"This heart feels so much larger than the last one..."
Following the "fool's route" provided by Nahida, their journey had been remarkably uneventful.
But as March 7th stared at the colossal, pulsating, eerily crimson heart that nearly filled the entire cavern, she couldn't help but gulp nervously.
"Little Swarm, go ahead! Use your immense power to pierce through this heart!"
Taking a deep breath, March 7th turned her head away from the unsettling crimson heart. Pointing her finger, she urged Little Swarm forward.
"Leave it to me!"
Little Swarm nodded and took flight from Stelle's shoulder, gradually increasing in size. A torrent of blue light coalesced before its mouth, forming a compressed energy sphere imbued with the essence of Propagation and Abundance.
Swarm King Cannon
The cannon locked onto the unnerving heart and fired instantly.
Whoosh... BOOM!
Dust billowed explosively, creating a swirling mist thick with earth, sand, and debris.
"Cough, cough... Is it over?" March 7th hastily cast shields around herself and Stelle, peering through the dust-choked air. The scene was completely obscured, not a trace of red visible. She shouted at Little Swarm, "Are you okay?"
"..."
Little Swarm didn't respond. Instead, several violent bursts of energy surged through the cave.
The collision of energies created turbulent air currents that swept up dirt and debris from the cave floor, immediately leaving March 7th and Stelle in disarray.
If not for the shields March 7th had cast, they might have been turned into mud figures...
"Cough, cough... Wh-what happened?"
Ignoring her own disheveled state, March 7th looked anxiously toward the dust-shrouded area.
Bang!
In the next instant, a colossal figure shot overhead at blinding speed, slamming into the rear wall with a deafening crash.
March 7th and Stelle whirled around to see Little Swarm embedded in the wall, barely clinging to life, its fate uncertain.
"Little Swarm!"
Their faces paled as they rushed over to check on Little Swarm. After confirming she wasn't in immediate danger, they breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"Heh, as expected of Sumeru's Lord of Wisdom. Finding this place with such meager clues..."
"A pity... your strength is far too insignificant."
A scornful chuckle echoed through the cavern, reverberating endlessly.
Hearing that familiar voice, Stelle and March 7th tensed instantly, their hearts leaping to their throats.
Thump... thump... thump...
A figure emerged slowly from the mist, carrying something in her hand. Each footstep seemed to land directly on the duo's hearts.
"Phan... Phandrea..."
As the figure fully emerged from the mist, her features were revealed, causing Stelle and March 7th's tense, pounding hearts to freeze in horror.
"W-where's Nahida..."
Phandrea emerged unscathed, not a single mark on her body. March 7th swallowed hard, an ominous premonition flooding her mind.
Hearing this, Phandrea chuckled softly, offering no verbal response. Instead, she hurled the object in her hand against the wall behind the duo, leaving it to join Little Swarm.
Their eyes had been fixed on Phandrea, and neither March 7th nor Stelle had noticed the object she was carrying. Now, seeing it flung against the wall, their sense of foreboding intensified.
Like automatons, they slowly turned their heads to examine the "thing" Phandrea had thrown.
"Nahida!"
The moment they recognized what it was, the color drained from March 7th and Stelle's faces.
Disbelief flooded March 7th's face as she stumbled toward Nahida, each step shaky and unsteady.
Nahida lay disheveled, her crimson-stained body and ashen face a stark contrast. March 7th slowly reached out a trembling finger, pressing it gently against Nahida's nostril.
"No... no breath..." March 7th trembled as she withdrew her fingers, forcing the words out with every ounce of her strength.
Nahida was dead...
Killed by Phandrea...
The adorable, petite girl—so reliable despite her size—was gone...
March 7th felt as if she had fallen into an endless abyss, her entire body frozen in icy shock. She stood rooted to the spot, staring blankly at the lifeless Nahida before her.
