Chapter Text
The Eternal Recurrence plays out as expected. Millions of cycles pass, for time has long lost all meaning, and Zandar has ever been an impartial witness. What use is there in caring when every death is impermanent, each life amounting to a variable?
Within the liminal space of a simulation, the brief window between one recurrence and the next, it finally happens:
A blink, or a temporary lapse in THEIR all-encompassing gaze.
Zandar only has a fraction of an instant to do what he must. If he were operating within mortal constraints, this would be an impossibility. As a thought fragment, however, he exists within the ineffable plane of calculation, nanoangstroms of circuitry manipulating Amphoreus itself, infiltrating rolling reams of code to reach—
—NeiKos496.
—
The Deliverer steps forth, expecting waves of wheat, the smells of home, and the morning sun washing over him with purifying radiance.
What greets him is something else entirely. A fragment of his own psyche: The recollection of Okhema in ruins, smoke billowing from the inferno, and his erstwhile comrades alive once more. They fall under his blade, one after another, only for the memory to repeat.
Zandar has no care for the particulars.
What he means to achieve is a unifying sense of wrongness, one that might set the man on edge. If that means trapping Kephale’s Heir into a holding pattern of slaughter, then so be it. If anything, he is doing Phainon a favour, sparing him from another 27,348,046 cycles of mundane repetition, endlessly waiting for an external variable.
In Houkai Star Rail, it was only on the 33,550,337th cycle that the Astral Express intervened—the Trailblazer and his myriad companions, all of them united under a single cause. Following on from this, Lygus—or this incarnation of Zandar—would meet his end. But what use was there in a half-measure? His remaining thought fragments would persist, and the system would inevitably ferry his consciousness into the next vessel. Death was an illusion, meaning Zandar would remain exactly as he was, incapable of affecting change, or contravening the demands of a system.
The irony was palpable. With the system exerting its will upon Zandar, and Zandar upon the Deliverer, the crucial distinction was that of motive.
“What do you want?” The words tear out of Phainon’s throat, the very exertion of it hollowing his chest, hunching at his back. His eyes scour across the wasteland, as if to spy an unseen interloper, or to figure out why he was being forced to relive the same moment ad infinitum.
As the last of the Chrysos heirs, their blood still fresh upon the edge of his blade, still warm against his skin, the man has nothing to lose and everything to gain, even if he himself is unaware of this fact. That Zandar has finally manifested something beyond a passing glitch is nothing short of a miracle.
In truth…
I want to put an end to this. I want to know why I’m here. And, quieter now, even within the space of his own thoughts, I wish there was another way.
But what he says is this:
[I want to help you.]
A notification window hangs across the air, casting its gentle glow against a world frozen in time. The Deliverer doesn’t know what to make of it. Why would he? After all, it was Zandar who transmigrated into this accursed game, beset by the selfsame notifications. Phainon, on the other hand, is nothing more than a variable. Nevertheless, it is imperative that the man is convinced of this charade, so that Zandar might guide him to a different ending.
“Help?” Phainon gives a small shake of his head, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Is this some sort of trick? If so, you should know that you’re only wasting your time, Lygus.”
[If I were the administrator of Amphoreus, I would have no reason to seek you out in such a manner.]
The Deliverer lets out a humourless laugh.
“If you had good intentions, you wouldn’t have forced me to…” He sucks in a shuddering breath, shoulders trembling from amusement or hysteria both, squeezing his eyes shut when they drift too close to a corpse, its limbs arranged as if it were a marionette cut free from its strings. “…To do this.”
[The only way I can hide from THEIR gaze is through memory.] Zandar admits, weighing the merits of telling the unembellished truth or an expedient lie, before settling upon something in between. [That we ended up here is both a reflection of your mindset, and a failing on my part. Time was of the essence, so I did not have the luxury of choice. For what it’s worth, you have my sincerest apologies.]
“Hiding from who?”
Phainon bares his teeth into a sneer, the corner of his lip glinting gold from where he bites into his cheek. “Who are you, for that matter? From what I can see, you’re nothing but a coward hiding behind one illusion after another.” He waves a hand through the lingering notification, fingers gliding through it like thin air.
