Chapter Summaries

Sunday gathered the Oak Family incarnations in the Morning Dew Mansion and spoke privately with Gopher Wood while Tir Anders secretly watched through a surveillance robot. Sunday left the Dream Master unaware that he had been exposed, and Gopher Wood learned that Jiang Yu’s influence had brought the Astral Express around to Sunday’s plan.

• Tir Anders connected to a surveillance robot he had planted in an earlier layer of the Dreamscape and continued observing Sunday and Gopher Wood.
• Gopher Wood, speaking through a Pepeshi incarnation, asked Sunday why he had gathered the Oak Family incarnations and what the Astral Express wanted.
• Sunday recalled how Gopher Wood had exploited his grief and led him onto the Path of Order, and reaffirmed that Robin’s happiness mattered more to him than an ideal nation.
• Sunday told Gopher Wood that he had changed his plans and would not keep Robin trapped in a cage, while concealing that he intended to send Gopher Wood into confinement.
• Sunday explained that Jiang Yu had helped persuade the Astral Express to support their plan and revealed that the Knights of Beauty regarded Jiang Yu as an incarnation of Idrila.
• Gopher Wood was shocked to learn of Jiang Yu’s identity and influence, but still did not realize Sunday had turned against him.

The Dream Master was captured after Sunday lured him into a trap, while Tir Anders confirmed his hypothesis and prepared to test travel between Dreamscapes. In the Sky Dreamscape, the Astral Express Crew continued toward their confrontation with Sunday after exploring the Watchmaker’s dream bubble.

• Sunday helped the Knights of Beauty capture the Dream Master, who asked them to make peace after realizing he had been trapped.
• Tir Anders told Argenti that his hypothesis was confirmed and proposed testing jumps between Dreamscapes without using established routes.
• Jing Yuan, Dan Heng, and Little Lan arrived in Penacony after Argenti and Tir Anders left.
• Himeko, Stelle, March 7th, and Jiang Yu entered the Watchmaker’s dream bubble with Misha to investigate its contents.
• Jiang Yu told Stelle that the house in the dream bubble was where they had first encountered Mianmian.

The Astral Express Crew explored Misha’s mysterious memory bubble, and Misha recognized its rooms despite insisting he had grown up in Dreamflux Reef. As his memories began to conflict with what he believed about himself, he grew frightened and uncertain.

• Misha recognized Jiang Yu as the one who had once beaten Mianmian, but let the old incident go.
• Himeko concluded that Misha might uncover the memory bubble’s secret and urged the crew to follow his lead.
• Misha navigated the maze of doors and corridors without hesitation, though he was surprised to recognize the place.
• Jiang Yu explained how a dream can make a place feel familiar, then described his own recurring dreams of watching the Honkai: Star Rail universe from above.
• Misha recalled a fireplace where he warmed himself with Clockie and a room where he played with toys.
• After March 7th and Stelle compared Misha to a fairy-tale princess, Misha panicked and wondered what the place was if he had grown up in Dreamflux Reef.

Himeko and the Astral Express Crew explored more rooms with Misha, who recalled stories about his navigator grandfather Mikhail and the Compass crew. Jiang Yu wondered whether Clockie and Mikhail had hidden pasts and became excited by the idea of Mikhail as a space pirate, before the group followed the sound of water to a huge fountain.

• Himeko reassured Misha and led the group to a room with a fireplace, where Misha said Mikhail was his adventurous navigator grandfather.
• Misha remembered that Clockie had been his close friend but noticed Clockie was missing from the dream bubble.
• In the toy room, Misha described Origami Bird, Clockie, and Miss Mirror as crew members aboard the Compass, which sailed toward the New Continent.
• Jiang Yu suggested Clockie might actually be a compass and hoped Mikhail had been a space pirate, while the others worried he might pursue piracy himself.
• Misha heard water, and the group climbed the stairs and found an enormous fountain.

Misha recalled Mikhail’s stories of sailing, his promise that the Astral Express would take Misha on an adventure, and the pocket watch he gave him. Following the remembered path, the crew entered Misha’s clock room.

• Misha remembered how Mikhail thought of his family while looking at the sea and how they floated a toy boat called the Compass in the fountain.
• Misha led the crew through a hidden door to Mikhail’s study, where Clockie was waiting.
• Misha recalled that Mikhail’s friends, a group of Nameless, had visited their world aboard the Astral Express and that Mikhail had given him his pocket watch.
• Misha remembered hearing the train’s whistle and found the path he and Clockie had taken after it.
• Misha completed a Dream Jigsaw, opening a picture-frame-like door, and led the crew into his clock room.