Seeing this, even the usually unflappable Stelle froze for a moment. Regaining her composure, she gritted her teeth, raised her baseball bat, and aimed it at Phandrea, her eyes burning with fury at Phandrea's actions.
"Hehehe, don't be angry. It'll be your turn soon," Phandrea chuckled, covering her mouth as if pleased by their reactions.
No sooner had Phandrea's words faded than a faint but furious arrow shot toward her, its aura weak yet brimming with rage.
"You... you're March 7th, right?"
Phandrea completely ignored the feeble attack, turning her gaze to March 7th with a radiant smile as she confirmed her identity.
"My name is September Ninth!" March 7th gripped her bow and arrow tightly, wishing she could flay and dismember the Phandrea before her—the one who had murdered Nahida.
Hiss... Bang!
In the real world, from the player's perspective, the screen shattered again after the brief cutscene ended, plunging them into battle.
Though the battle had begun, the live stream chat remained eerily silent, as if frozen... yet a few scattered comments appeared, proving the stream hadn't crashed.
After a moment of stunned silence, Little Bear finally snapped out of it. Staring at the battle screen, where Phandrea appeared in her Lumina form, he slowly uttered:
"Holy shit, don't fuck with me!"
Perhaps Little Bear's words acted as a trigger. The moment he spoke, the live stream erupted into a frenzy, the Comment Section flooding with wave after wave of comments.
[Fuck you, Mihoyo! Since you're so heartless, don't blame me for being ruthless!]
[Brothers, after tonight, I'm going to prison for at least thirty years. (Huff, puff, smoking emoji)]
[Fuck you, Mihoyo! You're inhuman! How could you just kill off my adorable Nahida like that?! (Stunned)]
[Nahida... my Nahida! (Collapses, sobbing) Nahida, my Nahida... What am I supposed to do without you?! (Collapses, sobbing) Nahida, my precious Nahida, why did you leave us so soon?! (Collapses, sobbing)]
[Ah... This world... where black-haired people mourn those with white-green hair...]
[Wait, something's off. Didn't they say earlier that Nahida was an Emanator too? How could she have been defeated so quickly? She was practically one-shotted!]
"I think we arrived in Penacony ahead of time," Little Bear murmured, his voice tinged with shock as he recalled Nahida's miserable state.
Then, as if struck by a sudden realization, his eyes hardened with resolve. "Brothers, I guarantee you—Nahida is definitely not dead."
"Because Nahida died so abruptly, almost without any warning signs, which completely goes against Mihoyo's usual patterns."
Recalling the previous storyline, Little Bear reasonably suspected that Nahida had either faked her death or deliberately allowed herself to die. It was absolutely impossible for Phandrea to have genuinely killed her with her own hands.
After all, back during the Space Station arc, Lumina had stated:
There's a hierarchy even among Emanators. The strongest can easily defeat the weakest, but none can easily kill another Emanator...
Therefore, it was utterly inconceivable that Nahida could have been so easily killed by Phandrea in such a short span of time.
With this in mind, Little Bear continued, "So, knowing Mihoyo's MO, I'm convinced Nahida will reappear later on."
"And then truly die right before our very eyes..."
As he spoke, Little Bear's voice grew quieter and quieter... because he realized that this outcome would be an even more devastating conclusion.
[Agree]
[This time it's a feigned death. Next time, you'll truly die, Trailblazer! You can't do anything!]
[I understand. This time, the flesh dies. Next time, the soul will perish. And finally, the world will forget me entirely. (Smiles) Last time it was Rukkhadevata, this time it's Nahida. Trailblazer, you can't do anything!]
[In a virtual world, as the Trailblazer, I truly can't do anything. But... since we're both in the real world now, @Mihoyo, my friend, we'll definitely have plenty to talk about. (Laughs)]
[This time, I'm betting my life on this bullet!]
Little Bear's declaration resonated with most viewers in the live stream. They felt that for a Mihoyo game, the plot's trajectory should naturally unfold in such a dramatic fashion.
