Soft. Warm.
He opened his eyes, and a familiar face came into view.
The face was delicate and cute, brimming with a gentle, radiant smile right now. But the moment Yi Zhen saw it, a nameless fire flared up in his chest.
"Ah, Zhenbao, you're awake?"
A sweet, warm voice rang out, laced with careful concern.
"How many times do I have to tell you? Stop putting on that pathetic, aggrieved face."
Yi Zhen propped himself up and scanned his surroundings. No surprises there—he was back in this place again.
The Nameless Titan's great tomb.
Demoge's resting place.
And the spineless girl who'd just been giving him a lap pillow was none other than the landlord of this place—or rather, the strongest holdout in the Scepter System.
"Failed again, huh."
Coming back here meant he'd once more bailed from the first stage of Omphalos's opening chapter, still stuck at the initial 1-1 map.
The clear condition for 1-1 was helping Tirixipios obtain Janus's Fire Seed.
What the hell...
What kind of bullshit difficulty was this? Even 1-1 was this damn hard. Yi Zhen didn't even want to think about how to push through the later maps.
Which normal game starts its opening chapter with you up against the "Lord Ravager of Absolute Intellect" and a whole gang of veteran Lord Ravagers coming to "deliver the baby"?
Sure, the Honkai Star Rail universe was never exactly a nice place,
But spots like Belobog or the Xianzhou Luofu at least gave you some room to struggle.
What the hell was Omni Star? A grand finale map where the universe gets straight-up destroyed, then the galaxy gets remade?
Worst of all,
With multiple Lord Ravagers on the threat list, most of the Golden Progeny couldn't keep up numerically anymore. Some provided key functional support, but the demigods tasked with combat were pretty much sidelined, no longer qualified to join the fray.
Guys like Wan Di might've had their moments early in the plot, but by the end, they were mostly just cheerleaders chanting slogans or comic relief.
In the finale, the real key players boiled down to that reincarnating duo.
One was Bai E, grinding through thirty million loops, desperately buying time.
The other was Xilian, also on her thirty million loops, desperately feeding the primordial Intellect Seed—while waiting for her big pity pull.
But here's the problem:
The thirty million loops weren't even done yet. Xilian's ideal big pity—the Astral Express crew—hadn't shown up, Demoge was still nowhere in sight, and Yi Zhen, the traverser, had crash-landed here first.
A brutal reality stared Yi Zhen in the face.
He had a choice: hole up in the Demoge Great Tomb like a rice dumpling, wait for some future little gray-hair to visit, then get swept up in the Iron Tomb's ultimate when it wipes the floor, turning to ash—only to get revived later by big sis Xilian, the "Memory Emanator Embryo" and "Envoy of the Love God."
Or, he could man up like Old Bai and go boom against Laigushi and that pack of Lord Ravagers!
Obviously, Mr. Yi Zhen picked the latter.
A freshly class-changed traverser who'd just landed with his cheat? You want me to dodge their edge?
Like hell I'd swallow that insult!
Then he streeted out four times straight on the 1-1 map.
"Still didn't get to see Big Ti Bao, huh."
"According to history, before accepting Janus's Fire Seed, Lady Tirixipios was under house arrest by the priests of the Janus Temple, cut off from all outside contact. Back then, she was no different from a prisoner."
"Zhenbao, if you wanna make direct contact with Lady Tirixipios, you're basically talking about breaking her out of jail."
The soft little pink-haired girl gently explained to her rare respawned companion in the Demoge Tomb,
"You're an outsider yourself, Zhenbao. Even the guards will lock you down tight, let alone... the Golden Progeny assigned to watch over Lady Tirixipios."
"And even if you did reach her, what then?"
"Hack it out, what else? Too bad I don't know how to activate the codex yet—otherwise, I could've used you to unlock it."
Yi Zhen slapped his butt and stood, letting out a helpless sigh. No newbie gift pack meant even with a cheat, takeoff was gonna be rough.
After traversing, Yi Zhen seemed to have turned into a local Omni Star native. He'd gone fully datafied, his body regressing to thirteen or fourteen years old. Then, for some reason, he'd fused with the few games on his phone at the time, creating his current cheat.
Yeah,
Kids,
Here's some despairing news:
His phone had miHoYo games! Plus Teamfight Tactics and that piggy pity linker. Throw in Fate/GO and Star Rail, and it'd be game over.
After that, boom—traversal to here. The Nameless Titan's great tomb auto-set as his respawn point. Janus Temple locked in as the Firechasing Journey Chapter 1, 1-1 map. Beyond the Teamfight Tactics-style chessboard team UI and his personal panel, everything else was pitch black.
Seeing that TFT interface? Yi Zhen figured that was barely good news.
Maybe he could roll a one-cost war god with 2000 speed, sheep knife, and Aya.
But the bad news? Aglaea, you're not even in the pool right now!
No clearing 1-1, and even Teacher Ti Bao won't join the pool!
"Guess I still need a helper."
But who to rope in?
The Xilians in the Demoge Tomb were bound souls here, fused into Demoge's memory offerings.
Sure, there was one visible and tangible right now, but soon enough, she'd join the previous thirty million in becoming part of Big Xilian.
Forget using this one as a teammate—this little pink-hair might not even survive a Fiji Cup tussle.
In his datafied vision, he could clearly see the bar floating over her head...
HP under 1%, no different from Otto pre-tree rush. If her obsession matched Otto's, she might've grabbed her little staff and charged out.
But nah...
This little pink-hair's most brutal, savage form was just future Ora-Ora fist spam after turning into a meow-meow.
What a waste of that Emanator Embryo panel.
"Still, speaking of which, who could I even pull as a helper at this 1-1 stage?"
Yi Zhen sank into thought. At this point, the other demigods weren't even born yet. If he had to name a contemporary, maybe Ke Huang—but she was off somewhere prepping to be a divine servant girl, waiting to get picked up.
Plus, Ke Huang's strength was just average. Run into her as a little girl, and who knows who'd be helping who.
"That leaves the one up in the sky, then."
Omphalos had plenty of named characters, but they clustered around Ke Huang's takeover of Oherma: Saifir, Aglaea, Hesterin, Wild Flute, Far Butterfly—all popping up around that era.
But beyond those handpicked demigods,
In Big Ti Bao's time, there was actually one more thigh-thick leg that hadn't fully matured yet—but absolutely worth hugging.
"Thunder Knight Senexios."