Chapter 1: Wuwuwu, Fuli is Shattered, Aha Wants Revenge!
Good heavens, where on earth had he been sent?
Leon floated in absolute zero gravity, completely and utterly dazed. Just a moment ago, he had been comfortably curled up in his tiny bedroom, mindlessly scrolling through his phone. Then, without any warning, the legendary Isekai Truck-kun had defied all laws of physics, crashing straight through his sixth-floor window and sending him flying into the great unknown!
He had squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable game-over screen. Yet, when he opened them again, he wasn't a splattered mess on the pavement. Instead, he found himself suspended in the middle of a breathtakingly brilliant starry sky.
The cosmos stretched out around him like an endless canvas of spilled ink, dusted with glittering diamonds. Nebulas swirled in poetic hues of violet and gold, incomparably brilliant.
'Am I... in outer space?'Leon blinked, his brain struggling to process the sheer absurdity of his situation. Good heavens, that Isekai Truck-kun was truly built different. It actually knocked him all the way into orbit? His apartment was on the sixth floor! How did a ten-ton commercial vehicle even manage to drift up six flights of stairs and crash through a window?'Can you perform that maneuver for me again?'Leon thought, a dry chuckle escaping his lips.'I knew those veteran instructors at the driving school were holding out on the good techniques!'But wait. He took a deep breath. His chest expanded.'How am I breathing in a vacuum? Why haven't my lungs exploded? I'm not dead yet?'
While Leon floated there, deeply contemplating the biological impossibilities of his continued existence, a colossal, mechanical entity abruptly materialized in his field of vision.
Leon fell dead silent.
Gears the size of planets slowly rotated. A massive, singular, glowing optic lens stared directly into his soul.
"Nous... the Aeon of Erudition?"
Leon gasped, sucking in a sharp breath of non-existent space air and doing his part to contribute to cosmic global warming. Holy crap. He had been sent directly into the universe of Honkai: Star Rail! And the giant floating machine head had actually shown up in person to greet him?
Wait. A chill crept up his spine. Oh no. It couldn't be here to eliminate an anomaly like him, could it?!
Leon had watched countless lore videos analyzing this exact Aeon back on Earth. The general consensus? The giant calculator wasn't exactly the friendly, welcoming type. Nous possessed the terrifying ability to anchor moments in time. To prevent the universe from spiraling toward absolute destruction, the Aeon of Erudition employed ruthless, calculating methods.
Anchoring moments wasn't the same as simply predicting the future. If a person stood at a fork with three possible paths, Nous wouldn't just guess which one they would take. Instead, the machine head would preemptively block two paths and hire an assassin to chase the person down the third, forcing the outcome to become an absolute certainty.
That was the terrifying truth behind Nous's calculations. It didn't predict the future; it erased all other possibilities until the anchored future was the only one left.
And Leon? He didn't belong to this universe. His sudden, unscripted arrival was a massive variable that would definitely disrupt Nous's carefully anchored timeline. That had to be the reason the Aeon had found him so quickly. His mere existence was a mathematical error in the machine's grand equation.
After all... there was absolutely no way Nous had shown up just to acknowledge Leon as a genius, right?!
Could it be...?
Nous's massive optic lens stared unblinkingly at Leon. Deep within the cosmic void, a deep ripple emerged across the Imaginary Tree.
An anchored moment.
The invisible wave spread outward from that single point in time, much like the ripples created by a single drop of water falling onto a perfectly still lake. It expanded, echoing across the stars. Light-years away, the eccentric members of the Genius Society paused their grand experiments, their attention drawn toward the source of the disturbance.
Inside her sprawling space station, a certain puppet paused her calculations.
"Is a new genius receiving the Gaze of Nous?" Herta murmured, her synthetic voice tinged with mild curiosity as she felt the distinct fluctuations of Imaginary energy.
Strangely enough, Leon could feel that exact same fluctuation. He blinked, looking down at his hands.
'Eh? This Imaginary energy... why does it feel like I can freely control it?'He shook his head, snapping back to reality.'Focus, Leon. Deal with the giant floating supercomputer first.' If Nous decided he was a threat and summoned Polka Kakamond—the infamous Lord of Silence—to assassinate him, his second life would be over before it even began!
"Uh, hello there, Nous! Just passing through. I have absolutely zero ill will toward this universe!" Leon called out, waving his hands in a placating gesture.
He really didn't want to pick a fight with the Aeon of Erudition. If Nous's entire goal was to plan the future and prevent the universe from being destroyed, then theoretically, they were on the same side. The Honkai: Star Rail universe was far too entertaining, filled with far too many characters he adored. Why would he ever want to destroy his new playground?
On the contrary, if this universe were truly on the brink of annihilation, Leon would be the first one rolling up his sleeves to stop it.
The colossal machine head remained entirely silent. Its glowing lens stared at him for a long, unreadable moment before its massive metallic form slowly began to dissipate into stardust, fading back into the Imaginary Tree.