After all, a single stab only breaks your heart. But a second or third strike, aimed directly at your soul, that's what truly constitutes a "knife strike"...
"Let's see how the story develops from here," Little Bear murmured, sighing inwardly. Given this narrative trajectory, several characters were bound to meet their end...
This boss only had one phase, which Little Bear quickly defeated, triggering another cutscene.
"This version really has a ton of cutscenes," Little Bear remarked, staring at the black screen.
The cutscenes in Version 1.7 combined probably exceeded the total cutscenes from all three versions of Xianzhou Luofu combined.
Still, that was a good thing. Little Bear would have been perfectly happy if the entire main story consisted solely of cutscenes, allowing him to simply sit back and watch like a movie. Just thinking about it made him feel incredibly comfortable.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Little Bear refocused on the game.
Ahem...
Without the Power of The Emanator granted by the ring, Nahida's assistance, or Little Swarm's attacks, Stelle and March 7th were hopelessly outmatched. Forget dealing any damage to Phandrea—even surviving ten seconds against her would be a victory of sorts.
Pitiful... Pitiful... How pitifully insignificant you are, like insects.
"Having lost the protection of the strong, where will you weaklings turn now?"
Stelle and March 7th lay sprawled on the ground, having exhausted all their strength and means of resistance. They could only watch helplessly as Phandrea advanced step by step, towering over them with a contemptuous gaze.
Mocking, disdainful words poured from her lips, echoing through the cavern.
Seeing this, Stelle gritted her teeth, seemingly deep in thought.
In the next moment, Stelle's face and body suddenly relaxed. Waves of golden light surged from within her, radiating an aura of suffocation, collapse, and calamity.
"A Stellaron self-detonation?" Sensing the energy, Phandrea paused, then shook her head. "Pity you've only just resolved to do this—it's far too late."
"A passive self-detonation fueled by rage is utterly useless, you know."
Phandrea chuckled softly, extended a finger, and gently tapped Stelle. The energy radiating from her body instantly recoiled inward.
Stelle's pupils gradually dilated, and she collapsed unconscious to the ground.
"What have you done to Stelle?!"
Seeing Stelle collapsed on the ground, her life hanging in the balance, March 7th could no longer hold back her tears. They streamed down her face in torrents.
"Nothing much," Phandrea smiled gently. "I've simply ushered her into a place of eternal peace, where she'll never need to do anything again."
"Then... it's time to say goodnight."
With a soft wave of her hand, Phandrea plunged March 7th's world into a blur. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
Though March 7th desperately tried to keep her eyes open, she ultimately couldn't resist her body's instincts. Her eyelids drifted closer and closer until they sealed shut, plunging her vision into darkness.
"Lumina... Sis—?"
Before the darkness completely engulfed her, a flicker of green flashed in March 7th's world. What happened next remained a mystery to her...
Meanwhile, from the player's perspective, the cutscene ended, and the screen faded to black, transitioning into a loading screen with a progress bar.
"This has to be the most brutal moment for the protagonist group in the entire Version 1.x," Little Bear thought, a pang of sorrow and despair gripping his heart after watching the cutscene.
Making March 7th and Stelle face an Emanator alone? That's just too much to ask of people and Stellaron...
In an Emanator's grasp, Stelle couldn't even detonate her own Stellaron...
[Don't hold me back! If I can't hit Phandrea, I can definitely hit you! @Mihoyo (fuming)]
[Flights are booked. Anyone know what the prison environment and food are like over there? (smirking)]
[That last glimmer of green light was Lumina, right? It had to be Lumina. Otherwise, it's just... "May this journey finally reach the stars."]
[The bag belongs to Lumina. Otherwise, that's the end of the story right there.]
[Thank goodness Himeko and the others didn't come. Otherwise...]
Although most players knew that Stelle and March 7th, as the main characters of the story, were definitely not in any real danger, the oppressive atmosphere of the scene still left a lingering sense of unease.