Godspeed and the Hundred Realms Gate, Black Calamity's Divine Power!

Bai Yuan returned to his room, shut the door, leaned against it, and let out a long breath.

The sensation of that strike in the training hall still lingered at his fingertips.

The moment Dawnbreaker's blade turned black, something indescribable surged from the depths of the Core Flame.

It flooded through his arm and into Dawnbreaker, and that strike became different.

It felt more like a fundamental change.

When Dawnbreaker came down, Gu Yuena's Elemental Barrier seemed to be dismantled at its very foundation.

It was as though, the instant that sword fell, those elements ceased to be elements and became nothing more than meaningless specks of light.

Bai Yuan walked to the bed and sat down, lowering his head to look at his right hand.

His palm was spotless. No trace of black remained, nor was there any energy fluctuation, but he remembered the sensation of that power surging from within him.

Cold, heavy, yet carrying a strange sort of "lightness."

That feeling reminded him of something.

Black Calamity.

In Honkai Star Rail's story, after Black Calamity was trapped in Castrum Kremnos of the past, he had not obediently stayed there to await death.

He found a way to travel through time and space, returning from Castrum Kremnos of the past to the present world.

It was some higher-order law, one that stood above time and space.

Bai Yuan closed his eyes, scenes from the story unfolding in his mind.

Castrum Kremnos, an ancient city trapped by time, where past and present intertwined to form an inescapable closed loop.

And Black Calamity was the one who walked out of that loop.

He had not been released. He had found the key himself.

"Power of Time and Space..."

Bai Yuan murmured as he opened his eyes and looked at the sky beyond the window.

"No, it's more than time and space."

The reason his earlier strike had been able to dismantle Gu Yuena's Elemental Barrier was not because it possessed greater force, but because—

In that instant, he had slipped beyond the reach of elemental laws.

Just as Black Calamity had escaped Castrum Kremnos's temporal loop, his sword had also escaped this world's power system.

No matter how powerful elemental force was, it could not bind someone who did not belong to the current time and space.

"If my deductions are right..."

Bai Yuan muttered, his heartbeat quickening involuntarily.

"Will all those abilities Black Calamity displayed in the story appear in me too?"

He stretched out his right hand, spreading his fingers as he imagined a coin flipping at his fingertips.

Godspeed.

Cipher activated Godspeed by tossing a coin upward, while Black Calamity did so by tossing one downward.

Of course, many people also said Black Calamity had merely seen through Cipher's scheme, and that it was not Godspeed at all.

Who cared!

Since he had Black Calamity's power—

Please, let me have all of them. I don't mind having too many!

One side upright, one side inverted. One light, one dark.

The moment the coin fell, time slowed, space folded, and his figure streaked through the battlefield like a beam of light.

Bai Yuan clenched his fist. He could feel something within him responding to that thought.

It really is there!

Did I pull gold? Can you feel it?

That black energy stirred faintly in the depths of his dantian, like a beast awakening from slumber.

"And then..."

Bai Yuan took a deep breath and continued thinking.

Immortal Body.

In the story, Black Calamity had been pulverized by the demigod Mydei. His mangled limbs and shattered remains had scattered everywhere.

Everyone thought he was dead. Even Mydei had turned and left.

Yet before long, those broken pieces of flesh began to writhe, reassemble, and regenerate.

The Fire Thief rose from the ashes, completely unharmed.

"Fire Thief, risen from the ashes. Stay alert!"

Mydei's warning still rang in his ears.

Bai Yuan looked down at his palm, his fingertips trembling slightly.

If he possessed that ability too, then wouldn't that mean... he could not be killed?

No, not impossible to kill. Impossible to finish killing.

Every death would bring rebirth, and every rebirth would make him stronger.

That was Black Calamity's true terror.

And there was also his absurdly powerful healing ability.

At the Tree Court, Anaxa had pierced Black Calamity's chest with a claw, his hand bursting out through Black Calamity's back as blood sprayed everywhere.

Everyone thought that blow would be fatal.

But Black Calamity merely lowered his head to glance at the bloody hole in his chest, then raised his head and sent Anaxa flying with an expressionless blow.

The wound healed within a few breaths, not even leaving a scar behind.

Bai Yuan touched his chest, imagined the sensation of being pierced through there, and shuddered.

Who would not want an ability like that?

And then there were clones.

Black Calamity could not only summon clones like Tribbie's, but could also grant them independent combat awareness and power.

One Black Calamity was already difficult enough to deal with. A whole group of Black Calamities...

The image was too beautiful. Bai Yuan did not dare imagine it.

Most importantly, the Hundred Realms Gate.

Though it was only a speculation, who would not want an ability like that?

Trianne's Hundred Realms Gate could teleport people anywhere, even across time and space.

But after Black Calamity was sent away by the Hundred Realms Gate, he not only returned swiftly, but also counter-killed the Titan of Time and laid an ambush for Tribbie.

What did that mean?

It meant Black Calamity likely possessed Power of Time and Space on the same level as the Hundred Realms Gate, or perhaps even higher.

Bai Yuan closed his eyes, picturing Black Calamity slicing open the void with a dagger.

A rift appeared out of nowhere, and beyond it lay the ruins of Castrum Kremnos.

Black Calamity stepped into the rift, his figure vanishing into time and space.

"Power of Time and Space..."

Bai Yuan murmured, opening his eyes to look at the Core Flame in his palm.

"Black Calamity could return from Castrum Kremnos of the past to the present. So can I."

The Core Flame suddenly brightened, as though responding.

Bai Yuan took a deep breath and suppressed the surging excitement in his heart.

"Godspeed, Immortal Body, hyper-regeneration, clones, the Hundred Realms Gate, time-space traversal..."

Bai Yuan counted them one by one, the curve of his lips growing wider and wider.

"I want all of these abilities!"

The Core Flame pulsed violently in his palm, golden and black flames intertwining like a nebula brewing a storm.

The mark engraved with "1" brightened a little more, while the faint outline of a second mark emerged at its edge.

It was dim, but it was undeniably there.

Black Calamity's power... was still dormant, but it had begun to awaken.

Today, he had borrowed only a trace of it and had nearly lost control.

That power was too strong, so strong that even he felt uneasy.

Not because of the power itself, but because of what it carried behind it.

Cycles, death, loss, loneliness.

Black Calamity had passed through countless cycles and borne countless pains before finally condensing that power.

Bai Yuan clenched his fist and drew the Core Flame's light back in.

"Black Calamity,"

Bai Yuan said softly, as though speaking to the Core Flame, and also as though speaking to himself in that distant time and space.

"I'll take your power."

The Core Flame suddenly erupted with a blinding flash, illuminating the entire room as brightly as day.

That small flame shot up higher, its color changing from gold to a blend of gold and black, like the sky before dawn, where light and darkness clashed fiercely.

In the night outside, a gold-black gleam flashed past one of the upper windows of the Spirit Pagoda.

Bai Yuan clenched his fist and drew the Core Flame's light back in.

No one noticed.

Except Gu Yuena.

She stood before her own window, her purple eyes fixed on the direction of Bai Yuan's room, her brows tightly furrowed.

That presence from earlier... had appeared again.

It was stronger than that strike during the day, stranger, and more unsettling.

"This Stinking Human..."

She whispered the name, clenching her fists.

"Just who... are you?"