authorities, and Schicksal had coordinated their damage control behind the scenes, the incident — which had nearly triggered a world-ending panic — had been neatly repackaged as "miHoYo's technical prowess going through the roof, bankrolled by their absurdly rich sugar mommy Eden, who rented out Arc City's entire airspace just to run an ad."
This high-profile hologram campaign wasn't only meant to hype the new update — it was also meant to reinforce that same cover story, since no one could say what other monstrosity might come crawling out of the sky above Arc City next time.
Better to desensitize the residents in advance than to have the whole city thrown into chaos the day something actually descended on their heads for real.
At the center of a pedestrian overpass, two fashionably dressed girls leaned on the railing, watching the spectacle.
One of them, practically vibrating with excitement, kept snapping photo after photo with her phone, then glanced down at Weibo's trending topics and sucked in a sharp breath.
The top five trending spots were lined up neatly, every single one a Honkai Impact 3rd tag — not even a sliver of room left for anyone else.
"This level of hype is insane," she said, mouth hanging open. "If the old scammer keeps this up, how's anyone else supposed to survive?"
The other girl didn't answer. She just narrowed her eyes at the slowly rotating beam of light, as if calculating how much money it was burning through every second.
After a moment, she finally spoke. "I heard several of the big studios' lead planners have already been complaining in their group chats."
"Complaining about what?"
"Complaining that if miHoYo keeps grinding everyone into the dirt like this, they might as well all quit and go home to sell roasted sweet potatoes on the village corner."
The two of them burst out laughing at the same time.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world.
At Schicksal Headquarters in Europe, the curtains in the Bishop's office were drawn tight.
The midday sun was blocked out by the heavy velvet, only a narrow sliver of light squeezing through the gap where the curtains met, falling at a slant across the dark carpet.
Most of the light in the room came from the monitor on the desk, its brightness cranked all the way up.
Otto sat in his oversized office chair, back ramrod straight, left hand resting near the edge of the keyboard, right hand gripping the mouse, index finger flicking rapidly between the left and right buttons.
That look of intense focus alone would have convinced any unwitting subordinate that the great Bishop was personally cracking some ultimate genetic code that held the fate of all humanity in the balance.
On the screen, a Valkyrie was hugging the edge of a boss's hitbox, dodging at point-blank range — every Time Fracture triggered by a perfect evasion getting converted, with pinpoint precision, into a fresh burst-damage window.
Yes. Otto was grinding.
His fingers clenched tight around the mouse — not out of nerves, but because he had thrown himself entirely into a competitive world governed by the principle of "as long as my fingers move fast enough, my hair can't catch up to me."
And on his right-hand side, a stack of confidential documents awaiting his review had been piling up for a very, very long time.
The date stamp on the file at the very bottom was, in fact, from the morning before last.
"My lord Bishop."
The office door opened a crack, and Amber slipped sideways through the gap, arms cradling a fresh stack of documents.
Her gaze swept across Otto's desk, then landed on the untouched pile of folders. She paused for a moment, her arms tightening around the files she carried.
"Please stop playing games. The European branch is still waiting on your approval, and the backlog has gotten quite severe recently."
"Amber." Otto didn't even turn his head, eyes fixed on the results screen flashing across the monitor as he launched into his performance. "How can you call this playing games?"
Even as he spoke, the character on screen finished its final burst rotation, and the boss's health bar dropped to zero.
Almost on instinct, Otto's right hand tapped the "Challenge Again" button before he continued, "You know Su Yu and I have certain arrangements between us. If he's bold enough to keep secrets from me, then it's only right that I dig every last one of those secrets out of this game."
The screen's glow reflected faintly off his glasses lenses, and his voice stayed perfectly steady, as though what he were doing right now were truly some world-saving mission of great importance.
"This isn't entertainment, Amber. This is a man's resolve. A war of information waged without gunsmoke."
The office fell silent for a moment.
Amber set the documents down expressionlessly on the last remaining bare patch of desk in the corner, stepped back half a pace, and watched the "Memorial Arena" results screen pop up in the bottom-left of his monitor.
