Chapter Summaries

When Mara-struck Cloud Knights attacked a teahouse, Zhang Qi stepped forward to protect the civilians and used his Cosmic Disk to defeat all six elites. He left the crowd stunned by the power he had gained.

• Mara-struck Cloud Knights charged into the teahouse, and two retired veterans tried to shield the crowd while Qingque warned Zhang Qi to flee.
• Zhang Qi walked toward the soldiers and summoned his Cosmic Disk, unfolding a vast Eight Trigrams formation beneath his feet.
• The Cloud Knights attacked with gunblades, flying swords, and a barrage of light arrows, but the formation warped space and time so the arrows missed and the swords turned back on their attackers.
• Zhang Qi froze all six Cloud Knights in ice before they could recover.
• Qingque and the retired veterans stared in disbelief as Zhang Qi put away his disk and dusted off his sleeves.

After a mara-struck outbreak in the Exalting Sanctum, Zhang Qi discovered that someone had trapped him in a time-and-space loop. He began breaking free with the Cosmic Disk, but a woman’s voice stopped him, and two Star Core Hunters appeared.

• Qingque confronted Zhang Qi about hiding his strength, then he urged her and two retired veterans to take the outbreak seriously.
• Zhang Qi headed toward the Artisanship Commission but repeatedly emerged at the same teahouse, realizing he was caught in a time-and-space trap.
• He used the Cosmic Disk and linked his mind with versions of himself in other worlds to analyze and crack the trap.
• A woman’s voice halted Zhang Qi’s thoughts and movements as she and a tall man stepped out of distorted space.
• Zhang Qi recognized the pair as Star Core Hunters and wondered why they had blocked his path.

Kafka, Blade, and Silver Wolf attacked Zhang Qi to force him to reveal his hidden armor, while suppressing his techniques and trying to keep him from disrupting their plans. As Zhang Qi sealed the battlefield with the Xing Tian Armor, a vast surge of Imaginary energy gathered above the Xianzhou, drawing Jing Yuan’s attention.

• Blade ambushed Zhang Qi with a sword strike, but Zhang Qi dodged and learned that Kafka, Blade, and Silver Wolf had prepared a coordinated attack against him.
• Silver Wolf disrupted Zhang Qi’s formation, while Kafka’s Spirit Word and Blade’s frenzied assault pushed him into a disadvantage.
• Zhang Qi summoned the Xing Tian Armor, caught Blade’s sword, struck him back, and sealed the surrounding space with the armor’s Judgment function.
• Kafka explained that Zhang Qi was an unpredictable variable who could disrupt Elio’s script for the Xianzhou incident, and said they needed him to leave the stage.
• Kafka sensed immense Imaginary energy gathering above the Xianzhou, and Jing Yuan looked up in surprise as he recognized the power of an Aeon.

Zhang Qi found himself in a star-filled dimension and discovered that the Stellaron Hunters had delivered him to Nous, Lord of Erudition. Nous identified him as an existence outside the universe’s chains of cause and effect, leaving Zhang Qi to face the Aeon’s attention as an unsolvable unknown.

• Zhang Qi explored the starry dimension and realized he could normally escape by anchoring himself to the material world.
• The dimension began resonating, and Nous appeared as an immense mechanical sphere that locked onto Zhang Qi.
• Zhang Qi realized the Stellaron Hunters had brought him to Nous rather than simply trying to imprison him.
• Nous concluded that Zhang Qi was an unclassifiable existence with no discernible cause or predictable consequences.
• Zhang Qi reasoned that influences from his other selves made him a bug beyond Nous’s ability to calculate.

Zhang Qi and his counterparts tried to exploit Nous's need to understand the mystery behind Zhang Qi's mutation, slowing the Aeon's invasion by feeding it vast stores of complex knowledge. They began uploading the Yellow-Skinned Saints' cosmic inheritance, hoping it would overwhelm Nous's calculations.

• Nous used Vast Path energy to restrain Zhang Qi and sent a data probe into his mind to analyze him.
• Zhang Qis from other worlds gathered in their shared space and resisted Nous's invasion, while Zhang Qi of the Infinite World proposed using it as an opportunity.
• Zhang Qi released his mental defenses and uploaded Backlund's extraordinary characteristics, slowing Nous's calculations through the Path of Mystery.
• Kenneth and Zhang Qi of the Kamen Rider W world transmitted Earth-memory archives to the Star Rail World, but Nous resumed calculating after adjusting its priorities.
• Zhang Qi of the Infinite World began uploading the Yellow-Skinned Saints' inheritance, which recorded the universe's laws and unknowns.

