In various players' parallel worlds.
It had been some time since Version 1.3 of the game launched, and it finally welcomed the new Simulated Universe DLC — the opening of the Cosmic Locust Plague.
With the mindset that since they had already cleared several worlds in the Simulated Universe, they would definitely dominate the Cosmic Locust Plague as well, the players were filled with anticipation as they began their DLC journey.
The first few layers were indeed nothing special. Not to say they were overwhelmingly easy, but at least there was no pressure.
However, once they reached Torment difficulty, the situation instantly reversed.
Countless players were brutally wiped out by the bosses inside.
Without obtaining key Blessings, not only could the 4-star Leon not keep the team alive, even the currently only 5-star Preservation character Luocha couldn't protect the team.
Either critical positions were focused down and broken through, or the whole team died instantly.
Only a small number of outstanding players who brought both Gepard and Abundance characters together could barely keep the team alive.
But in doing so, if their luck was bad and they obtained few Blessings, their damage output would be lacking.
Insufficient damage meant the battle rounds were prolonged, allowing the boss to stack more Frenzy layers and continuously increase its attack power.
Once it broke through the critical threshold, one big move could still wipe out the entire team.
In the period when the strongest Preservation character Fu Xuan was not on banner, the name of Torment difficulty was truly well-deserved.
However, there was one character that players never had to worry about for survival issues.
That was the 5-star Leon.
His Trace provided damage reduction, reaching a maximum of 99% at full Eidolons and up to 45% at non-full Eidolons. Combined with the fact that he stacked Defense stats, no matter how the boss tried to elbow him, he simply wouldn't die.
In the game Honkai: Star Rail, damage reduction was not additive but multiplicative.
Multiplicative meant that no matter how high the accumulated value was, as long as it wasn't a single 100%, it was impossible to become fully immune to damage.
But conversely, as long as the base damage reduction was high enough, any subsequent percentage increases would provide an equivalent value of damage mitigation on top of that base.
If the boss dealt 100 damage, Leon would mitigate 45 points.
If he then gained another 10% damage reduction through Blessings or other sources, he would mitigate an additional 5.5 from the remaining 55 damage taken.
It might not sound like much.
But for players who had a fully Eidolon 5-star Leon, his survivability could simply be described as monstrous.
Many times it looked like he had no HP left and would die after one more hit.
Yet with over 90% damage reduction, supplemented by high base Defense and survival stats from Blessings, most attacks landing on him would only deal pitiful double-digit or even single-digit damage.
In extreme cases, some players had achieved situations where he only lost 1 HP per hit.
Of course, this was impossible for non-full Eidolon players.
But in high-pressure survival environments where half the HP could drop in one go, the 45% damage reduction that non-full Eidolon Leon brought was already strong enough.
The investment difficulty for 5-star Leon was extremely low.
Since the game gave a free 0-Eidolon base character plus 1 stack of his signature weapon, as long as his five Relics averaged 5 Speed substats, he could reach 200 Speed.
Not to mention the Messenger set could further reduce stat pressure, there were also quite a few Speed-boosting Blessings in the Simulated Universe.
It could be said that as long as you leveled him up fully, upgraded his weapon fully, and maxed out the skills that needed leveling, an incredibly powerful universal limited Harmony character would be formed, capable of entering any current team.
Seele had high Speed, but her compatibility with Bronya was not particularly high, so she couldn't fully enjoy the buffs throughout the fight.
But Leon didn't care.
Aside from the noble extra turn and action advance buffs, his Skill, Ultimate, and Trace-based support abilities were all persistent full-duration auras.
The faster Seele acted, the faster she would trigger Leon's extra turns and action advances.
She could enjoy full buffs without any pressure.
The same applied to Jing Yuan. Since the Lord of the Lightning Lord couldn't benefit from Bronya's E action advance, mainstream teammates gradually shifted toward Tingyun and Asta, along with 4-star Leon.
With the addition of 5-star Leon, whether replacing Tingyun or Asta, there were suitable environments for each with little difference.
Buffs were also fully enjoyed throughout.
The only drawback was that the Lightning Lord could not benefit from Leon's aura speed boost.
This led to many situations where even after reaching 10 stacks on the Lightning Lord, triggering an extra turn on Jing Yuan would waste an action for stacking.
As for the other three output characters from different systems — Blade, Kafka, and Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae — they had far fewer worries.
Leon had zero attack buffs on his entire kit, so Blade could fully enjoy all of his support effects.
If he entered extra turns, his attacks wouldn't even reduce the duration of his E.
The resulting drawback could be said to exist but had little impact, or could be said not to exist but technically did.
Missing the HP consumption from the initial E would slightly reduce the speed of stacking Follow-up Attacks, but it was almost negligible.
Throughout an entire run, managing to use E three times was already considered a lot.
Kafka was overjoyed. She enjoyed all the buffs with zero negative returns.
Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae was limited by Skill Point pressure. Sometimes when an extra turn came up, he couldn't perform 3 Enhanced Basics.
Unless Leon had his 2nd Eidolon, which could completely relieve the Skill Point pressure.
However, the Cosmic Locust Plague had the Propagation Path, which was most suitable for Dan Heng. As long as the Resonance was activated and key Blessings were obtained, even 0-Eidolon versions did not lack Skill Points.
Among all current limited 5-star DPS characters, only Jing Yuan achieved a slightly injured world.
As for standard path DPS and 4-star DPS, most could also fully enjoy the buffs.
There was only one exception.
That was Leon's "close friend" Qingque.
Qingque actually had good synergy with 4-star Leon. The latter could generate Skill Points for her and had his 4-star signature weapon for energy regeneration.
5-star Leon's buffs weren't that she couldn't fully enjoy them, but there was still Skill Point pressure, making it impossible to draw tiles every time an extra turn came up.
Even with his 2nd Eidolon, it wouldn't help.
Because Qingque's Skill Point consumption mechanism did not match the trigger condition for Leon's 2nd Eidolon.
Leon's 2nd Eidolon refunded Skill Points based on: all Skill Points consumed during this attack.
Qingque's Skill Points were not consumed by attacking, but by drawing tiles with her Enhanced Skill.
In contrast, Dan Heng's Enhanced Skill did not directly deduct Skill Points when used — they were only deducted when the attack was launched, thus meeting the refund condition.
With a powerful 5-star Leon, the vast majority of players basically did not have to worry about damage output.
What they worried about was how to kill the boss first during passionate exchanges of elbows, or how to avoid losing team members under the boss's high-damage attacks.
Therefore, going with Preservation, Abundance, and Destruction Paths became the top choice for countless casual players when trying to progress.
As long as they obtained a few key Blessings among them, survival was guaranteed.
Many guides sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain, providing players with copy-paste strategies and further accelerating progress.
Practice spoke the truth. 5-star Leon's outstanding performance in high-difficulty environments earned unanimous praise from all players.
He achieved nearly 100% appearance rate and usage rate.
Why not 100%? Naturally because there existed a small group of very principled players — those who refused to touch any male characters.
As for whether it was hard work?
Players who raised Leon would only say: What does that have to do with me? Go talk to my godfather & husband about it!
As the clear rate increased, players gradually unearthed events and Curios related to Leon's past.
"Please, give us a Ruan Mei event!"
"Hmm? This is——"
[Heavenly Feather Sacred Envoy (One of Them)]