The score was a shade higher than his record from yesterday — clearly, after clocking out for the day, the good Bishop had gone right back to secretly, shamelessly grinding for score.
"I understand you needing to review the story for clues."
There wasn't much extra emotion in Amber's voice.
"But might I ask, my lord Bishop — if this is really about gathering intel — why did you spend an entire night last night, sitting in that very chair, grinding for score on the Memorial Arena mode?"
Otto's fingers froze.
He slowly turned his head, gaze drifting from the screen to Amber's face, lingering there guiltily for a moment before naturally redirecting toward his own empty water cup.
"Amber, I suddenly feel like my throat's gone a bit dry. I could use a cup of black tea, thank you."
Amber didn't answer right away.
She gave him one look, her expression clearly reading "sure, keep telling yourself that," then reached out, gently gathered up the fresh stack of documents, and turned to walk out.
Otto waited until the sound of her footsteps had faded away down the hallway outside, then turned his gaze back to the screen.
He quickly scanned the score gap between himself and the top-ranked player on the leaderboard, exhaled through his nose, and without a moment's hesitation, hit start again.
One more round.
Just one last round!
The version-update maintenance downtime was coming up anyway — once he finished this round, he'd get right to those documents!
And so, the master strategist of a Bishop happily decided to spend one more day gaming.
On another floor of the same building, Yae Sakura pushed open the door to her office.
She'd come in a bit later than usual today.
She'd stayed up late last night handling a mission report forwarded from the Far East Branch, and this morning several subordinates had cornered her in the cafeteria with questions about new equipment compatibility for a good while.
One hand held her katana, Sakura Blossom; the other carried a cup of coffee she'd just picked up downstairs, ready to set it down at her desk and start the day's work.
Then she saw her desktop.
Documents.
A mountain of documents, piled sky-high.
Red, blue, and white folders stacked layer upon layer across the desk, taking up almost the entire surface, leaving only a small bare patch at the edge barely large enough for a keyboard.
Her water cup had been squeezed to the corner, dangling precariously half an inch past the edge, all alone.
Amber poked her head out from behind the mountain of files, an apologetic look on her face.
"Captain Yae, I'm truly, deeply sorry."
"These are all the task handover forms Lord Otto just issued. He's currently occupied with a top-secret operation and simply can't spare the manpower."
"Lord Bishop said: you're his most trusted subordinate, and for the sake of Schicksal's great cause — and for Lady Kallen's ideals — surely Captain Yae wouldn't just stand by and watch Schicksal's daily affairs pile up into a mountain until it finally collapses on someone?"
"So he's asking, respectfully, that you handle all these routine matters on his behalf."
By the time Amber finished reciting all that, even the corner of her own mouth twitched — even she, a professional secretary, couldn't quite keep a straight face.
It was obvious this was a trap being set for Yae Sakura.
Yae Sakura stood rooted to the spot, the hand holding her coffee cup not moving an inch.
She didn't answer.
She just stared at the pile of documents, eyes scanning down layer by layer from the very top, as though carefully calculating exactly how many tenths of her sword qi it would take to cleave the whole mountain apart.
She slowly drew in a breath, held it pressed inside her chest, and didn't let it turn into a single unnecessary word.
"...Fine. Understood."
Her voice came out a touch quieter than usual.
But if Kallen had been there to hear it, she would have noticed that something was seriously off in this particular pink fox's tone.
She lowered her head, silently pulled out her chair and sat down, leaning back against the backrest, tilting her face up toward the ceiling.
The hand gripping her katana tightened for a moment; the scabbard let out a low, muted click — but in the end, the blade stayed sheathed.
What the hell top-secret operation!
It was obviously that old scammer hiding in his office grinding for score in that game again!!!
She rested her hand atop the towering stack of documents, fingertips lightly tracing the edge of the topmost folder.
She hadn't drawn her blade, but the resentful black smoke that seemed capable of conjuring a demon lord out of thin air behind her was, by this point, utterly impossible to hide.
At this exact moment, somewhere across the building, a certain Bishop currently grinding away like a madman for score had likely already, in Captain Yae's heart, been ruthlessly sliced into eighteen hundred paper-thin pieces of sashimi.
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