Kafka, Blade, and Silver Wolf ambushed Zhang Qi, disrupting his techniques and forcing him to reveal his Xing Tian Armor. Kafka explained that Zhang Qi was a variable threatening Elio’s script, and an Aeon’s power began gathering above the Xianzhou as Jing Yuan sensed its arrival.

• Blade attacked Zhang Qi with his ancient sword, while Silver Wolf disrupted Zhang Qi’s techniques and Kafka used her Spirit Word to control him.
• Zhang Qi realized the three had prepared specifically to counter his abilities and activated his Xing Tian Armor, knocking Blade into the teahouse ruins.
• Zhang Qi’s armor sealed Kafka and the others inside its Imaginary-energy space, but Kafka called Blade off and said they had wanted to expose Zhang Qi’s hidden power.
• Kafka explained that Elio considered Zhang Qi a variable who could derail the script and draw a supreme being’s attention.
• Imaginary energy gathered above the Xianzhou, and Jing Yuan sensed that an Aeon was mobilizing its power.

Zhang Qi found himself in a star-filled dimension and realized the Stellaron Hunters had anchored him there to deliver him before Nous, the Lord of Erudition. Nous identified Zhang Qi as an unsolvable existence outside the universe’s chain of cause and effect, and Zhang Qi understood that this made him an anomaly in the Aeon’s calculations.

• Zhang Qi explored the starry dimension and concluded he could normally escape by finding an anchor in the material world.
• The dimension resonated, and an enormous mechanical sphere appeared before Zhang Qi.
• Nous anchored Zhang Qi in the space and asked what he was.
• Nous explained that it could classify Mystery and Trailblaze as forms of chaos but judged Zhang Qi to be unsolvable.
• Zhang Qi reasoned that influences from his other versions caused effects with no cause in this universe, making him a bug in Nous’s calculations.

Nous invaded Zhang Qi’s mind to analyze the source of his mutation, while Zhang Qi and his counterparts used the connection between worlds to feed the Aeon vast amounts of mysterious information and slow its calculations. They began uploading the cultivators’ record of the universe’s ultimate answer, leaving the outcome of their plan unresolved.

• Nous bound Zhang Qi with Vast Path energy and sent a data probe into his mind, prompting the Zhang Qis from other worlds to resist the invasion.
• Zhang Qi from the Infinite World proposed using Nous’s need to understand him as an opportunity, and the counterparts agreed to buy time.
• Zhang Qi opened his mental defenses and sent Nous information about the Extraordinary Characteristics, which drew on the Path of Mystery and slowed its calculations.
• Kenneth and Zhang Qi from the Kamen Rider W world transmitted Earth’s memories to the Star Rail world, further disrupting Nous’s computation.
• Zhang Qi in the Infinite World began uploading jade slips and magical artifacts containing the cultivators’ record of the universe to Nous.

Zhang Qi’s offered cultivation framework drew Nous into a universe-scale deduction, which crashed when it reached the complexity of the Five Elements. As Nous faltered, the golden eye in Zhang Qi’s shared mental space opened and sent black tentacles through Nous’s lingering connection toward the mechanical planet.

• Zhang Qi gave Nous a complete theoretical framework, and Nous abandoned its probe to reconstruct the universe’s laws.
• Nous successfully deduced the cultivation stages and began analyzing the Immortal Dao, creating an immense Eight Trigrams diagram that shook the galaxy.
• Silver Wolf worried that Nous was rewriting reality, while Kafka said Elio believed the outcome would be best and pointed to a new shoot growing from the Ambrosial Arbor.
• Nous’s deduction stalled at the Five Elements’ cycles, leaving the mechanical planet trembling and its core flashing erratically.
• Zhang Qi’s golden eye opened in the shared mental space and sent black tentacles through Nous’s connection to invade the mechanical planet.

Zhang Qi overwhelmed Nous by linking it to an unfiltered stream of information from countless worlds, causing the cosmic computer to crash. With Nous and Zhang Qi’s connected systems under maintenance, Zhang Qi turned his attention to the Stellaron Hunters’ plan and the people who had set him up.

• Zhang Qi used Nous’s connection to observe countless worlds and sent the contradictory information flooding his mind directly into the computer.
• Nous’s deductions collapsed under conflicting universe models, and its system crashed after encountering the infinite tower from the Infinite Terror world.
• Zhang Qi woke on the Xianzhou Luofu and learned that Nous’s recovery would temporarily restrict his abilities and communication with his counterparts.
• Zhang Qi recalled that the infinite tower had broken Nous and left the matter to his counterpart in the Infinite World.
• Zhang Qi decided to investigate the Stellaron Hunters’ major move and confront whoever had set him up.

