Chapter 321: Walter's Past
A thin sheen of cold sweat gathered at Welt's temples, trailing down his jawline before dripping onto his collar. He snapped his attention back to the petite puppet standing before him, his chest rising and falling in sharp, uneven rhythms.
"I am terribly sorry, Madam Herta," he breathed out, his voice tight with lingering adrenaline. "I lost my composure. Just now... a rush of deeply unpleasant memories surfaced. For a fraction of a second, my control slipped. I nearly caused a catastrophe, and for that, I ask your forgiveness."
He forced a deep breath into his lungs, willing his erratic heartbeat to slow. In his right hand, he still maintained a white-knuckled grip on the Star of Eden. The spherical relic hummed with latent gravitational force, though the blinding light emanating from its core had finally begun to dim, returning to a dormant state.
Herta stood with her arms crossed, her synthetic eyes narrowing as she studied the older man. It was rare to see the usually unflappable Trailblazer look so thoroughly shaken. His features were drawn, etched with a heavy mixture of shock, exhaustion, and genuine remorse. She shifted her gaze from his pale face to the ruined floorboards and the twisted, crushed metal of her expensive laboratory instruments—the direct result of his momentary gravity surge.
The scathing reprimand that had been sitting on the tip of her tongue slowly dissolved.
She was arrogant, but she wasn't entirely blind to human nature. It was obvious Welt hadn't lashed out intentionally. Whatever memory had just flashed through his mind was potent enough to shatter the ironclad discipline of a seasoned Express crew member.
Her eyes lingered on the crushed machinery. She let out a sharp, haughty scoff, her tone retaining a fraction of its usual bite, though heavily restrained.
"Hmph. Watch yourself," she snapped, tapping her foot against the cracked tiles. "If you lose your mind like that again and collapse my space station..." She paused, her gaze sweeping over the wreckage before a faint, dangerous smirk touched her lips. "I'll just have that Stellaron-stuffed girl from your Astral Express work off the debt. I'll lock her in the Simulated Universe to run tests for me for a few years... no, make that a century!"
Hearing Herta's half-threat, half-joke, the rigid tension in Welt's shoulders finally gave way. He offered a weary, self-deprecating smile and adjusted his glasses.
"I will be careful, Madam Herta. I swear on my honor, it won't happen again."
With the immediate crisis in the physical world averted, Welt stepped back, pulling up the holographic interface of the multiversal Chat Group.
The screen was already scrolling rapidly, flooded with a barrage of notifications triggered by his sudden, unannounced silence.
[Honkai: Star Rail · March 7th]: "Uncle Yang? Uncle Yang, why aren't you talking?!"
[Genshin Impact · Paimon]: "Yeah, you just vanished! Did the signal drop? Helloooo?"
[Zenless Zone Zero · Belle]: "Mr. Welt's connection spiked with some really intense emotional fluctuations just now... is everything okay?"
[Honkai: Star Rail · Himeko]: "Welt, what's happening on your end? Do you need backup?"
Reading the rapid-fire lines of text, a soft exhale escaped Welt's lips. The genuine concern radiating from the screen eased the icy grip on his chest, but it was quickly swallowed by an overwhelming, bone-deep weariness.
His fingers hovered over the holographic keyboard.
[Honkai: Star Rail · Welt]: "I apologize for the scare. There was a minor accident in the laboratory, but the situation is already under control."
He forced his hands to stop trembling, typing out his next message with a desperate, barely concealed urgency.
[Honkai: Star Rail · Welt]: "Stelle, earlier... you mentioned the 'Core of the Herrscher of Reason.' Where exactly did you hear that term? Where did you see it?"
He stared at the blinking cursor, clinging to a fragile, desperate hope. Perhaps it's just a coincidence, he thought. The multiverse is vast. Maybe another world simply shares a similar naming convention.
[Honkai: Star Rail · Stelle]: "Where? From March, obviously!"
Stelle's reply popped up instantly, her blunt tone practically bleeding through the screen, as if to say, 'Did you not just read the chat history?'[Honkai: Star Rail · Stelle]: "She just drew it from the system! I noticed the name matched the format of the'Herrscher of the Void' you were just telling us about in your story. That's why I asked!"
