Phainon of Aedes Elysiae! What Is Your Ideal?

Bai Yuan had yet to grasp what that "1" meant.

The scene around him began to collapse.

The sky was like crumpled paper, peeling away piece by piece to reveal the empty darkness beneath;

The ground split open with countless cracks. There was no light, only pure void.

Every line, color, and shadow twisted, folded, and shattered.

Bai Yuan wanted to struggle, but his body would not obey him at all.

His consciousness sank into nothingness.

There was no light, no sound, no time.

He did not know how long had passed. It might have been a second, or ten thousand years.

Then, he felt light.

Soft, gentle light, like the first ray of morning sunlight piercing through thin mist.

That light seeped through his eyelids, little by little filling his consciousness.

Bai Yuan opened his eyes.

Huh?

Instinctively, he wanted to sit up and raise a hand to shield himself from the light.

But he could not move.

No... he could no longer feel his hands or feet.

He looked down. There were no hands, no feet, no body.

There was only a vast white, weightless thing floating in midair.

A cloud.

He had become a cloud.

Bai Yuan froze.

He floated hundreds of meters above the ground, looking down at everything below.

The wind passed through him.

What was going on?

He forced himself to calm down and began observing his surroundings.

Below was a peaceful little village, with gray-tiled roofs, white walls, and wisps of cooking smoke rising into the air.

Beyond the village stretched vast fields of wheat. Golden waves swayed in the breeze like a flowing sea.

Several farmers ambled down the paths between the fields with hoes over their shoulders, while children's laughter drifted from afar.

Everything was ordinary, commonplace, and utterly unlike Douluo Continent.

Bai Yuan's gaze swept across the village, then suddenly stopped.

At the edge of a wheat field, a boy was squatting on the ground, holding a branch and drawing something.

The boy looked five or six years old. He had short white hair and wore coarse clothes that had been washed nearly white.

Bai Yuan stared at the boy, and something exploded in his mind.

Aedes Elysiae.

This was... Aedes Elysiae?

Phainon's birthplace?

That little village that had existed only in memories in Honkai Star Rail's story, the one that had been destroyed?

The place where Phainon had been born, raised, and had ultimately watched helplessly as flames devoured it?

Instinctively, he wanted to get closer and see the boy's face clearly.

But he was a cloud. He could not move.

Wherever the wind blew, he drifted.

From the distant end of the wheat fields came a woman's voice.

"Phainon—come home for dinner—"

Hearing that voice, a broad smile immediately bloomed on the boy's face.

He turned and ran toward the village.

He ran quickly, his cloth shoes pattering along the ridge between the fields. The wheat swayed behind him like a golden ocean.

Bai Yuan drifted in the sky, watching that small figure grow farther and smaller until he finally disappeared into one of the village lanes.

He wanted to follow, but he could not move.

The wind stopped.

He hung motionlessly above the wheat fields.

Sunlight passed through his "body," casting a faint shadow over the fields.

Bai Yuan did not know what he was thinking.

His mind was completely blank, yet it also felt crammed with too many things, on the verge of overflowing.

Why was he seeing this?

What was that "1" in the Core Flame trying to tell him by dragging him here?

He did not know how much time had passed.

Within the void, there was no light, no sound, no passage of time.

Phainon's consciousness floated in that boundless darkness like a speck of dust, without direction, without weight, without anything.

Then, he felt someone pushing him.

His consciousness returned bit by bit.

He had not turned into a cloud, nor was he floating over Aedes Elysiae.

He lay on something solid, with something soft beneath the back of his head.

Bai Yuan slowly opened his eyes.

The light was somewhat blinding. He blinked, and his vision gradually cleared from a blur.

A face was very close to his, backlit so that he could see only a rough outline.

Short white hair, bright eyes, and an apologetic smile at the corner of his lips.

"Sorry."

The boy's voice was clear, carrying a hint of embarrassment.

"I saw you were asleep, and I was just about to cover you with something."

Phainon stared blankly at him.

Seeing that he had woken up, the boy seemed to relax. He stepped back a little and set what he was holding aside.

It was a neatly folded coat.

"I saw you lying here without moving for a long time, so I thought you might be cold."

The boy scratched his head.

"I didn't expect to wake you up. Sorry."

Had he woken up?

A gentle voice came from beside him.

When he turned, another face was close at hand.