Misha revealed that he was a Dreamer born from the Watchmaker’s memories, and that his real name was Lagwork Charlier Mikhail. He explained that he had left his memory bubble by accident, then entrusted his childhood self’s journey to the Nameless, with Jiang Yu reassuring him that Misha was a good boy.

• Misha remembered his childhood in the Clock Room and confirmed that the memory bubble was his home.
• Stelle and Jiang Yu helped March 7th realize that Misha was the captain of the Compass and a memetic life-form connected to the Watchmaker.
• Misha explained that he had left the memory bubble with Clockie when reality and memory overlapped.
• Misha introduced himself as Lagwork Charlier Mikhail, also known as the Watchmaker, and described the child Misha as the beginning of his Trailblaze journey.
• Mikhail apologized for Misha forgetting his mission, and Jiang Yu reassured him that Misha was a good boy.

Mikhail revealed that the Watchmaker’s Legacy was his story, pocket watch, and hat, then entrusted the future of Penacony to the Trailblazers. After the crew followed his final dream and learned the meaning of the Clockwork Trick, Jiang Yu took the pocket watch hoping to give it to the Misha who grew up in Dreamflux Reef.

• Mikhail explained that his fortune was only a rumor and offered the Trailblazers his story, pocket watch, and hat as his legacy.
• The Astral Express Crew chose to continue Trailblazing, and Jiang Yu said he wanted the pocket watch as a gift for Misha.
• The crew entered Mikhail’s dream and witnessed his life, from leaving home to fighting for Penacony and passing his hopes to the Trailblaze.
• Mikhail told Clockie that the Clockwork Trick was the will that helped people make decisions and move toward their own futures.
• Mikhail rested beneath the moonlight, and the Astral Express Crew returned to Dreamflux Reef with his final message.
• Stelle bowed in respect while Jiang Yu took the pocket watch and offered Mikhail a blessing.

The Astral Express Crew explored the empty Penacony Grand Theater, where Stelle and Jiang Yu frightened March 7th for different reasons. Sunday invited them to watch three prologue plays about Penacony’s history and the Aeons before the grand celebration.

• The Astral Express Crew entered the Grand Theater and found it deserted, with puppets scattered throughout.
• Jiang Yu said he wished the puppets could move so they could work, while Stelle startled March 7th by pretending something was behind her.
• March 7th wondered if the Crew had come to the wrong place, but Himeko said there was no other Grand Theater in the Dreamscape.
• Sunday addressed March 7th from behind the curtain and invited the Crew to watch three prologue plays about history, Penacony, and the Aeons.

Sunday guided the Astral Express Crew through a theatrical account of Penacony’s history, but Jiang Yu refused to listen to one of the performers. The group finished the first play and entered the second picture frame.

• Sunday began with a creation myth, and Jiang Yu complained that it had little to do with Penacony’s history.
• The Astral Express Crew entered the first play, where Sunday described Penacony’s origins as the Frontier Prison and the prisoners’ struggle to live freely.
• Voice of the Past appeared to teach the prisoners about freedom, but Jiang Yu struck the puppet off the platform before it could finish speaking.
• Himeko explained that Sunday’s story focused on the prisoners’ spiritual predicament, and March 7th led everyone toward the exit.
• The Astral Express Crew entered the second picture frame.

Sunday guided the Astral Express Crew through plays depicting Penacony’s history and his plan to replace Harmony with Order. After Jiang Yu repeatedly knocked over the puppets, the crew reached Sunday’s transformed theater, where Jiang Yu admitted he had not listened to the myth.

• Sunday continued his creation myth as the crew entered the second play, which depicted Penacony’s founding and its transformation into the Land of Dreams.
• The Master of New Arrival asked the crew to free his household from manipulation, but Jiang Yu knocked him and the other puppets off the platform.
• Himeko explained that Harmony had changed Penacony while preserving the former jailers’ methods, and the crew left the second play.
• The crew entered the third play, where Sunday revealed his intention to drive out Harmony and establish an empire of Order.
• Jiang Yu pushed the silent puppets off the platform, and the crew emerged into a grand theater as Sunday finished his myth.
• Sunday asked what the crew thought of his account, and Jiang Yu said he had not listened and had only enjoyed pushing the puppets.

Sunday welcomed Jiang Yu and the others to the Penacony Grand Theater and declared they would fight over Penacony’s fate. Jiang Yu challenged Sunday’s dream of a paradise without Aeons, and the group prepared to let their Paths decide the way forward.