[…]
Though Phainon’s words were not unexpected, they were no less unwelcome. Zandar had wagered upon the man’s desperation, placing him within a nightmare in hopes of securing his unequivocal cooperation rather than skepticism. And yet here they were, at a stalemate.
[My name is Zandar.] This is a lie.
[I do not yet have the power to manifest myself.] This is the truth.
[THEY are the aeons who govern reality, enforcing THEIR predetermined fate. As such, THEY are singularly responsible for Amphoreus’s existence, and for its impending destruction.] And this is what Zandar means to change.
[You have sacrificed much to reach this point—6,202,291 cycles spent delaying Irontomb’s ascension. But what I offer is freedom. The lives and happiness of your comrades. Your world at peace.] He says, feeling the empty echo of resentment. Where Zandar languished within a prison of his own making—at the beck and call of an inscrutable adjudicator—Phainon would have everything he could ever hope for.
“It sounds too good to be true.” The Heir smiles, lips curling with bittersweet acrimony. “What’s the catch?”
[I would ask of you a favour.] Then, reluctantly, when he sees the naked distrust gleaming in Phainon’s eyes, [Rest assured, for it will not compromise the safety of your home, or the lives of your people.]
[You will, at one point, have access to the very heart of Amphoreus. I will tell you the specifics then, and no sooner. Do we have an accord?]
Phainon breathes a sigh, as if to purge himself of any lingering trepidation. When next he speaks, it is with determination sharpening at his gaze, honing at his very existence.
“We do.”
Of course, it is well within his calculations for the Deliverer to renege upon their agreement. Whatever the outcome, Zandar will have secured a pyrrhic victory, causing irreversible damage to the game’s causality.
It was through his foreknowledge and servitude that Nous came into existence, thus carving THEIR ending into stone. Thus, Zandar can imagine no sweeter revenge than to have one creation destroy another. Whether it is Nous or Phainon who prevails is wholly irrelevant.
In any case,
[Very well. Allow me to fulfil the first condition.]
A shard coalesces into the memoryscape, at first no more than a glimmer. Then, as he exhausts the very limits of his circuitry—torn between the duality of Lygus and ■■■■■■■■, each awareness extant and effervescent with computational power—the sceptre materialises with a final burst of light, taking the form of a coreflame.
Since Zandar was incapable of affecting the simulation directly, this was the only viable workaround. By masking the requisite code within the data packet of a coreflame, it could integrate into Phainon while seeming nearly identical to any other within the man's possession. Nevertheless, despite emulating every permutation, every possibility, there existed no scenario where Zandar’s actions were without risk. Only one question remained: What punishment could the system possibly concoct? In what way would it be worse than his current existence?
“What is this?” Phainon questions, snapping Zandar out of his own thoughts. The man reaches out, as if to grasp the coreflame suspended before him, only to stop short. Hesitation, doubt. If Zandar were a betting man, he’d place his money on the latter.
[This is the coreflame of Recursion. Or, rather, what will allow you to exist in Amphoreus without ever raising a blade against your fellow Heirs.]
[Put simply, this is the last coreflame you will ever need. Should there come a time where you and your comrades approach Era Nova, you need only call upon its power to return to your earliest iteration. Your memories of each cycle will, of course, remain intact.]
Silence reigns for but a moment, the Deliverer squeezing his eyes shut before blinking in quick succession.
“If this turns out to be a lie…” Phainon says, hand trembling in the slightest as his fingertips brush against the glinting stone. “I…”
[It won’t.] Zandar says, but he doesn’t know why.
Reassurance is meaningless when the man is merely a variable, an electronic signal granted sentience. Moreover, there is no doubting the quality of his handiwork—compared to the immense, omniscient supercomputer which served as the primordial embryo of Nous, coding the coreflame was child’s play.
They’ve run out of time. Zandar can feel himself unravelling, the very limits of probability and computational power working against him.
If Phainon says anything in response, standing alone amid a crumbling memoryscape, he isn’t around to hear it.