Long pink hair fell over her shoulders, and her bright eyes watched him with concern.

"I'm awake, Sister Cyrene!"

"Hello, my name is Phainon."

The boy tilted his head and glanced at him, the corners of his lips curving upward.

"Hello, my name is Bai Yuan."

"How come I haven't seen you around here?"

Phainon looked around, curiosity in his voice.

"Are you new here?"

Before Phainon could answer.

He had already started laughing to himself and held out his hand.

"Then does that mean we know each other now?"

Bai Yuan looked at the outstretched hand, fell silent for a second, then took it.

"Can I call you my partner now?"

Phainon's eyes sparkled, as if he were awaiting something terribly important.

Bai Yuan looked into those eyes, and something deep in his heart stirred softly.

He nodded. His voice was quiet, but earnest:

"Partner."

The moment the words fell, Phainon's smile froze on his face.

His body began shattering from the edges. Cracks spread from his fingertips to his arm, then his shoulder, then the face still bearing that smile.

Bai Yuan's pupils contracted as he tried to grab his hand.

Xiao Bai!!!

But his fingers passed through the boy's figure, grasping nothing.

Then, everything shattered.

Everything shattered.

Countless fragments spun, flew, and reassembled in the darkness.

Then, he saw it.

The peaceful village had been swallowed by boundless black mist.

It came from every direction, Devouring the houses, the wheat fields, the roads—Devouring everything that had once been warm and alive.

Houses collapsed, rubble scattering everywhere.

The fields rotted away, their golden waves of wheat becoming black marshland.

Even more horrifying were—

The things that had once been human.

The villagers, livestock, even the flowers and trees, all twisted and mutated within the Black Tide.

Darkness corroded their bodies. Their bones protruded, their skin festered, and their eyes became blood-red hollows.

They were no longer human.

They were howling, frenzied monsters that had lost all reason.

Bai Yuan's breathing stopped for a moment.

He recognized some of those faces.

That silver-haired child who had run through the wheat fields, that child whose eyes had curved with laughter beneath the sun.

Now, he stood alone amid the ruins, his small figure facing the darkness sweeping across heaven and earth, along with the swarming horrors.

His silver hair was stained with dust and blood. In those once-clear eyes was reflected the sight of the whole world collapsing.

Screams and roars filled the dark sky.

Bai Yuan realized that he could move.

The silver-haired child was watching him from not far away.

There was no fear on that young face, no tears—only an indescribable calm.

As if he had always known this day would come, only not when.

Then, the monsters surged forward.

They crawled out of the darkness. Some moved on all fours like beasts, some walked upright like humans, and some had no recognizable shape at all.

They were merely writhing masses of flesh covered in eyes and mouths.

Bai Yuan gripped his sword hilt and was about to strike—

A monster stopped in front of him.

It looked at Bai Yuan with mismatched eyes. Its mouth opened and closed, producing a muffled voice that seemed squeezed out from somewhere very, very deep:

"Phainon■you■don't■remember■me■?"

Bai Yuan's pupils shrank.

It was a child's voice, belonging to a child who had once run beneath the sunlight and smiled brilliantly.

"Weren't■we■friends■?"

The monster reached a hand toward him.

Half of that hand was rotting flesh, the other half twisted darkness, but the outlines of all five fingers remained, as if it wanted to hold on to something.

"Ah—!!!"

That scream was neither fear nor rage, but pain and despair.

It was like a cry questioning the entire world.

Bai Yuan took a deep breath and raised his sword.

Then, he felt a hand gently settle on his shoulder.

A warm, steady hand carrying a familiar presence.

"Step back."

A voice came from behind him—calm and low, yet like a wall standing between him and the darkness.

Bai Yuan froze.

He turned around.

A figure passed by him, backlit, its face impossible to see.

All he could make out was the sword in the figure's right hand, its blade flowing with faint golden patterns of light.

That figure stood in front of him.

One strike!

The monster fell, its body slowly dissolving into the darkness, little by little, melting into the boundless black.

Bai Yuan stood where he was, gasping for breath.

At some point, that person had come to stand beside him.

He tilted his head up, his calm eyes reflecting Bai Yuan's face.

"Will you forget me too?"

Companion!

The voice was not loud, yet it reached his ears clearly.

Bai Yuan looked down at him and opened his mouth, wanting to say something.

Darkness swallowed everything.