• Sunday welcomed Jiang Yu, Stelle, Himeko, and March 7th to the Penacony Grand Theater, where they would fight to decide Penacony’s fate.
• Jiang Yu displayed strange purple starlight and challenged Sunday’s plan to create a paradise through Order.
• Himeko and Jiang Yu argued that eternal sleep and the loss of individuality could not bring people genuine happiness.
• Jiang Yu pressed Sunday on who would work, sustain people’s bodies, and preserve their sense of self if everyone lived in the Dreamscape.
• Sunday admitted he could not refute Jiang Yu without putting his ideal into practice, but said he would take the final step regardless.
• Sunday called for a fight to reveal a righteous way forward, and Jiang Yu declared that people must choose and live their own lives.

Sunday ascended into Theocracy Sunday, but the Xianzhou fleet, Jing Yuan, Dan Heng, and Little Lan attacked before he could secure victory. Their combined assault destroyed his divine body, leaving his fate unclear as the Dreamscape collapsed.

• Sunday transformed into Theocracy Sunday and summoned thousands of puppets of Order.
• The Luofu and IPC fleets arrived and bombarded the puppets, while Cloud Knights and Xianzhou forces surrounded Theocracy Sunday.
• Jing Yuan and Dan Heng joined forces to pressure Theocracy Sunday with the Azure Dragon and Radiant Spirit.
• The Luofu aimed its main cannon at Theocracy Sunday as Little Lan gathered an attack beside it.
• The Luofu fired its cannon, Little Lan launched a shining arrow, and their attacks struck Theocracy Sunday.
• Theocracy Sunday's divine body cracked apart and vanished as the Dreamscape began to collapse.

Argenti and Tir Anders traveled to the fourth layer of the dream, where they found Yaoyorozu Kami’s real self tying up the Dream Master’s incarnations. Kami had captured Sunday and Gopher Wood and rescued Welt and Robin, leaving the Knights reunited with their companion.

• Argenti and Tir Anders left the third dream layer after Tir Anders explained that four parallel layers existed and that Kami’s real self might be in the last one.
• Tir Anders proposed finding Acheron to disrupt the dream and help everyone escape, since her power of Nihility could jolt dreamers awake.
• Argenti and Tir Anders sailed aboard The Uncanny Valley to the fourth layer, where they found Yaoyorozu Kami at the end of Glaux Avenue.
• Kami bound another incarnation of the Dream Master and asked Dr. Ratio why he had not intervened; Ratio said he wanted the trapped people to recognize the problem and fight it themselves.
• Kami spotted Argenti and Tir Anders, then proudly showed them that she had captured Sunday and Gopher Wood and rescued the unconscious Welt and Robin.

Aboard the Astral Express, Jiang Yu, March 7th, and Fuli watched the four dream layers and saw a mysterious eye appear in the sky, a phantom projected into reality from the Dreamscape. Fuli began showing Jiang Yu the events of another dream layer, where not everything had gone smoothly.

• Jiang Yu said the four dreams seemed to be heading toward happy endings, and Fuli replied that this would be true if they were reality rather than dreams.
• March 7th and Jiang Yu watched the four dream layers within the Philosophical Fetus while the others remained asleep aboard the Express.
• Jiang Yu pointed out a hazy light above the Philosophical Fetus, which expanded into an eye-like opening that cracked the sky.
• Fuli recognized the eye as a memory of the catastrophe that had once caused total quadrant zeroing, while Secretary Tong told Jiang Yu it was a powerful Dreamscape phantom projected into reality.
• Fuli explained that some events in this Dreamscape layer had gone poorly and showed Jiang Yu what had happened there.

After Penacony’s dream ended, Stelle sensed that something was wrong aboard the Astral Express as Black Swan and Boothill joined the crew. The crew chose Edo Star as their next destination, but Jiang Yu’s question about which March was real left everyone wondering whether they were still dreaming.

• In the dream layer, the Astral Express Crew captured the Dream Master and sealed the Stellaron, while Gallagher remained alive because Jiang Yu believed he was an important ally.
• Stelle felt an increasingly strong sense that something was missing aboard the Express after the crew returned from Penacony.
• Black Swan and Boothill joined the Astral Express for a time, and Pom-Pom thanked the passengers for uncovering what happened to Mikhail and the others.
• The crew voted to travel to Edo Star because it seemed to be in danger and needed help.
• Jiang Yu asked which of the two Marches was real, and March wondered whether they were still dreaming as everyone fell silent.

Jiang Yu and the others realized that the Astral Express events had all taken place in a dream and were pulled into a space between dreams and reality. Acheron explained that they might still be trapped in another dream and identified Sunday as the one responsible for their predicament.

• March 7th suggested that everyone might have been dreaming from the start, and Jiang Yu supported the theory because no Cat Cakes appeared in the dream.
• Black Swan confirmed that the group’s suspicions were likely correct, but the Astral Express warped and the scene shifted to a guest room in Penacony’s Dream Hotel.
• Black Swan told Stelle that they had been pulled out of the dream and thanked Jiang Yu for helping protect everyone.
• Jiang Yu realized that he and both March 7ths were constructs formed from Memoria, but trusted that his real self could resolve the situation.
• Acheron arrived and explained that they were in a space between dreams and reality, though she could not tell whether they had reached the real world or another dream.
• Black Swan concluded that Sunday was responsible for their situation, and Acheron agreed.