[Item Image: Core of the Herrscher of Reason]
Welt's breath hitched in his throat.
Displayed on the holographic screen was a high-resolution image of a crystalline core. It pulsed with an ethereal, icy blue luminescence. Deep within its translucent facets, countless microscopic geometric structures constantly materialized and dissolved, shifting with the absolute precision of divine logic.
The last shred of his fragile hope shattered into dust.
The Core of the Herrscher of Reason...
His mind went entirely blank. He stared at the image of the artifact—an object that had once been fused to his very soul, an object that carried the collective will of an entire civilization. A high-pitched ringing echoed in his ears.
How? he thought, his grip tightening on his cane until his knuckles turned white. How could it possibly appear here? And drawn by March, of all people?
A suffocating, almost absurd sense of powerlessness crashed over him like a tidal wave.
When he had boarded the Astral Express, leaving his home universe behind to chart the endless stars, he had truly believed he was finally stepping out from the long, bloody shadow of his past. He thought he had left the war behind.
But reality was cruel. It didn't matter how many light-years he crossed, or what dimension he fled to. The apocalyptic nightmare known as the "Honkai" was a phantom that refused to be exorcised. It clung to his bones, seeping through the cracks of reality to haunt his new life.
Even here... even in an interdimensional chat group, the Honkai is still chasing me.
Welt fell utterly silent.
He stood frozen in Herta's laboratory, the silence stretching longer and heavier than when he had recounted the tragic tale of the Crimson Knight. The Star of Eden trembled slightly in his grasp, betraying the violent storm raging beneath his calm exterior.
Across the multiverse, the Chat Group mirrored his silence.
The rapid scrolling ceased. Everyone in the group, from the chaotic Trailblazers to the usually talkative Paimon, could feel the crushing gravity behind that single name: Core of the Herrscher of Reason. The melancholy Welt had displayed earlier was nothing compared to the suffocating weight radiating from his current silence.
They waited, holding their collective breath.
Welt closed his eyes, centering himself. He knew that feigning ignorance was no longer an option. The core was here. Hiding the truth would only breed dangerous misunderstandings and unnecessary panic among the younger members of the group.
They needed an explanation. A sanitized one, perhaps, but the truth still.
[Honkai: Star Rail · Welt]: "...It seems this is no coincidence. To answer your question, the 'Herrscher of Reason,'much like the'Herrscher of the Void,'is a title. It represents an individual who has become the absolute extreme of certain physical laws, spawned by the apocalyptic disaster known as the'Honkai.'"
[Honkai: Star Rail · Welt]: "The Herrscher of Reason wields the absolute authority of 'understanding'and'construction.' This core is the physical materialization of that divine authority. And the specific one that March just obtained..."
He paused, his fingers hovering over the keys as the faces of the fallen flashed behind his eyelids.
[Honkai: Star Rail · Welt]: "Its predecessor was a Herrscher of Reason from my homeworld. A man who fought and bled to protect human civilization from extinction. In short... this Core represents 'legacy'and'hope.'"
[Honkai: Star Rail · Welt]: "It is not merely a powerful weapon. Woven into its very fabric is the collective will of three hundred thousand human souls, and every single one of their hopes for a better tomorrow."
He stopped typing. He omitted the oceans of blood. He omitted the brutal, apocalyptic war that had scorched the earth. He omitted the agonizing tragedy of how those three hundred thousand souls from Berlin had been forced to converge into a single, desperate singularity.
But even the sanitized fraction of the truth he revealed was enough to send a deep chill through the souls of everyone reading the chat.
The will of three hundred thousand people.
Condensed into a single, crystalline stone. The sheer, crushing weight of that concept was beyond comprehension.
[Honkai: Star Rail · Welt]: "Later... that core was passed down to me. I inherited it. For a very long time, I used its power to fight, to protect... right up until the day I left that world behind."
He finally laid bare his deepest connection to the artifact. This wasn't just a random item from a parallel universe that happened to share a name. This was his core. The very power he had wielded, the burden he had carried, the comrade he had fought alongside.
It was his legacy.
Only then did the group truly understand why the usually stoic, unflappable Welt Yang had nearly torn a space station apart at the mere mention of its name.
This was no simple weapon. It was a bridge of sacrifice, built upon the ashes of his past life.
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