"If you're really curious about what happened, you might want to take a look at these two Miracle Cards." As he spoke, Chen Li took out two cards with different covers.
On the cover of one card was the image of a tiny black dot standing before two colossal beings. Despite the vast difference in size, anyone who viewed the scene would find their gaze drawn irresistibly to that tiny back, as if he were the protagonist.
The other Miracle Card depicted Chen Li in a white lab coat. He was silent, simply gazing gently at the viewer of the card. Merely feeling that gaze was enough to fill one with confidence in life.
The look in Chen Li's eyes on the second card made Acheron lose focus for a moment, but she quickly collected herself and looked at the [True Names] of the two cards.
One was [God of Cookery], and the other was [Chaos Doctor].
Acheron placed her finger on the first Miracle Card. In a flurry of light and shadow, she witnessed Chen Li's story from an omniscient perspective, seeing the [Miracle] that had manifested from him.
The Friends Circle didn't perform ideally within [Nihility]. However, the one second of invincibility and three seconds of a golden body effect gave Chen Li ample time to take the first bite of the Aeon of Nihility.
And then, there was "light" within the "black hole."
It was both the light born from the devouring of darkness and the gaze cast upon this brave warrior, Chen Li, by Ouroboros, the Aeon of Voracity.
Even the Aeon of Voracity had never considered eating Nihility.
In response to Ouroboros's gaze, Chen Li simply offered a bashful smile and opened his mouth toward the Aeon of Voracity...
"You ate the Aeon of Voracity?" Acheron, snapping back to reality, stared at Chen Li in utter disbelief.
"I only ate the gaze of the Aeon of Voracity, not the Aeon itself," Chen Li corrected her slip of the tongue.
"..."
That's not normal either!!!
But then again, the Aeon of Voracity certainly hadn't misjudged him. A proper Pathstrider of Voracity should spare no one, not even the Aeon of Voracity itself!
[God of Cookery] (Miracle Card): The Forger is silent, merely savoring the divine delicacy. Having eaten IX, which represents "Nothingness," and Ouroboros, which represents "Greed," the boon of this Miracle is your just reward!
Effect 1: You will gain a special attack trait against gods. Your consumption can inflict irreversible damage on the devoured portion of a god. While continuously strengthening your Spirit attribute, you have a chance to obtain certain properties of the devoured god.
Effect 2: Food you create will gain an unparalleled deliciousness, making it especially tempting to gods.
Effect 3: Can be used to forge Curios.
"The name of this Miracle Card is God of Cookery. It represents both my feat of eating a god and the ability it grants me to create delicacies that can lure them. 'Shìshén' (噬神), to devour a god, and 'Shíshén' (食神), god of cookery—they're homophones that carry the same weight. You can't help but chuckle," Chen Li said as he put the card away.
"...Have we reached the point in our relationship where we explain puns to each other?" For some reason, the words slipped out of Acheron's mouth.
"..." Acheron's comment almost made Chen Li lose his composure.
"Sorry, I don't know why I said that," Acheron said, slightly troubled. In truth, she would have preferred it if Chen Li had just kept quiet.
"It's fine. It's probably the effect of the second Miracle Card," Chen Li said nonchalantly.
"???"
"The name of the second Miracle Card is Chaos Doctor," Chen Li said.
"Chaos Doctor?" Acheron froze for a moment upon hearing the familiar name.
In the world of Honkai: Star Rail, every Path had different factions. Some were in opposition, while others were complementary. The Path of Nihility was special, not just in its Aeon, but in its factions as well.
Excluding the unconfirmed legend of the galaxy's dark network—Section IX (which, according to Herta, the Silent Lord is connected to)—the remaining two factions were quite unique.
When a Pathstrider mysteriously embarks on the Path ruled by IX and receives a meaningless glance from the Aeon from somewhere in the distant void, it usually leads to one of two outcomes: one type falls into despair, truly becoming a being of nothingness, and is known as a [Self-Anniliator].
The second type becomes captivated by the magnificent divinity of the Aeon, and a flicker of curiosity is born in them all, turning them into [Chaos Doctors].
The creed of the Chaos Doctors is this: if they can prove to IX that existence is not nothingness, they can liberate this immense and lonely being from its unknowable, great black pool.
To use a more fitting analogy, Self-Anniliators are depressed patients, and Chaos Doctors are their psychotherapists. Thus, some Self-Anniliators, after being treated by Chaos Doctors, have joined their ranks, vowing to spend their limited time healing the nothingness in others in exchange for their own salvation.
Acheron herself had once received treatment from a Chaos Doctor. Their treatment for Self-Anniliators often required the use of dreams to help them rediscover their desire for life. Acheron was different. According to that Chaos Doctor, she was the only one who could awaken from the slumbering dream on her own, which was proof enough that her heart had never truly lost faith in life.