After escaping Nous’s mental space, Zhang Qi learned that Phantylia had brought a Stellaron to the Xianzhou Luofu to revive the Ambrosial Arbor, and suspected the Stellaron Hunters had engineered the crisis to put the Astral Express at its center. At Scalegorge Waterscape, Phantylia shrugged off the crew’s attacks and overwhelmed them, leaving the Astral Express in danger without Lightning-Lord’s protection.

• Zhang Qi returned to the Divination Commission and found Qingque urgently handling documents after three days of unrest.
• Qingque told Zhang Qi that Phantylia had stolen Tingyun’s identity, smuggled in a Stellaron, and aided the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus in an attempt to revive the Ambrosial Arbor.
• Zhang Qi suspected the Stellaron Hunters had wanted the crisis to happen so the Astral Express would take center stage.
• The Xianzhou’s artificial sky cracked, meteors fell, and General Jing Yuan summoned Lightning-Lord to destroy them.
• At Scalegorge Waterscape, Stelle, Welt, March 7th, Dan Heng, and Jing Yuan attacked Phantylia, but her combined Abundance and Destruction powers healed away their damage.
• Phantylia’s counterattack shattered Welt’s black hole and forced Lightning-Lord back, while the Astral Express crew were hurt and left exposed to her next attack.

Zhang Qi arrived at the Scalegorge Waterscape and used a golden formation to dispel Phantylia’s attack, then revealed that he knew her nature and prepared a sword formation to fight her. The chapter ended as his thousands of flying swords formed the Return-to-Void Primordial Chaos Godslayer Sword Formation.

• Zhang Qi arrived and erased the torrent of Destruction with a golden Eight Trigrams formation, surprising March 7th, Stelle, Dan Heng, Welt, and Jing Yuan.
• Zhang Qi identified Phantylia as a Heliobus inhabiting a remnant of the Ambrosial Arbor, and Phantylia attacked him with a crushing force.
• A crimson sword severed Phantylia’s arm, and Zhang Qi drew the War God Blazing Sword.
• Zhang Qi summoned thousands of swords from the Artisanship Commission, and they flew toward the Scalegorge Waterscape as a vast silver river.
• Zhang Qi activated a formation that linked the swords with golden Imaginary energy threads, creating the Return-to-Void Primordial Chaos Godslayer Sword Formation.

Zhang Qi used the Return-to-Void Primordial Chaos Godslayer Sword Formation to weaken Phantylia and then erased the meteorite she summoned. He severed her from the Ambrosial Arbor and destroyed her exposed Heliobus form, while Phantylia blamed Jing Yuan for hiding an Emanator of Erudition.

• Zhang Qi activated the Return-to-Void Primordial Chaos Godslayer Sword Formation, disrupting Phantylia's connection to the Ambrosial Arbor and draining her energy.
• Phantylia summoned a burning meteorite that threatened to destroy the Xianzhou Luofu's Exalting Sanctum.
• Zhang Qi revealed his Emanator-level power and used the Heaven-and-Earth War God Slash to erase the meteorite.
• Zhang Qi reshaped the sword formation into a cage that severed Phantylia from her vessel and trapped her Heliobus spirit.
• Phantylia accused Jing Yuan of hiding an Emanator of Erudition before the sword formation shredded her form into nothingness.

After defeating Phantylia, Zhang Qi attended Tingyun’s funeral and learned how the Stellaron Hunters had planned the crisis around the Astral Express. He decided to leave the Xianzhou and joined the Express as a Trailblazer.

• Zhang Qi helped defeat Phantylia, then asked Jing Yuan to reimburse him for the shattered War God Blazing Sword and other losses.
• Jing Yuan thanked the Astral Express crew, and the group left Scalegorge Waterscape as he stayed behind to handle the aftermath.
• At Tingyun’s funeral, Zhang Qi pieced together the Stellaron Hunters’ plan and realized his intervention had been the unexpected variable.
• Zhang Qi asked Welt whether the Astral Express was recruiting, and Welt said the crew would likely welcome him.
• Zhang Qi secured long-term leave and compensation from the Xianzhou, then boarded the Astral Express two days later.

Zhang Qi boarded the Astral Express and gave the crew a case of elaborate toys. He drank Himeko’s notoriously dangerous coffee and praised it, prompting March 7th and Xing to try it too, which delayed the train’s departure by a day.

• Pom-Pom welcomed Zhang Qi, and Himeko showed him his prepared room aboard the Astral Express.
• March 7th and Star welcomed Zhang Qi with snacks, while Welt greeted him and Zhang Qi presented the crew with a case of toys.
• March 7th and Star pulled Dan Heng into playing with the gifts as Himeko offered Zhang Qi a cup of coffee.
• Zhang Qi protected his sense of taste and endured Himeko’s coffee, then complimented it while Welt realized he was pretending.
• Xing and March 7th asked to try the coffee and dragged Dan Heng along, and the Astral Express’s departure was delayed by one day.