Acheron, Black Swan, Stelle, and their companions learned that the Dream of Taiyi had begun as soon as they entered the Asdana Galaxy and was blending memoria with reality to impose Order. They gathered Robin, whose will had awakened her, and learned that freeing Penacony required making everyone want to wake up.

• Acheron confirmed Black Swan's theory that Sunday had begun his plan to use the Stellaron, the Oak Family's wills, and Penacony's wishes to restore Order, and revealed that the group had entered the dream upon arriving in Asdana.
• Black Swan explained how the Dream of Taiyi could merge memoria with reality, and the group decided to find other people who remained lucid to weaken it.
• Stelle, Acheron, Black Swan, March 7th, July 7th, and Jiang Yu traveled through the hotel and passed people contentedly lost in the dream; Stelle's Clockwork Trick failed to wake them.
• The group met Robin, who had awakened after a dream showed Sunday saying things she knew he would never say, and she explained that the dream's false sweetness made its nature clear.
• Robin said the Dream of Taiyi depended on Penacony's shared wishes and that everyone had to want to wake up for it to be destroyed.

Robin proposed awakening Penacony’s dreamers from within, while the group planned to disrupt Taiyi’s dream by summoning the Galaxy Rangers and using Robin’s songs to guide people back to reality. Acheron and Jiang Yu concluded that the dreamers ultimately had to choose to save themselves.

• Stelle asked Jiang Yu to defeat Sunday, but Jiang Yu said brute force would be difficult, and Acheron warned that it could endanger everyone submerged in the Dreamscape.
• Dan Heng and Boothill joined the group, and Black Swan said the remaining Astral Express members would soon awaken and become the first free wills to disrupt Taiyi’s dream.
• Jiang Yu suggested that a sudden influx of free wills from outside Asdana could destabilize the dream, while wondering whether the dream had layers and why he had not seen any Knights of Beauty.
• Boothill revealed that a special bullet would summon the Galaxy Rangers, who would gather across the galaxy without asking questions or counting the cost.
• Robin offered to use songs of Harmony to carry the Trailblaze’s dissonance into the sleeping people and show them the way back to reality.
• Acheron said the plan depended on people choosing to save themselves, and Jiang Yu joked that someone pretending to sleep might need a slap to wake up.

Acheron prepared to shatter Penacony’s dream and guide its sleeping inhabitants back to reality, while recalling how she once helped Tiernan leave Nihility. After revealing her name, Raiden Mei, to Jiang Yu, she unleashed her power as the Galaxy Rangers’ attack began and Penacony’s sleepers fell toward the waking world.

• Acheron recalled helping Tiernan realize he was dead and guiding his soul toward the waking world, carrying his wish to find Mikhail.
• Acheron explained to Stelle that people would have to face desperation and choose to save themselves, and Stelle affirmed that she would Trailblaze and make her own choices.
• Jiang Yu challenged Acheron’s view of Nihility, arguing that convictions made it insignificant, then asked her real name.
• Acheron told Jiang Yu that her name was Raiden Mei, and he promised to remember it and meet her again in waking reality.
• Acheron drew her blade and unleashed Nihility across the Dreamscape as the Galaxy Ranger aimed at the Grand Theater and The Hunt’s shooting star called forth dawn.
• Order’s platform collapsed, and the sleepers fell as heavenly flames pierced the dream and Acheron urged them to savor its meaning and return to the waking world.

The Astral Express Crew fought Theocracy Sunday in the Dreamscape as he tried to create his paradise, while Jiang Yu led their assault. Sunday invoked Primordial Creation, but a cat-shaped Taiyi answered, and Aha watched to see what would happen to Jiang Yu after he shielded his companions from the blast.

• Jiang Yu realized the crew’s apparent escape from Order’s dream was an illusion, then struck Theocracy Sunday with one of the musical sprites.
• March 7th, Himeko, Stelle, and Welt supported Jiang Yu as the crew damaged Sunday, and Stelle’s dance strengthened them.
• Jiang Yu deployed the Xunfeng Sword Formation, and the Astral Express charged Sunday alongside the swords as Robin confronted her brother through song.
• Sunday invoked the Philosophical Fetus and Primordial Creation, but a giant cat-shaped Taiyi appeared and unleashed a colossal wave of power.
• Jiang Yu formed a sword shield around himself and his companions, while Aha watched from afar and awaited Jiang Yu’s change.