"That's right, Chaos Doctor." Chen Li looked at the card in his hand with great emotion.
"Why would you receive this Miracle Card?" Acheron was puzzled.
The first Miracle Card proved that their appearance was directly related to Chen Li's actions. Because he devoured a god, he received the God of Cookery card.
So who could Chen Li have possibly treated within Nihility?
"Don't tell me you fulfilled the ultimate dream of the Chaos Doctors and successfully treated the Aeon of Nihility?" A bold guess couldn't help but pop into Acheron's mind.
"You can be bold, but not that bold. I treated myself." Chen Li had to admit, when it came to wild ideas, he still couldn't compare to Acheron. Her flash of insight outdid all his painstaking efforts, which left him feeling rather defeated.
"Treated yourself?"
"Yes. While the Friends Circle is a great Curio—as long as you have friends, you can remain invincible—its drawback is that I don't have that many friends," Chen Li sighed.
So, after spending some time inside the Aeon of Nihility, Chen Li had used up all his "friends." Fortunately, thanks to Herta, he had given every friend two or more communication terminals, so re-establishing contact later wasn't difficult.
However, this left Chen Li in a rather awkward situation.
His original plan was to take a few bites of the Aeon and run. The Gourmet Cells only boosted his physical stats on the first bite; subsequent bites only increased his resistance. The plan was perfect, but there was one small hiccup—the Miracle Card: God of Cookery.
It allowed Chen Li to gain a Spirit enhancement when devouring a god, and Spirit enhancement was precisely what he needed most. Although Gourmet Cells provided a slight Spirit boost when enhancing his body, and leveling up as a Curio Forger also strengthened his Spirit, the enhancement of his mind still couldn't keep up with the speed of his body's reinforcement.
Since he had a way to make up for the deficit, Chen Li wasn't going to be polite about it. The main reason was that the Aeon of Nihility didn't seem to care, even when it noticed he was eating it.
"Because I have VIP access to the Revival Games, I don't need to use a Revival Card. I can revive just by watching a 30-second ad. Plus, eating the Aeon also increases my resistance to it, so the rate at which I turned into stagnant water became slower and slower. But besides attacking my body, the Aeon of Nihility also attacked my mind..."
"Luckily, after getting the God of Cookery card, devouring gods increased my Spirit attribute. And thanks to a special experience in the past, I gained a unique ability called [Unbroken Mind-Mirror], which greatly enhanced my own mental resistance... So I just kept eating, self-hypnotizing, and self-treating. When I couldn't take it anymore, I'd give up, revive to reset my status, and continue eating. And then I got this Miracle Card," Chen Li explained the origin of the card in a highly abbreviated manner.
Although The Guide to Forging Curios, as his soul-bound armament, could also help him resist mental attacks, Chen Li didn't use it. The [Unbroken Mind-Mirror] effect was such that the more he tempered his own mind, the more his resistance to undeath would increase.
Hah, no matter how powerful you are, Aeon of Nihility, can you be more terrifying than Jingliu, who slashed me a thousand times?
Uh, okay, it really was more terrifying than Jingliu.
In any case, thanks to his constant courting of death, Chen Li could now withstand being inside the Aeon of Nihility for a full ten minutes without dying. He felt like he could even tank seventeen Taixu Sword God attacks now and still rasp out in a decaying voice, "Celestial Phoenix, I did not lie!"
You can kill me with 17 Taixu Sword God attacks? If you can kill me, I'll eat The Guide to Forging Curios on the spot!
Death? It was just a daily routine.
"...That sounds a bit too harsh, doesn't it?" Acheron couldn't help but ask. Although Chen Li described it lightly, she had a feeling it wasn't nearly that simple.
"I'm used to it, so it's fine. To be honest, I'm starting to find the Aeon of Nihility rather charming," Chen Li said, looking up at the black sun in the sky.
"Are you okay?" Overly concerned about Chen Li's mental state, Acheron closed the distance between them and pressed her palm against his forehead.
"I'm really fine. Let's talk about the effect of this card." Realizing they were too close, Chen Li took a step back, but Acheron simply took a step forward, maintaining the same posture and distance.
"Mm, go on," Acheron said, not giving up on observing Chen Li's mental state, watching his expression as she spoke.
"It can make Self-Anniliators a bit more fun."
"???"
"Acheron, why such a big reaction?"
"..." by Acheron.
You're asking me why? Because I AM a Self-Anniliator.
What do you mean, 'make Self-Anniliators a bit more fun'?
Are Self-Anniliators something to be played with?
---o---