Zhang Qi asked Welt about his unusual control of gravity, and Welt explained how Honkai and the Herrschers shaped the powers of his home world. When Zhang Qi examined Welt’s scepter, he replicated it and transformed the copy into two Herrscher Cores, leaving Welt stunned.

• Zhang Qi and Welt discussed Himeko’s coffee before Zhang Qi asked about Welt’s unconventional use of Imaginary Energy.
• Welt explained that his world had no Paths and that Honkai produced Herrschers, including himself, whose powers embodied physical constants.
• Welt described the Cocoon on the moon, which isolated his world and reset time, and said his civilization ultimately overcame the trial and embraced the Cocoon.
• Zhang Qi examined Welt’s scepter, which held the First Herrscher’s authority to understand and reproduce and had been used to simulate the Star of Eden.
• Zhang Qi replicated the scepter, then transformed the copy into two powerful gems that Welt recognized as Herrscher Cores.

Zhang Qi gave Welt two modified Herrscher Cores and speculated that the Cocoon originated from an ancient civilization seeking to cross the world's barrier. The Astral Express crew chose their next destination, and the train arrived at Penacony.

• Zhang Qi explained his theory that the Cocoon was created by a civilization older than the Aeons as a means of breaking through the world's barrier.
• Zhang Qi gave Welt two Herrscher Cores whose power he had redirected to the Path of Erudition, and Welt accepted the gift.
• March 7th, Star, and Dan Heng emerged from the living quarters, and Pom-Pom announced the Express's invitation to Penacony's Charmony Festival.
• Pom-Pom said Zhang Qi was not listed on the invitation, and Dan Heng gave his place to Star.
• Pom-Pom briefed the crew on Penacony and asked them to investigate what happened to several Nameless who had left the train there.
• The Astral Express completed its journey and arrived at Penacony's starport.

Zhang Qi inspected the Astral Express and learned from Kafka’s recording that a major upheaval was brewing in Penacony. After discovering that Himeko and the others had entered the dream world and could not be reached, he decided to enter it himself, believing its memoria might work like Reishi.

• Zhang Qi toured the Astral Express with Pom-Pom and examined its unusual construction and Trailblazing-powered capabilities.
• Dan Heng showed Zhang Qi a recording in which Kafka warned that Penacony’s sweet dream was about to become a nightmare.
• Zhang Qi and Dan Heng considered whether the looming upheaval involved the Stellaron or the Watchmaker’s legacy, but detected no signs of trouble in Penacony’s real world.
• Dan Heng told Zhang Qi that Himeko and the others had entered the dream world and that conventional communications were cut off.
• Zhang Qi decided to enter the dream world and reasoned that memoria might share properties with Reishi.

Zhang Qi built an instrument to analyze Penacony’s memoria, then learned from Black Swan and Acheron about the secret beneath the sweet dream and Aventurine’s apparent death. After resisting Acheron’s Nihility, Zhang Qi faced Boothill’s accusation that she was impersonating a Galaxy Ranger and explained that she sought to return a relic to one.

• Zhang Qi used Welt’s Herrscher Authority and Bleach’s Reishi research to build an Omniscient Inquiry of Arcana and capture a strand of Penacony’s memoria for analysis.
• Black Swan and Acheron visited Zhang Qi and told him that the Astral Express crew was investigating death and memetic entities beneath Penacony’s sweet dream.
• Black Swan said Aventurine had let Acheron strike him so his death could open a path to the truth.
• Zhang Qi analyzed Acheron, was pulled into Nihility, and restored his memories almost instantly, surprising Acheron and Black Swan.
• Dan Heng brought Boothill into the carriage, where Boothill aimed his revolver at Acheron and accused her of impersonating a Galaxy Ranger.
• Acheron said she had posed as a Galaxy Ranger to find a genuine one and return a relic.

Zhang Qi entered Penacony’s dreamscape to find March 7th and the others, but an insect swarm from the Path of Propagation burst into the Golden Hour. As the dream turned into a nightmare, Zhang Qi summoned floating cannons to confront the swarm.

• Acheron gave Boothill a luminous bullet entrusted to her by a Galaxy Ranger, and Boothill accepted it after recognizing its significance.
• Zhang Qi explained that Aventurine’s gamble had exposed The Family’s secrets and left the Astral Express crew targeted for a cleanup.
• Zhang Qi used a headset to enter Penacony’s layered dreamscape and concluded that the Stellaron powered it through Harmony.
• Zhang Qi reached the Golden Hour, where black fissures split the sky and released an insect swarm that attacked the dream’s inhabitants.
• Zhang Qi summoned a swarm of floating cannons and aimed them at the insects.