Leon let out a massive, exaggerated sigh of relief, wiping imaginary sweat from his forehead. 'You guys have no idea,'he thought to himself.'I literally just spawned into the Star Rail universe and I'm already getting stared down by the ultimate machine god. The pressure is off the charts!'
Fortunately, he had survived the encounter without a scratch.
Crack...
Just as Leon was busy patting himself on the back, his ears caught a sharp, distinct fracturing sound. It was incredibly faint. If his senses hadn't been mysteriously enhanced by his transmigration, he would have missed it entirely.
Leon snapped his head around. Oh boy. Floating just a few yards away was the ultimate cosmic voyeur—Fuli, the Aeon of Remembrance.
The entity wore an elaborate, crystalline ceremonial crown. Its entire humanoid figure appeared to be carved from pristine, transparent ice crystals, radiating an aura that was both majestic and overwhelmingly absolute.
"IcannotseeyourmemoriesyouarenotfromthisworldIamverycurious..." a voice echoed directly inside Leon's mind.
"Stop, stop, stop, hold on!" Leon waved his arms frantically, his face twisting in discomfort. "Can you please not speak in one massive, continuous string of text? Use some punctuation, for the love of the stars!"
Hearing Fuli's telepathic voice made Leon's temples throb. The Aeon's transmission was incredibly fast, blurry, and completely devoid of pauses, hitting his brain like a localized blizzard and leaving him dizzy.
Leon rubbed his chin, looking the crystalline giant up and down. "Eh? Fuli, you're still in one piece?"
He recalled the countless lore theories he had read back home. Many speculated that Fuli had already been shattered, its essence scattered into countless individual fragments of Memoria across the cosmos. Could it be that in this specific point in the timeline, the Aeon of Remembrance hadn't broken apart yet?
CRACK!
The very second the words left Leon's mouth, a massive fissure spider-webbed across Fuli's crystalline chest. With a sound like a collapsing glacier, the majestic Aeon shattered into billions of glittering ice shards, slowly dissipating into the cosmic void.
Leon stood there, his hand still hovering near his chin, his expression completely blank.
'...If I said Fuli shattering had absolutely nothing to do with me, would anyone actually believe it?'Leon stared into the empty space, deeply questioning his life choices.'Lord Fuli, are you seriously pulling an insurance scam on me right now?! Are you trying to frame me?!'
He glanced around the empty cosmos. Okay. Calm down. Fortunately, there were no witnesses. No one saw a thing.
"HAHAHAHA! Aha saw it! Aha saw everything!"
A booming, maniacal laughter suddenly tore through the silence of space.
"You broke Fuli! Aha is so very sad!" A distinctly mocking, theatrical wail followed. "Wuwuwuwu! Oh, Fuli, you died such a tragic, hilarious death!"
Before Leon could even process the sheer absurdity of the situation, the void around him erupted into chaos. Countless theatrical masks—laughing, crying, sneering, and grinning—poured out of the fabric of space like a swarm of manic bees. The masks rapidly stacked and folded into each other, forming a chaotic, shifting humanoid silhouette.
Aha, the Aeon of Elation, spun wildly in mid-air, arms suspended like a deranged marionette. The entity's form twitched and trembled with barely contained amusement, striking a pose that was as dramatic as a classical sculpture.
As the only being who had ever climbed to the highest branches of the Imaginary Tree, Aha had gazed into the cold, loathsome vacuum of reality. He had witnessed the mechanical, meaningless movement of the stars, and watched as the purpose of all things inevitably gave way to absolute nothingness.
And it was precisely in that moment of ultimate despair that Aha had attained true enlightenment.
He realized that joy—pure, unadulterated elation—was the exclusive, sacred right of sentient beings. Stubborn rocks could not laugh. Burning stars could not perceive the cosmic joke of existence.
From that day forward, Aha sought enemies who could provide a worthy punchline. He sought games to pass the eternal time, uncaring of victory or defeat. He craved belly-aching jokes, catastrophic accidental misunderstandings, and chaotic songs that made the mind soar.
Thus, He ascended to become the Aeon of Elation, tearing through the cold, silent universe with a peal of clear, manic laughter that still echoed across the realms to this very day.
And today? Today, Aha had finally found an anomaly—an existence from entirely beyond the Imaginary Tree. Better yet, He had just witnessed this anomaly accidentally shatter the universe's greatest voyeur into a million pieces.
Today was truly fun. Aha's prestige was unmatched!
"No! I didn't do it! It wasn't me, the guy shattered on his own!" Leon hurriedly waved his hands, desperately trying to clear his name. "I'm telling you, Fuli is framing me!"
"Aha doesn't care!" The Aeon of Elation cackled, the shifting masks forming a massive, wicked grin. "When Aha arrived, Aha only saw you brutally breaking poor, innocent Fuli!"
The entity threw its hands over its face in mock devastation. "Wuwuwu! Aha demands justice! Aha wants to avenge Fuli!"
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